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    ney , but for whose temporal or spiritual interests little , until recently , has been seriously attempted by it . What a monstrous inconsistency , that a society should exact money to spread the gospel from the degradation of human beings ! Yet this it has done for one hundred and twenty years . To enlighten one portion of the heathen world , it has enslaved another ; to save one p ortion , it has been the voluntary means of destroying another ; for , in of

    the opinion its members , the slaves not being converted are eternally lost . This iniquity has been honestly exposed in the Anti-Slavery Monthly Reporter . Thereupon the wrath of the ghostly dealers in human flesh and blood was excited . They employed threats , they retained advocates , but all to no purpose . By this the matter was more agitated , and the iniquity more generally known , till at last the organs of the Church themselves that have a regard to character and consistency , avow their astonishment at the

    continuance of such an absurdity , as a Christian society drawing part of its funds from slave labour . « ' We have , " says the Christian Observer , urged the subject in vain for several years ; it has now received a more full and public discussion , and must command the attention of the Society , of Parliament , arid of the country at large . " There are more iniquities in the Church than

    the people dream of , but the time is arriving to draw aside the veil . The public mind will soon , we trust , be comparatively free to loot into abuses innumerable , both small and great , which require the day of reformation . It is no grateful , it is no lucrative , task to expose abuses , but a sense of duty will bear us up above these difficulties , and the readers of the Repository may be assured we will not fail to reveal the hidden things of darkness .

    Are the principles of Nonconformity at present so well understood by Dissenters as they ought to be ? Are they taught by ministers , to the young of their flock , as extensively as they once were , and as from their importance they deserve to be ? Are not many , not to say the majority of Dissenters of the present day , Dissenters from habit rather than principle—rather because their fathers were so before them , than because they themselves are convinced of the necessity of Dissent ? These questions must , we fear , be

    answered in the affirmative . We have been led to put them from reading " in the Leeds Mercury , for Feb . 21 , a letter of the Rev . Mr . Hamilton , of Leeds , in which occur the following words : — " When 1 recollect the learned and pious men who conceive Episcopacy a divine appointment , I would rather my tongue should cleave to the roof of my mouth than utter a word against them ; of many such I can never think but I am reproved and shamed by their holy example and faithful ministry . Long may thpy adorn

    their present spheres . " Mr . Hamilton , we believe , belongs to the Independents ; and we know , and with pleasure allow , that they have , as a body , done much for the furtherance of religious liberty , which we consider as to no small extent identified with the progress of Dissent . But , however praiseworthy the body to which Mr . Hamilton belongs , that gentleman cannot shelter himself , nor do we believe he would wish to do so , under the cover of their merits . The tenor of the passage , we confess , greatly surprised us .

    Mr . H . will not speak against Churchmen , because they are good men . Does he not know that every good Christian wars , not with men , but with principles ; and are principles to be screened from just and temperate animadversion because those who hold them are good men , or rather , because among those who hold them good men are to be found ? The admission of this would prove the impropriety of all discussion , for scarcely can the religious doctrine be named that has not been held by some professors of

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    T 7 ie Watchman . 265

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1829, page 265, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2571/page/41/