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enterprise , more resourses for the practical benefit of mankind , than any individual whont ve have the happiness to remember . His talents as a parliamentary speaker , his wanderful power of intellectual toil , Ins pure and unsullied life , and the exhuman
quisite * sympathy he felt for every sorrotf , gave him an influence over prejudice and power themselves , which he used for the purest and loftiest purposes . His wonderful knowledge of the principles and detail of his profession , which usually unfits its possessor for an extended scene
of action , was applied with great success by him to promote the cause of improvement , and to justify , if not to rouse , the most generous impulses . He was able to meet prejudice on its selected ground , and to employ the weapons it had chosen ^ but he wielded them with a spirit that nothing
but high principle could inspire . As a speaker , he was clear , chaste and impressive , rising only with his subject , and deriving' all his earnestness and force from his strong * persuasion of the truth and the greatness of his theme . His voice was
sweet and silvery , his action gentle , his manner impassioned only when a strong sense of justice lighted up his frame . Then a holy fire appeared to flash from his else care-worn and quiet countenance , and to " o ' er inform his tenement . " Over
his earthly frame , disease and affliction have for a while triumphed ; but they have no power over the virtues he manifested or the principles he lived to developer these are a possession to the world for ever . His unwavering" opposition to all that be believed injurious to human happiness ; his disdain of the allurements of an
ordinary ambition ; the efforts in which he exhausted the resources of life , will never be forgotten , while a pulse shall vibrate in sympathy with the interests of man . The present age , we may venture to
predict , will not be the brightest ^^ a of his fame . That he exposed unconstitutional measures , rendered the bankrupt laws more just , and the criminal code less unmerciful , are the most visible but not the most
important of his peaceful victories . He has reduced , in some degree , those mighty principles of legislation into actual working , which had been long confined to philosophic schools ; he has prepared the way for a reconciliation of humanity and law ,
so seldom permitted to unite ; and has begun to give an * ' assured reajity" to the objects of which other philanthropists have been contented to dream . In that day , when the great designs he partially unfolded shall be complete , his memory will be cherished with a reverential
fondness . When genuine Christianity shall shine forth in human institutions ; when the enactments of man shall be framed in devout imitation of the merciful dispensations of
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heaven ; when laws shall have become the well-ordered channels for diffusing a wise and genial charity over the world ; mankind will not be unmindful of him to whom they will owe the beginnings of their gJory and the hig-h example whose inspiration will be caught by a brilliant succession of yet more triumphant labourers . T . N . f .
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7 ^ 2 Obituary * —Mr . William Dretbe .
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Nov . 11 , at his house , in South Street , Exeter , Mr . Wiixiam Dbewe , aged 52 years . It never can be uninteresting or useless to reflect upon the virtues of good men , let them be of ever so obscure a station , or quiet an ambition . Virtue ougkt never to decay ; it should be embalmed wherever it is found . Honour is ever the
most pure , the less it is beset with temp , tations ; and therefore it maybe that the exalted man is not always the most mentally noble or feelingly great . The object of the present sketch was of a most respectable and private station in life \ and he was , perhaps , one of the gentlest and most amiable of inen that ever breathed . He
lived undisturbedly to the hour of his death in the bosom of his family , in all of whom there seemed to be but one heart . He bad no desires , no fears , no aims , no hopes , with which they were not blended ; and he never gave them cause of fear till he was ill , nor of anguish till he died . Of a mind singularly quiet and pure , he thought of no evil himself , and never tainted others with
" suspect o > f crime . " His days were as full of serenity as his nights , and his morning thoughts were always clear and worthy of the morning . Those who were in habits of intimacy with him , spoke of him in his life-time with iimningled affection and respect : they think of him now , and utter his name with an unaffected and serious
sorrow . It is not possible to conceive of a heart more full of humanity , lhau that which beat but to be charitable and to be happy ; it was rich in that benevolence which u bopeth all things , endureth all things . " There was a kind of sweet and childlike simplicity in his manners , that bespoke a life , beautiful , unaltered ,
stainless . His feeling's of youth remained unsullied , and had never left his heart ; tW innocence of his boyhood had not be * n banished o > r bruised by the ruthless rudenesses of the world . The benignity of his nature remained faithful to him through every change and chance ; and we saw him , in a comparatively advanced age , as u white of sour * as an infant could b « .
Nothing- of the world obstructed his view back into the brightness and placidity of bis youthful days . He felt for the distresses of all his fellow-creatures , and as far as in him lay , he removed or mellowed them . With all this suavity of temper and gentleness of feeling , he held high and unshaken
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1818, page 722, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2482/page/58/
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