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Untitled Article
every chair , whether orthodox or heterodox , the fullest and freest criticism invited and encouraged . Those chairs are generally surrounded by large classes of young men following their instructors with eager solicitude , while they poured out the vast treasures of sacred and profane learning upon the biblical page . And as there are no false reputations in Germany , as no man obtains distinction there till he has written a boot whicK is scanned by
criticism ' s keenest eye , and as theologicar studies are eminently popular , it is not likely that Germany should fall from her high and pre-eminent station in the field of divinity . Nor can inquiry now be stopped . Truth , that pearl of great price , cannot but be the ultimate recompense of such intelKfent and active divers : and they are as courageous as intelligent . Professor aulus told me , that an attempt was made not long ago by the government , to interfere with his lectures , and he received notice that he must be less
heterodox in his instructions . He quietly answered , " I am old , and cannot change my course . Silenced I may be , but while I speak , I must speak the words of honesty , and follow the footsteps of inquiry wherever they may lead . " He has not been molested since , and will , I doubt not , pursue his distinguished career to the end of his days . He was very anxious to know more about our sect , our situation , and our proceedings , and I was enabled to gratify him . His " Life of Christ" is a decidedly Unitarian work . But he , like most of the Continental Protestants , and particularly those wFia look
up to Gothe and to voss , have the same prejudices against the Catholics , which I have spoken of as existing in Holland , and would deem the success of the * Emancipation question" an European calamity . In looking at a few numbers of his Sophronizon , you would find evidence enough of the state of his mind on this important matter . I frequently fell in with Unitarian Christians—men fully acquainted with the evidences and deeply interested in the spread of our opinions . One father of a large family , whom I met at Bonn , travelling on foot with his
three sons and their tutor , in pursuit of knowledge , while they visited the marvellous and unimaginable beauties of the splendid Rhing , told me , that he had lived in England , was acquainted with some of our ministers , and had educated his boys in the strictest Christian Unitarianism . I might mention another , a personal friend of my own , the father of eight children , who , after having abandoned Trinitarianism and studied the writings of our great
men , has been quietly spreading the seed of the Unitarian faith , where it will , ere long , spring up with increase . I know of many such . Undoubtedly a great change is preparing for the future . A thousand and a thousand little streams are silently winding their way through the great field of human existence—streams of truth and knowledge , unobserved by the careless , despised by the foolish . They will unite by and bye , and form a great and mighty river , bearing mankind upon its waters . J . BOWRING .
Untitled Article
Religion in Holland and Germany . 151
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1828, page 151, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2558/page/7/
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