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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.
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Untitled Article
whifeb afflict bis species , is ever the most regardless of the evils which merely affect himself—while he who is exquisitely Mesmx tive to everything which touches his own interest or pleasure , is usually supremely indifferent to the affairs of the world at large . Let us imagine , for instance , some country curate—a scbolai ,
a student , a philosopher , and " passing rich with forty pounds a-year . " See him seated in his little chamber , into which only th / B ivy peeps , and of which the only wealth consists in a few ancient volumes . This man , with the self-oblivion which distingui 9 < bes the philanthropic thinker , looks abroad upon the wide and various scenes peopled by his fellow-beings , and into the remote
periods during which they will continue to live when he shall be upon the earth no more . Sequestered in his humble hermitage , he writes , perhaps , lectures on Christianity , or sinks into a reverie of which man and his mighty Maker furnish the vast material-What to this undistinguished philosopher are the circumstances of his own fortune—his poverty—his obscurity ? To such a
being all are but incidental circumstances , affecting mm only as they catch his consciousness , which is but briefly and occasionally , when the necessities incident to his mundane condition contend with , or for a moment triumph over , the energies of- his immortal nature . His spirit , enriched by the subjects of his contemplation , feels not the body ' s poverty , knows nothing of
the household homeliness which touches meaner minds so pain ~ fully . It is this man , with probably a hard couch , common fare , unprovided children , and prospectless old age , to mention n * more of his miseries , who trembles in sympathy with the bartered blacks—with the oppressed and degraded creatures whack form the mass of the poorest class in every country ; who burns
with indignation at the cruelty and injustice of their rulers , yet , rising at last above the disgust which misused power must excite s exclaims , in sorrowful consciousness of the ignorance which eon& » nually blinds and brands dominators , " Father , forgive them J for they know not what they do "—and with aspirations which lift him to the Divine Nature he addresses , he seeks his pallet-bed , and
sleeps as calmly as if covered by a prelate ' s canopy . Now let us turn to the luxurious Bishop , the enjoyer , at least the possessor , of from five to fifteen thousands a-year . He , so far from looking out on the general affairs of humanity , present or in prospect , is unable to perceive the gross deformities of even his own position and profession : neither the purchased black , nor " the bread-taxed labourer "—neither the thousands , infant and
adult , impiously denied the power of improving and exerekiug the faculties which are a common heritage from a common Creator—nor the many thence driven by the goading * of ignorant * and temptation into the swamps of vice and misery * make' Any part ef his contemplations whose eyes are fixed upon prirfc t * emolument—the great magnet of the Church !
Untitled Article
Peliticai and Pw + omI XHaeonient . tilfct
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1836, page 631, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2662/page/43/
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