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warded bis hero was unattained * The following account is from the Annual Register , 1758 . " On the 29 th of May , 1767 , at Midnight , after a most dreadful
« torm of rain and thunder , as if it xvers to display how much more ruinous the malice of men may be , than the greatest terrors of nature * on the signal of a rocket , four batteries , which discharged
every twenty-four hour $ 288 bombs , besides a vast multitude of redtiot balls , began to pour destruction on that unfortunate city , which was soon in flames in every
part . Twelve thousand of the most useful months were driven out of the city . The Prussians forced them in again" ( p . 17 > Such were the scenes which a man of
inflection , like Mr . Pearsal , might have anticipated before he pleased himself with the situation of the King of Prussia besieging Prague * It is ' trply mortifying to have been obliged to turn from a Christian
minister to an anonymous chronicler , to find a single sentiment of compassion upon such a subject . Vet I &m persuaded the letter-writer , as I am sure as to his
correspondent , was quite unconscious of indulging any disposition whieji opposed itself to peace on earthy or good will among men . It was then the fashion among
Protestatits to consider all wars ip which their ' governments engaged against Kc / man Catholic pdvvfers , as holy wars or , in
Jewish phraseqlbjgy , wars of the Lord . Thus tfiey toti ' easily degraded into a paitizan the Father of all the families of th * £ * irthf >* and in their view * of Providence with
reference to national objects were sbmetimes utmost as Pagan as those who assigned the hills and
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the vallies ( , 0 the care of rival deities . But it is time to return to the pious preache r * whom I have left too long , rejoicing jover the cap * ture of Cape Breton and St . Johns * Those islands in the Gulf of
St . Lawrence had been just taken from the French by a British force . The inhabitants were thus subjected to governors of a strange speech ^ and to the controul if not the licence of a foreign soldiery . These circumstances of human
affliction were calculated to ma . derate a Christian ' s triumph on national successes . Yet , strange to say , these are not suffered to intrude through the thirty pages of this Thanksgiving Sermon . ' * The horror and desolation ** of war
are indeed described and deplored ( p . 14 . ) , but , as appears from the connexion , only as these have " overwhelmed other fertile and happy countries , nearly allied to us / ' It would indeed -be
impossible to know from this set * mon that the love of enemies bore that high place which I have no doubt it did in the preacher'
creed . They are mentioned , but it is when inviting his audience to € * say , with the great warrior iti our text" —thou hast saved us
from our enemiesy &c . ( p . 18 ) — where in a note the preacher lends his too respectable aid to national vanity by quoting , from an anonymous letter-write r * a contrast between the ' bravery and ardour ifr our officers and soldiers , *' and 4 < the pusillanimous and dastardly behaviour of the enemy P '
Thus the pulpit preserved , a century after it had acquired , the character of drum eccleaiastid * Britons had yet to learn that war * are sometimes sins of gov&nmti&t which , by general acquieweace
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550 Loyal "Fiity .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1814, page 550, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2444/page/26/
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