On this page

• Text (1)

  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.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • 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.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    regard to the interests of our own county > which is virtuous only when properly restrained and limited , is cheri ; lied , not merely to the neglect of un i versal benevolence , or a proper regard for our species at large , but in opposition to it . Among ourselves , its tendency to generate and foster a narrow , selfish

    spirit , to divide the inhabitants of the same district or town into parties , to engender political antipathies , than which no feeling takes deeper root , and is with greater difficulty eradicated , is notorious , WJiat is , if possible , still more to be deplored , is its tendency to harden the heart . By filling our newspapers , and

    other periodical works , which are accessible to all , and read with the greatest avidity by all , with minute details of the most horrid battles , it renders carnage and bloodshed familiar to our minds ; and , from the force of habit , whatever becomes familiar will , at least , if great care be not taken to prevent ,

    cease to produce its proper impression on our hearts . Reading , hearing , and conversing frequently about slaughtered thousands and tens of thousands , tends insensibly to diminish that horror which we ought ever to entertain at the shedding of human blood , to lower our estimate of the value of human life , to

    blunt the finest sympathies of our nature , and % i \ z to the heart a character of obduracy and ferocity . This , Gentlemen , is the natural tendency of war How far it has actually produced this baneful effect on the minds of our countrymen , is difficult to ascertain ; but it is the opinion of some , that the , numerous

    instances of shocking murder of which we hear , and the recenj atrocious assassination which , for a season at least , diffused alarm through the country , are melancholy proofs that the war has , in this respect , gradually effected an unhappy change in the minds of our countrymen . But , Gentlemen , whether this

    be a just inference or not , the tendency of war to promote licentiousness and dissipation is too apparent in its effects to have escaped your observation ^ Large military establishments , tjie necessary consequence of the war system , operate

    in the neighbourhoods wh ^ rc they are pja , nted like a moral pestilence - the very atmosphere of such establishments is . contagious ; few can breathe it with perfect safety 5 but it is most fatal to out youth ; unsuspecting , unexperienc-

    Untitled Article

    ed , unestablishedj how many young * persons , of both sexes , are , by this means , seduced , corrupted , ruined ; lost to virtue , to shame , to their fritnds , to society , who , but for the contagious example thus presented , might have been sober , virtuous , useful , happy ; the stay of their parents , the honour of their connections , the pillars and

    ornament of society . Gentlemen , the pestilential influence of the war-system is as certain , to virtuous minds at least , as it must be painful . But to see the full force of this argument upon the question at issue , you must consider its bearing on our safety and happiness as a

    nation . The security and happiness of nations , Gentlemen , depends , under Providence , on nothing so much as on the virtue of , the people . The wisest prince of antiquity , perhaps the wisest that ever wore a diadem , has said that * righteousness exaketh a nation , while

    sin is a reproach to any people . ' The observation is founded on the nature of things : for righteousness or virtue is the health of the political body , while vice is its disease ; and the truth of it is confirmed by the history of all nations . Admitting , as we all do admit , that

    there is a Divine Providence , which superintends the affairs of nations , takes cognizance of their moral actions , and punishes or rewards them in the present life , we cannot for a moment doubt , that "while abounding iniquity tends to misery and ruin , virtue , especially Christian virtue , is their firmest , surest bulwark . And since it is manifest that

    protracted war tends , in many ways , to corrupt and vitiate the public mind , are we not required to do all in our power to hasten its termination ? To say nothing of religion , though we are now verging on s-icrcd ground , and t

    might without impropriety press the argument on this ground ; yet to saynothing on this head , I appeal to that regard for the interests of our country , which , I am persuaded , animates every heart . And I ask , since vice leads to

    national ruin , and war promotes vicje , can we . give a better proof of our love to our country , than by petitioning our rulers to embrace the earliest opportunity to terminate tbe war - > •* With the strongest motives that can ^ e im igined to petition for peace , I know ot no rriighty objection th . it can be ailcdgcd against ; sucli a measure . Nor

    Untitled Article

    Peace * — Proceedings at Leicester * 67

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1813, page 67, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2424/page/67/