{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_8940/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_8940","id":"gutenberg_8940","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8940","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Teaching & Education","Education","Great Britain -- Social conditions -- 19th century","Literacy","Missions -- India","Religious education"],"text":"Produced by Distributed Proofreaders\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAn Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance\n\nBy John Foster.\n\nRevised and Enlarged Edition.\n\n\n\n\n  \"A Work, which, popular and admired as it confessedly is, has never\n  met with the thousandth part of the attention which it deserves. It\n  appears to me that we are now at a crisis in the state of our country,\n  and of the world, which renders the reasonings and exhortations of\n  that eloquent production applicable and urgent beyond all power of\n  mine to express.\"\n\n  Dr. J. Pye Smith.\n\n\n\n\nAdvertisement\n\n\n\nIf the circumstance of a manner of introduction somewhat different from\nwhat would be expected in a composition of the essay class were worth a\nvery few words of explanation, it might be mentioned, that the\nfollowing production has grown out of the topics of a discourse,\ndelivered at a public anniversary meeting in aid of the British and\nForeign School Society.\n\nWhen it was thought, a good while after that occasion, that a more\nextensive use might be made of some of the observations, the writing was\nbegun in the form of a Discourse addressed to an assembly, and commencing\nwith a sentence from the Bible, to serve as a general indication to the\nsubject. But after some progress had been made, it became evident that\nanything like a comprehensive view of that subject would be incompatible\nwith the proper limits of such a composition.\n\nIn relinquishing, however, the form of a public address, the writer\nthought he might be excused for leaving some traces of that character to\nremain, in both the cast of expression and the theological sentiment; for\nreverting repeatedly to the sentence from Scripture; and for continuing\nthe use of the plural pronoun, so commodious for the modest egotism of\npublic discoursers.\n\nIn the general design and course of observations, the essay retains the\ncharacter of the original discourse, which was, in accordance to the\npresumed expectations of a grave assembly, an attempt to display the\nimportance of the education of the people in reference, mainly, to moral\nand religious interests. There are special relations in which their\nignorance or cultivation are of great consequence to the welfare of the\ncommunity. Some of these are of indispensable consideration to the\nlegislator, and to the political economist. But it is in that general and\nmoral view, in which ignorance in the lower orders is beheld the cause of\ntheir vice, irreligion, and consequent misery, that the subject is\nattempted, imperfectly and somewhat desultorily, to be illustrated in the\nfollowing pages.\n\nNor was it within the writer's design to suggest any particular plans,\nregulations, or instrumental expedients, in promotion of the system of\noperations hopefully begun, for raising these classes from their\ndegradation. His part has been to make such a prominent representation of\nthe calamitous effects of their ignorance, as shall prove it an aggravated\nnational guilt to allow another generation to grow up to the same\ncondition as the present and the past. In the course of attempting this,\noccasions have been seized of exposing the absurdity of those who are\nhostile to the mental improvement of the people. If any one should say\nthat this is a mere beating of the air, for that all such hostility is now\ngone by, he may be assured there are many persons, of no insignificant\nrank in society, who would from their own consciousness smile at the\nsimplicity with which he can so easily shape men's opinions and\ndispositions to his mind whether they will or not. He must have been the\nmost charitable or the most obtuse of observers.\n\nIt is feared the readers of the following essay will find some defect of\ndistribution and arrangement. To the candor of those who are practised in\nliterary work it would be an admissible plea, that when, in a preparation\nto meet a particular occasion for which but little time has been allowed,\na series of topics and observations has been hastily sketched out, it is\nfar from easy to throw them afterwards into a different order. The author\nhas to bespeak indulgence also, here and there, to something too like\nrepetition. If he qualifies the terms in which this fault is acknowledged,\nit is because he thinks that, though there be a recurrence of\nsimilarities, a mere bare iteration is avoided, by means of a diversity\nand addition of the matter of illustration and enforcement.