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DUELLING . To the Editor of the Monthly Repository . SIR * The age in which we live is universally acknowledged to bfe on € , in which civilization and the polite arts and sciences have made considerable progress . It will therefore be the subject of much inquiry , at some future period , how it has happened that amidst so many improvements , thebarbarous practice
of duelling should have continued to rage with unabated violence ; that the laws of honour , as they are called , should have gained such an ascendancy over reason and religion and all the sensibilities of social life ; that the tender
relations of father , husband , son and brother , should have been sacrificed at their shrine ; and that ail this should have been allowed to take place without either of the parties having committed the slightest offence against any law , human or divine ; and that the most amiable character should have submitted himself to take the chance of becoming the
victim of the thoughtless , the rash and the turbulent , and what is worse , of the bacchanalian , in his cups , when wine had inflamed his passions and overwhelmed his reason . It is not my intention to introduce to your readers the arguments of the moralist or the divine , or to point out
the laws of our country which stand opposed to this pernicious practice . They are too well known to need repetition . But you will permit me to point out at once the cause and the remedy of an evil so dreadful in its
consequences , so abhorrent to the feelings of nature , so contrary to the dictates of reason and reli gion . It will readily be admitted that fashion , lo whose decision all ranks submit with the most implicit obedience , ha *
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356 Duelling .
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required at last all ' the aid of Charity whom h « I > ad invoked " to find out Mr . Locke in Heaven / ' to prevent an orthodox brother from believing , that ' * , without doubt he must perish everlastingly . ' This language of an arrogant mortal who " as God sitteth in the temple of God , " is indeed the peculiar disgrace of the churches of Rome and England . It is however a conclusion unavoidable from the doctrines maintained by the truly orthodox in all churches . I am Sir yours , Bristol , April 20 , 18 O 7 * T , J .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1807, page 356, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2382/page/16/
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