To Mr. J. Fairburn,
Publisher, &c.
CHURCH BURNT IN EFFIGY!
We are informed by a most respectable follower of and believer in, John Church, one who gave evidence on his trial in his favour, and whose name we will, if required, give up to satisfy the most credulous of its authenticity, that on Monday evening last, after a visit to his residence, adjoining the Tabernacle, in the Borough-road, he returned to Rock-House, Hammersmith, which he had no sooner entered than the mob, having gained a knowledge of his being there, attacked with mud, filth, and other missile annoyances, and presently broke all the windows, expressing their indignation at Church’s most abominable atrocities; meanwhile, by groans, hisses, and all sorts of execrations, they having previously drest up an effigy of him, in a black silk gown, with a painted Church placed on each side, that the most dull might be informed whom it was meant to represent, paraded with it all through the village, when they finally burnt it to typify those Gomorrah fires, which, in the absence of a timely and sincere repentance, we are taught to believe will be the lot of the original in that place where fire is never quenched. Of this repentance we are sorry to observe no signs at present, but we trust the forth-coming punishment (most probably solitary confinement) will give him leisure to reflect on his atrocities and awaken him to a due sense of their enormities: truly happy shall we be to hear that the retribution of an earthly judge has shewn him the greater danger in which he stands with regard to his heavenly one.
AN EPISTLE
From the Devil to his Friend mid Follower John Church.
Oh, say not, John Church,
I’ve left you in the lurch,
When your life in my service you’ve past;
Though I seem to forsake,
My dear John, do not quake,
I’ll be sure to stick to you at last.
You know that Old Nick
Still is sure those to trick,
Who think they as deep are as he;
And he, still, John, it proves,
Chaseneth those he best loves,
And he loves none so dearly as thee.
Besides, John, I thought
If I let you be caught
In your tricks here on earth, ’twould be well;
For ’twould serve for a taste
Of the joys you must haste
To enjoy with me, Johnny, in h—.
And then, John, your preaching,
And spiritual teaching,
Had almost grown too great a joke;
To those who knew you,
And they were not a few,
Who still laugh’d as on gospel you spoke.
True, you still rail’d at me,
John, sans ceremonie,
And no one thought me your sworn brother;
Like rouges in-grain true,
Who their tricks to pursue,
Still behind their backs backbite each other.