\n\nAny benevolent writer on the subject would wish he could treat it without\nsuch frequent use of the phrases, \"lower orders,\" \"subordinate classes,\"\n\"inferior portion of society,\" and other expressions of the same kind;\nbecause they have an invidious sound, and have indeed very often been used\nin contempt. He can only say, that he uses them with no such feeling; that\nthey are employed simply as the most obvious terms of designation; and\nthat he would like better to employ any less ungracious ones that did not\nrequire an affected circumlocution.\n\nIn several parts of the essay, there will be found a language of emphatic\ncensure on that conduct of states, that predominant spirit and system in\nthe administration of the affairs of nations, by which the people have\nbeen consigned to such a deplorable condition of intellectual and\nconsequently moral degradation, while resources approaching to immensity\nhave been lavished on objects of vanity and ambition. So far from feeling\nthat such observations can require any apology, the writer thinks it is\nhigh time for all the advocates of intellectual, moral, and religious\nimprovement, to raise a protesting voice against that policy of the states\ndenominated Christian, and especially our own, which has, through age\nafter age, found every conceivable thing necessary to be done, at all\ncosts and hazards, rather than to enlighten, reform, and refine the\npeople. He thinks that nothing can more strongly betray a judgment\nenslaved, or a time-serving dishonesty, in those who would assume to\ndictate to such an advocate and to censure him, than that sort of doctrine\nwhich tells him that it is beside his business, and out of his sphere, as\na Christian moralist, to animadvert on the conduct of national\nauthorities, when he sees them, during one long period of time after\nanother, not doing that which is the most important of all things to be\ndone for the people over whom they preside, but doing what is in substance\nand effect the reverse; and doing it on that great scale, which contrasts\nso fearfully with the small one, on which the individuals who deplore such\nperversion of power are confined to attempt a remedy of the consequences.\n\nThis interdiction comes with its worst appearance when it is put forth in\nterms affecting a profound reverence of religion; a reverence which\ncannot endure that so holy a thing should be defiled, by being brought in\nany contact with such a subject as the disastrous effect of bad\ngovernment, on the intellectual and moral state of the people. The\nadvocate of schemes for the improvement of their rational nature _may_,\nit seems, take his ground, his strongest ground, on religion, for\nenforcing on _individuals_ the duty of promoting such an object. In the\nname and authority of religion he may press on their consciences with\nrespect to the application of their property and influence; and he may\nadopt under its sanction a strongly judicial language in censure of their\nnegligence, their insensibility to their accountableness, and their\nlavish expenditures foreign to the most Important uses: in all this he\ndoes well. But the instant he begins to make the like judicial\napplication of its laws to the public conduct of the governing\nauthorities, that instant he debases Christianity to politics, most\nlikely to party-politics; and a pious horror is affected at the\nprofanation. Christianity is to be honored somewhat after the same manner\nas the Lama of Thibet. It is to stay in its temple, to have the\nproprieties of homage duly preserved within its precincts, but to be\n_exempted_ (in reverence of its sanctity!) from all cognizance of great\npublic affairs, even in the points where they most interfere with or\ninvolve its interests. It could show, perhaps, in what manner the\nadministration of those affairs injures these interests; but it would\ndegrade its sacred character by talking of any such matter. But\nChristianity must have leave to decline the sinister compliment of such\npretended anxiety to preserve it immaculate. As to its sacred character,\nit can _venture that,_ on the strength of its intrinsic quality and of\nits own guardianship, while, regardless of the limits thus attempted in\nmock reverence to be prescribed, it steps in a censorial capacity on what\nwill be called a political ground, so far as to take account of what\nconcern has been shown, or what means have been left disposable, for\noperations to promote the grand essentials of human welfare, by that\npublic system which has grasped and expended the strength of the\ncommunity, Christianity is not so demure a thing that it cannot, without\nviolating its consecrated character, go into the exercise of this\njudicial office. And as to its _right_ to do so,--either it has a right\nto take cognizance now of the manner in which the spirit and measures of\nstates and their regulators bear upon the most momentous interests, or it\nwill have no right to be brought forward as the supreme law for the final\naward on those proceedings and those men. [Footnote: A censure on this\nalleged desecration of religious topics, which had been pronounced on the\nEssay (first edit.) by a Review making no small pretensions both\nreligious and literary, was the immediate cause that prompted these\nobservations. But they were made with a general reference to a\nhypocritical cant much in vogue at that time, and long before. That it\n_was_ hypocritical appeared plainly enough from the circumstance, that\nthose solemn rebukes of the profanation of religion, by implicating it\nwith political affairs, smote almost exclusively on one side. Let the\nreligious moralist, or the preacher, amalgamate religion as largely as he\npleased with the _proper sort_ of political sentiments, that is, the\nservile, and then it was all right.]