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received with tremendous applause . He said , I hope you will receive my acknowledgments for the candid , the kind , the truly flattering manner in which you have received my services . If they have at all tended to the promotion of the enlightened and benevolent objects of the Association , I
shairindeed be truly gratified . Is it not a good , is -it not a holy cause which we are now assembled to promote ? What can be more benevolent , what can be more ennobling than to aid the improvement of our race , to advance the glory of our Maker ? We are met not to
forge fetters for the human understanding , but to do our utmost to break those which have for ages degraded and debased the intellect of man . We meet not to crash fair liberty in her budding , but to send the glad sounds of freedom to those
who long have grieved in the house of bondage . We meet not to impose tests or tp draw nip creeds which shall mar the cheerfulness , of youth , and lacerate the bosom of age , and stunt and pervert the moral and intellectual faculties of man ; ours is the
righteous effort to light up hopes in the breast of the desponding , to diffuse joy where only misery has dwelt , and to communicate blessedness and happiness to all who now regard creation as a wilderness , and look on man as a loathsome and
abhorred outcast . ( Cheers . ) Ws . nje . et to uproot that spirit of bigotry , that feeling of sectarian exclusiveness , which lias poured out the vials of its bitterness on human society , and
made of the disciple of Jesus not a messengerof peace , a brother amongst brethren , but a sectarian Ishmael , ¦ whose brand is lifted against all riot of the same tribe , and whose heart is shut to all the charities of life ,
save to those of the same contracted party . You have been induced to band yourselves together because you feel that much of human happiness , the happiness which alone befits the expectant of another and a better
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world , the happiness x > f mind , depends upon the principles , and particularly the religious principles , which are adopted . The acquisition of correct sentiments of God and man , of Christ and duty , you rightly judge are invaluable , and that the love of truth , of truth without any reference to party , oFtruth for its own sake , because advantageous to man and honourable to Heaven ,
should be the passion most warmly cherished , most zealously promoted . ( Hear . ) It is not fashion , it is not the possession of worldly power , it is not the heaping up of riches , it is not mere pleasure that man should desire and follow after ; it is that which casts a charm over every circumstance of human condition , which
cheers the " cabin , of thepeasant , and . brightens the palaces of the mighty ; it is the parent of science , the source of knowledge ^ the protector of freedom , the shield of virtue , the friend of humanity ,-which all should strive to gain , and which is alone worthy of the noblest exertions—truth . ( Immense cheers . ) Think you that those
in by-gone years , whose memory is green in our souls , and whose virtues we would emulate , could have fought the good fight of faith so manfully had not truth been their pole star ? Oh no ; it was the love of truth which guided their steps , and encompassed their paths , and
cheered their wanderings , and changed their prison cells into the chambers of devotion , and bore them triumphant over the billows of affliction , and crowned them with glory , and led them on from strength to strength to the eternal fountains of all intelligence ,
' Still did the mighty flarno burn on Through chance and change , through good and ill , . Like its own God ' s eternal will , Deep , constant , tyright , unquenchable . ' ( Loud cheers . ) Of all the truths which affect mankind , those which relate to the Great Spirit q $ nature are the most im
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CORRESPONDENCE . , . 201
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 1, 1833, page 201, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2617/page/9/
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