Lectures on magdalenism : its nature, extent, effects, guilt, causes, and remedy : delivered and published by special request of forty ministers of the Gospel, and eleven hundred fellow-Christians / by Ralph Wardlaw.

  • Wardlaw, Ralph, 1779-1853.
Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on magdalenism : its nature, extent, effects, guilt, causes, and remedy : delivered and published by special request of forty ministers of the Gospel, and eleven hundred fellow-Christians / by Ralph Wardlaw. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    There are not a few (and I know not how to blame them, for the feeling springs from principles in themselves so commendable) who are averse to having the subject so much as mooted among those whose purity and virtue are the objects of their concern. The very title of such a book they would, if it were in their power, keep from meet- ing the eye of any member of their domestic circle. Such attempts at entire concealment, however, can, in few instances, in a world and a city like ours, prove successful; and in some cases, there is reason to fear, where there is most the appearance of success, the failure is really the greatest: the very eagerness to conceal on the one side, giving rise to the greater reserve and secrecy on the other. I say this for the purpose, not of repres- sing prudent vigilance, but of modifying that over- strained and morbid apprehensiveness, which, in- stead of accomplishing the desired ignorance, may hinder the restraints of a salutary knowledge. By a culpable inadvertency, the author, in the preface to the first edition, omitted to insert the names of the committee by whom the requisition was projected, and the signatures to it obtained ; and to whom, therefore, the public are indebted for having had their attention called to the subject, for whatever interest may be awakened, and for whatever results may follow. I now, with much 2