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" To the Editor of the Morning Chronicle " Sir , "I regret that you have copied from a Chelms / ord paper an article profestingr to be an obituary of the late President of the Linosean Society , Sir James Edward Smith , but which , in fact , is merely a vehicle for the fancies and prejudices of the writer .
" Fearing that this tissue of absurd misrepresentations should go ( tie round of the press , I am anxious your readers should be immediately informed that the statements respecting changes in the religious and political views of this enlightened man are tatatty false . The communion to which he had always belonged was that of the Presbyterian
Dissenters , and he was one of the Deacons of the congregation of that persuasion , in Norwich , at the time of his decease , regularly attended its worship , and , to the last , took the greatest interest in its prosperity . In doctrine he was ever an Unitarian Christian , apd in this he considered that he adhered to * Apostolical
Christianity / So far from joining the Established Church when he had in prospect the Botanical Chair at Cambridge , he became a candidate expressly and avowedly as a Dissenter , to put to the proof the disposition of the University as to exclusion on religious grounds . With regard to politics , so entirely false fs it that he became a convert to what
are called monarchical principles , and an admirer of the career followed by Qharleg the Second on his * happy Restoration , that he was to the last an ardent lover of liberty ; and , though of the gentlest and most retiring disposition , he always gave his public countenance and support to Whig principles In his native city and county . Placed in a scientific station of
eminence , he did not obtrude his own religious and political sentiments where they would have been out of place 5 but all his fellow-citizens , fellow ^ worshipers , and private friends ( and I have long had the honour to be of that number ) , can bear witness that , through life .
no honours or distinctions , or fear of unpopularity , or tfevotjpn tQ scientific pursuits , could deter him from the most unreserved and steady avowal and sup . port of his principles , both religious and political . " I regain , Ac , PHILALETHE * . ' *
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413 Occasional Correspondence .
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Sir J . E . Smith . To the Editor . Sir , The biographical memoir of ray highlyrespected friend ' Sir James Smith , which appeared in your last number , by some inadvertence leaves its readers in the
dark as to what were his religious opinions . The present readers of the Repository will probabiy remember his name among the subscribers to " the British and Foreign Unitarian Association j" and to them it may be generally known that " the temple" mentioned in the memoir is the Octagon Chapel at Norwich , and that the minister and members of the
congregation who therein assemble are Unitarians . But it should be remembered that the future biographers of Sir James Smith will refer to your pages ; and they will be wholly unable thence to learn the facts , above mentioned . Not only as a man of science , but as an Unitarian Christian , the name oi
Smith should be associated with those pf Newton and Priestley . But I should hardly have thought it necessary to authenticate a fact so well known , had it not been denied in a pretended memoir of Sir Jamea Smith , dated from Chelmsford , and inserted in the Morning Chronicle of March 30 . I say " pretended , "
for with regard to his political and religious opinions there was not ope word qf trpth , In it . A letter , of which j subjoin a , copy , wa ? written by an old and intimate friend and correspondent oi Sir James , aud was printed on the following day ux that paper ; but by some contrivance or other this pretended memoir
has been copied into the gentleman ' s Magazine . Silence woultf , therefore , be imustfce to tbe memory pf my deceased friend , for thirty years I was in the habit of frequent intercourse wfob him ;
fojc nearly twenty yeara I acte 4 wjtli him as one of the Deacons of the Octagon Chapel , an < J during that period I had abundant means of knowing tm opinions an tjie greater aod lesser ppfata whjcli Ijaye divfejed tfye Christian worjd , Hence I am » We tp confirn ^ with tfte most unhesitating confidence , the assertions coi | - taiuetf ill the letter of Philalethes . 1 am , Sir , &c , EDWARD TAYLOR .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1828, page 418, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2561/page/58/
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