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their special pleading and reduced to the plain detail of facts , tell us that M . Malan , a minister of spotless character , rare talents , distinguished attainments , and most kind and amiable Mariners , was , by the intrigues of some among the clergy , first deprived of his situation as a tutor in the
college , the chief support of his family ; then ejected from the pulpits of the Establishment ; then reproached as if lie were committing the greatest crime , because he preached in a chapel erected in his own garden , at his own expense with the aid of some
friends ; afterwards dragged before the Venerable Company ( their more usual style ) or Consistory , interrogated like a criminal at the bar , or rather like a victim of the Holy Office at Madrid ;
and finally , deprived and degraded , so far as it was in the power of M . C . and his ruthless associates to degrade sbch a man , a man whose appearance before them forcibly reminds us of that of Hus and Jerome before the
Council of Constance . Your intelligent readers would not fail to remark it as the climax of M . Malan ' s offending , that , notwithstanding his being deposed and all the terrible prohibitions of the
Consistory , lie ' still " continues to conduct religious worship in his chapel , in defiance of the civil and religious authority . " ( Mon . Repos . p . 75 of this Volume . ) I cheerfully leave to your readers the estimation of this offence ; but I must submit a little correction
in the terms of the statement . That he is acting in opposition to the ecclesiastical authority , I readily enough admit : and may God enable him to stand firm and unmoved against their unrighteous decrees ! But I believe
that the " civil authority" is here unfairly introduced . The Company has not been wanting in its urgencies with the government to gratify their wishes by putting forth its vigorous arm : but hitherto the Council of State has
TefuseJ to become the tool of the vengeful Consistory . I am happy to cite a passage from a letter of M . Malan to a friend in England written in February last : and , in a letter to
myself some weeks later , he makes no mention of any change or the apprehension of a change . " Honourable and iiripartia ! justice is the character of our magistrates , who are the most
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enlightened and upright men . Our [[ religious ] assemblies enj&y , by the favour of God , a prolongation of peace . *' I shall have to request indulgence for another communication upon various other parts of M . C / s allegations . J . PYE SMITH .
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Bristol , Sir , May 29 , 1824 . CONVERSATION which I had A with a friend the other dayxm the subject of Peace Societies ,
impressed itself so strongly oh my mind , that J am induced to request room in the Repository , more fully to express rny sentiments on a matter so important to the virtue and consequent happiness of the world . My friend
earnestly protested against what he called the abstird and impracticable lengths to which the system was carriedlengths which , if acted upon in the present day , would be most injurious to mankind I To argue that self-defence was criminal and unchristian .
liot only in nations but in individuals , was , he said , foolish and unnatural ; and proceeding to such extremes , drew upon the Societies the contempt of the generality of men , and prevented many of those who were sincere well-wishers to the cause , from giving it their countenance and support .
I reminded my friend that no test was proposed on the admission of a new member—no question asked or pledge required respecting how far he was disposed to go ; and considering
this , it would be an unprecedented degree of intolerance in any single person to prescribe to the rest , the boundaries beyond which their convictions must not be allowed to carry
them ; and say , " Thus far may ye go , but no farther" ! The matter to be settled appears to me to be simply this . " Do you approve of the Parent Society's publications ? Our grand object is their dissemination . If they contain solemn truths , deeply interesting to the
temporal , and still more to the great , eternal concerns of our fellow-mencan yoii hesitate to countenance and assist in spreading them as widely as possible amfong all ranks , that all may learn to think and reason inore justly on a subject of such vital moment V
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UM Mrs * Hughes ' s Vindication of Peace-Societies *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1824, page 324, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2525/page/4/
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