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OBITUARY.
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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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( 344 )
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The Rev . W . Mann on the Letters concerning Mr . J . Coventry . a Letter i ^ the Editor . ] Sicjutus seniory telumq ; imlelle sineictu Conjecit . Sir ,
In your Obituary for the last month , ( p . 378 ) there is an article , relative to the death of Mr . John Coventry , of Saint Savior ' s , Southwark , which not only highly reflects on my ministerial conduct ,: but charges me with direct falsehood ; a charge , which , if it could be substantiated , would stamp my character , and my name , with obloquy and infamy .
This article , it is more than probable , I should never have sQen nor perhaps heard c ? f , had it not been left with me a few days ago , for the purpose , by a person unknown ; and , if the writer had confined himself in it to the
supposed truth of his own system , or to the error of mine , he would not have drawn from me a single remark : he might have plumed himself with the honours of a fancied victory - and all , on my part , should have been a profound , uninterrupted taciturnity .
There is one point , Mr . Editor , and only one , on which I have any feeling ; it relates to a fact which your correspondent ha& stated ; and I have only pne request to make of you , and which you cannot in justice deny me 3 that you will give the same publicity to my statement of that fact , which you have ajre « u } y . givep to kti > I shall make no
enquiry in £ o the source of his information ; that is his affair , not mine : on its credit , whatever that may be , he has thought proper to rest his cause : it puts wor 4 $ into my mouth , which I never used , and imputes to them a meaning , which I never expressed—but the
premises , the argument , and the conclusion , are of > the aanie hue > —the whole a tissue of cunning misrepresentation , and , W jorse , than indirect , equivocating falsehood-It is true , that I attended the dying bed of my father in law . I saw him ac least once , generally twice , every flay .
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during his illness , and to the latest moments of his existence in this world . He opened to me all his heart ; and I knew all the " circumstances ** which occasioned his distress of mind . This
13 of consequence , only as it may serve to shew , how far I was qualified to form a true judgment , had 1 been disposed to tell the truth ; and whether 1 was authorised to give an opinion , in what is called a funeral sermon .
I did not , Sir , attribute the darkness , which beclouded the last moments of our dear father , to the influence of the " Winchesterian system" as " the principal cause 5 " but only as one among many other causes , which I then enumerated : that did not occupy a larger portion of time than other particulars $
nor did it obtain any other prominence , or pre-eminence , than was naturally given to it by the novelty of the subject . Now , Sir , the difference between assigning a reason as the principal cause , and mentioning it only as one in
common with many other causes , which were all named and applied in the same manner , and allowed their equal weight ia the scale of just consideration ; the different colouring which is given to the same fact , by such a representation , —the shade into which it throws all
other points of the same subject ;—and the disingenuousness of the relater and the writer , ajre so manifest , tbafc argument would here be quite superfluous . But , in one of those conversations , which I had with the deceased , in . some of his last hours , and as I sa >\ v his end
approaching * I fell it my duty to deal faithfully with him—whether the impression of my mind , at this time , was a true ministerial affection , or only , the impulse of fanaticism , does not at ¦ all enter into the present . question , Mr . Editor : such was my feeling ; and I
did express my fear , that his mind had received serious injury from a former connexion ; that his principles hacj been , relax exly and ttyeir tope lowered ; that he had been put off his guard ; that he had neglected his privilege , and- lost that peace and comfort which once he enjoyed . Jie r » plic 4 r—V Trjajt he had , long siacc t a ^ andone ^ l t . b ^ Qfrn n ^ jtion
Obituary.
OBITUARY .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1813, page 344, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2428/page/60/
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