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Untitled Article
ters hurry in a hundred directions . The voice of the Soti of God is needed , to say , as of old , " Peace , be still ; " to restore the unbroken sunshine of the breast , and to impress his own mild and serene image on the soul . It is possible , it can hardly be otherwise , that a necessity of strong emotions may be created ; and as nature has not provided a . constant succession of these , unnatural and immoral excitation may be sought , and the end thereof be destruction . Of all instruments , the human heart is the most difficult to handle rightly . A feeble and a violent impulse is alike injurious to the delicacy of its sounds , and often utterly destructive of its harmony .
The way in which these religious meetings are sometimes managed in the provincial towns is such as to excite pity , if not disgust . The object , be it remembered , is to raise money ; and money must be got at whatever cost . A horse , a horse , my kingdom for a horse . The meeting is convened—a platform erected—the chairman takes his
seat . First singing and prayer—a hundred and fifty children clothed in white introduced to sing a hymn—then several long and violent speeches well ordered to screw up the audience to the sticking point . If possible , something out of the way , something or somebody from the clouds , half a dozen of idol deities , a converted Jew , a French Protestant missionary , a bran new-made Christian from Otaheite , or , if there be nothing else ,
" Grateful Jack * ' must be introduced . But we must explain . " The Rev . Mr . Smith rose to inform the company that he had just received a letter intimating the arrival of ' Grateful Jack , ' with £ 20 in his purse . « Grateful Jack' was then handed upon the table of the platform , and proved to be a little effigy of a sailor placed upon a box ; on some silver being put into his hat , it passed into the box * and Jack bowed very courteously , and waved a flag which he held . " Well , when the machinery has been in operation
some time , a person , who is watching his opportunity , rises when some lucky hit has been made , and the audience is full of fervour or indignation , as it may prove , and proposes the collection , specifies the required sum , and offers , if they will undertake to raise that sum , to give himself £ 100 . He is followed by another with a similar offer . Then come the fifties and the tens , till " a mechanic" offers £ 2 , and " a servant" IQs . ; and , as Mr . Newton of the Methodists once proclaimed with Stentorian lungs , " 2 s . 6 c ? ., the proceeds of the swill-tub . " By this means , perhaps , little more than half of what is wished will be obtained . To it , therefore , they go again ;
more steam is necessary—the engine has not its full power . They talk and shout till the contagion has spread through the whole assembly , and the fever is at its height , and then comes a second collection . —But we have not sufficiently described the manner of taking the oblations . The chairman sits with his pencil and his paper—down he puts the hundreds as they come , and then the fifties , and then the tens . If they delay , as they sometimes do ,
he urges them onwards . Emulation is excited ; some fear to give little lest they should offend some great one , or be thought insolvent , or falling away in religion ; Each has a character to maintain , and the dictates of prudence often prove sorry monitors * So , in every part of the chapel , at greater or less intervals , there is a cry , " Put me down for £ 20 , Mr . Chairman . " " Put me down for £ 10 . " " Put me down for the same as last yeSuv "
" Fifteen guineas , I think . " " Mb , Sir , ten pounds * " If f * th # falj sbprt of the desired amount , the ladies are called on for a simi ^ teum , and under the leadership of two or three who give each their £ 20 , three . Or f bur hundred are thus raised , During these contributions th& chairi&an reminds us
Untitled Article
TJie Watchman . 495
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1829, page 495, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2574/page/47/
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