\n\nIt is now more than twenty years since a national plan of education for\nthe inferior classes, was brought forward by Mr. (now Lord) Brougham. The\nannouncement of such a scheme from such an Author, was received with hope\nand delight by those who had so long deplored the condition of those\nclasses. But when it was formally set forth, its administrative\norganization appeared so defective in liberal comprehension, so\ninvidiously restricted and accommodated to the prejudices and demands of\none part of the community, that another great division, the one in which\nzeal and exertions for the education of the people had been more and\nlonger conspicuous, was constrained to make an instant and general protest\nagainst it. And at the same time it was understood, that the party in\nwhose favor it had been so inequitably constructed, were displeased at\neven the very small reserve it made from their monopoly of jurisdiction.\nIt speedily fell to the ground, to the extreme regret of the earnest\nfriends of popular reformation that a design of so much original promise\nshould have come to nothing.\n\nAll legislative consideration of the subject went into abeyance; and has\nso remained, with trifling exception, through an interval in which far\nmore than a million, in England alone, of the children who were at that\ntime within that stage of their life on which chiefly a general scheme\nwould have acted, have grown up to animal maturity, destitute of all that\ncan, in any decent sense of the word, be called education. Think of the\ndifference between their state as it is, and what it might have been if\nthere had at that time existed patriotism, liberality, and moral\nprinciple, enough to enact and carry into effect a comprehensive measure.\nThe longer the neglect the more aggravated the pressure with which the\nsubject returns upon us. It is forcing itself on attention with a demand\nas peremptory as ever was the necessity of an embankment against the peril\nof inundation. There are no indications to make us sanguine as to the\ndisposition of the most influential classes; but it were little less than\ninfatuation not to see the necessity of some extraordinary proceeding, to\nestablish a fortified line between us and--not national dishonor; _that_\nis flagrantly upon us, but--the destruction of national safety.\n\nAs to national dishonor, by comparison with what may be seen elsewhere, it\nis hardly possible for a patriot to feel a more bitter mortification than\nin reading the description, as recently given by M. Cousin, of the state\nof education in the Prussian dominions, and then looking over the hideous\nexhibition of ignorance and barbarism in this country; in representing to\nhimself the vernal intelligence, (as we may rightly name it,) the\ninformation, the sense of decorum, the fitness for rational converse,\nwhich must quite inevitably diffuse a value and grace throughout the\ngeneral youthful character under such a discipline, and then changing his\nview to what may be seen all over his own country--an incalculable and\never-increasing tribe of human creatures, growing up in a condition to\nshow what a wretched and offensive thing is human nature left to itself.\n\nWhen neither opprobrium, nor prospective policy, nor sense of duty, can\nconstrain the attention of the officially and virtually ruling part of\nsociety to an important national interest, it is sure to come on them at\nlast in some more alarming and imperative manifestation. The present and\nvery recent times have afforded significant indication of what an ignorant\npopulace are capable of believing, and of being successfully instigated to\nperpetrate. It is not to be pretended that such ignorance, and such\nliabilities to mischief, exist only in particular spots of the land, as if\nthe local outbreaks were merely incidental and insulated facts, standing\nout of community with anything widely pervading the mass. Within but very\nfew years of the present date, we have had the spectacle of millions,\nliterally millions, of the people of England, yielding an absolute\ncredence to the most monstrous delusions respecting public questions and\nmeasures, imposed on them by dishonest artifice, and what may be called\nmoral incendiarism; and these delusions of a nature to excite the passions\nof the multitude to crime. It is difficult