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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.
The Professed Design Of This " Appendix/...
him , by letter , that as his engagement had then closed , it would be necessary for him to receive another invitation from the Sen ciety ; as , otherwise , I should not consider him to be the Minister : and I added , that should an invitation be given him ,
which I did not expect would be the case , I should decline attending on his services . It would have been but justice towards me , in those who furnished the materials for this Appendix , ' * —ifj indeed , I had any justice to expect from such a quarter ,
—to have laid this letter of mine before the public . Mr . Steward continued without invitation to officiate ; and several of the congregation suspended their attendance at the
Meeting IJouse * Within less than a month , a discovery was rogt ^ te , & oi by his public services—he had too much of the * Christian spirit , " I suppose , to make known his real belief from the pulpit—that a change had , for a considerable time , taken
place in his religious views . I was going from home for several weeks , and had no opportunity of stating to the Society the facts which had come to my knowledge . Sooii after my return ^ at meeting was held , agreeably to public notice given in the chapeL
This was on September 1 , 1816 ; and at the meeting , among other resolutions , it was agreed , " that Mr * Steward was not con ^ 4 sidered the Minister of the Congregation after the expiration of
his term of three years ; and , that in consequence of its being ascertained that a change had taken place in his religious opinions , it was not the wish or inclination of the Trustees and Congregation , to renew the connexion •"
What must be the feelings of the reader when the answer of this man of " mildness and Christian spirit" is laid before him ? In a letter bearing date September 8 , 1816 , addressed to me ,
in reply to a letter of mine , which accompanied the resolution ? he- begins ,
" Sir , —This is to acknowledge the receipt of your papers , and I must confess that I was struck with astonishment when 1 perceived the charge which the Meeting brought against me—a charge ; which it had no means of substantiating /' ft I conceive that I am , according to every principle of right permanently fixt . "
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 22, 1819, page 7, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/smrp_22021819/page/7/
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