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we most seriously protest . For his own sake , vve particularly wish that this sentence had not fallen from his pen , but that , in writing the life , he had imbibed a portion of the humble , modest , catholic and , in all respects ,
truly Christian spirit of the subject of his Memoir . In a man of education , like Mr . H .. * we might naturally look for something higher and better than a disposition to charge upon any individuals , or body of individuals , that
the doctrines which they hold , after inquiry and on evidence , are promptly received by them , because those doctrines flatter pride and are indulgent to corruption . We lament that he has so learned Christ : and from these
harsh , disgusting anathemas , pronounced by a fallible mortal , we appeal first to that celestial Tribunal which cannot err , and next to those of our fellow-men and fellow-christians , whose judgments are not blinded by prejudice , and whose kind and
equitable feelings are not impeded by any overweaning attachment to sects and parties . It is the least evil of such denunciations , from a person of Mr . -H . ' s character and station , that they contract and embitter the intercourses of social life : f they have a
* The biographer ' s attachment to ministers and members of his own religious denomination , is so natural , that we are not astonished at his availing himself of this opportunity of sketching the character of the late Rev . Andrew Fuller . This he has done with skill and elegance ( pp . 52 , &c . ) : he has shewn , thut it was a character very unlike to Mr . Toller's , whose education at Daventry , while it cherished his kindly feelings , was auspicious to the growth of an unfeignedly humble temper . 6 i
t a he Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans . " Even in a country and age boasting to > be enlightened , how often and how painfmlly is the feet exemplified When such men as Mr . H . fulminate their bitter exclamations , and , whether from tiie pulpit or the press , leeel , as ex cathedra , their invectives against those " who follow not with them , " the natural
consequence m respect of the mass of the people is , that the odium theologicitm g ains fresh vigour . This temper and this conduct on the part of avowed Christians towards each o > ther , has multiplied unbelievers . Yet bigotry of this sqrt is not peculiar to avowed Christians . See a
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far worse tendency , and exert a still m ore pernicious influence ; inasmuch as they divert the regards of the bulk of professed Christians from the only
legitimate standard of the truth or falsehood of religious doctrines , from the Sacred Volume exhibited in . a genuine text , and interpreted agreeably to the soundest criticism . Whenever
Mr . H . shall appear in the field of honourable warfare , and €€ contend lawfully - " whenever he shall not be reluctant to stand exclusively and fairly on the ground of scripture , he may perhaps be rendered sensible of the difference between reasoning " , on the one hand , and declamation and
invective , on the other . To argue , will scarcely injure any man's reputation , even should he argue unsuccessfully : to deal only in unweighed charges and assertions , cannot be permitted even to the biographer of Mr . Toller ; and , indeed , in the biographer of such a man it is peculiarly
unbecoming . As a relief from this train of thought , and from the very offensive passage which called it forth , vve gladly turn to a topic of another kind : * ' Of the conduct of his academical
studies" [ Mr . Toller's ] nothing memorable is recorded . From a very accomplished man , who , I believe , was his fellow-student , I have merely heard that he had no relish fox the mathematics , a circumstance which has been often recorded iu the biography of men of indisputable intellectual preeminence . "—P . 6 .
There may be justness in our author's remark , popularly taken : yet its real accuracy or inaccuracy depends on the meaning affixed to the words * ' intellectual preeminence . " If this language denote a mind of great general poivers , we doubt , whether
many such a mind has felt no relish for the mathematics , in the course of its elementary education : but if , by " intellectual pre-eminenee * we are to understand pre-eminence in taste and sensibility and delicate perception , then the observation is less
inadmissible . We shall refer to the opinion of a most competent and impartial judge : * and vve beg to caution our remarkable anecdote iu Niebuhr ' s Trav . ( Amsterd . 1776 , ) I . 240 . * Memoirs of G . Wakefleid , I . 82 , 83 .
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234 Review , — Memoir of the Rev . T . N * Toller .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1824, page 234, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2523/page/42/
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