To make this bountiful communication, they adjourned from
the church in the Old Jewry to the London Tavern, where the same Dr.
Price, in whom the fumes of his oracular tripod were not entirely
evaporated, moved and carried the resolution or address of
congratulation transmitted by Lord Stanhope to the National Assembly
of France.
I find a preacher of the gospel profaning the beautiful and
prophetic ejaculation, commonly called "nunc dimittis", made on the
first presentation of our Saviour in the Temple, and applying it
with an inhuman and unnatural rapture to the most horrid, atrocious,
and afflicting spectacle that perhaps ever was exhibited to the pity
and indignation of mankind. This "leading in triumph", a thing in
its best form unmanly and irreligious, which fills our preacher with
such unhallowed transports, must shock, I believe, the moral taste
of every well-born mind. Several English were the stupefied and
indignant spectators of that triumph. It was (unless we have been
strangely deceived) a spectacle more resembling a procession of
American savages, entering into Onondaga after some of their murders
called victories and leading into hovels hung round with scalps
their captives, overpowered with the scoffs and buffets of women as
ferocious as themselves, much more than it resembled the triumphal
pomp of a civilized martial nation- if a civilized nation, or any
men who had a sense of generosity, were capable of a personal
triumph over the fallen and afflicted.
Pages:
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110