or two before in France. The sermon from which he specially quoted was that which Price had delivered at the chapel in the Old Jewry on the anniversary of the English Revolution, in which he expatiated on the brilliant prospects now opened to the world with such irresistible eloquence, that his audience was hardly restrained by the sacredness of the place from bursting into open shouts of applause.[1] Shortly after, on November 4th, 1789, Price moved and carried a congratulatory address to the National Assembly of France from the Society for commemorating the Revolution in Great Britain, which was transmitted by the chairman, Lord Stanhope, to the Duc de la Rochefoucauld, to be presented by him to the Assembly. The publication of the Reflections on the French Revolution was the answer of Burke. In it Price, Priestley, and their friends were held up to public odium as sophisters, economists, and calculators, who had destroyed the age of chivalry. Priestley at once retorted with a "Reply" to the "Reflections." A host of combatants soon joined the wordy fray, and although Burke denounced Price and Priestley as "political theologians," and reminded them "that no sound ought to be heard in the Church but the healing voice of Christian charity,"[2] the pulpits of the Church of England resounded with language at which, according to Mackintosh, "Laud would have shuddered and Sacheverel would have blushed."[3] The result of the language of these theological incendiaries was seen in the riots of the 14th July 1791, when Priestley's chapel and his private house were destroyed, his books and manuscripts burnt, and his philosophical instruments destroyed. Nor did the ruin end there; and for four days, neither the lives nor the property of any well-known Nonconformist in Birmingham or its immediate neighbourhood were safe from the outrages of the Church and King mob. Priestley himself escaped with difficulty, and was again attacked at Tewkesbury, where he only escaped by disguising himself in a wig and
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THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
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