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If p lace where religion ought to be learned . Venerable principle ! as old as popery ! and happily admitted implicitly in Old England before Whiggism had debauched the public mind ! For this , Cobbett 3 the clergy will pardon many , if not all , of thy late sins : this , with thy revilings of the republican ? of the
ether world , with thy bawlings for the sovereignty of the seas , with thy cryiilgs out for the demolition of Copenhagen , and thy loud protestings against Peace , at any time and under any minister ; these things will go nigh to making thee a favourite with them ; and wouldst thou -cease thy euiogiums
on Sir Francis , thy menaces about the Funds , and thy insinuations about a change ^ a great change ^ a radical change , thou mightest regain thy perihelion of glory , and be as in former days , the days of thy now-for gotten favourite , thy once-darling hero Pitt , be , praised and handed from glass to glass , quoted and toasted at visitation dinner ^ and
episcopal and arcbiepiscopal feasts ! The People , then , the unhappy people , are not to think , not to talk about religion . They must read the bible through churchmens' glasses . No matter what the knowledge , what the character of any one of the 10 , 000 parish
priests in England and Wales , the sentence of every one of them is oracular , the word of cvtry one of them is law ; and the good people of this country are to believe precisely what they say , and to punctually obey all that they command . This is the doctrine of the
champion of liberty , of the spokesman of the patriots of Westminster . It is fitting that such a writer should vilify Mr . Fox . It was natural that such a cherisher of the dying vermin of monks and friars should have detested and calumniated Dr . Priestjley . He is
the right man for a JSI 0 Popery minister y j a properly qualified agent to bring forward another Sacheverel , another Tory , Oxford Doctor , who shall make our pulpits resound with passive ebedience and non-resistance . But , perhaps , after all , this is intended as
irony ; and dlonj ; with hints about Church Lands may be designed to pave the way for a proposal to the political agitators of the day , to vote Priests useless , and Bishops a nuisance . Such a vote would not frighten us . Ouron-Iv concern is to know how to under-
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stand the drift of this writer , that we may not be taken unawares His secret insinuations serve to explain , as they are doubtless expla . ned by , his avowed doctrines Some of the French
pbifosophcri ) we remember , inculcated the most -lavish ecclesiastical principles , till the opportunity arose of exploding all religious principles as dastardly superstitions !
8 . And Ustly , ( for the text though not exhau ted , is too disgusting to be dwelt on ionger than is necessary *) A capacity of reading would not make the poor more attentive or . docile at public worship Not a capucify of
cading it is true ; but this writer knows that that is not what is contended for , but a habit of reading , A cudgel-piay ~ er , a brawler , an ale house frequenter ^ may have the capacity of reading , aye * of reading the bible ; but what avails it if he never improve if ? Who ever talked of the beneficial effects of a mere
capacity of working ? while every one knows and a serts the benefits of industry * A capacity of reading is likely to beget the habit ; and will any man . be hardy enough to maintain , that he who is somewhat acquainted with written language ,
wil ] not listen with greater attention , because with more understanding " , to a public discourse , than one who has never contemplated the structure of a single sentence ; or that he who has already learned a little , will not be a better scholar than he who has learned
nothing r Why is a man , who is of a literary turn , more teachable and more ready to learn tnan a pea ant , or a common soldie : ? Why , but because he knows more ? For knowledge , which consists in the opening of rhc eyes- and of the ears > and of all the senses , naturally tends to open them still wider ; and reading is the great source of knowledge .
This political Journalist i » a curious instance of a person reading on purpose to find arguments for the inutility of reading ; and t . uly , if reading led all men into his way of thinking , that stare man would deserve a statue to be erected to his memory , who should collect all the books that were ever
written , all the paper that was ever manufactured , and nil the printing-prases that were ever constructed , aad make one joyful bonfire of them all . Around such a bonfire the familiars of the In-
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Cobbett , the Poor , and the Bible . 617
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1807, page 617, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2386/page/53/
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