we charge his vices upon Satan, upon poor human nature, or perhaps upon Providence. Were the Prince of Darkness allowed to present his counter-indictment, we fear that we should not have much cause to boast of our superiority. And this condition of man is not a modern calamity. In all ages the abodes of the people have been little adapted for anything but to produce disease and immorality; and the only wonder is, that a being nursed in so much physical and moral contagion, has not been far more vile and depraved than he has hitherto been.

dungeons only for a few weeks or months, | him by our cupidity and neglect, and then and when he arrived at his destination was allowed to breathe the pure air of heaven; but in thousands of instances in our country, the wretched inhabitants are born, live, and die in their miserable dwellings; disease, death, immorality, the brutalization of the mind, and the destruction of the soul, are the awful consequences. Were this subject but duly investigated, and all the results connected with it recorded, volumes might be filled with facts far more appalling than those which stirred the philanthropy of Howard, Clarkson, and Wilberforce, and aroused the indignation of the country. Some people tell us, that they wonder at the depravity of the age, seeing we have so many schools and places of worship; but would they only look at the dwellings of a large mass of the inhabitants their astonishment would cease. It should be remembered, that home is a seminary and a sanctuary far more influential than the church or the public school; and so long as we allow the former to be establishments in which everything brutish, vulgar, and indelicate is practically taught, we must be more credulous than the most deluded fanatic to expect that mere preachers and schoolmasters will produce an enlightened and moral population. Were we to multiply schools and churches or chapels by the thousand; and could we engage angels to become preachers and teachers; yet the contamination of the unhealthy, polluted homes, that now abound in our country, would be sufficient to neutralize, and mar to a very great extent, their holiest endeavours. Where the hut, the attic, or the cellar in which the young immortal passes the greater portion of his time, and receives his deepest and most lasting impressions, is a sink of physical, intellectual, and moral pollution, we shall look in vain for an intelligent and religious population. Before the country can be fully regenerated, we must have another Howard, who will not bend his attention so much to prisons as to the dwellings of the masses. It is pleasing to reflect, that the philanthropist just mentioned did not lose sight of the latter undertaking; and that in one village he bought the whole of the miserable huts in which the poor were living, and at once demolished them all, and erected a number of commodious houses in their stead.

9. Erroneous views respecting the necessity and the effects of education, have greatly retarded its progress. There are not a few who have still very serious doubts as to the importance of thoroughly instructing the working classes; and they think that the experiment is rather a fearful one. I have heard these persons, many of them individuals of considerable thought and philanthropy, object very strongly against what they have termed too much knowledge. They have thought that it was not at all important that girls should learn writing, arithmetic, English grammar, geography, &c. Perhaps they have granted that writing and ciphering may be useful to boys, but then they earnestly contended against grammar, geography, and the sciences. It has sometimes been almost difficult to keep one's countenance while witnessing the apparent horror with which these benevolent individuals have viewed the advancement of knowledge. Marvellous to say, they have not been so terrified at ignorance and error as at truth and science. For the most part they seem to have forgotten that minds must have thoughts, and that those thoughts or ideas must of necessity be either true or false, right or wrong; for there is no via media. Nor have they reflected that every human being must be educated; that he cannot exist in society, nor even exist alone, without having his mental powers elicited; and if they do not take a right direction, they must of necessity lapse into error. It seems passing strange, that any one should imagine that it was necessary, to ensure a regular supply of dairymaids, housemaids, nursemaids, and cooks, that the daughters of the poor should be brought up in ignorance. It is certainly paying no great compliment to our domestic establishments thus to insinuate that they cannot bear the light; and that the labour we exact, the remuneration we give, and the authority we assume is such, that no female who knew the multiplication table. or that the earth is a sphere, or could pronounce English without a blunder, would dwell in our houses. One would suppose that the more enlightened, equitable, and benevolent our families and service may be, the more attractive they would

prove to such minds as had been refined and rendered rational by education. Besides, if we felt as we ought for our own children, we should dread the contagion of ignorance and depravity, which must be associated with the presence of uneducated

servants.

