On this page

• Text (1)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    religion , Something less mysterious , more calm , more in accord * a nee with the independent principles which still bear sway in their minds ; something which reason can embrace with cordialit y > and reflection can approve , is still looked for with anxiety . But , How shall they hear without a preacher ; and how shall he preach unless he be sent P' The calm , the rational , the enlivening principles of Unitarian Christianity , those which are found in the Acts of the Apostles and in the teachings of Jesus , have not been held up to their view . They have no notion of the Christian doctrine , in so pure , so animating , so satisfactory a form . It has often fallen out to us who reside among them , to give in conversation an outline of this primitive religion ; and their avowal has been generally ready : That is exactly what we want . —Or , These are the thoughts I have long entertained , but I did not know whether I might believe them . Men out of number , and women too , freely avow , that their views of God are those which the Unitarian receives . But there is no centre of gravity towards

    which they can draw together—there is no nucleus to which they can attach themselves ; and it will require a certain time—we cannot say how long—to bring them to a conviction , that the profession of good principles is a duty enjoined upon them by the authority of reason and of God , and by a regard to social

    order and happiness . To convert a nation is a heavy , and will be a protracted , task . To form new habits is not an easy work for those who are settled in habits of life ; and to incur expenses which may be avoided , may not be thought prudent in the present depressed state of things in France .

    Yet the seed might be sown without great exertion or great expense . They who think at " all about religion will listen to its voice when it addresses itself to their understanding , and will gradually , especially if they are young , be brought to unite in its duties ; and when the fields appear so nearly ripe for the harvest , as they certainly do in many of the great towns of France , efforts might be made with great prospect of success , to spread among them those pure and simple and acceptable truths , which have met with so great a multitude of confessors in England , both in and out of the national church , and in America , where

    the work is going on with accelerating speed . Something should here be said of the present state of the Protestant Church of France—it was originally Calvinistic , as has been its parent at Geneva—but it is well known that a majority of the ministers of the latter church are decidedly of Unitarian principles , and that among their flocks these principles are spreading fast . This is also true to a certain extent among the former ; but the notion is entertained in both churches , that it is yet too soon to speak out upon this delicate subject , and that a little more time must be allowed for the secret and !

    Untitled Article

    -On the State of Religion in France . 1 £ 7

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1832, page 127, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1806/page/55/