On this page
-
Text (2)
-
Untitled Article
-
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
BY MILS . I . EM AN GRIMSTONE . There is an unfairness in the manner with which men meet innovation , which is deeply disgusting to the open , honest mind , however that mind may be armed by philosophy against the attack of such a feeling . When we reflect on the power , the varieties of organizationin fact , when we look upon the whole chain of cause and effect ;
observing that the first of the one , and the last of the other , however remote ,, are yet in direct connexion , producing a power , independent of the creature , which , whether as passive , recipient , or active agent , is acted upon , —we cannot but agree with those philosophers who have asserted the folly of praise and blame ; and who thus , at one fell swoop , level to its base the whole
building of the cabinet of creeds . But the tremendous truth here recognised does not alter the nature of things . As long as human nature is human nature , moral attraction and repulsion will exist ; the one winning approval or love , the other inducing disapproval or hatred , according to the strength of the feelings acted on . Hence the necessarian , and the free-willist are , and
ever will be , on a parity of circumstances regarding the effects of good and evil . Virtue and vice must in themselves ever remain the same ; the happiness of the one , and the misery of the other , to the necessarian , appear inevitable consequences , —to the
advocate of free-will , discretionary or proportionate reward and punishment ; but the one , as the other , cries out against offences , for each alike feels that they inflict harm upon him . I throw forth these observations as a sort of piquet guard , or
bulwark , to defend me against charges of too great warmth on a subject , which , if the spirit leaves any record on the perishable material , through which it acts , will be found , when that spirit is gone , graven on my heart . Would that I had ten thousand hearts , ten thousand lives , that I might work in one generation that which it will take many to effect . When the axe of truth is laid to the tree of prejudice ., no one can wonder that the monkeys should make a great jabbering among the boughs : the fall of the tree deprives them of the nuts they love to crack , and the husks with which they like to pelt people . But how can we spare to wonder , when those free to range the fields and breathe amid the bowers , join the senseless yell of the long-tails , and clamour , it would seem , more from
common sympathy than common sense . I am speaking now from the effects produced upon my mind by the noble William Ilowitt ' s essay on George Fox , and the article of an anonymous writer , in the same number of * Tait ' s Magazine / on ' Women of Business . ' How does the generously philosophic mind declare itself , when
Untitled Article
30
Untitled Article
QUAKER WOMEN .
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1835, page 30, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2641/page/30/
-