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benefit , that the Committee be instructed to cultivate a correspondence with the rising Society at Dublin , and any kin < - dred society that may be formed in the Northern parts of the Island ; and that we are desirous of expressing our strong sympathy with our brethren lately connected with the Synod of Ulster , and of congratulating them upon the
satisfactory issue of the contest which they hare so ably and wisely maintained against bigotry and intolerance ;"—and in moviug this resolution I have but a few words to say . Ireland presents at this time circumstances of peculiar interest , and a most encouraging prospect to the Unitarians . It is well known that the people there have lately obtained religious liberty .
By the wise policy ot the government they have been rescued from their degradation , and the subjection under which they long suffered . Coincident with this , the Presbyterians of Ireland have broken silence on the subject of the Divine Uuity , and have associated together expressly for the purpose of proraotiug Unitariauisni . And they can now go
forth , and with good grace can say to the people of Ireland , " We , who for years have been struggling for your lights , now offer you still greater freedom—the freedom of truth ;—a still nobler emancipation — emancipation from the burthen of superstition and the bondage of the priest . " The Unitarians have often been taunted with the
smallness of their number . It is true that those who openly profess with us are comparatively few , but if those who are with us would be of us—if those who think with us would act with us—if those who entertain our opinions would publicly register their conviction , and not break faith with their own hearts , we should uo longer be told of the inconsiderableness of our numbers . What
we want , then , \ s not merely to spread our opinions among those who do not already hold them , but to create more earnestness , more zeal , and more fervour , among ourselves . Sir , there is a great deal of tergiversatiou and apostacy going on among us : we want rightminded and warm-hearted friends and advocates ; and , to speak in commercial
phrase , 1 know not where the demand for such an article can be so readily and abundantly supplied as in Ireland . Our days are not the first in which Ireland has had its Unitarian witnesses and confessors We all recollect the illustrious , the intrepid Emlyn : none of us can forget the persecutions to which he was subjected , or the constancy and courage
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with which he bore them . The like constancy and courage have been manifested by our brethren in the North of Ireland ; and the least that we can do is to bid them God speed ; the least we can do is to assure them of our sympathy and of the warm interest which we
take in their struggles and exertions . After the specimens we have had of our Irish brethren in Dr . Drummond and Mr . Montgomery , we cannot doubt that the work of proselytism is in good hands ; and I trust that ,, with the blessing of God , it will go on and prosper .
Rev . J . S . Porter . I have great pleasure in seconding this resolution , as I entirely concur in the sentiments which it conveys . I think that the statements which are contained in the Report , as to the progress of Unitarian Christianity in Ireland , are extremely gratifying . Indeed , they only form one part of a Report which , on the whole , is most
encouraging . When we compare the details we have just heard with those submitted in former years , we cannot but be struck with the convincing evidence which they exhibit of the steady advance made , and being made , by the principles which we have at heart . It ought not to escape the attention of the meeting that these statements come to us with double weight
and authority , proceeding , as they do , from a committee of gentlemen who have always exercised towards us the strictest candour , and never in any one instance have sought to impose upon us by high-wrought or highly-coloured representations of their success . When the cause was unprosperous at home , we were told so . When its success in
foreign parts seemed to "be overshadowed by a dark cloud , the circumstance was not concealed . It is doubly pleasing to contemplate a picture by the same hands , drawn in more glowing colours , but not more bright than the hues of nature and
of truth . It is too much the practice with various religious associations that exist in this country , to dress up their successes in the most gaudy array iu which their imagination can invest them . They bring prominently into view , — -they decorate in the loftiest strains of
declamation , whatever success has attended their efforts ; while their failures are either entirely suppressed , or so faintly mentioned , as to pass unheeded with the ge * - neral mass of readers and of auditors . I have been told that this practice was long pursued by that well-known and certainly numerous body , the Methodiat connexion ; and that , as the accessiout to their church alone were stated , a
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Intelligence . —Unitariun Association , 481
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VOL . IV . 2 M
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1830, page 481, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2586/page/49/
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