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our Saviour's feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head, and who is there called by the Pharisee a sinner, is unfounded.
From the manner in which her name is introduced along with that of the wife of
Herod's steward and other women, who ministered to him of their substance, there is every reason to believe that she was a woman of rank and property, against whom there is no ground for supposing that any imputation had ever existed.
She had been the subject of one of our
Lord's benevolent miracles; but of what nature the disorder was from which she was relieved, the expression of the Evangelist, that seven devils or demons had gone out of her, does not enable us to conjecture.
However, she ever after manifested the most affectionate gratitude to her benefactor, and was distinguished by him with marked tokens of his esteem and regard, particularly as being the first to whom he made himself known after his resurrection.
To call such an institution, therefore, a Magdalen-house, appears to be taking a very unwarrantable liberty with the name of an honourable, and, for any thing we know, truly excellent woman.
The letter was sent too late; or, at all events, it did not prevent the name being given, though no one who attends to these considerations can fail to perceive its impropriety.
In 1759, Dr. Lardner published, but without his real name, the letter on the Logos, already mentioned as addressed to Lord Barrington, under the assumed name of Papinian, in the year 1730.
It now made its appearance accompanied by two valuable postscripts; the first containing an explanation of the terms Spirit, Holy Spirit, the Spirit