to believe that all this can be\nseen without serious apprehension, by those who sustain the primary\nresponsibility for devising measures to secure the national _safety_,\n(that we may take the lowest term of national welfare;) and that they can\nbe content to rest that security on expedients which, in keeping the\npeople in order, make them no wiser or better. It would truly be a\nglorious change in our history, if we might at length see the national\npower wielded by enlightened, virtuous, and energetic spirits, not only to\nthe bare effect of withstanding disorder and danger, but in a resolute,\ninvincible determination to redeem us from the national ignominy of\nexhibiting to the world, far in the nineteenth century, a rude,\nunprincipled, semi-barbarous populace.\n\nThus far the hopes which had flattered us with such a change, as a\nconsequence of a political movement so considerable as to be denominated a\nrevolution, have been grievously disappointed. We must wait, but with\nprognostics little encouraging, to see whether a professed concern for\npopular education will result in any effective scheme. That profession has\nhitherto been followed up with so little appearance of earnest conviction,\nor of high and comprehensive purpose, among the majority of the\ninfluential persons who, perhaps for decorum's sake, have made it, as to\nleave cause for apprehension that, if any such scheme were to be proposed,\nit would be in the first instance very limited in its compass, indecisive\nin its enforcement, and niggardly in its pecuniary appointments. Many of\nour legislators have never thought of investigating the condition of the\npeople, and are unaware of their deplorable destitution of all mental\ncultivation; and many have formed but a low and indistinct estimate of the\nkind and measure of cultivation desirable to be imparted. Very slowly does\nthe conviction or the desire make its way among the favorites of fortune,\nthat the portion of humanity so far below them should be raised to the\nhighest mental condition compatible with the limitation and duties of\ntheir subordinate allotment.\n\nNo doubt, the most genuine zeal for the object would find difficulties in\nthe way, of a magnitude to require a great and persevering exertion of\npower, were they only those opposed by the degraded condition of the\npeople themselves; by the utter carelessness of one part, and the\nintractableness of another. Nor is it to be denied, that the differences\nof religious opinion, among the promoters of the design, must create\nconsiderable difficulty as to the mode and extent of religious\ninstruction, to form a part of a comprehensive system. But we are told,\nbesides, of we know not what obstruction to be encountered from prejudices\nof prescription, privileged and peculiar interests, the jealous pride of\nvenerable institutions, assumed rights of station and rank, punctilios of\nprecedence, the tenacity of parties who find their advantage in things as\nthey are, and so forth; all to be deferentially consulted.\n\nIf this mean that the old horror of a bold experimental novelty is still\nto be yielded to; that nothing in this so urgent affair is to be ventured\nbut in a creeping inch-by-inch movement; that the reign of gross\nignorance, with all its attendant vices, is to be allowed a very leisurely\nretreat, retaining its hold on a large portion of the present and\nfollowing generations of the children, and therefore the adults; that\ntheir condition and fate shall be mainly left at the discretion of\nignorant and often worthless parents; that there shall be no considerable\npositive exaction of local provision for the institution, or of attendance\nof those who should be benefited by it; that, in short, there shall not be\na comprehensive application of the national power through its organ, the\ngovernment, by authoritative, and, we must say, in some degree coercive\nmeasures, to abate as speedily as possible the national nuisance and\ncalamity of such a state of the juvenile faculties and habits as we see\nglaring around us; and all this because homage is demanded to anticipated\nprejudices, selfishness of privilege, venerable institutions, pride of\nstation, jealousy of the well-endowed, and the like:--if this be what is\nmeant, we may well ask whether these factitious prerogatives, that would\nthus interfere to render feeble, partial, and slow, any projected exertion\nto rescue the nation from barbarism, turpitude, and danger, be not\nthemselves among the most noxious things in the land, and the most\ndeserving to be extirpated.\n\nHow readily will the proudest descend to the plea of impotence when the\nexhortation is to something which they care not for or dislike, but to\nwhich, at the same time, it would be disreputable to avow any other than\nthe most favorable sentiments, to be duly expressed in the form of great\nregret that the thing is impracticable. Impracticable--and does the case\ncome at last to be this, that from one cause and another, from the\narrogance of the high and the untowardness of the low, the obstinacy of\nprejudice, and the rashness of innovation, the dissensions among friends\nof a beneficent design and the discountenance of those who are no better\nthan enemies, a mighty state, triumphantly boasting of every _other_\nkind of power, absolutely _cannot_ execute a scheme for rescuing its\npeople from being what a great Authority on this subject has pronounced\n\"the worst educated nation in Europe?