Constitutional Whig

A singular Scene.--The Rev. Mr. Dutens, who was in Turin, in 1780, says he witnessed there the following singular scene in a church. It was in the beginning of February, when the days are short. A very popular preacher, who was accustomed to give sermons of an enormous length, expatiated one day after dinner so long on his subject, which was repentance, that he had trespassed a full hour into the night, before he had concluded. Scarcely had he finished, when one of his audience raised his voice and requested to be heard. All listened; and the stranger continued, that the holy man's pathetic discourse had made so lively an impression upon him, who was a miserable sinner, that he had forthwith resolved entirely to change his course of life: and to give sincere proof of his contrition, he would instantly, before all the congregation, freely confess his crimes. He then declared himself to be an advocate by profession, and openly avowed that he had abused the confidence of his clients, and told their secrets, and sacrificed their interests to the adverse party; he acknowledged himself to be a faithless husband, a bad father, and an ungrateful son; and having followed this up with a enumeration of various offences he had committed, he offered, he said, the last proof of his sincerity in declaring his name: and concluded by saying he was such an advocate, living at such a place. Immediately another voice was heard from another part of the church, calling out that the penitent was an impudent impostor; that he was the advocate named, and that he could not reproach himself with any of the faults so calumniously imputed to him. He besought the audience to secure the villain; but in vain, for the mischievous wag had slipped away during the moment of surprise when the real advocate began to speak, and notwithstanding the most diligent inquiry, was never discovered.