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
Let us endearour to forget for a moment that we are contemplating the features of the present ; let the reader imagine himself to be viewing the characteristics of a past age ; let him forget the individuals , and regard only the mass . The records of the world present nothing like it . There is a stir ,
a restlessness , an agitation , throughout the vast chain ot society . Men are abandoning old forms , old ideas , old prejudices , and they have not yet accommodated themselves with new ones . It is the age of transition , and the tumult that we hear and see is occasioned by the conflict between the supporters of the old and the advocates of the new order of things . The spirit of the times is peculiarly inquisitive : it requires a
reason for every institution ; it prys into every abuse ; and it finds so much to condemn , that the only danger is , lest , in its anger that men should have been so long imposed upon and p lundered , it may sweep away the good with the evil . Hence it is , that we see those who have profited by abuses leagued against the common enemy , and , resigning all minor differences , uniting in one " holy alliance' to protect the
wicked gains of each other , and stay the progress of opinions so fatal to their future hopes . Nor is this league confined to one nation ; it is extended over all Europe . The tyrants in England , Spain , Portugal , France , and Russia make common cause . They sympathize with , they support , they encourage each other . The Wellingtons ill England aTe banded with the Apostolicals in Spain , the Miguelites in Portugal , the
despots of Austria and Prussia , ihe Protestant church of Great Britain , and the Catholic priesthood of the Peninsula , have forgotten their old enmities in their present dangers . They rally round despotism wherever it exists ; they oppose the people and the people ' s cause throughout Europe , because both alike dread the economical and reforming spirit of a popular government , and they know that the abuses by which they profit will not endure the scrutiny of reason and justice .
But if the advocates of abuses be thus leagued on the one hand , the people are no less united on the other . Their Hympathies are the same throughout Europe . Wherever they have a share in the legislature their inclinations are unequivocal . They feel that they ha \ e a common interest , and a common enemy ; they know that they have too often shed each other ' s blood for the sole advantage of their oppressors , and to rivet only the more closely the chains by which they are bound . Hence it is , that England and France have ceased to be foes . Both governments have passed into the hands of the people , who can be no longer persuaded that they are natural enemies , because they are neighbours . They have covenanted , not in a faithless treaty , but by the tacit wisher
Untitled Article
The Signs of the Time * . 4 \§
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1836, page 219, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2656/page/27/
-