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only degrading to the religion that employs even the shadow of intolerance, but it is an impious despotism in the government that countenances it.These are my opinions, and I will not suppress them. Our religion has its various denominations, but they are struggling to the same mansion, though by different avenues, and when I meet them on their way-I care not whether they be protestant or presbyterian, dissenter or catholic, I know them as christians, and I will embrace them as my brethren. I hail, then, the foundation of such a society as this-I hail it, in many respects, as an happy omen -I hail it as an augury of that coming day when the bright bow of christianity, commencing in the Heavens and encompassing the earth, shall include the children of every clime and colour beneath the arch of its promise and the glory of its protection. Sir, Ithank this meeting for the more than courtesy with which it has received me, and I feel great pleasure in proposing this resolution for their adoption.

SPEECH

OF

MR. PHILLIPS,

DELIVERED BEFORE THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN

AUXILIARY BIBLE SOCIETY,

NOVEMBER 5, 1819.

May it please your Lordship-Ladies and Gentlemen,

ALTHOUGH I have not had the honour of being selected to propose any resolution, yet, as a native of that country to which your report alludes, I beg leave to say a few words, as expressive of the opinions of a great body of my countrymen. Indeed, my Lord, when we see the omens which every day produces-when we see blasphemy openly avowed -when we see the Scriptures audaciously ridiculed-when in this christian monarchy the den of the republican and the deist yawns for the unwary in your most public thoroughfares-when marts are ostentatiously opened where the poison may be purchased, whose subtle venom enters the very soul-when infidelity has become an article of commerce, and man's perdition may be cheapened at the stall of every pedlar, no friend of society should continue silent. It is no longer a question of political privilege of sectarian controversy-of theo

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logical discussion; it is become a question whether christianity itself shall stand, or whether we shall let go the firm anchor of our faith, and drift without chart, or helm, or compass, into the shoreless ocean of impiety and blood. I despise as much as any man the whine of bigotry: I will go as far as any man for rational liberty; but I will not depose my God to deify the infidel, or tear in pieces the charter of the state, and group for a constitution amongst the murky pigeon holes of every creedless, lawless, intoxicated regicide. When I saw the other day, my Lord, the chief bacchanal of their orgies the man with whom the Apostles were cheats, and the Prophets liars, and Jesus an imposter, on his trial in Guildhall, withering hour after hour with the most horrid blasphemies, surrounded by the votaries of every sect, and the heads of every faith, the christian Archbishop, the Jewish Rabbi, the men most eminent for their piety, and their learning, whom he had purposely called to hear his infidel ridicule of all they reverenced; when I saw him raise the Holy Bible in one hand, and the Age of Reason in the other-as it were, confronting the Almighty with a rebel fiend till the pious Judge grew pale, and the patient jury interposed, and the self convicted wretch himself, after having raved away all his original impiety, was reduced himself into a mere machine for the re-production of the ribald blasphemy of others, I could not help exclaiming "Unfortunate man, if all your impracticable madness could be realized, what would you give us in exchange for our establishments? What would you substitute for that august tribunal? For whom would you displace that independent judge, and that impartial jury? Or would you really burn the Gospel, and erase the statutes, for the

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dreadful equivalent of the crucifix and the guillotine? Indeed, if I was asked for a practical pane gyric on our constitution, I would adduce the very trial of that criminal; and if the legal annals of any country upon earth furnish an instance, not merely of such justice, but of such patience, such forbearance, such almost culpable indulgence, I will concede to him the triumph. I hope, too, in what I say, I shall not be considered as forsaking that illustrious example. I hope I am above an insult on any man in his situation; perhaps, had I the power, I would follow the example further than I ought; perhaps I would even humble him into an evidence of the very spirit he spurned, and as our creed was reviled in his person, and vindicated in his conviction, so I would give it its noblest triumph in his sentence, and merely consign him to the punishment of its mercy.

But, indeed, my Lord, the fate of that half infidel, half trading martyr, matters very little in comparison of that of the thousands he has corrupted. He has literally disseminated a mortal plague, against which even the nation's quarantine can scarce avail us. It has poisoned the fresh blood of infancy, it has disheartened the last hope of age; if his own account of its circulation be correct, hundreds of thousands must be this instant tainted with the infectious venom, whose sting dies not with the destruction of the body. Imagine not, because the pestilence smites not at once, that its fatality is the less certain; imagine not, because the lower orders are the earliest victims, that the more elevated will not suffer in their turn; the most mortal chillness begins at the extremities; and you may depend upon it, nothing but time and apathy are wanting to change this healthful land into a char

nel house, where murder, anarchy, and prostitution, and the whole hell-brood of infidelity, will quaff the heart's blood of the consecrated and the noble. My Lord, I am the more indignant at these designs, because they are sought to be concealed in the disguise of liberty. It is the duty of every real friend to liberty to tear her mask from the fiend who has usurped it. No, no; this is not our island goddess, bearing the mountain freshness on her cheek, and scattering the valley's bounty from her hand, known by the lights that herald her fair présence, the peaceful virtues that attend her patir, and the long blaze of glory that lingers in her train. It is a dæmon, speaking fair indeed, tempting our faith with airy hopes and visionary realm; but even within the folding of its mantle hiding the bloody symbol of its purpose. Hear not its sophistry; guard your child against it; it draws round your homes the consecrated circle which it dare not enter: you will find an amulet in the religion of your country: it is the great mound raised by the Almighty for the protection of humanity---it stands between you and the lava of human passions---and oh! believe me, if you stand tamely by while it is basely undermined, that fiery deluge will roll on, before which, all that you hold dear, or venerable, or sacred, will wither into ashes. Believe no one who tells you that the friends of freedom are now, or ever were, the enemies of religion. They know too well, that rebellion against God could not prove the basis of government for man, and that the proudest structure impiety can raise, is but the Babel monument of impotence and its pride mocking the builders with a moment's strength, and the covering them with inevitable confusion.

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