Whitman, Bernard. A Reply to the Review of Whitman's Letters to Professor Stuart, in the "Spirit of the Pilgrims," for March, 1831. Boston: Gray and Bowen, 1831. First Edition. [12105]
Removed, no wrapper, 8 1/2 x 5 1/4 inches, 84 pages. Good. Pamphlet.
Rev. Enoch Pond wrote a defense of Professor Moses Stuart, who in 1830 published a Letter to Dr. Channing, in which Stuart defended the Orthodox doctrines against the aspersions of Channing's attack of them, which attack was based upon Unitarian principles. The debate spilled over into a couple of Unitarian magazines, in which charges of religious persecution and other abuses were leveled at the Orthodox, and the whole taken up by Rev. Bernard Whitman, who published Letters to Professor Stuart in which fantastic accusations are made, such as the Orthodox are enemies of religious freedom, they have a spirit of persecution, and an insatiable thirst for power, are moving to united Church and State, and are traitors! to their country.
Rev. Enoch Pond, then responded to the Unitarian Rev. Bernard Whitman, and refuted the charges, in his "Review of Whitman's Letters to Professor Stuart."
This then is Whitman's response to Pond, in which he brings in letters written by Ebenezer Hubbard and others.
The main thrust is found in Letter I: "All the essential statements in my Letters to Professor Stuart" are substantially correct. This is the principal object of the present publication."
Bernard Whitman (1796-1834), a native of Massachusetts, Unitarian minister, apologist, missionary, and author. "In 1830 Whitman defended William Ellery Channing—accused of intolerance by Moses Stuart, a professor at Andover Seminary—in Two Letters to Reverend Moses Stuart; on the Subject of Religious Liberty. Whitman wrote, 'The measures, attempted and adopted by the leaders of the orthodox denomination in our country for the preservation and propagation of their peculiar views of religion are subversive of free inquiry, religious liberty, and the principles of congregationalism.'" - Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist Biography.
