17(6.] 
Lift of Diffenting Congregations. 
765 
of this nature will be far more agreeable think them deferving a place in your 
to your readers. 
As it is now twenty years fince this 
account was taken, of courfe many errors 
need correction, and many defeéts ought 
to be fupplied, in order to render it cor- 
rect. ‘The places of worfhip in each 
county are preferved feparate. The 
counties. fucceed in alphabetical order, 
and the towns or villages, where diffenters 
have a place of worthip, are arranged in 
the fame manner. As I fhall be able to 
make feveral of thefe county lifts accu- 
rate, I intend to do its; and I fhall do it 
with pleafure if fuch information proves 
acceptable and gratifying. When fuch 
additions are made to the MS. they will 
be printed in Italics. 
BEDFORDSHIRE. 
Congregations. 
Bedford Ms ss i 3 
Biggiefwade - - 1 
Blunham is = i I 
Carlton = ee - I 
Cotton End - - - I 
Cranfield = = Es 1 
Dunftable ~ ~ Z I 
Keyfoe e . i I 
Leighton Buzzard = - = I 
Little Stoughton - - I 
Luton = = = = I 
Market-Street es = Ti 
Maulden ~ é z 1 
Redgmont = - - I 
Shambrook ~- - - I 
Southill - - - I 
Steventon = - - T 
Storton - - - I 
Thorne “ e - I 
Lr Gita 
21 
Note. "The independent churches are, 
in general, much more numerous than 
thofe of the other denominations. But 
in this county the Baptifts have the ma- 
jority, by four to one at leaft. 
BERKSHIRE. 
Congregations. 
Abingdon - Weitle 2 
POL - = - I 
Farringdon - - - I 
Kingfton-Lifle - = I 
Maidenhead - - - I 
3 
Newbury - - - 
~Oakingham~— - - - 
Reading - > - 3 
Wallingford ani aa 
Wantage - = - I 
15 
Thefe county lifts are a fpecimen 
Mifcellany, feveral county lifts fhall be 
tranfmitted monthly. 
Wareham, OG. 20, 1796. B.C. 

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
I CONFESS myfelf to be one of thofe. 
whom a pretty long experience: of 
mankind has not tended to render highly 
enamoured of the fpecies, or very con- 
fident of its progrefs towards meliora- 
tion. I think I fee the fame radical de- 
feéts of charaéter prevailing in all pe- 
riods, and through al! external circum- 
ftances; and though diverfely modified, 
yet ever operating to produce the prin~ 
cipal part of the evils under which the 
human race continually labours. In par- 
ticular, the difpofition /o deceive and to be 
deceived, appears. to me always in full 
operation in all focieties, whether favage 
or civilized; and, fince much of the 
weaknefs and unhappinefs, if not of the 
vice, of men, proceeds from this fource, 
I conceive, that to deteét and counteract 
it, will ever be one of the beft fervices 
that a thinking mind can render its fel- 
low-creatures. Am inftance having oc- 
curred to me in my reading, which £ 
think remarkably well calculated to dif- 
play the joint aétion of fraud and cre- 
dulity, with’ refpeé&t to a very common 
object of fuperftition, that of the mira- 
culous cure of difeafe, I beg your af.- 
fifiance in laying it before the public, 
together with the remarks it has fug- 
gefted to me. 
Thofe who have endeavoured to fup- 
port the reality of the ethcacy of the 
royal touch, in the cure of the fcrophula, 
or king’s evil, have laid particular ftrefs 
on the teftimony of Wiseman. ‘This 
perfon was ferjeant-furgeon to Charles 
II; of high reputation in his profetiion, 
and the author of a Work in Surgery, 
long reckoned a ftandard performance, 
and which fhows him to have been a fair 
and modeft man, as well as an excellent 
practitioner. It contains an exprefs trea- 
tife on the king’s-evil, in which he 
{peaks of the touch, in the following 
ftrong terms; I, myfelf, have beena 
frequent eye-witnels of many hundreds 
of cures performed by his majefty’s touch 
alone, without any alliftance of chirur- 
gery; and thofe, many of them, fuch as 
had tired out the endeavours of.able chiru- 
geons beforethey came thither. It were 
ef the whole; and if, Mr. Editor, you endlefs to recite what I myfelf have feen, 
5s Ez and 


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