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lécuir, with small spurs, and, lastly a cocked hat! Thus dressed, Napoleon, at a quarter before six, was removed from the drawing room, into which the crowd immediately entered. The sheet and linen that had been used in the dissection of the body, were carried away, torn and distributed: they were stained with his blood, and every one wished, there fore, to have a fragment of them! It had not been possible to embalm the body, the whiteness of which was really extraordinary. It was deposited upon one of the small tent beds, furnished with white curtains, as funeral hangings! The cloak of blue cloth which Napoleon had worn at the battle of Marengo served to cover him. The feet and hands were exposed to view, at his right side was his sword, and on his chest a crucifix! At some distance from his body was the silver vase in which I had been obliged to deposit his heart and stomach. Behind his head was an altar, at which the priest, habited in his surplice and stole, recited prayers! All the persons of his suite, officers and servants, dressed in mourning, were standing on his left. Dr. Arnott watched over the corpse, which had been placed under his responsibility."

The Emperor was interred with military pomp, near a favourite fountain, agreeably to his own request, and the weeping willow overshadows his grave! This was stripped high as the hand could reach by the populace, immediately after his interment; such was their regard for his memory.

Nor will it be irrelevant to mention, that in the course of the last month, according to the public prints, George the Fourth planted, or permitted to be planted, in Kew Gardens, a slip of the willow that overshadows the grave of Bonaparte! This may prove the greatest vegetable curiosity in that farfamed botanical repository. It is a slender memorial of a man who once made kings tremble on their thrones, and scattered dismay throughout the earth! Our gracious Monarch is of too noble a disposition to war with the dead. He had already erected at Rome a tomb to the memory of the Stuarts; for it has been well said, "The existence of such a monument diminishes nothing from the dignity

of that throne, which, founded on the suffrages of a free people, may well afford to be generous to fallen tyranny."

From the preceding account it appears that NAPOLEON BONAPARTE was neither Atheist nor Deist, but a Catholic, living and dying in the religion he was born and educated. His creed he took upon trust, having never examined it. In this respect he bore a resemblance to the great majority (noble and ignoble) of the Christian world. One praise he had, nor must it be withheld from him. However, he may have sinned against civil liberty, he never violated the fair form of religious freedom. He had even planned the reconciliation of the sects"! And could he have achieved it, he would have deserved more glory than he ever acquired, though that is confessedly greater than has fallen to the lot of the monarchs either of ancient or modern times. It would have been a moral triumph, an unparalleled victory.

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This truly great man reverenced the rights of conscience. Unlike his predecessors on the throne of France, he never wore the blood-stained garb of persecution. In his situation this is so unusual a thing that it should be lauded to its utmost extent. It is his redeeming quality. And by the righteous and merciful Judge of all the earth, it will not be forgotten in the day of retribution. The Stuarts and Bourbons have nothing of this kind to impart relief to the darkness that broods over their memory! Man is at best a mixed character. We must take our fellow-creatures as we find them. Even Hannah More remarks, in her recently-published work, the Spirit of Prayer, "Let us not look to any superior virtue, to any native strength of our own, but let us look with a lively gratitude to that mercy of God which has preserved us from temptations to which others have yielded. Above all, let us look to that preserving and restraining grace which is withheld from none who ask it. Without this all-powerful grace, Latimer might have led Bonner to the stake; with it, Bonner might have ascended the scaffold a martyr to true religion! Without this grace, Luther might have fattened on the sale of

indulgences, and with it Leo the Tenth might have accomplished the blessed work of the Reformation."

With the political character of the Emperor of France I have no concern. On this topic individuals of the first discernment have been, and ever will be, divided. No doubt he was an instrument in the hands of the Supreme Being to accomplish much good, and, that good once effected, he fell like a star from the heavens to rise no more! The sins or aberrations of his public life were severely visited e'er he quitted this sublunary scene. Of the injustice and cruelty of his captivity he incessantly complained. Indeed, the mortifications he experienced, and the bodily pains he endured on the rock of St. Helena were beyond conception. If aught of suffering on earth can expiate offences, his were expiated! But the mighty mind was not to be subdued. His passion of ruling amid a blaze of military glory, never forsook him. It played around his imagination, and revelled amidst the shattered fibres of his broken heart. He pursued the phantom till "the last gaudy colour died!"

