The Sun.
London, England, 1828-02-05 00:00:00

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Y 1

allowed trid enjoyed the riiithip effuAtom of pia
baldry and abuse that ha-z,efjltluged a portion of our
society for nearly two years past, and who now, for
the first time, have their indignation Eawaketied-
against personality and bad feeling, when the attack
comes on them from the other side—is it not ear
dent how grossly their party views ha,..r imposed
upon their understandings, and how much they stood
in need of some practical exposition of the value of‘
the rule that enjoins us to do to others as we would
have them to do to us ?
I cannot, for my own part, see that uniformity of
opinion on the subject of the Bible Society, even if
it could have bccil obtained in Edinburgh, would
have been well purchased at the expense of gross
misapprehension and igriorant contempt of all reli-
gious professors in the ether parts of the empire.--
I could not,• at this moment, support the Bible
Society, except on the fullest conviction that it
engages in no• work but that of tiisseminating the
pure word of inspiration, and that it_ is holding
out to the nations of Europe an attestation that we
out to the nations of Europe an attestation that we
reject and condemn ail that makes an unfounded
claim to that character. The Committee of
.tit.e
British and Foreign Bible Society, I am satisfied,
labour entirely and heartily to this end, with greater
watchfulness and purity, than, perhaps, at any former
period; and I can find no reason at all for not
. strengthening their hands, or for standing in obsti-
nate dissent from men whose characters I am con-
strained to love, and in whose principles and
work I can Cold nothing to disapprove of. Many in
that association, also, are my fathers and brethren in

~_ C, ~.y
~-r

the Ministry, with NVIIOM I have never met nor con-
versed without deriving advantage; and whatever
others do, sentiments of honour ah-d consistency re-

quire of me absolutely, and even publicly, to renounce
the imputation of countenancing or falling iu nth
those who have ftvowed.an unmeasured contempt of
them and,their work., extending to their whole.eha-
racter and profession a! Christians. Wiih these
views I regard with satisfaction the letters of An-
glicanus, as an able defence of a much injured cause,
and a seasonable reproof addressed where it was

loudly called for.
Dr. Thomson has procured for me much notice
from many_ quarters; for to his activity in raising
and disseminating a spurious report, I must holA my-
self indebted for many letters, published and unpub-
lished, that have been addressed to me. Those front
my Sheik's, &c. correspondents, besides being ex-
tremely mannerless and insolent, had manifestly the
same object with Dr. Te's advertisements., I knew
them to be in close. correspondence with him, and
did not choose that either should benefit by a cont.-
deuce, to which their mode of addiea'a and previous,
way of obtaining information gave them no title.
Their attacks signified nothing to me, to whom they
did not reply ; and iii fact they hurt no elle. I
should, I am sure, be sorry to have been neces-
sary, in any way, in offending worthy meti connett-
ad with my own church ; at the same time, I can-
not but deeply resent the
_conduct of two or three
wrongheaded individuals, who have in this, as •in
other cases, done what they could to render the
church of Stothuid odious to religious persons of all
other denominations and contemptible in the eyes., of
the world. I was not aware that Mr. Dodds. of
Belford, who is better able to defend a cause thou
most of these whose quarrel he has adopted, was
entitled to appropriate to himself any share in the
reproaches of Anglicanus. Had others bahaved
with as much moderation as he, I am perauadod no
fault would have been found with their preferenr.e
of the Edinburgh. Society. I could have informed
these biographers of mine correctly of the place .ef
Edinburgh They remind
was ' am oyf
placethe sorrows
ofx exile, now
of my youth,
beloved o
my birth, and other circumstances, about which they'
fall into as many mistakes as about my sentimenta.;
vea
when
home ; and of the kindness of him who " setteth
the solitary ix families," and who, in the place where
I was a stranger, has given me, in the bonds of
the gospel, fathers and mothers, and sisters and
brothers."
But lam charged with ingratitude. I have been,
it seems, under great obligations to Dr. T. He has
presided over my destiny, and by his account has
been the making of me. Strange that I should
have lived so long completely unconscious of the
benefit he has conferred. I bad all this time ima-
gined that the patronage of the -Magistrates of Edin-
burgh had been extended to me wholly on public
grounds, and not at all by secret machination:- ,The
knowledge of what this new patron of mine intt:.'
nia of might, had I known it, have marred my pro-.
motion; for there is nothing I have always more
deprecated for myself in public life' than the inter-
ference of any political agency. The greatest ser-
vice I could at any time have wished of him would
have been, that he should let my affairs entirely
alone. And the feelings that instigated me are, it
seems, I,:se envy, sickenhlg spite, and malice against
my more fortunate brother, his eminent name, his
spreading popularity. I have no reason to doubt
what he tells me of the great estimation i i which he
should
feelings,fe el a
greater I scarcely
ce
re-
pugnance y
know is held : but, as he says, we live in different regions,
his greatness does not cross my path; the news of
his successes scarcely reaches me in my obscurity ;
and,
wt he ee mlat no withdisclo‘sveh mywhom I secret
at the thoughts of exchanging circum-
stances. To suffer in the cause of righteousness, to
be the injured and not the injurious party, to have
the testimony of a good conscience, unbroken peace
unruffled tranquillity, under reproaches meant to
sting, and slanders aimed at the subversion of my
character, is no small consolation—carrying in it an
earnest of the mercy that sustains, and of the favours
yet reserved for use. I have not read to the end of
the dish he had prepared for me : I found his matter
prolix and unedifying. By what I read I laarn that my
faculties arc very weak, my understanding small, my
attainments naught, my heart base, vile, and male-
volent : all which points I feel no inclination to dis-
pute with him. He has allusions pointed apparently
at circumstances in my conduct, and events in my
life, that are totally unintelligible to me. The things
he perhaps, meant should cut the deepest, have
ecuala missed their aim, His imitiltiamt_ rre.tat;toilil
those who have known me longest, and are most
intimately acquainted with my habits and every-day
discharge of my public duties in the Ministry. f
have also a more equitable Judge to appeal to, who
gad of the legal alas-
judges a man by the gifts he had], and not by
those he hath not, and is satisfied with the faithful
occupation of such talents as he has placed at the
disposal of his creatures. Dr. T.- knows lie has no-
thing to fear from me in re
tisement with which such attempts as those be has
made against my professional character, entitle me
to visit him. On the contrary, I acknowledge the
new claim he acquires, assuming toward me,
ily,
the character of au
though I hope only
e e before,
enemy. Whatever I may have
don
feel imperatively imposed upon me to
".love, bless, od pray for" him.lf iny
prayers
heard, wbe friends again. At a
e may sO°" the duty I now
are
any rate,
contention ja not the element in which I can bear to
dwell. I shall be content, having peace, to leave
him the la: Word, though he should write that word
tt victory.
I-lis attempts to injure us are harmless, else I
should have been grieved to find that connection
with me should have exposed also another most
esteemed and estimable individual to a most wanton
atiack. My brother-in-law, happily, does not re-
ceive, nor read, nor hear of the Christian Instructor.
It may be long before the mention of this outrage
finds its way to him. Neither, I am convinced,
does he meddle at all with the apocrypha contro-
versy—the dishonour, I am sorry to say, peculiarly
of our order. lie passed nearly a week in my
family in the month of October, during which time
the apocrypha controversy was not, so far as any
one remembers, ever alluded to, or the letters of
Anglicanus, then in the printer's hand, so much as
I
mentioned; yet we are confidentially intimate. I
have not even heard from him that he has seen the
pamphlet.--I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
HENRY GREY.

V.dinburgb,- 28th January, 1828.