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portant . The history of our race affords abundant and striking testimonies to the fact , that erroneous conceptions of the Almighty Sovereign of heaven and earth , laid the foundation of most of the ignorance and mischief , the tyranny and superstition ^ -Avhich-have-so-lorig-rioted-in the degradation of humanity . Yes , unhallowed ideas of the Creator at
once darken creation s glory , and cast a gloom over human prospects . Likening the pure and spotless nature of the Deity to the corruptible creatures of his power , all vindictive and
unhallowed passions have been ^ ttributed to the Supreme Intelligence : and , he who is Light , and Life * and Love ineffable , has been supposed in yenge a nee to . c u r s e the world of h is formation , and to be actuated in his conduct and relations to his
creatures by motives and designs not more repugnant to the finest thoughts and feelings of mortality than they are at war with all the perfections of the Divinity . ( Cheers . ) In comparison with the holders of such opinions , ' the Indian whose untutored mind sees God in clouds , and hears him in the wind , ' entertains much more rational and
soul-inspiring sentiments . The wild and rightful inhabitant of the forest , who adores the Great Spirit , who spread the leafy bowers of the untrodden woods , and caused the springs to gush forth in the wilderness where there is no man ; whose untarnished
spirit of honour leads him to be faithful to his friends , and to set at naught the enemies of his tribe ; whose breath quits the frail tenement of earth amidst the tendings of affection , or who expires while the death shouts of the warriors are
resounding ; who is sustained in either case by the hope of living for ever in the land beyond the mountains ¦ which bound his country ; such a creature holds sentiments more in unison with nature , ay , and with the Bible too , pagan though he may be called , than do those who represent !
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God as a tyrant , and man as a loathsome and detested worm ; who regard creation as a wilderness * and parce l
out heaven to a select and favoured few , and people hell with myriads of men and infants ; who talk with complacency of a suffering and dying JGad , 3 iid _ tb ^ pj ^]^ J ^^ after is 'blackened with the image of an almost omnipotent fiend , the seducer of innocence , and the eternal torturer of wronged and agonized humanity . ( Loud cheers . )
' It is not strange That simple men should rear The grassy altar to the glorious sun . And pile it with spring flowers and summer fruits ; And when the glorious sun smiled on their rites , And made the landscape lovely , the wargi , „ heart , With , no unholy zeal , might swell the hymn Of adoration . '
Oh , who would not admire such worship * and deem it far less disparagement to him- who filled the sun with light , and launched his glories on the bosom of boundless space , that this bright image of One still brighter should thus call forth gratitude and homage * than those monstrous and superstitious doctrines which led mankind to forsake God
their Creator . Over these melancholy perversions , these wanderings from the infinite light which streams in beauty from the heavens , we mourn in sorrowfulness of spirit whilst we compassionate the darkness from which those perversions had their birth . But we confess our
feelings are of a somewhat different kind when we contemplate the fanaticism and superstition of man in various ,, quarters , in Jthese our days , when we mark that marvellous rejection of the teachings of nature for
the teachings of antiquity , that preference giventocreedbefore scripture , that love of the mysterious rather than of the plain , that homage paid to the wisdom of our ancestors , the wisdom that has come down to us in he shape ot contradictory creeds and
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S ! 0 £ INTELLIGENCE A ^ D
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 1, 1833, page 202, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2617/page/10/
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