The invasion of Spain, and the expedition to Russia, were the proximate causes of his destruction. Samson-like, he in his wrath tore down the pillars which upheld the vast fabric of his ambition, and perished beneath its ruins. Death alone, the universal conqueror, humbled its victim to the dust! His life, checquered beyond all example in the annals of biography, inculcates weighty lessons, whilst his dissolution, awfully terrific to those who witnessed it, sealed the tranquillity of nations, and perpetuated the repose of the world.

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SIR,

J. EVANS.

Sept. 5, 1825.

OBSERVE in the notice to Correspondents in the Christian Observer for August, that the Editor considers that the Dissenters of this country are not allowed to have Steeples and Bells." With regard to steeples he is certainly incorrect, for there is no law to controul any denomination in the form of their religious structures. Steeple or no steeple is a question purely of taste and economy. But there is a general persuasion that bells are prohibited to Non

conformists; on what it is founded, however, I am at a loss to conjecture. Can it be that this noisy music in any place but a consecrated church-tower might be indicted as a nuisance? Yet I have heard that one or more of the Dissenting chapels in the North have a bell; and if one, why not two or more, if the worshipers fancied the jangle? Perhaps some one of your correspondents learned in the law will inform us, once for all, how the inatter stands? I am no lawyer, but I apprehend that every Dissenting congregation is empowered by the Toleration Act to use every privilege in relation to buildings, music and worship which is exercised by any Church of the Establishment. Why, indeed, should bells be interdicted to us any more than organs or bass viols or trumpets or even the pitch-pipe?

SIR,

A LOVER OF CONCORD.

T may be curious to know by what arguments I can pretend to meet the overwhelming evidence against the genuineness of the celebrated controverted text, the Three Heavenly Witnesses. These arguments are comprehended in the object with which John wrote the verse, and in the sense which, if the sentiments of the impostors against whom he composed it be considered, it bears by an easy and obvious interpretation. This object and this sense, if ascertained and admitted, render the forgery of the passage morally impossible, account for the defect in its external evidence, and dissipate into air the objections made by Porson, Griesbach and others against its authenticity. I address the pamphlet in Three Letters to the Editor of the Quarterly Review, because of the decided part which that Journal took in reviewing Dr. Burgess's Vindication. The critic having expressed his curiosity to know what new proofs the Bishop could produce, and his opinion that the verse was generally deemed spurious, is thus addressed by me: "I believe, Sir, no publication has contributed more to diffuse and establish a general conviction of the spuriousness of the verse than the Quarterly Review; not merely on account of the vast influence it has on public opinion, but because of the superior force and clearness with

which you analyzed the controversy, and, if the grounds on which you proceeded were admitted, the justness of your decision. My object is to shew that this ground is entirely mistaken; and to open a new path of inquiry which shall inevitably lead to the reestablishment of the verse in the hearts and conviction of mankind. Important and curious as the question of its authenticity is in itself, it has a far higher claim on your attention and that of the public, on account of the consequences it involves. If I prove the genuineness of this text, the orthodox faith, whether established by power or by prejudice, will receive a shock which shall shatter its very foundations, and bring it at no distant period completely to the ground; while on the other hand, additional strength and lustre will be given to the evidences of Christianity, as it came from the hands of Christ and his apostles. This consideration more than mere curiosity, must, if founded on truth, inevitably engage you again in the controversy, and induce you to employ your powerful pen in refuting my views. I then, Sir, summon you a second time to the field; and I pray God that you may come in the exercise of that Christian spirit of which you have given me and others a fine example in your review of this question. Mistake me not: this summons is an invitation, not a challenge. Whatever confidence I have in my cause, I have none in myself that would warrant me in defying your hostility. I wish you to come forth, not that I might combat you, but that I might enlist under your banners; that if in the main I am right, I might receive your assistance-if otherwise, your opposition, to come at a final decision, and through you, give the nation an opportunity to know the issue of a discussion which, if taken in all its bearings, is one of the most momentous and interesting that has ever engaged the attention of the Christian world."