It may be conceded, that correct information, and even scientific knowledge, as far as it bears upon the particular department of labour which the operative has to follow, may be valuable, but that all instruction beyond this is likely to be injurious, and therefore that "a little learning" is no With respect to the male population, the longer " a dangerous thing," but that "much objections against knowledge are equally learning" is the plague which will drive absurd. If there are any persons in the people mad, or render them indolent and country who can afford to be ignorant they vicious. It would make short work of this must be those, and those alone, who can objection, if those who use it would only live without labour. The little use that the show what rational connection there is bemajority of these make of their literary and tween speaking bad English and industry; scientific learning might, without much so- or between knowing the history of the world, phistry, be wrought up into a very feasible or the philosophy of the solar system, and argument against the folly of wasting time indolence. A full inquiry into this subject and money on the instruction of those who would prove that the best informed operaturn their attainments to so little account. tives are the most industrious; and that the Certainly it would be much easier to argue most ignorant are the most indolent. Every this point than to prove the inutility of example to the contrary that might be proknowledge to the labouring classes. Surely duced, would turn out, on investigation, to those who cultivate the fields, or look after be an instance of imperfect intellectual or our domestic animals, cannot have too much moral training, and therefore would rather information respecting the soils they plough, establish than invalidate our position. Foolthe manures they use, the seeds they sow, ish as mankind are, or may be made, by reor the cows, the sheep, and the horses which ceiving lessons of wisdom, yet we believe it they may feed and train. Vegetable and would be difficult to find a single case in animal physiology cannot be too deeply which either any man or woman ever bestudied by the shepherd, the cowherd, the came a pauper or a thief in consequence of groom, and the agricultural labourer. It being able to distinguish the nine parts of would be no exaggeration to say, that in speech, or tell the difference between a consequence of the ignorance of multitudes planet and a star. Besides, if we made eduwho are thus employed, millions of property cation common, then knowledge would cease are sacrificed every year. There is, there to be a distinction, and ignorance would be can be, nothing so profitable as knowledge; deemed a foul disgrace. The masses have so that on the lowest principle of calculation no peculiar predilection for what is branded that cupidity can suggest, it could be shown with infamy. Few of them covet to be clad that the education of the labourer and ope- in the prison-dress of the culprit. If an anrative is highly conducive to national pro- tiquated garment is given them, they endeasperity. In our manufacturing districts we vour to have it modernized. Singularity, in have mechanics, and indeed science of al- the very nature of things, can never be a most every description, employed to an universal feature; and it is only for us to amazing extent; and therefore all persons make ignorance singular, and knowledge who work in our factories ought to be tho- the possession of all, and then there will be roughly instructed in these departments of as little danger from general education as knowledge. What an immense advantage it there is from the fact that human beings would be to the manufacturer, to know that have eyes, and ears, and hands in common. all the persons employed in his establishment Let every mind be thoroughly enlightened, were individuals of correct scientific informa- and placed on the same intellectual level, tion and sound moral principle! When we and it will be just as rational to expect that come to look into the subject we find it dif- people will become paupers because they ficult to point out any single occupation to can speak grammatically, calculate correctly, which ignorance would be an advantage. and reason logically, as to anticipate that Surely it can be of no benefit, either to them they will become thieves, or state pensioners, or to us, that our cooks, housemaids, or because they have heads on their shoulders. nursemaids should be ignorant; or that our There would be more reason in cutting off ploughmen, vinedressers, operatives, and me- a number of the fingers of our operatives, to chanics should be persons of brutish minds. prevent them from being light-fingered; or If "ignorance is bliss," yet it is one of those depriving each person of one eye, lest he sources of pleasure in which the dulce and should be tempted by his sight to be dishothe utile are not blended together; for how- nest; than in blinding the mind by ignorever sweet it may be to know nothing, yet it ance, to prevent it from being a bane to has never proved very profitable either to society. We used to execrate the wretch the employer or the employed. who maimed the poor negro's body, but

what language can express the guilt of those | obstacles in the way of universal educa who, for the love of pelf, are worse than maiming the immortal soul?

tion.