\" Then let it submit, with all its\npomp, pride, and grandeur, to stand in derision and proverb on the face\nof the earth.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWith a view to a wider circulation than that which is limited by the price\nof the volume published in an expensive form and style of printing, it has\nbeen deemed advisable to publish a cheap edition of the \"Essay on Popular\nIgnorance.\" It is not in any degree an abridgment of the preceding\nedition; the only omission, of the slightest consequence, being in a few\nplaces where changes have been rendered necessary by the subsequent\nconduct of our national authorities, as affecting our speculations and\nprospects in relation to general education; while, on the other hand,\nthere are numerous little additions and corrections, in attempts to bring\nout the ideas more fully, or with some little afterthought of\ndiscrimination or exception. In some instances the connection and\ndependence of the series of thoughts have been rendered more obvious, and\nthe sentences reduced to a somewhat more simple and compact construction;\nbut the principal object in this _final revised_ has been literary\ncorrection, without any material enlargement or change.\n\nIt is hoped that this reprint in a popular form may serve the purpose of\ncontributing something, in co-operation with the present exertions, to\nexpose, and partially remedy, the lamentable and nationally disgraceful\nignorance to which the people of our country have been so long abandoned.\n\n\n\n\nContents.\n\n\n\nSection I.\n\n  Defect of sensibility in the view of the unhappiness of mankind.\n  --Ignorance one grand cause of that unhappiness.--Ignorance prevalent\n  among the ancient Jewish people.--Its injurious operation--and\n  ultimately destructive consequence.--More extended consideration of\n  ignorance as the cause of misery among the ancient heathens.\n\n\nSection II.\n\n  Brief review of the ignorance prevailing through the ages subsequent to\n  those of ancient history.--State of the popular mind in Christendom\n  during the complete reign of Popery.--Supposed reflections of a\n  Protestant in one of our ancient splendid structures for ecclesiastical\n  use.--Slow progress of the Reformation, in its effects on the\n  understandings of the people.--Their barbarous ignorance even in the\n  time of Elizabeth, notwithstanding the intellectual and literary glories\n  of this country in that period.--Sunk in ignorance still in what has\n  often been called our Augustan age.--Strange insensibility of the\n  cultivated part of the nation with regard to the mental and moral\n  condition of the rest.--Almost heathen ignorance of religion at the time\n  when Whitefield and Wesley began to excite the attention of the\n  multitude to that subject.--Signs and means of a change for the better\n  in recent times.\n\n\nSection III.\n\n  Great ignorance and debasement still manifest in various features of the\n  popular character.--Entire want, in early life, of any idea of a general\n  and comprehensive purpose to be pursued--Gratification of the senses\n  the chief good.--Cruelty a subsidiary resource.--Disposition to cruelty\n  displayed and confirmed by common practices.--Confirmed especially by\n  the manner of slaughtering animals destined for food.--Displayed in the\n  abuse of the laboring animals.--General characteristic of the people an\n  indistinct and faint sense of right and wrong.--Various\n  exemplifications.--Dishonor to our country that the people should have\n  remained in such a condition.--Effects of their ignorance as appearing\n  in several parts of the economy of life; in their ordinary occupations;\n  in their manner of spending their leisure time, including the Sunday; in\n  the state of domestic society; consequences of this last as seen in the\n  old age of parents.--The lower classes placed by their want of education\n  out of amicable communication with the higher.--Unhappy and dangerous\n  consequences of this.--Great decline of the respect which in former\n  times the people felt toward the higher classes and the existing order\n  of the community.--Progress of a contrary spirit.\n\n\nSection IV.\n\n  Objection, that a material increase of knowledge and intelligence among\n  the people would render them unfit for their station, and discontented\n  with it; would excite them to insubordination and arrogance toward\n  their superiors; and make them the more liable to be seduced by the\n  wild notions and pernicious machinations of declaimers, schemers, and\n  innovators.