THE HISTORY OF NONCONFORMITY IN PLYMOUTH. 
77 
currents of life words of scorn, sneers of hate, and gnashings of 
impotent rage, do now and then arouse old feelings that should 
sleep, and call upon us to remember how 
" Truth fails not, but her outward forms that bear 
The longest date do melt like frosty rime, 
That in the morning whitened hill and plain, 
And is no more ; — drop like the tower sublime 
Of yesterday, which royally did wear 
His crown of weeds, but could not even sustain 
Some casual shout that broke the silent air, 
Or the unimaginable touch of time." 
It is not then to arouse the old antipathies, but to teach the 
nobler lesson of charity and good will, that I have endeavoured to 
trace the part which Plymouth has played in the history of Non- 
conformity — a part in which I at least see no reason to be 
ashamed. Here, as elsewhere, Nonconformity has been tinged 
by error, blurred by inconsistency, not free in itself from the 
faults it condemned in others. It has exaggerated trifles, and 
overlooked points of greater moment. But these failings were those 
of its day, which charity, perfected in suffering, taught it little 
by little to cast aside ; and they are atoned for by a manly 
courage, a firm trust, an earnest piety, which sustained it through 
all its troubles; and in varying shape — the form changing, but the 
spirit one — have preserved it until now. 
I could say much more : this is neither the time nor the place. 
But still at least I may add : However much that old bitter leaven 
of religious antipathy, which leads men to hate each other for the 
love of God, and which it is so easy to develope into persecution, 
may linger with us — however much Conformist and Nonconformist 
among themselves, and toward each other, may lack of Christian 
charity, — the old animosities revive with fading influence and 
narrower power, the bells do ring out the 
" Ancient forms of party strife." 
And here of late in Plymouth, what 1576 dared not, 1676 would 
not, 1776 could not — do, 1876 has done.*' At the call of humanity 
the widest differences of doctrine, and discipline, and formulary 
* The reference here is to a meeting held in the Plymouth Guildhall a 
short time previously to the delivery of the lecture, in which men of the 
most diverse religious views united with one voice to protest against the 
Turkish atrocities in Bulgaria. 
