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    voted himself to our service , whicli he esteemed the service of Christian truth and of human virtue aud happiness , I need not here describe . It has been recorded in the proceedings at the chapel this morning , and the knowledge of ifc

    will long continue in the grateful recollection of many before whom I am speaking . The progress and prosperity of this Association animated his exertions , and helped to sustain his mind when the power of exertion was no longer permitted to him .

    " And now , Sir , as I must be indeed presumptuous , especially with such an example before me , to expect , at my age , another opportunity of addressing our Society in public , give me leave to wish for it every good but its permanence . I

    will not say to this Association as the banished Roman said to his country that exiled him , Esto perpetua . No , Sir : I rather indulge the hope that we are pursuing an honourable aud efficient course towards our own dissolution ; that , as humble instruments under the Divine

    administration , we are doing something to bring forward the happy time when Unitarian and Trinitarian , Catholic and Protestant , Jew and Gentile , shall be names known only in history , because the world shall be brought to love and reverence the oue God as a Father , and to believe , understand and obey the revelation of his beloved Son , the man Christ Jesus .

    * ' The poet , Sir , has said , "' Our dying friends come o ' er us , like a cloud , To damp our brainless ardours , and abate The glare of life . '

    Yet , surely , there is an honourable ardour which their recollection is calculated to inspire—the ardour to pursue every worthy purpose , to serve our generation according to the will of God , aud , as my friend expressed the pious object of his life , the last time I ever saw him , and when that life was soon to expire , to leave the world better than we found it . "

    The Chairman rose aud said , that their obligations were very great to the ministers of the denomination , but there were some laymen to whom their thanks were due . They were ho / ioured with the presence of a gentleman who had been the first to acknowledge himself an Unitarian in Parliament , and whose uniform consistency of conduct , both in public and private life , had conferred

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    distinction on their cause . True it was that their only real respectability . was founded on the truth of their principles , yet it was of consequence that truth should have an eloquent , consistent ^ and firm supporter in a place where it was but little known . After taking a very able review of his public life , in which he referred particularly to his

    exertions in obtaining the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts , he proposed " The health of William Smith , Esq ., M . P ., our distinguished guest . " Mr . W . Smith , M . P ., said , that in rising to thank the meetiug for the manner in which they had been pleased to drink his health , he could not say that he was placed in a situation to which he was unaccustomed , having been

    honoured more than once by presiding over similar meetings to the present , but on no occasion did he enjoy more satisfaction in receiving the tokens of their approbation ; as to gratitude , he must declare with the most unfeigned humility , that they owed him none . It was his happiness to have been brought up among Unitarian Dissenters . Whether he had supported the Unitarian cause with more or less success , it was always done in accordance with the dictates of

    his judgment , and he was therefore serving his own cause while promoting that of his Unitarian friends . If any thing remained to be done in which he could l ) e of service , those services were always at the command of his friends . While he continued to hold the same opinion , he should pursue the same line of conduct . He considered himself as being peculiarly fortunate in those days iu which Providence had cast his lot . He

    commenced public life when unquestionably the temper of the times was very different from what it was at the present day . For a time he had to pass through evil and through good report , though he had to experience a great deal more of the former than of the

    latter . ( Applause . } He possessed courage enough to stein the evil , and he had now the happiness to receive the good . He could not refrain from recalling to the mind of the meeting what he had witnessed iu the course of the last fifty years . He remembered the period when

    it devolved upon him to march through the streets of London with a musket on his shoulder , in order to protect his fellow-citizens , the Roman Catholics , against the pulling down of their dwellings , and the burning of their furniture , by an infuriated ( so calling itself ) £ rotestant mob . About thirty years after

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    Intelligence . — - Unitarian Association . 513

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    VOL . III . 2 N

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1829, page 513, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2574/page/65/