will not thus judge. There may be those, too, in America, who may delude themselves with the vain imagination that their unchristian expressions against those who woul dbreak every yoke, their irrational and hostile feeling against the coloured inhabitants of their land, are in some degree sanctioned and approved by those who have not signed this address. If there be such, let them assure themselves that their conclusions are most fallacious, for such preposterous ebulitions will find no countenance from any of our brethren in these realms. We apprehend, also, that many people will perversely suppose and affirm that the signatures attached constitute the whole fraternity of Unitarian ministers in these kingdoms. It would be a grievous misrepresentation of the strength of our denomination were this asserted, though not more palpably untrue than are the thousand and one mistatements so constantly in circulation respecting our principles and practices. With these drawbacks to our gratification in the transmission of the Address, we have no small satisfaction in the circumstance, that the unanimously expressed sentiments of the Scottish Christian Unitarian Association, at two of its fullest yearly assemblies, in 1837 and 1840, in relation to American slavery, have now been sanctioned and enforced by the address of the “Irish Unitarian Christian Society," transmitted in 1843 from Dublin, and more thoroughly and extensively by the following appeal from the undersigned " Unitarian Ministers of Great Britain and Ireland." May that appeal be received by all to whom it is addressed, in the spirit in which it emanated; and may the Universal Father overrule it to the liberation of the oppressed, and the virtue and happiness of all to whom it relates. [Heb. x. 24.] 66 "REVEREND AND DEAR BRETHREN,-We, the Undersigned Ministers of Great Britain and Ireland, uniting in the belief and worship of the FATHER, as the one, only, and true God, in the name of the one Lord JESUS CHRIST,-desire to convey to you the expression of our brotherly regard, and of our earnest sympathy in your spiritual labours, as workmen in the vineyard of the Gospel, and gifted teachers of the truth as it is in Jesus. "We have hailed from time to time the tidings of your stedfastness amidst many perils, and of your progress in the face of many difficulties. From the works which you have given to the world, often we have derived the highest benefit, and the purest light. Your names are in all our Churches; and it is our joy to feel that we are united in sentiment, and are soldiers together of Christ, in the great contest which is waging between light and darkness, truth and error, evil and good, throughout the nominally civilized and Christian world. In particular, we devoutly thank the Father of lights, and Giver of every good, for the benefit derived to so wide a portion of mankind, and the comfort, support, and example, afforded to ourselves, from the intellectual glory, the Christian devotedness, and the untiring and consistent zeal manifested in the pure life and transcendant writings of your and our departed Brother,the ever-to-be-remembered and revered WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING; in union with whose name our grateful but mournful recollection would recal that of his meek-hearted but heroic fellow-labourer, CHARLES FOLLEN. "Believing that the testimony of these great and good men was designed by a merciful God to operate on our own hearts, and stimulate us to a like course of holy doing, we pray of you, Christian Brethren, to pardon us in suggesting, that under God and the Lord Jesus, to you next we turn, in hope that the exalting influences begun or fostered by them may be carried to their glorious consummation; and that for your honour, for our joy, and for their dear memory's sake, the voice they lifted, especially in behalf of the unhappy Slave, may not be suffered to pass away without a due response from your lips, and the unshrinking and devoted support of your Christian and ministerial energies. "We will not suppose, Christian Brethren, that you, any more than we, can have any doubts as to the deep wrong of MAN HOLDING MAN AS A SLAVE. We assure ourselves of your concurence and sympathy, when we utterly deny that any human being has, or ever can have, a right to make another his CHATTEL. And believing that no example, no prescription, or time, or place, can warrant it, we anticipate the cordial coincidence of your desire with ours, that, on that pure form of truth,-to us so precious in our common UNITARIANISM,-no such stain should rest, as the extending of any countenance to so foul and fearful an institution as that of SLAVERY. "Nevertheless, Brethren, we are not unaware, in our own experience of great social and public questions, how easily the mind may be reconciled to inaction, where inconvenience or sacrifice,—so apt to inspire an unwise dis trust in our means of good,-may happen to lie in the way of more active and immediate endeavours to give effect to our inward convictions. As professors, ourselves, of a form of faith everywhere spoken against, and especially in a country where institutions, political as well as religious, so formidably aggravate the evil, we can witness to the difficulty of bearing our testimony to unpopular truth. Though tolerated, we are stigmatized by the State. And while sharing with others in the odium of DISSENT, have, through this unfriendly leaning of the law, to incur the added evil of being singled out as objects of legitimate denunciation for HERESY. But we have no choice. If we would be imitators of our Master, we must be