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opportunity ; and were therefore a fit comparison for the Gentiles who , through no fault of theirs , but from the accidental circumstance of their birth , continued in the darkness of Heathenism , and under the pernicious influence of an absurd and immoral superstition . Circumstanced as thev were
it was impossible that they should be any thing else than idolaters , and addicted to many vices , from which it was the tendency of the purer principles and instructions of the gospel to set them free ; and when introduced to this more excellent way , that their former ignorance and errors should no more be remembered , or allowed to operate to their disadvantage in the sight of God , was perfectly reasonable and just . W . T .
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Sabbath Musings . ' ^ 69
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No . IIL This weary watch ! In watching by the couch of another there is no weariness ; but this lonely tending of one's own sick heart is more than the worn spirit can bear . What an age of woe since the midnight clock gave warning that my first day of loneliness was beginning , —to others a Sabbath , —to me a day of expiation !—At last yonder beacon , with its revolving lights , begins to grow red and rayless before the dawn . Now it looks more like what it
is , —made up of earthly fires . Waxing , waning , waxing again without intermission in the perfect silence , they have been distracting to my sense ; they have seemed conscious ; they have been like spies upon my privacy . — That leaden sea ! If storms would rouse it , and scatter that fleet which is just visible , gliding in an unbroken line like a troop of spirits retiring before the dawn ; if the trees in the churchyard could stoop above the tombs instead of standing like spectres side by side ; if even the hour would strike , I could cast off something of this load .
But shall it ever be cast off ? All is dull , dreary , chill before me till I also can escape to the region where there is no bereavement , no blasting root and branch , no rending of the heart-strings . What is it to me now that our freedom there springs from oppression here ; our joy there from our sorrow here ? What is it to me in the midst of this all-pervading , thrilling torture , when all 1 want is to be dead ? The future is loathsome , and I will not look upon it . —The past too , which it breaks my heart to part with , what has it been ? It might have been happy , if there is such a thing as
happiness ; but—I myself embittered it at the time and for ever . —What a life of folly has mine been ! Multitudes of sins now rise up in the shape of besetting griefs . Looks of rebuke from those now in the grave ; thoughts which they would have rebuked if they had known them : moments of anger , of coldness ; sympathy withheld when looked for ; repression of its signs through selfish pride ; and worse , far worse even than this * • • . . All comes over me now . O ! if there be pity , if there be pardon , let it come in the form of insensibility ; for these long echoes of condemnation will make me
desperate . If it were not for this , bereavement might be borne . The loneliness would not be perpetual , for the departed would incessantly return to revive the innocent mourner with a familiar presence and animating words ;—an
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SABBATH MUSINGS .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1831, page 369, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2598/page/9/
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