--Observations in answer.--Special and striking absurdity\n  of this objection in one important particular.--Evidence from matter of\n  fact that the improvement of the popular understanding has not the\n  tendency alleged.--The special regard meant to be had to _religious_\n  instruction in the education desired for the lower classes, a security\n  against their increased knowledge being perverted into an excitement to\n  insubordination and disorder.--Absurdity of the notion that an improved\n  education of the common people ought to consist of instruction\n  specifically and almost solely religious.--The diminutive quantity of\n  religious as well as other knowledge to which the people would be\n  limited by some zealous advocates of order and subordination utterly\n  inadequate to secure those objects.--But, question what is to be\n  understood by order and subordination.--Increased knowledge and sense\n  in the people certainly not favorable to a credulous confidence and a\n  passive, unconditional submission, on their part, toward the presiding\n  classes in the community.--Advantage, to a wise and upright government,\n  of having intelligent subjects.--Great effect which a general\n  improvement among the people would necessarily have on the manner of\n  their being governed.--The people arrived, in this age, at a state\n  which renders it impracticable to preserve national tranquillity\n  without improving their minds and making some concession to their\n  claims.--Folly and probable calamity of an obstinate resolution to\n  maintain subordination in the nations of Europe in the arbitrary and\n  despotic manner of former times.--Facility and certain success of a\n  better system.\n\n\nSection V.\n\n  Extreme poverty of religious knowledge among the uneducated people:\n  their notions respecting God, Providence, Jesus Christ, the invisible\n  world.--Fatal effect of their want of mental discipline as causing an\n  inaptitude to receive religious information.--Exemplifications,--in a\n  supposed experiment of religious instruction in a friendly visit to a\n  numerous uneducated family; in the stupidity and thoughtlessness often\n  betrayed in attendance on public religious services; in the\n  impossibility of imparting religious truths, with any degree of\n  clearness, to ignorant persons, when alarmed into some serious concern\n  by sickness; in the insensibility and invincible delusion sometimes\n  retained in the near approach to death.--Rare instances of the\n  admirable efficacy of religion to animate and enlarge the faculties,\n  even in the old age of an ignorant man.--Excuses for the intellectual\n  inaptitude and perversion of uncultivated religious\n  minds.--Animadversions on religious teachers.\n\n\nSection VI.\n\n  Supposed method of verifying the preceding representation of the\n  ignorance of the people.--Renewed expressions of wonder and\n  mortification that this should be the true description of the English\n  nation.--Prodigious exertions of this nation for the accomplishment of\n  objects foreign to the improvement of the people.--Effects which might\n  have resulted from far less exertion and resources applied to that\n  object.--The contrast between what has been done, and what might have\n  been done by the exertion of the national strength, exposed in a series\n  of parallel representations.--Total unconcern, till a recent period, of\n  the generality of persons in the higher classes respecting the mental\n  state of the populace.--Indications of an important change in the manner\n  of estimating them.--Measures attempted and projected for their\n  improvement.--Some of these measures and methods insignificant in the\n  esteem of projectors of merely political schemes for the amendment of\n  the popular condition.--But questions to those projectors on the\n  efficacy of such schemes.--Most desirable, nevertheless, that the\n  political systems and the governing powers of states _could_ be\n  converted to promote so grand a purpose.--But expostulations addressed\n  to those who, desponding of this aid, despond therefore of the object\n  itself.--Incitement to individual exertion.--Reference to the sublimest\n  Example.--Imputation of extravagant hope.--Repelled; first, by a full\n  acknowledgment how much the hopes of sober-minded projectors of\n  improvement are limited by what they see of the disorder in the\n  essential constitution of our nature; and next, by a plain statement, in\n  a series of particulars, of what they nevertheless judge it rational to\n  expect from a general extension of good education.--Answer to the\n  question, whether it be presumed that any merely human discipline can\n  reduce its subjects under the predominance of religion.--Answer to the\n  inquiry, what is the extent of the knowledge of which it is desired to\n  put the common people in possession.--Observations on supposed degrees\n  of possible advancement of the knowledge and welfare of the community;\n  with reflections of astonishment and regret at the actual state of\n  ignorance, degradation, and wretchedness, after so many thousand years\n  have passed away.