Now I will admit that there may be in America, one minister in one
thousand, or perhaps five hundred, who may at some period of his
ministry, when he had no sufficient light on the subject, have bought
or sold slaves a single time, or perhaps twice, or possibly thrice.
But I solemnly declare I never knew, nor heard of, nor do I believe
there exists in all America, one such minister, as is above described;
nor any sect that would hold fellowship with him. He would throw under
the _third general head_ charges of a different kind from the
preceding. Mr. Thompson, when generalities fail, takes up some extreme
case, which might probably be founded on truth, and gives it as a
specimen of the general practice; thereby creating by false instances,
as well as by indefinite accusations, an impression which he knows to
be entirely foreign from the truth. If he, (Mr. B.) were to tell in
America that on his way to this meeting to-night, he saw two blind men
begging in the streets, with their arms locked to support their
tottering steps, while the crowd passed them idly by; and if he gave
this as a specimen of the manner in which the unfortunate poor were
treated in Scotland, he would not give a worse impression, nor make a
more unfair statement of the fact, than Mr. Thompson had done, nearly
without exception, in his statements of America. Such a spirit and
practice as this, pervaded the whole of Mr. Thompson's speeches. He
would select a few instances to enforce his meaning. There was a
single Presbyterian Church at Nashville, Tennessee. Now he, (Mr. B.)
happened, in the providence of God, to be somewhat acquainted with the
past history of that church; and was happy to call its present
benevolent minister his friend. He could consequently speak of it from
his own knowledge. Mr. Thompson said that a young man went to
Nashville, who, either through his own imprudence, or the violence of
the disjointed times, was arrested, tried by a popular committee,
found guilty of spreading seditious papers, and sentenced to be
whipped; that he had received twenty lashes, and was then discharged.
This he believed to be substantially true, and well remembered hearing
of the occurrence; and taking the young man's account of it as true,
he had been greatly shocked at it, and had now no idea of defending
it. But in Mr. Thompson's statement of the case, there was a minute
misrepresentation, which showed singular indifference to facts. Mr. T.
said the young man went to Tennessee to sell cottage bibles, in which
business he succeeded well, for the reason, adds the narrator, that
Bibles were scarce in the South; although he could not fail to know,
that before the period in question, every family in all those States
that would receive a Bible, had been furnished with one by the various
Bible Societies. This, however, was not the main reason for a
reference to this case; but was mentioned incidentally, to show the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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