Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from A Letter to the Rev. William E. Channing, on the Subject of His Letter to the Rev. Samuel C. Thatcher: Relating to the Review in the Panoplist, of American Unitarianism
I wish it to be understood, distinctly, that I have no con nexion, or privity in this business, with the writer of the Review, which is the subject of your strictures. I write not in his behalf; but in behalf of the general interests of truth, and justice, and mercy. He probably will answer for him self; and to him I shall leave the particular Vindication of himself, his statements and conclusions, his spirit and style a labour which does not belong to me, and which I should be less disinclined to undertake, were the Review in all res pects exactly such as I could wish it to have been It might perhaps have been better, had the Reviewer been less intent on exciting those whose cause he espouses, and consulted more the conviction and benefit of those against whom his animadversions are directed.
With what justice, and to what extent, a similar remark might be applied to your Letter, you, my dear Sir, and your friends Will consider. It cannot, however, but he regretted, that you should have found it necessary to sit down to write, while breathing an atmosphere to which you were not accus tomed; while purturbed with the feelings which, in spite of all your e?'orts to restrain them, are so copiously infused in to the entire body of your Letter. But all reasonable allow ance should be made for the urgency of the case. Had you waited till the excitement had subsided, your opportunity for preventing or counteracting the impressions which the Re view was likely to make, might have been lost. I frankly Confess. That a similar reason has induced me to avail myself of the earliest remission of other pressing calls of duty, for bestowing some attention on your subject. Could you, how ever, have waited till the cool of the day, though probably your Letter would have been less animated, and less adapted to a particular purpose, it would not, I am persuaded, have displayed less of the meekness of wisdom, or been less cor rect in its representations.
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