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    the heart , and have a beneficial influence on the young , the ignorant , and the depraved —in these , we say , than in dancing round the May-pole , or being immersed in the orgies of a tavern , or watching the barbarities of the ring :

    and equally well , we opine , as their elegant superiors , who load their tables with costly luxuries , and spend their hundreds in extravagancies of dress and retinue . What can be more important in the amusements of a people than to unite pleasure with advantage , to blend together the personal and the social affections , to make a man happy whilst he is making himself useful ? And for the last fifty years it was reserved to unite these hitherto

    almost incompatible things . Religion alone—the Christian religion—could make beneficence not only a pleasure , but a recreation ; and by the deep and sacred influences which she sways , she has , we doubt not , in many cases touched the heart with a tenderer , livelier sense of gratification ; she has bound the faculties of the poor with a stronger and more elastic bond ,

    by means of the festivities she has occasioned , than ever they felt or imagined before . Look at these religious engagements ; see how they pervade the land ; scarcely a cottage free entirely from their agency ; and then say , is not the tone of the public mind raised by the substitution of intellectual and religious for sordid and brutal pleasures ? Which is most to be

    desired for the people , the scenes of the amphitheatre , or the scenes of the anniversary meeting ?—the Sunday-school , or the gaming table ?—the visiting of the widow and the orphan , or the frequenting of the pot-house ? In no country but England could religious festivities and benevolent exertions hold the place of amusements , or rather constitute the pleasures of the people ; and highly does such a fact speak for the sterling excellence of the English character . You can scarcely even suppose the existence of such things in France , or Spain , or Germany , America , it is true , is following in the same path ; but America is from us , and of us , and therefore with us .

    Whilst with the English people to do good is to be happy , and to entertain benevolent is to entertain grateful affections ; there is in our community the leaven to withstand much that is untoward in our institutions and manners . Religion must lose the hold it has taken on society before a thorough corruption can . take place ; before the elements of our greatness and the springs of a revival , should calamity afflict us , are wholly destroyed . The scenes which the month of May exhibited would excite in us an

    interest and an admiration , even if we thought those who engaged in them wholly mistaken . The object contemplated may be good or bad , the mode of pursuing it may be liable to exceptions : of this we say nothing at present . But the moral energy that has been evinced , the ardour of desire , the magnitude of effort that have been called forth , the unity of spirit , the interchange of good offices that have prevailed , these things give them a claim and a hold upon the heart . The exhibition of intense emotion is always affecting ; it is also worthy of respect when it is not only intense but

    pure and lovely . If , then , our orthodox brethren are wrong , they are estimable in their error ; their zeal may have a wrong direction , but it springs from a good intention , is supported by self-sacrifices , and attended By ^ &rbV therl ylove . But , intact ; we do ncWbelieve tl ^ That they are > free from error we ** do not aayb ^ hefr spedilatiy ^ tenets we regret , and we deplore that th ^ ate tk > muc | i bten ^^ love . But so stubhiirc , in mt ftppritbisUfoi . Wihe & > && * & * WBicff tfjfifyjtfm , that we & > ve these imperfect ibni i w * il * w ^ tmk ^ e ^^( M ^ tMi irftl satvation of myriad * of ' rational yet ' ig ^ > rint J and V ^ kmnbriimti ?* We * ^ ve / w > coafesb / uo bv bpatfiy with rfw Wnwiio ^ thiirik bf ttie Trmi-

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    Tfie Watchman . 493

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1829, page 493, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2574/page/45/