faithful; and, to be worthy of him, must cheerfully bear our cross and endure our reproach. "Circumstanced thus, may we not, in reference to the position you occupy on a question so bound up with the honour of our faith, and the welfare and hopes of an extended portion of the family of man, be the more freely allowed to give utterance to our wish that our brethren in America should be seen to stand out amongst those,-yea, be foremost and first of those,-who raise their solemn PROTEST against SLAVERY, as a CRIME against our common human nature ! "We wish you to be assured, dear Brethren, that while we know, or can readily conceive, the practical difficulties thrown around the question, it were to us inestimable evidence of the energy and worth of our faith, and a title in them to our increased affection and esteem, could we behold our fellow-ministers in America, eager to embrace, and diligent in devising, the means of overcoming those difficulties, and sedulous in subduing the prejudices by which they are multiplied and strengthened. "We do not presume to point out the particular modes in which such action can best be brought to bear on the awful evil against which we are prompted, by this humble attempt, to strengthen your hearts and hands; but we cannot doubt that so enlightened, respected, and pious a body as the Unitarian Ministers of the United States, must exercise an influence of no unimportant amount in any question affecting the social and moral condition of the community in which they live. We rejoice, indeed, in the growing demonstrations that among minds of a high order in your country, the means begin to suggest themselves, whereby a more determinate and effective expression may be given to their best aspirations and convictions, in regard to slavery. And while, in the general tone of a recent ar ticle in one of your leading periodicals," The Boston Christian Examiner," in its number for July of this year, -we hail an omen of auspicious promise, we cannot too warmly acknowledge the satisfaction and delight afforded us from the hope held out in the following passage in particular, at page 280: "Our ecclesiastical bodies,' it is there said, "are more or less intimately connected with the Southern Church : and their unanimous, decided, and strong sentiment will soon find a response from every devout and intelligent Christian at the South, and will awake to sincere penitence and a better mind those portions of the Southern Church which have entered into willing compact with this iniquity.' "To the weight of these words we feel that we can have but little to add. Only we would say,-May the wisdom and spirit which are from above enable you to resolve on, and quicken you to perform, the holy work to which you are called! By the love of our dear Redeemer, by the bonds of our common faith, by the memory of the great and good, whose thrilling tones in behalf of their oppressed Brother have come to us from your shores, as a voice from heaven, -we pray you be not slack or timid in aiding or urging "to undo the heavy burdens and let the oppressed go free.' Let not the foulest of wrongs lift its head unrebuked in the presence of the holiest of truth. Assist us in vindicating for Unitarianism her just position among the beneficent agencies in the world. Let it be seen that the faith of One God, the Father of All, has power to unite us in unswerving efforts for the good of his children of every condition and hue. And while praying for its efficacy on ourselves, enable us to point to those who maintain it among you, as conspicuous fellow-labourers and helpers in accomplishing that great work in the bosom of their own nation,—of striking the chains from their fellow-man, and thereby of freeing their country from an odium, Christianity from a stain, and the world from a plague, which now so heavily and deeply lie upon them. "THE NIGHT COMETH WHEN NO MAN CAN WORK."-The warning contained in these words,-at all times how solemn ! -how peculiarly impressive at this! Even now, while we are yet speaking, the tidings have fallen on us of other departures of the excellent from among you ;-and the loss, almost simultaneous, (within one short year since we had to mourn for a CHANNING), of a GREENWOOD, and a WARE, would seem to have come, as if in appropriate but afflicting admonition of the lesson of our mortality! "Brethren! our hearts are enlarged unto you;' and in very love we pray, may the spirit of the Lord Jesus be with you and in you: and may it give you good consolation, and abundant understanding in this and in all things! "We remain, Reverend and dear Brethren, December 1. 1843. fellow-labourers in the Gospel. (Signed) Alexander, Henry-Newry, Down. Alexander, Thomas-Cairn Castle, Antrim. Astley, Richard-Shewsbury, Shropshire. Baker, Franklin-Bolton, Lancashire. Bayley, James-Bristol. Beard, John, R., D.D.-Manchester. Bishop, Francis-Warrington, Lancashire. Blakely, F., A.M.-Moneyrea, Antrim. * Bradshaw, Thomas-Dollar, Clackmannanshire. Briggs, Atkinson John-Dover, Kent. Bruce, William-Belfast, Antrim. Campbell, Robert-Templepatrick, Antrim. Carley, James-Antrim, Antrim. Carpenter, B.-Nottingham. Carpenter, R.L., B.A.-Bridgewater, Somersetshire. Chapman, Edwin-Guildford, Surrey. Clack, William-Soham, Cambridgeshire. Clarke, Henry-Chorley, Lancashire. Cogan, E.-Walthamstow, Essex. Compton, John-Baloo, Antrim. [Durham. Cooper, Thomas-Norton, near Stockton-on-Tees, Cooper, J. T.-Wisbeach, Cambridgeshire. Crompton, Joseph-Norwich, Norfolk. Cromwell, Thomas-Newington Green, Middlesex. Cropper, John-Wareham, Dorset. Crozier, William-Ballinahinch, Down. Davis, James-Banbridge, Down. |