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acquired the habit of drinking tbe King ' s health in all their social meetings — a custom which prevails , I believe , in no other country . We have an especial reason for drinking the health of George the Fourth , because of the important measures which have been passed during his reign . I will not detain you by any observations on those measures , as you all understand to what I allude . I will therefore at once give the toast : — " The King : may his health be restored and his days prolonged . " The Chairman . —In accordance with
the same feeling , I now beg to propose to you , ' "• His Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence , and the Royal Family . " The Chairman . — Having laid the corner-stoue of our social structure in loyalty to the throne , I propose to place on it , and 1 am glad that it is in that order , " Civil and Religious Liberty all the World over . "
The Chairman . —Having founded our social structure in loyalty and in civil and religious liberty , we shall conclude and finish the edifice by religion , I shall therefore give , i ( The great principle of National , Social , and Individual happiness—an enlightened , cheerful , and benevolent religion . " The Chairman then proposed the following sentiment : —
" The true Missionaries of Christall , in every Church and every Clime , who are labouring to diffuse among mankind a filial spirit towards God and a brotherly love towards their fellowmen . "
Dr . Carpenter rose and spoke to the following effect : Mr . Chairman and Gentlemen , although I feel that it would have been presumptuous in me to present myself first to the notice of the meeting , yet , as some one must begin , and as I have been requested to undertake that duty , 1 the more readily offer a
few thoughts connected with the sentiment you have just now welcomed . I consider the present meeting to be one altogether unexampled in its character and composition . We have seen in London , I believe , —at least some who are now present have seen in London , — meetings of Unitarians nearly , if not quite as large as the present ; but in the country such a circumstance has never happened ; and if those who think unfavourably of the progress of Unitariani * in will cast their eyes back for the la * st twenty , thirty , or forty years , and reflect
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on the impossibility of collecting together , at that period , by any means , or by any attraction , a number such as that by which I am surrounded , they must be convinced that we stand on widely different grounds from what we ever did before . Those who can go back to the history of the period when the London Unitarian Society was commenced , will find that the times are changed in toto ;
and though I do not mean to say to the young persons whom I see around me , that they will not have to fight battles for truth , yet they will be of a different description to those which occurred in 1791 , and other subsequent periods . It was in the year 1791 , that the society was established to which the present association traces its origin ; and what a difference there is in its condition and
its prospects ! At that time , not only every kind of public obloquy , but even direct persecution , had to be encountered with no small share of personal risk . I wish those who are now assembled here with so much cheerful feeling , to remember , that there are some present who have gone through those days of darkness ; and those who have passed
through them must have a peculiar pleasure in observing how light has gone forth . And in emerging from a darkness , which may well be termed Egyptian darkness , I hope that those who are young in the struggle will take that station which the times demand . As they have only seen Unitarianism in its
present condition , they may think unfavourably of the time when only the skeleton existed ; but 1 would have them to recollect , that if there had not been the skeletou there would now be no vitality ( cheers ) . Allow me to say , in the presence of one of our American brethren , whom we honour for their worth and
value as able coadjutors , that we must not forget the struggles of the Priestleys , the Lindseys , the Belshams , the Kenricks , and others . The sun , as they know , rises in the east before it goes to them ; and when it moves to the westward , it does not stop there , but again comes round and revisits us . The time
must sooner or later come when Unitarian Christianity will , in the same manner , encircle the globe , for prophecy distinctly points out that such a period will come . I see multitudes doiug our work , whilst they imagine they are acting against us . They are preparing the way for that simple system of Christianity which we profess . When I « ce numbers of churches building throughout the country , my first impression In , how
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Intelligence . — Unitarian Association . 56 *
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1830, page 563, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2587/page/59/
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