We have reason to believe, that in some Ignorance is among those unnecessary countries these prejudices against the inand profitless evils which James has so well struction of the masses are not of the remotdesignated as "the superfluity of naughti-est antiquity. The Chinese are a very ness." It does no one any good; it is an ancient people, and among them all are injury to every thing and every one. The educated. The mode is very imperfect; but labourer has his immortal spirit polluted still the wealthy part of the community are and brutalized; his mind, shut out from the not so foolish as to suppose that a monopoly light, is immured in worse than Egyptian of knowledge is essential to maintain their darkness; his soul is imprisoned without own rank or the stability of the empire. having committed any crime; his sera- Abraham commanded his "children and his phic nature, which was made to bask in household after him, to do justice and judgthe sunbeams of divine truth, is condemned ment." His household was very large-for to pass its threescore years and ten in a dun- it is said that he had among them "three geon. The fetters worn by the slave, or the hundred and eighteen " men capable of bearchains which are riveted on the hands of the ing arms, and these, the sacred narrative unhappy inmates of our penitentiaries, are tells us, had been "instructed." Doubtless not worth a thought when compared with all the people under his control were as the spiritual bonds which degrade the minds well educated as the age would admit. In of those who are doomed to live and die in the laws of Moses we find no caution against ignorance and vice. There is no thraldom the instruction of the working-classes; but equal to that which is the consequence of rather, the whole dispensation was intended mental and moral blindness. And if the to impart information, not only to the Israelclown and the operative are not benefited, ites themselves, but also to the slave and the but rather most cruelly and unjustly scourged, stranger. God does not wish to be served by being excluded from the guidance and by ignorance; nor do we find that the patriblessedness of knowledge, the consequence archs or prophets were afraid lest knowledge is equally injurious to the rest of the com- should lead to indolence, sedition, or scepmunity. Ignorance is a bane to agriculture, ticism. Probably that system of military to commerce, and indeed to the whole com- plunder and despotism which began with monwealth. It wastes our property, pollutes the great freebooter Nimrod, and which so our families, debases our country, and ren- appropriately laid the foundation of its emders the throne insecure. It demands gaols, pire in Babel, was the commencement of the policemen, and standing armies to curb its reign of darkness; and this mark or characsavageness. And in this little island, the tax ter of the beast has perpetuated itself to the necessary to repress the vices which ignor- present day. It is still worn by the whole ance has generated, is ten thousand times of the ten horns or powers into which the greater than would be required to cover kingdom of the dragon of the Apocalypse the country with schools, and raise up an is divided. And as the acmé of modern enlightened, an industrious, a moral, and despotism is the union of political and ecclereligious population. The speculators in siastical tyranny, and is based on ignorance, ignorance have always, without a single ex- we need not wonder that the prejudice ception, embarked in a worse than South Sea against the real education of the people is, bubble. This traffic in darkness has been an in certain quarters, as rife as ever. We injury to every one, and a profit to none; shall presently show, that what is called and yet it has myriads of advocates. The education in several continental states is writer well remembers the arguments which undeserving of the name. only a few years ago were urged against teaching the people to read, and could name clergymen and persons of wealth who still assert that knowledge is a bane and not a blessing. And these opinions, which are not the growth of yesterday, have prevented any proper means from being adopted to instruct the great body of the working classes. It is a marvellous fact, that the majority of those who have put themselves forward as the educated branches of the community, have hitherto experienced so few of the advantages of instruction themselves, and have turned their knowledge to so little account, that they have actually been the advocates of ignorance, and at this time are no common

10. Erroneous views respecting conversion have been very detrimental to the progress of knowledge. Under the preaching of the Apostles, and such men as Whitfield and Wesley, sinners not unfrequently were pricked to the heart, and on a sudden became new creatures. There are not a few who have imagined, that had the work been performed by an electrical shock it could hardly have been more instantaneous; and we are afraid that many good people are still so unacquainted with the powers of the soul, or the philosophy of conversion, that they look upon regeneration as a mechanical rather than a moral work. This opinion has had a most baneful influence on the exertions