The Unitarians have ever been the most strenuous adversaries of the verse. Mr. Belsham, Dr. Carpenter, Mr. Kenrick and Mr. Fox have done all they can, to fasten on the public mind a conviction of its forgery. These gentlemen will feel it their duty to attend to the new views unfolded in

these Letters and come forward if convinced of their error publicly to acknowledge it. If they should still continue of the same opinion, let them state their objections, and I engage either to remove them, or, if I be unable to triumph, candidly to own the validity of their reasonings whenever they have any weight. Truth is our common object, and as I expect courtesy and candour from them, they may depend on the exercise of the same Christian spirit from me.

In discussing the question, my thoughts were necessarily directed to Porson's Letters against Travis. I felt an instinctive desire to single out this classical champion of England as most worthy of my lance; and I flatter myself that in every rencontre, I have brought him, like Goliath by the sling of David, prostrate to the ground. Mr. Frend was in habits of intercourse with him at the time he wrote his celebrated Letters; and as that gentleman is not unacquainted with the state of the controversy, he may think fit to meet me in the Repository, and attempt to justify the views of his late illustrious friend.

SIR,

BEN DAVID.

Clapton, August 21, 1825. Tof a letter from Dr. Toulmin is HE original of the annexed part

in the very valuable collection of autographs, belonging to Mr. Upcot, of the London Institution, who obligingly permitted me to transcribe it.

The date and place were, no doubt, at the beginning of the letter, which has been lost, as well as the direction. Dr. Toulmin resided at Taunton from 1765 to 1804, when he removed to Birmingham, and the date must have been before 1777, when he published his Memoirs of Socinus, for which he was, evidently, now collecting materials.

By a passage in the letter it appears to have been addressed to Dr. Calder, who died a few years since, and of whom there are some notices in your volume for 1816 (XI. 345). Of Dr. Jeffries who died in 1784, I gave an account in your XIIIth Volume, (p. 752,) taken from Dr. Toulmin's Memoir of his friend in the Protestant Dissenters' Magazine (VI. 3-5).

The "translation" of "the Life of

Socinus," mentioned in the letter, was by Biddle, and entitled "The Life of that incomparable Man, Faustus Socinus Senensis, described by a Polonian Knight. London, Printed for Richard Moone, at the seven stars in Paul's Church-yard, near the great North-doore. 1653." This publication, and several of the same tendency, were the natural consequences of that toleration, which, to the disgrace of the Long Parliament, was a good effect of their lawless expulsion by Cromwell. Those inconsistent asserters of freedom appear, indeed, with a few illustrious exceptions, to have been profoundly ignorant of the great truth, that religious liberty is the most important among civil rights.

To this translation is prefixed a short address" to the Reader," signed J. B., which thus commences: "The Life of Socinus is here exposed to thy view, that, by the perusal thereof thou maist receive certain information concerning the man, whom ministers and others traduce by custome, having (for the most part) never heard any thing of his conversation, nor seen any of his works, or if they have, they were either unable or unwilling to make a thorow scrutiny into them, and so no marvel, if they speak evil of him." The translator proceeds to say of Socinus" that the vertues of his will were not inferior unto those of his understanding, he being every way furnished to the work of the Lord; that he opened the right way to bring Christians to the unity of the faith and acknowledgment of the Son of God; that he took the same course to propagate the gospel that Christ and the apostles had done before him, forsaking his estate and his nearest relations, and undergoing all manner of labours and hazards, to draw men to the knowledge of the truth; that he had no other end of all his undertakings, than the glory of God and Christ, and the salvation of himself and others, it being impossible for calumny itself with any colour to asperse him with the least suspicion of worldly interest; that he of all interpreters explaineth the precepts of Christ in the strictest manner, and windeth up the lives of men to the highest strain of holiness.” Then, referring his reader to "the works of

Socinus himself," he thus concludes: "Though thou beest not thereby convinced that all which Socinus taught is true, (for neither am I myself of that belief, as having dicovered that, in some lesser things, Socinus, as a man, went awry, however, in the main, he hit the truth,) yet for so much of Christ as thou must needs confess appeareth in him, begin to have more favourable thoughts of him and his followers."

I have the original of Przipcovius in a very small volume entitled Vita F. Socini Senensis, descripta ab Equite Polono, 1656. It is, I believe, also prefixed to the works of Socinus, among the Fratres Poloni.

It is to be regretted that the Bibliotheca Antitrinitariorum of Sandius, is not yet brought before the English reader, though it appears to have been, probably for several years, in another modern tongue. That service, especially to Unitarians, was, I believe, expected some years since from the very competent pen which has done so much justice to the Racovian Catechism, as your readers may be reminded by referring to the Review of that work in several parts of your XVth Volume.

