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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.
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Untitled Article
this indecorous and unmanly conduct , Dc Rogers wa& reprimanded in the public prints , and given to understand that sucfr contumelious usage ill became a member of the Philosophical Society . He seemed to feel the impropriety he had been guilty of , and made an acknowledgment of his error .
In the ensuing springs I engaged with a gentleman of the name of Haines , who had considerable property in Northumberland , to live with him for one year as house-steward , and
to manage his garden . He kept house at Philadelphia at that time , but having resigned his seat as Member of Assembly , was about returning to Northumberland . To this place we travelled , and found on our arrival there that Dr . Priestley was a resident
in Mr . Haines's house , while his own was fitting up for his reception . I found him a man rather below the middle size , straight and plain , wearing his own hair , and in his countenance , though you might discern the philosopher , yet it beamed with so lanuch simplicity and freedom as made him very easy of access . I told him I came from England , and had been a member of a General Baptist Church for more than twenty years , among a people whom I well respected . Upon the subject of the Trinity ,, I said I was not rigid : " neither am I , " said he . He told me he knew several General Baptist minis ?
ters , and that there were liberal-minded men among them , I learnt soon afterwards that public worship was carried on at his son Joseph Priestley ' s on a Lord ' s-day morning , though principally for his own family and friends ; and as I had never heard a proper Unitarian discourse , it became an object of curi ? osity to me to hear one . The family in which I lived was more liberal than some others , being divided betwixt theQuakers and Presbyterians ; and as I was quite at liberty on a first ( fay .
1 believe I went regularly to hear him through the summer . My afternoons I frequently spent under the ministrations of the Baptists and Presbyterians , who alternately occupied the same chapel , the pulpit of which was now shut against Dr . Priestley , who had once been allowed to ascend it by the consent of the people , but was afterwards prohibited by the influence of one of their ministers . I found this people in general very contracted , and was surprised to find that they never used any of Dr . Watts ' s psalms or hymns , giving as a reason that he wavered in his sentiments towards the latter- end of his life ! At Dr #
Priestley they were terrified , and used to ask me why I wen £ to hear him , cautioning me to beware of his heresy , lest I should be taken in . Even some of the English at Northumberland partook of the same fearful apprehension ; but it was of no long continuance in those minds who could so far sunnount their prejudices as fo submit patiently to hear him . I well
Untitled Article
394 Particulars of Dr . Priestley .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1806, page 394, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1727/page/2/
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