of the Church. People have been allowed | has been ardently praying that Jehovah to grow up in ignorance; and pious persons would miraculously appear, and prevent them have fondly dreamed, that at "the set time" from being injured. But these prayers have God will put forth his omnipotent energy, not been answered on any extensive scale. and by a sudden conversion remove all the We have had conversions enough to prevent ignorance and vice which we have allowed the cause of God from sinking into decay; to prevail around us. I have heard the Dea- but the great mass of the people have lived con of a Church narrate, with a smile on his and died in the "gall of bitterness and bond countenance, the vices of a notoriously un- of iniquity" in which they have been godly son, and then exclaim, "Well, I was nursed. God will not have his plans interworse than he; but God, who met with my fered with; and if we refuse to follow his soul, can in his own time change the heart Word, we must take the consequences. His of Tom, and then all will be right." This command is plain, and distinct, and practiman, it should be observed, never attended cable, and is accompanied with the most to the religious training of his child; the pleasing assurance. "Train up a child in whole work of tuition and conversion was the way he should go," "Make disciples of some day to be effected by a sudden stroke of all nations," "Bring them up in the nurture Divine grace. We fear that this is not a soli- and admonition of the Lord," are injunctary example. Many have had great faith in tions that no one can mistake; and if we obey these supposed mechanical conversions, and them, he has promised to be with us “alhave been at considerable expense in pro- ways, even unto the end of the world;" but viding mechanism for their accomplishment. if we neglect this solemn duty, and leave the Churches, chapels, preachers, and revival young to be nursed in ignorance and vice, meetings have been very popular. Now we we have no reason to hope for any general have not one word to say against any of these revival of religion. provisions. There must be places of worship, there must be evangelical ministers, and there ought to be unceasing prayer for the outpouring of the Spirit; but then these Scriptural efforts should not supersede the education of the rising generation. God's command is, "Train up a child in the way he should go." The last words of the Saviour before he went to heaven contain a solemn injunction "To make disciples of all nations." Neither of these precepts has hitherto been obeyed. Children have, for the most part, been trained in the way they should not go, and we have fondly hoped that conversion would put them right. We have not "made disciples of all nations;" we have not "made disciples" of the young in our country; but rather, have allowed them to be made the disciples of Satan, and then have prayed that God would appear and "pluck them as brands from the burning." I have heard it related, that a father who made a great profession of religion had apprenticed his son to a notoriously wicked master, and as a consequence the youth was doomed to associate with the most profligate companions. One evening, when the son was at home, the father, in the most fervent and affecting manner, addressed the Throne of Grace, and prayed most heartily that his child might be converted, and graciously kept from the wickedness with which he was daily assailed. After the prayer was over, the son looked his father in the face and said, "Father, you have placed me in the jaws of Satan, and now you pray that God will miraculously interfere and prevent me from being devoured." Alas, the example is not a solitary one; the majority of the youth of the day are from infancy put into the jaws of the Destroyer, and the Church

The

We fear that the sudden conversions mentioned in the New Testament have not been duly investigated. The three thousand who were "pricked to the heart" were not an uneducated mass of people. They had been instructed in the Scriptures; and their previous knowledge of the prophecy of Joel had prepared them to listen to the exposition of the Apostle Peter. Saul of Tarsus also was not ignorant of the words of the law and the prophets; and Cornelius, the eunuch, and others, were "devout persons," and consequently had that knowledge which, when explained and applied by the Holy Spirit, produced conversion. In the thirteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles it is said, that "As many as were ordained to eternal life, believed." word rendered "ordained," is a part of the verb racow, "I discipline or set in order," and therefore the text might be read, "As many as were disciplined for eternal life, believed." It is only for us to inquire into the dispensations of Providence previous to the days of the Apostle to perceive that much had been done to awaken in the minds both of Jews and Gentiles an expectation of the Messiah; and we know that very great care was taken to make both Israelites and Proselytes acquainted with the prominent truths of revelation. "They had Moses and the Prophets," and the sacred books were regularly read in their synagogues. Should it be said tha: many myriads did not believe; we grant that it was so; but then this is not the point; the question is not How many who were instructed, believed? but Could any have believed without instruction? And it is highly probable, if we could examine the conduct of those who rejected the gospel, that we should find that there was a counter