J. T. RUTT.

"I have by me Bibliotheca Antitrinitariorum a Sandio, lent me by Mr. Merivale, in which there is an abridged history of the Socinians. I suppose the French is a translation of this, and want to number either that or the original amongst my books. The Unitarian Tracts were lent me by the same gentleman. I find these books difficult to be procured, as they are very scarce.

"I have received the Life of Socinus, with which you have indulged me. It is a translation of Przipcovius's Life of this great man. Since your book came to hand, I have been so fortunate as to meet with the Racovian Catechism in Latin, a neat copy and good edition. I think it would inake a useful publication by itself, and has no immediate connexion with the Life of Socinus. It would, in my opinion, prove a very serviceable manual of polemical divinity to comi non readers; if printed so, as to be sold and dispersed at a low price. I could prepare an edition for the press soon," whilst

my other work stood still, to which, I would wish to give time. I have requested Dr. Jeffries to take yours and Dr. Kippis's sentiments on this head. Yours, indeed, I hope to have from your own pen. You can also direct me, where I can meet with the clearest and justest account of Sabellianisın.

"But it is time to release you from this long scroll, and these tedious questions. In my situation, there are few with whom I can converse on these points, or from whom I can receive much intelligence. This makes me more desirous to engage the assistance and benefit of Dr. Calder's extensive enquiries and communicative temper and more so, as your friendship here flatters my vanity: my pride is gratified by the connexion. And I hope the indulgence is not so vicious, but you may contribute to it.

:

"I am with great esteem for your character and learning, and with warmest wishes that Divine Providence may assist and succeed all your useful labours,

Dear Sir,

Your affectionate Friend and Brother, and obliged humble Servant, JOSHUA TOULMIN."

SIR,

Penzance. CRIPTURE criticisin is one of the

Repository, and one which I doubt not you are desirous to see filled. I shall therefore make no apology for sending you a few remarks on the first verses of John's Gospel. Nothing now indeed can be expected on a topic so vastly hackneyed as this, but old and obvious reflections are often allowed to lie by neglected, and need to be brought forth to light and notice almost as much as if they were new discoveries. I am led to this remark by observing that that interpretation of the celebrated passage alluded to which was embraced by the fathers of English Unitarianism, Lardner, Priestley and Lindsey, and which they themselves had derived from an intimate acquaintance with Christian antiquity, has been nearly supplanted, in the works of the more recent advocates of the cause, by one which they had deliberately rejected, and which can pretend to no higher antiquity than the days of Socinus. For

my own part I am convinced that this change has been altogether for the worse, and very detrimental to the Unitarian cause; I shall therefore take the liberty of stating some objections, insuperable as they appear to me, to this Socinian explication. Socinus was indeed its author, and claims it as his own; a circumstance in itself not a little suspicious. For what likelihood is there that the true sense of so notable a passage of Scripture should have occurred to no one till the middle of the sixteenth century? Whereas the sense approved by Lardner and Priestley was, in the main, coincident with that of the early fathers in general, men_who used the language of the New Testament as their vernacular tongue. The interpretation of Socinus has however been adopted by the editors of the Improved Version, and has in my humble opinion nearly destroyed the value of that work. The ancient Unitarian interpretation has always been treated by the orthodox with respect, as being ingenious and subtle at least if not sound; but the other I have always observed to be regarded by them with unmingled scorn and disgust. When, therefore, a Trinitarian takes up the Improved Version, and turning, as he naturally does, to this place, perceives the rendering al

contempt, and thinks he has seen enough to lay the question at rest for ever. But let us now examine the passage ourselves.

We have first a gratuitous and unnecessary transposition of the words. For, Ev apoyos, we read" the Word was in the beginning." This inversion of the order gives a strained and inelegant effect to the passage, and what end it answers is best known to those that made it; but let that pass. "And the Word was with God, and the Word was a God." A God! Of course therefore there are more Gods than one, and the God mentioned in the first clause of this verse is a different God from that mentioned in the latter clause. An awkward dilemma this for a Unitarian. The repugnance which this rendering at once excites will, I believe, be too great to be increased by argument; but it will, notwithstanding, be proper to notice what is alleged in its de

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