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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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52 * 2 Dr . Johnson ' s Dispute with Mrs . Knoules .
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quarter . There is no sex in souls ; and in the present cause I fear not even Dr . Johnson himself /' ( " Bravo ! " was repeated by the companyj and silence ensued . ) Dr . J . Well then , Madam , I persist in my charge , that you have seduced Miss H from the Christian religion /' ci \
Mrs . K . If thou really knewest what were the principles of the Friends , thou wouldst not say she had departed from Christianity . But waving that discussion for the present , I will take the liberty to observe , that she had undoubted ' right to examine and to change * her educational tenets , whenever * she supposed she had found them v erroneous : as an accountable crea-* lure it was her duty so to do * ** Dr . J . " Pshaw ! Pshaw !—
An accountable creature ! - —Girls accountable creatures ! It was her duty to remain with the church wherein she was educated ; she hacf no business to leave it . "
Mrs . K . " What ! not for that which she apprehended to be better ? According to this rule , Doctor , hadst thou been born in Turkey , it had been thy duty to have remained a Mahometan , notwithstanding Christian evidence might have wrought in thy mind the clearest conviction ! and , if so , then let me ask , how would thy conscience have answered for such obstinacy at the great and last tribunal ?"
Dr . J . * My conscience would not have been answerable /' Mrs . K . Whose then would ?' Dr * J ~ " Why the 6 tateto be sure . In adhering to the religion of the state as by law established ^ our implicit obedience therein becomes our duty . *'
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Mrs . K . A nation , or state having a conscience , is a doctrine entirely new to me , and , indeed a very curious piece of intellj ] gence ; for I have always under . stood that a government , or state is a creature of time only ; beyond which it dissolves ., arid becomes a non-entity * Now , gentlemen
can your imagination bod y forth this monstrous individual , or being , called a state , composed of millions of people ? Can you be . hold it stalking forth into the next worldy loaded with its mighty conscience , there to be rewarded or punished , for the faith , opinions and conduct of its constitti . ent machines called men ? Surely the teeming brain of poetry never held up to the fancy so wondrousa personage ! ' * .
( When the laugh occasioned by the personification was subsided , the Doctor very angrily replied )) " I regard not what you say as to that matter . I hate the arrogance of the wench , in supposing herself a more competent judge of
religion * than those who educated her . She imitated you , no doubt ; but she ought not to have presumed to determine for herself in so important an affair . ' ' Mrs . K * " True , Doctor , I grant it , if , as thou seemest to imply , a wench of twenty years be not a moral agent . "
Dr . J . u I doubt it would be difficult to prove those deserve that character who turn Quakers . Mrs . K . " This severe retort , Doctor , induces me charitably to hope thou must he totally ^ [' quaintedwith the principles of the people against whom thou art s exceedingly prejudiced , anai t ^ thou supposest us a set of InM "or Deists .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1811, page 522, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2420/page/10/
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