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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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Number for October , 1820 , Vol . XV . pp . 606—609 , has been made the pretext for a very heavy charge against the Monthly Repository . It is preferred by a Constant Reader and Occasional Contributor to the Christian
Observer , in the Number for November , 1821 , Vol . XX . p . 690 , under the signature of T . P . His letter is without date , but says , " were the month to pass away without bringing to my door its Number of the Christian
Observer , I should feel as though that month had lost a day of sunshine . " He adds , * It happened , not long since , that my favourite pamphlet found its way to me in company with a number of the Monthly Repository .
I am no reader of the latter production ; but my bookseller observing in it some private letters , from a family to which I am related \ now residing in the Illinois State , North America , sent it for my perusal . " T . P . describes himself , moreover ff
as residing in a small town at a great distance from the metropolis . " He Is of opinion the said letters should not have been published without the permission of the writers . Adding , ** This liberty , however , if not justifiable , loses its fainter hue of enormity , when compared with the attacks on public opinion , for which the Monthly
Repository is so justly celebrated " As he is " no reader" of this work , though his censure is intended to convey no slight hue of enormity , it seems as if T . P . judged it not from examination , but from report . He should have been more careful to avoid even
the appearance of " defamation ami detraction , " against which the Society of Friends , of which I suppose he is a member , give salutary cautions , and profess to bear a religious testimony . lie should also have considered , that
an attack " on public opinion , " may be sometimes not only innocent , but useful and commendable . The writers of the New Testament attacked it boldly and with great etfect , as faithful witnesses and servants of their Lord
and Master . T . P . does not think he is " wholl y ignorant of the channel through which those letters found their way to publication , " or of " one of the thotives for printing- them ; viz . " to catch the little , quiet , undisputkig brother-
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hood , caited Quakers—in the comprehensive fraternal embrace" of the Unitarians . This , he thinks , has of late " been a favourite design with them . And as those letters fro m the
Illinois were written in the style and language" of the Quakers , he says " it would seem to the undiscern imr public to corroborate this claim to association . "
Yet I think the public are not so blind as this attack of T . P . supposes for not one word do those letters contain respecting Unitarians , or any of their distinguishing doctrines . " This error , however , " adds he , can only operate on minds totally unacquainted
with the opinions , feelings and worship of the Quakers . " It should therefore , seem , if his object was to correct the error into which the style of his relatives had led your readers , that he should have addressed you oa the subject , not the Editor of the Christian Observer . His next
sentence may , however , explain why he did not , though he fancies you have fewer readers among Friends than the latter work , and being otherwise curious , I shall give it entire . He says , " As this people have found their happiness materially guarded , by
avoiding , as much as possible , all disputes on theological questions , I am not going to drag them into the arena of controversy . But I cannot apprehend any danger , from throwing into the pages of the Christian Observer ( for no periodical work is so much
read , or so well received b y them ) a passage I have lately met with , which I think explains their feet ings on certain points of difficulty y in a manner that places them at an iuameivee distance from the hardy Unitarian ; " a character as little alarmed at
controversy , as any he could have mentioned , because it is not apt to build on tire sand of human invention , but " on that foundation which cannot be moved . " The document T . P . quotes for the
above purpose , is not from Perm a 4 Sandy Foundation Shaken , " or any other approved work of the early Friends , but from " Dr . Waterland ' rf controversy with Dr . Clarke / ' as cited "in a letter from Edward Nares to Francis Stone , " two entire strange rs to me . This quotation informs us ,
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148 Letters In the * ' Chrhthcn Observer" &n Quakdrs and Uniturictns
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1822, page 148, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2510/page/20/
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