hopes of heaven--by their obedience to the word of God--by
their allegiance to the Constitution and laws of their
country--to come out from any party which has adopted a mode
and plan of organization so fatal to the peace of society, and
the progress of true religion."
What egotism! _You_ call upon them! You make a freer use of the personal
pronoun _I_, than even old Parson Longstreet, the Know Nothing slayer of
Mississippi. To parse your different sentences syntactically, nothing
else is necessary but to understand the first person singular, and to
repeat the rule. Not only your verbiage but your sentiment is thus
egotistic throughout!
Your appeal to the ministers to come out of this organization, on the
ground of its _secrecy_, is a species of demagoguism, the more
disgusting when it is considered that you are a _Free Mason_, and have,
by all the arts and blandishment of your nature, sought to induce
ministers to go into that organization. But, then, there is no violation
of law or the Constitution in _Masonry_--"fatal to the peace of society
and to the progress of true religion"--no, nothing! Understand me: I am
not opposed to Masonry.
On this subject of the Romish creed, which you excuse, and even
_advocate_, you admit that there are "_alleged_ abuses," which have
prompted the Protestant Churches to unite themselves with this new
Order! Then you insultingly tell these Churches this tale:
"But they ought to have remembered, that even a virtuous
indignation can never justify _proscription and persecution_:
these bring no remedy to the real or supposed evils, but are
sure to increase and aggravate them. These errors in faith, and
abominations in practice, if they really exist, were known to
the Wesleys, and Cokes, and Asburys, who founded your Church:
to the Lees, the Bruces, the Capers, the Logan Douglasses, the
Summerfields, and the Bascoms, who subsequently extended and
adorned it. But they never proposed to kindle, in this
enlightened age of Christianity, the consuming fires of
RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION."
Now, sir, every distinguished "founder" of the Methodist Church you have
named, from WESLEY to BASCOM, has written and preached against the
"errors in faith, and abominations in practice," of the Romish Church,
and they each and all have taken this very ground upon the religious
issues. I have heard _three_ of these men preach,
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