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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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. Sir . JVordey m Unitarian Mis&immry Preaching . # > 53
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iheir services * But I believe that their labour lias been for the most part thrown away , and with it the money they have carried in their pockets ; and this * I believe , will be the case so long * as they are mere itinerants , and after having completed a circle of visits in the North are sent
away to the West or elsewhere . VV hat is greatly wanted , an order to accomplish the purpose for which such men go out , is a regular plan , well-digested , which , whea it has been gone through may be begun again ; and where one good impression has been made this month , a second and more
effectual one may be made a month or two after ; and the people who have once heard with pleasure , the simple doctrine of the gospel of Christ , -may know that , at the end of every second or third month , they will hear it again > until gradually hearers shall accumulate , and societies shall be
formed which , with a little management among * the settled ministers of neighbouring places , may maintain a regular worship , and so go on to increase and multiply . But this will
never be done by preaching in marketplaces , or oh the open quays , or on the sea-shore , or in the public streets - —as I am sorry to say many of our Unitarian missionaries have
donecalling together a large company of curious women and noisy children , who are like enough , before they have done , to pelt them with insulting language and with mud , a disgrace which our - have sometimes met with .
Take such a plan as this at the verybest , and suppose the descriptions of these meetings—which have been well enough got up in the reports of your missionaries for the Repository—to be correct ; tc that the people have heard with seriousness , " " that the
companies have been large 9 " " that they have shewn great desire to have tracts / ' which , of course , they will do when they can get them for nothing , be they what they will ; to what does all this amount ? Exactly to the
momentary refreshment of a light shower in July , after the ground has keen parched up for a month : it will soon be unknown on what spot the shower had fallen . These are they that receive seed in stony places Matt . xiii . 20 . Indeed , I doubt whether as much good is done by such
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a solitary service as is received from the transient shower . In travelMag over half a dozen counties in this way -a good deal of money may be expended - and were you to pass over the ground a few weeks after , you probably would find , that scarcely one impression is left alive which had beea produced by the first opening of the Unitarian doctrine , J am of opinion
also , that it is far too soon for us to think of going into small villages and towns about the coast * where the Unitarian worship cannot be establish--ed for want of means to support it , and where , under the most favourable cir -eurnstariees , no preaching can be kept up , no . effectual , and lasting service can be rendered . The Methodists are
much wiser in their generation : they do not wander about in this kind of way , and deliver their good doctrine to be driven away by the winds of heaven . Their plan of s tation-s round about a chief town or head quarters , is far better calculated to enlighten the popular
* ioo , and bring them to their worship If one of their missionaries , a local preacher or a settled minister , call the people ' s attention to-day to the
principles they profess , they are led to expect that in a week or fortnight hence he will come again : they expect to hear him , and are prepared to come , accompanied by some of their neighbours . But until we command a
number of auxiliaries in the service of Unitarianism , approaching to that of the Wesleians , we should satisfy ourselves with taking our stations in those good towns or large villages , in
which there may be a probability , by a continued exertion , of forming a society that can maintain itself . A Missionary , residing in a Jarge town , around which he can select a number
of stations , say ten or twelve , or even a score , to which he makes his periodical visits , if it were only once in two months , and spends a week at each , might do great service to the cause . There are many towns in the West of England , and doubtless in
other parts , where have formerly been Presbyterian societies , which have perished for lack of the gospel , in which a hope might be entertained that a Unitarian society might be raised , and the old chapel , with its endowments , recovered , or a small chapel built . Settled ministers would oc-
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1824, page 653, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2530/page/13/
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