Dalston, July 21.

Sir,

   Every Christian who enters into the spirit of his system, as well as every friend to the civil and religious liberties of his country, must exult at the triumph achieved by the recent repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts, which had so long disgraced our statute-books.  By that repeal one great national crime, the profanation of the most solemn and affecting Christian institution, and which was made the means of many thousands eating and drinking unworthily, is at length blotted out.  But I cannot help suggesting to your readers, and the Christian world in general, the necessity of increased attention to the grand principles of Nonconformity, which may at least be endangered by the acquirement of civil offices, whether lucrative or merely honourable, to which consistent Dissenters have for more than a century and a half past been inaccessible. In proportion, therefore, as Christians are tempted by worldly considerations, is the need of stirring up their pure minds by way of remembrance of the principles and example of their heroic forefathers; and I can scarcely conceive of a more effectual way of accomplishing the desired purpose, than by annually solemnizing that day on which two thousand of the best ministers of the Established Church (acknowledged to be so by Locke, and by many other illustrious members, ministers and laymen of that church) were cast out, and subjected to privations and persec­utions the most severe, because they dared not prostitute their consciences by lying to God, declaring their unfeigned assent and consent to all and every thing contained in the creeds, articles, and liturgy of the Church—a declaration which, be it carefully remembered, is to this day imposed on its ministers, although it is notorious that numbers have openly professed their disbelief of, and preached and written against, the very doctrines to which they themselves had subscribed.  How any man can make, as required, ex animo, such subscription, must be left to his conscience and his God to determine.

   The anniversary of the day alluded to, will, I perceive, fall on the fourth Sunday of the ensuing month, on which day I beg leave earnestly to recommend to Dissenting ministers of all denominations to follow the example of that excellent divine, Dr. Samuel Wilton, the immediate predecessor of the Rev. John Clayton, Sen., who considered that day as sacred to the cause of religious liberty and nonconformity.  His most impressive discourses on these subjects were in my younger years the means of confirming me in those principles which for the succeeding fifty-five years of my life I have endeavoured to hold fast without wavering, and which, I trust, will support me in my dying hour: principles held to the death by the martyrs to truth, not only in the profligate reign of the second Charles, but in almost all ages;—of whom the world was not worthy!

   It was Dr. W.’s custom to give notice to his audience on the preceding Sunday of his design.  May every Dissenting minister go and do likewise!

A  Steady Nonconformist.

P.S.   I have been lately informed that some most respectable Dissenting ministers who have occasionally preached on the day mentioned, mean to continue the practice.

Text: “A Hint for the Approaching St. Bartholomew Day,” The Christian Reformer (July 1828), 314-15; also appeared as “Suggestions Respecting the Observance of the Approaching Bartholomew Day,” The Congregational Magazine (August 1828), 417-18.  This essay was Benjamin Flower's last published work. The version in the Congregational Magazine is signed “A Firm Nonconformist.”  Only minor differences exist between the two versions, except for the next to last paragraph, which was altered considerably, though not in substance.