The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke

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Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009 - 124 pages
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SPEECH THE SIXTH ARTICLE OF CHARGE. FIRST DAT. TUESDAY, APRIL 721, 1789. MY LORDS, ? An event which had spread for a considerable time an universal grief and consternation through this kingdom, and which in its issue diffused as universal and transcendent a joy, has in the circumstances both of our depression and of our exaltation produced a considerable delay, if not a total suspension, of the most important functions of government. My Lords, we now resume our office, ? and we resume it with new and redoubled alacrity, and, we trust, under not less propitious omens than when we left it, in this House, at the end of the preceding session. We come to this duty with a greater degree of earnestness and zeal, because we are urged to it by many and very peculiar circumstances. This day we come from an House where the last steps were taken (and I suppose something has happened similar in this) to prepare our way to attend with the utmost solemnity, in another place, a groat national thanksgiving for having restored the sovereign to his Parliament and the Parliament to its sovereign. But, my Lords, it is not only in the house of prayer that we offer to the First Cause the acceptable homage of our rational nature, ? my Lords, in this House, atthis bar, in this place, in every place where His commands are obeyed, His worship is performed. And, my Lords, I must boldly say, (and I think I shall hardly be contradicted by your Lordships, or by any persons versed in the law which guides us all, ) that the highest act of religion, and the highest homage which we can and ought to pay, is an imitation of the Divine perfections, as far as such a nature can imitate such perfections, and that by this means alono we can make our homage acceptable to Him. My Lords, in His temple we sha..

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About the author (2009)

Born in Ireland in 1729, Edmund Burke was an English statesman, author, and orator who is best remembered as a formidable advocate for those who were victims of injustice. He was the son of a Dublin lawyer and had also trained to practice law. In the 1760s, Burke was elected to the House of Commons from the Whig party. Burke spent most of his career in Parliament as a member of the Royal Opposition, who was not afraid of controversy, as shown by his support for the American Revolution and for Irish/Catholic rights. His best-known work is Reflections on the French Revolution (1790). Some other notable works are On Conciliation with the American Colonies (1775) and Impeachment of Warren Hastings (1788). Edmund Burke died in 1797.

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