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

    ciety w < ere Mr « John Cue 8 a very tolerable Hebrew scholar , of warm passions , a Saridimanian and Trinitarian , a benevolent good man ; Mro Richard Clarke , late Rector of St .

    Philips Charlestown , South Carolina , a very aged gentleman , a polite and classical scholar , an Hebrician and a Mystic ; and a Mr , Edmund Clegg * author of an Essay on the Two Witnesses . The whole three held the doctrine of

    the restoration of all fallen intelligences . In 1783 , Mr . Clegg left this little band of friends for America , and on his arrival at Philadelphia he introduced himself to Mr . Winchester ; and on that gentleman ' s leaving Philadelphia for London , Mr , CleggV son gave him a line of introduction to his

    brother , John C ! eg ; g , and his few universalist friends at Shoreditch . Through this introduction , Mr , Winchester preached twice at Black s ' -fields , Southwark . The elegant simplicity of his plain inervous language ^ its richness in scriptsire truth , its energy , its persuasiveness , together with the unaffectedness of his manners , convinced and

    subdued ; his hearers became friends and intimates ^ and were led at last to the taking of Parliament Court Chapel . The intimacy of Mr , John Cue and his friends with Mr . Winchester led

    them to become part of the congregation , on Mr . Winchester's consenting that they might assemble in the vestry instead of thus meeting as before in Shoreditch . Here they formed themselves into church fellowship , and had their officers , and brake bread every

    Sunday afternoon . Mr . Winchester frequently attended their meetings ^ and always approved of them , but constantly declined wholly to unite in fellowship with thenn 3 either fearful it might contract his public sphere of action , or bring over again those unpleasantnesses he had formerly met

    with in chureh-fellowship . But such a society , that had lasted for years before Mr . Winchesters coming to England , could not be called a small parti / in the congregation considering themselves as the Church , The propriety of the agreement perhaps is not defensible : though at the time it was useful , it certainly at last became m-

    pcnum zn tmperto . When Mr . Vidler first came to town he lived at ¦ Mrf'L&e % ih Patemoster-

    Untitled Article

    Rp ' w , Spilalfields ; it was not till- a considerable tittie after that he came to live with me in I ? Jouiidsditeh $ ; but I am proud to bear my testimony 1 ' for the many years we did live together ,

    to the tenderness arid irreproachable excellency of his character and conduct * His principal failings were ^ an unbounded confidence till suspicion was excited , and a weakness of benevolence which too often made him

    the victim of imposition . He was the father , brother and friend i and I casi truly says I place the time we lived together among the white days of my earthly existence 9 and , differing

    perhaps from all his friends , I always considered him as a most excellent tradesman . He was honest , industrious and obliging ; and that he was not successful in business when in the

    Strand , did not arise from a deficiency in ability as a tradesman , but from being over persuaded by a speculative man to embark ira business with hlua in a concern he had no knowledge oft and which was foreign to all his piirsuits . In three months , the greater

    part of which time he was ill , nearly to death , a dissolution of partnership took place , and he was left to struggle with a heavy rent , and a large debt incurred solely by the madness or wickedness of this speculation * whea at the commencement of it he liad

    accumulated property more than siifc ficient to pay every debt that he owed in the world . This was * indeed , the beginning of his troubles | his after removal to Holborn could not retrieve

    what had been done , but left ; a great man and noble mind depressed and elouded through the remainder of his life with a weight which deadened all his exertions .

    It is said [ p . 198 ] that Mr . VIdler never completely recovered * This language is not , I think , strong enough : this unfortunate circumstance , of the overturning of the post-chaise literally bottom upwards , destroying front its effects all his former activity , and ever

    after disabling liim from walking without intense pain . He always supposed he had injured the hip-bone as well as some of the finer blood-vessels about the neck and cheat . He had a long and painful struggle , endeavouring ; to Walk and dig * in his garden for ex > ercise * under the most acute sufferings ; those sufferings at length * © vercatHe

    Untitled Article

    MditionB ' iothe Memoir of the Rev . " W . Vidler . 5

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1818, page 5, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2472/page/5/