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Untitled Article
examination I have come to the conclusion that you do not preach the gosple as you did once when you furstcome among us . Our souls are parch up for want of the truth , the due of the word does not dissend upon us to fertilize our harts , and make them fruteful . A report is got
abroad from some quarter or other , that you are half a sossinion at bottom , only you don't speak out . Your preching does not awaken the conscins as it out to do , unles these things is greatly altered you cant expect your people to profet by the word preched . " " Your faitfl freind—Alliquis .
' My faithful friend ' Alliquis" was just as acceptable a correspondent as my loving friend " Annonimus . " I was at first annoyed , and then indignant , and had fully determined to make a serious address from the pulpit to these anonymous libellers ; but upon second thoughts I relinquished that intention , and resolved to keep the secret to myself , and put up with the affront ; for I had heard of dissenting ministers putting themselves into a great passion on the receipt of anonymous letter ? ,
and declaiming from the pulpit in good set terms against the writers , so that they have thereby raised up against themselves a nest of hornets , that have not been easily suppressed again . But my resolution availed me not , for whispers began to be circulated concerning me , and kind friends came to me with very long faces , and very long stories ; all expressing their particular concern at these rumours , and all saying that it was a duty that I owed to myself to repel these insinuations , and
boldly to meet these charges , and that I ought to challenge inquiry and provoke investigation . These people cared nothing about me or my reputation , but all they wanted was to get up a scene , and make a bustle all about a straw . There is nothing that a little dissenting congregation likes so dearly as a bit of moonshine , a secret committee to investigate certain indistinct charges brought against their dearly beloved pastor . I told rny dear friends , over and over again , that i
heeded not the matter a single rush ; that I did not care for a wholes cart-load of anonymous letters ; but they would not let me off so easily ; they said that if I did not publicly meet , and decidedly refute tli « charges , I certainly pleaded guilty to them . To which I replied that I must plead guilty to the charge of Miss Angelina going to sleep , and of Master Tommy playing at marbles ; though I must be permitted very strongly to doubt the fact of Miss Angelina ' s snoring-, a thing which [ never recollected her to have been guilty of ; and as for Tommy ' s gambling , I was pretty sure that it could not have been to any serious amount , for he never had any ready money in his possession , and I did not suppose
that any one would take ms acceptance , it was in vain that I attempted to laugh the matter off in that manner , for I only made the thing worse , I found , by this ill-timed levity . So I was forced to consent to have ; i committee formed to investigate the charges that had been brought against me . My two anonymous letters were given up for investigation and inquiry , and I was questioned and re-questioned , and sifted , and examined as to all my thoughts ami my conversations ; and there was as much fusH made about the matter as though it had been the sitting of a courtmartial on the most momentous affair imaginable . The result , however , was , that I was honourably acquitted ; but the good people had had their humour , so they were happy . For a long time afterwards , however , my sermons were very diligently attended to , in order to detect , if
Untitled Article
874 The Autobiography of a Dissenting Minister .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1834, page 874, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2640/page/56/
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