ERRATA. Page 34, line 36, dele the first and. 73, 126, 15, for anxiliary, read auxiliary. 1, for Middeton, read Middleton. 135, Note, for Berry, read Bury. 153, line 1, for Rawtonstall, read Rawtonstale. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. THE Occasion of the following Publication is an important part of its history. An Unitarian minister having intimated his intention to remove from Manchester, his friends resolved to testify and alleviate their sorrow on account of his departure, by presenting to him "A SILVER TEA SERVICE," and by accompanying that presentation with extraordinary solemnities. As the Reverend Gentleman's removal was no less a public than a private calamity, and according to one of his admirers, equivalent to "the death of a Roman Emperor,” the public grief was proportionally intense: and as "a Tea Service of Silver" is "a noble present," according to Mr. Grundy himself, a testimonial of regard immemorially superior to any given by a Congregation to a Minister before, a public Meeting was indispensable, and a public Meeting was accordingly decreed. Why a public Dinner, which necessarily excluded the Ladies, was preferred to a public Déjeûné, or rather Tea, which might have been enlivened and adorned by their presence, and why the "Silver Tea Service" was given to Mr. Grundy by the b gentlemen, instead of being presented to Mrs. Grundy by her female friends, although questions of great delicacy and interest, unhappily are not now to be answered; and the anxieties so natural in an affair of such moment, can receive only the allay of plausible conjecture. Yet the Ladies may be allowed to remark, that the introduction of a Tea Service, even though "a Tea Service of Silver," was not perfectly appropriate at a Dinner, or calculated to exhibit the gift to its best advantage; and to suggest, that for gentlemen to reciprocate Tea-things in the absence of those who alone could impart to the ceremony its propriety and expression, has very much the air of a design to invade the Female prerogative. Uninfluenced by these considerations, important as they are, the party assembled, the dinner took place, and on the removal of the cloth, the "noble present" was introduced. On its appearance, the Chairman rose "much affected;" but having discharged the duty of transmitting it to the custody of the person for whom it was designed, he dried his tears, recovered his feelings, and gave the tone to the Meeting in a speech composed of strong animadversions on the memory of the Reverend Gentleman's deceased predecessors, and some compliments quite of the tea-table sort, to the Reverend Gentleman himself. The guests in their order, adopted the complimentary style of their President, with the exception of Mr. Naylor, the incense offered by whom, was worthy to have perfumed "a Silver Service" for DINNER. The hero of that evening, however, was not Mr. Grundy, nor was it more than the ostensible object of that meeting, to give him a public farewell. Had not other purposes and designs developed themselves in the published addresses of the persons then assembled, their flight to immortality or their descent to oblivion, had been alike undisturbed and unremarked. The principal part was actually assigned to the Rev. G. Harris, of Bolton-le-Moors, a man distinguished by his ardour and efforts on behalf of that anomaly which its advocates choose to denominate "Unitarian Christianity." So mighty is he, that he undertakes in a pamphlet of the common dimensions, to demolish a long list of Orthodox opponents; and so accomplished, notwithstanding the coarseness of his Speech, that he is a public lecturer on polite literature. In fact, Mr. Harris is regarded as a pure specimen of the thoroughgoing undisguised Unitarian; and his hosts for that day, meditating an attack upon the principles of Orthodoxy, were aware that their dinner would be insipid and their speeches tame, without a prevailing infusion of "the zeal which the Rev. G. Harris has been instrumental in kindling." Nor did he deceive their expectations. They gave him the appointed Toast, and he gave them the Harangue which he had prepared for the occasion,* a harangue so adapted to the taste of his hearers, that the liveliness of their sympathy exploded in a tumult of applause. The true character and design of that speech are as evident as the purpose for which its composition See Mr. Harris's Speech, p. 8. and delivery were solicited: but it is possible, that the conductors of the Meeting, did not then foresee all the consequences in which it would result. The provocation by which the Unitarians of Manchester were induced to offer through this individual, so gross and outrageous an attack on the professors of Evangelical religion, remains undisclosed. Why the subject was at all introduced, and why, if unnecessarily and in bad taste introduced, it was made an occasion for the display of hatred and scorn, no one but themselves can tell. Mr. G. W. Wood in his first letter which he signs "An Unitarian Christian," says "that the Unitarians as a body are not deficient in a spirit of kindness and charity towards their Orthodox brethren;" and adds "Perhaps they do not always meet with a return of that good will, which it is their earnest wish and uniform endeavour to exhibit towards others" but how does this consist with the character of the very meeting which sanctioned and adopted the speech of Mr. Harris? How do these statements of Mr. Wood accord with the fact, that one hundred and twenty Unitarians, of whom several are ministers, assemble professedly for the purposes of friendship and valediction: but although nothing occurs, or is known to have occurred, to irritate the temper or to provoke discussion, and at the very moment when their hearts might be supposed to be susceptible of the kindlier influences, they break out into the most opprobrious language (which they afterwards publish in a Newspaper) concerning all those from whom they differ in religious sentiment, |