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    ing to inform them after the sermon , which he had reason to believe would be such as they would approve , that the preacher was a Unitarian . This narrative relates facts which might be enacted in hundreds of villages in this kingdom . The public mind is poisoned ; and the uninformed look upon Socinians and Catholics as two species of monsters . Why or wherefore they are bad , is not well known . The dislike of them is a matter of

    feeling rather than of judgment . Two things , it is true , they do iterate ; the one " denies Christ , " the other would " burn you ; " , to use the words of a Cheshire Squire , recently used at a county meeting , *• would make beef-steaks of you . " But beside these facts , their feelings are those of indistinct and undefinable aversion , much like the raw-head and bloodybone sort of feeling with which we remember , in our youth , to have thought of ghosts and of a churchyard . And now that hobgoolins ar $ getting out of

    fashion , being afraid of being caught by the schoolmaster , we should not be surprised to hear of honest matrons charming their infants to sleep by telling them , not " the old gentleman is coming , " but cc the Socinians will have you . " A moral may be extracted from mirth , and the moral of our story is , that Unitarians must labour to enlighten the minds of the ignorant , and to check the misrepresentations of the interested . The latter is the chief point ; for while the pulpit and the press are replete with injurious statements , Unitarians cannot secure the attention , much less the favourable

    regards , of the people . The functions of " \ he Watchman" , therefore , most imperatively called for , and we invite the support and assistance of our friends . It is highly gratifying to a mind that is wishful for the advancement of knowledge , liberty , and religion , the three great blessings of humanity , to

    hear of the progress which our American brethren are making . With them religious as well as civil liberty prevails , and occasions abundant happiness and prosperity . In the Constitution it is provided that " Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion , or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . " The illustrious statesman , Jefferson , with a full

    consciousness of the blessings he had conferred upon his fellow-citizens , ordered to be inscribed upon his tomb , " The Author of the Declaration of Independence and of the Statutes of Virginia for Religious Freedom . " In America , accordingly , in no shape or form are they pressed down and crushed by the incubus of an Established Church . Two or three States , it is true , oblige every individual to contribute to the support of the ministers of religion , but

    leave it optional with him to select any church within the parish or district to which the tax shall be applied . For this exception we are sorry . We regret it because it is an infringement on liberty . Of the continuance of religion we have no fear in America , nor in any other country when left to itself . Its springs are too deeply seated in the heart to admit its being long neglected . Men marry without compulsion , and men will worship ( Jod without

    legislative interference ; for they are no less religious than they are social beings . We regret the exception , because we have seen and felt the evils of Establishments , and because experience proves that in whatever form they have existed , they tend to evil , and eventually prove the greatest obstructions tp religion and liberty . The state of religion in America proves beyond a

    question that full and unrestricted liberty is the element in which Teligion best flourishes . No people are more attentive to religious observances than t * he Americans ; and so rigid are they in abstaining from all occupation and amusements on the Sundays , and in frequenting p laces of public worship , that travellers , while passing through some parts ot America , have conceived

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    262 The Watchman .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1829, page 262, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2571/page/38/