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opinions and actions ; and if i have , since rny early youth , devoted my leisure hours to science and polite literature , it has been almost solely as a preparation to this necessary trial ; other motives / could not have had . In my situation I could not expect the
least temporal advantages m the sciences . I knew too well that / could not find prosperity in the ivorld by suck means . And pleasure ? oh , my esteemed philanthropist ! The condition to which my brethren in faith are condemned in civil life is so far
removed from all free exercise of the powers of the mind , that I certainly could not increase my contentment by learning to know the rights of humanity in their true point of view . I avoid a nearer explanation on this topic—He who knows our condition , and has a humane heart , will feel more
than I can express . After the inquiry of many years , if the decision had not been perfectly in favour of my religion , it would have been necessarily known by a public
act . I cannot imagine what should bind me to a religion in appearance so severe , and so generally despised , if I were not in my heart persuaded of its truth . Whatever the result had
been , so soon as I found the religion of my fathers was not the true one , I must have deserted it . Were I in my heart convinced of the truth of any other , it would be the lowest vileness in me to bid defiance to my conviction , and be unwilling to recognise the truth ; and what could seduce me to
such vileness ?—I have alread y said , that prudence , integrity and love of truth were on one side . Had I been indifferent to both religions , and laughed at or despised ali revelation , I know very well what prudence advises when conscience is silent : what
should withhold me ? Fear of former brethren ? Their temporal power is too trifling to be feared . Obstinacy ? Indolence r Adherence to habitual notions ? Since I have devoted the greater part of my life to the inquiry ,
I shall be , allowed to have acquired wisdom enough not to sacrifice the fruits of mv laboui * to such weaknesses * You see , hence , that but for an upnght convicti 0 ii of tfee truth of my reli gion , the consequence of my inquiry niusct hay ^ alie wn itself by 9 >
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public act ; since , however , it strengthened m& in that of my fathers , I coukl proceed on nay course in silence , with-r out giving to the world an account of my conviction .
I shall not deny , that I see in my religion human additions and abuses , which , alas ! but too much obscure it . What friend of truth can boast , that his religion has been found free from mischievous human additions ? All
of us recognise the poisoned hand of hypocrisy and superstition , ail who , seeking the truth , wish to purify it , without injuring the good and the true ; but of the essence of my religion , I am as firmly and irrefragably assured , as you , Mr . Bonnet , or any other , can be of yours : and I here
testify , in the name of the God of truth , your and my Creator and Father , by whom you have in your dedication conjured me , that I will retam rny principles so long as my soul re- * tains its nature ! My remoteness from your religion , which I avowed to you and your friends , has in no respect diminished .
And my esteem for its founder ? You ought not to have omitted the condition which I expressly added , and I should then have granted as much now . There are certain inquiries which one must at one time of
one ' s life have ended , in order to proceed further . I may assert , that with respect to religion , I have done this several years ago . I have read , compared , reflected , and held fast to that which I thought good ; and yet I would have suffered Judaism to be
overthrown by every polemical lecv ture-book , and led in triumph in every school exercise , without stirring a step in its defence . Without the least contradiction on my side , I would have allowed every scholar , and half scholar , to represent out of Scharteck *
( whom no intelligent Jew now reads , ) to himself and readers , the most ridiculous ideas of Jewish faith . I wisk to be able to destroy the conteinptojuous opinion which is generally formed of a Jew , not . by controversial
writings , but by virtue . My religion , nay philosophy , nay situation in civil life , all give me the strongest motives to avoid all religious disputed , and ' in public writings to speak only , of * ho * e truths which nrs
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Isetter &f Mendelsohn to L , avatet \ 38 S
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vol . xviii . * 3 d
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1823, page 385, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1786/page/17/
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