On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
national provision for tlie support of religion , a question of deep interest , and which must come ere long before the consideration of the legislature . He believed that man was necessarily a religious being , and that therefore religion would never pe- » rish ^ out _ oiLtlie _ earth ^ We might
_ not be all we ought to be , but the silent recognition of a superior Power was deeply inlaid in the heart , and never could be eradicated . Therefore he would say * ' Let us alone , ' If true religion , then , took care of itself , if they as dissenters took care of their own religious
interests , and did their own work therein , they ought not to be called upon to do the work of others ; and if the events now in operation did not remove from them the grievance of being called upon to support a
church from which they most conscientiously dissented , and in which they rould find no good , particularly if they were not relieved , from the grievance of church-rates , then it would become a question whether dissenters should not resist , as the
Quakers had done . But whatever might be the efforts of individuals and congregations , he could not look around him and see the mass of ignorance and consequent wretchedness which existed in society without feeling the inadequacy , the insufficiency of the present instrumentality employed to remove it . If this be the case , it was our bounden
duty to institute other machinery , and he rejoiced that in this respect so good an example had been commenced by the Unitarians of Man * Chester , as that of a mission to the poor . If this work were undertaken in a truly Christian spirit by a man who loves Christianity and loves the poor in his heart , going to his ignorant and sinful fellow-creatures , not
to promote his own hut their interests , ( and such a man he believed they had found , ) then he would say that good must ensue . But this would not effect all the good that
Untitled Article
118 INTELLIGENCE AND
Untitled Article
was desired , and he would appeal to those present to make up by their individual exertions the deficiencies that must attach to that ministry . Was there one present who might not take one poor , it might he sinful , family under their own Christian
superintendence , advice , and care ? WaFIhlTriri )?]^ least might not endeavour to reclaim and preserve from evil , one poor child ? Suppose that each were thus to save one child from
error and sin , would not such a plan soon go far to change the state of society . In conclusion , Mr . Beard said , that he trusted the day was not far distant , when his infant congregation , which they had so kindly fostered , would not only be able to run alone , but even to rise to the full and perfect stature of man in Christ .
The Chairman said , that whatever they might be individually inclined to do , they , must Avish for improvements to be introduced on a wider scale , to co-operate with their individual efforts . The Greengate infant-school had been mentioned
there were , perhaps , five or six other schools of this sort in the town ; but what were they amongst such a multitude ? There was a great want of day-schools for elder children . In Manchester and Salford there were only three or four such schools , including the LancasterianTSchopl . in Manchester , and the ( so-called ) National-schools in Manchester and
Salford , —but what were these towards supplying our immense population with the instruction they needed ? Children could not . be sent from a great distance through the streets to these schools , and they should , therefore , be more numerous and equally spread through the districts of the town . They had been told that Government would take
into their early consideration a scheme of national education . His great hope was that it really would be national , so that nothing would
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 1, 1833, page 118, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2611/page/22/
-