On this page
-
Text (2)
-
Untitled Article
-
Untitled Article
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.
-
-
Transcript
-
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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
blishments , together with the cheap press ) unfit even for them . New and philosophical images may indeed be started ; Dugald Stewart has led the way in this course of eloquence ; but it requires great delicacy of
conception and felicity of language to preserve such figures from the appearance of pedantry on the one side , and of vulgarity on the other . It can only be by some happy artifice that we are led to connect elegance with the steain-engine , the gasometer or the
spinning-jenny . The present oratorical Secretary of State for the Home Department never drew a figure , whatever money he may have derived , from the last-named manufacturing engine . A collection of obsolete eloquence would be a valuable curiosity . I hare
now and then pencilled my books for materials . Take an example of a beautiful illustration of Lord Bolingbroke ' s , which Capt . Parry has dashed to the ground and broken in pieces . f < There was a time , " says he , speaking as a philosopher , eat cathedra ,
" when navigators bent themselves obstinately to find a passage by the north-east or the north-west to Cathay . Neither frequent losses nor constant disappointment could divert them from these enterprises , as long as the fashionable folly prevailed . The passage
was not found ; the fashion wore out ; and the folly ceased . The bounds of navigation were set : and sufficient warning was both given and taken against any further attempts in those dark and frozen regions . " ( Works ,
8 vo ., I . 277 , 278 . ) Alas ! for mere eloquence : but the illustration was fine , as will be seen by its application . i ( Many such ( attempts ) there are in the intellectual world : and many such attempts have been made there with no better success . But the
consequence has not been the same . Neither examples nor experience have had their effect on philosophers , more fool-hardy than mariners : and where the former wandered to no purpose three thousand years ago , they wander to no purpose , at least to no good purpose , still .
Blair , if I remember right , has spoken contemptuously of the style of Bolingbroke ' s Philosophical Works ; but Blair never wrote a passage equal to this , which Is not one of Boliug-
Untitled Article
broke ' s best . Good as eloquence is , truth is still better , in the judgment of A BOOK-LOVfeR .
Untitled Article
68 The " Faith of the Heart . "
Untitled Article
Plymouth , Sir , October 10 , 1824 . SHORT time ago , a friend put A into my hand an American newspaper which both excited surprise and afforded me pleasure ; for the newspapers of that inquiring- country appear to have objects in view which . do not come within the plan of our
English editors . This paper is called " The Evening Gazette , " devoted , among other objects , " to Literature and Piety . " It is printed at Boston . This number , which fdfrms a part of the tenth volume , contains a short essay on i € the Faith of the Heart /'
copied from The Unitarian Miscellany . I shall call the attention of your readers to the sentiments contained in this essay , marking- them with inverted commas ; but will first mention , that not only is this paper aiming at the spread of Unitarian
principles , but that there is also one published at Philadelphia ^ called "The Christian , devoted to Religion , Morals and Literature , " the character of which is distinctly marked by several of its pieces , especially by one lying before
me , on the subject of " Jesus made both Lord and Christ . " I copy from this number the following article of intelligence , which will gratify many who will read it in your pages : ** A week or two ago we stated , that at least three-fourths of the ' Friends * in this city were Unitarians . Several respectable members of that body have since called upon us , and told us , we should have been nearer the truth if we had said
ninetenths y and we make this correction at their request . " I apprehend we may form nearly the same conclusion respecting the Society of Quakers in New York , from the communication of Bereus , Vol . XIX , pp . 544 and following .
The Faith of the Heart . What is belief ? A question surely of no mean importance , since thinking must go before acting , and faith must precede our works , Why do we pursue a chosen line of conduct , but because we believe that it will lead us
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1825, page 68, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2533/page/4/
-