--Congratulatory notice of those worthy individuals who\n  have been rescued from the consequences of a neglected education by\n  their own resolute mental exertions.\n\n\n\n\n\nEssay on Popular Ignorance.\n\n\n\n\n\"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.\"\n\n_Hosea_.\n\n\n\n\nSection I.\n\n\n\nIt may excite in us some sense of wonder, and perhaps of self-reproach, to\nreflect with what a stillness and indifference of the mind we can hear and\nrepeat sentences asserting facts which are awful calamities. And this\nindifference is more than the accidental and transient state, which might\nprevail at seasons of peculiar heaviness or languor. The self-inspector\nwill often be compelled to acknowledge it as a symptom and exemplification\nof the _habit_ of his mind, that ideas of extensive misery and\ndestruction, though expressed in the plainest, strongest language, seem to\ncome with but a faint glimmer on his apprehension, and die away without\nawakening one emotion of that sensibility which so many comparatively\ntrifling causes can bring into exercise.\n\nWill the hearers of the sentence just now repeated from the sacred book,\ngive a moment's attention to the effect it has on them? We might suppose\nthem accosted with the question, Would you find it difficult to say what\nidea, or whether anything distinct enough to deserve the name of an idea,\nhas been impressed by the sound of words bearing so melancholy a\nsignificance? And would you have to confess, that they excite no interest\nwhich would not instantly give place to that of the smallest of your own\nconcerns, occurring to your thoughts; or would not leave free the tendency\nto wander loose among casual fancies; or would not yield to feelings of\nthe ludicrous, at the sight of any whimsical incident? It would not\nprobably be unfair to suspect such faintness of apprehension, and such\nunfixedness and indifference of thought, in the majority of any large\nnumber of persons, though drawn together ostensibly to attend to matters\nof gravest concern. And perhaps many of the most serious of them would\nacknowledge it requires great and repeated efforts, to bring themselves to\nsuch a contemplative realization of an important subject, that it shall\nlay hold on the affections, though it should press on them, as in the\npresent instance, with facts and reflections of a nature the most strongly\nappealing to a mournful sensibility.\n\nThat the \"people are destroyed,\" is perceived to have the sound of a\nlamentable declaration. But its import loses all force of significance in\nfalling on a state of feeling which, if resolvable into distinct\nsentiments, would be expressed to some such effect as this:--that the\npeople's destruction, in whatever sense of the word, is, doubtless, a\ndeplorable thing, but quite a customary and ordinary matter, the\nprevailing fact, indeed, in the general state of this world; that, in\ntruth, it would seem as if they were made but to be destroyed, for that\nthey have constantly been, in all imaginable ways, the subjects of\ndestruction; that, subjected in common with all living corporeal beings to\nthe doom of death, and to a fearful diversity of causes tending to inflict\nit, they have also appeared, through their long sad history, consigned to\na spiritual and moral destruction, if that term be applicable to a\ncondition the reverse of wisdom, goodness, and happiness; that, in short,\nsuch a sentence as that cited from the prophet, is too merely an\nexpression of what has been always and over the whole world self-evident,\nto excite any particular attention or emotion.\n\nThus the destruction, in every sense of the word, of human creatures, is\nso constantly obvious, as mingled and spread throughout the whole system,\nthat the mind has been insensibly wrought to that protective obtuseness\nwhich (like the thickness of the natural clothing of animals in rigorous\nclimates) we acquire in defence of our own ease, against the aggrievance\nof things which inevitably continue in our presence. An instinctive policy\nto avoid feeling with respect to this prevailing destruction, has so\neffectually taught us how to maintain the exemption, by all the requisite\nsleights of overlooking, diverting, forgetting, and admitting deceptive\nmaxims of palliation, that the art or habit is become almost mechanical.\nWhen fully matured, it appears like a wonderful adventitious faculty--a\npower of evading the sight, of _not seeing_, what is obviously and\nglaringly presented to view on all sides. There is, indeed, a dim general\nrecognition that such things are; the hearing of a bold denial of their\nexistence, would give an instant sense of absurdity, which would provoke a\npointed attention to them, the more perfectly to verify their reality; and\nthe perception how real and dreadful they are, might continue distinct as\nlong as we were in the spirit of contradicting and exploding that absurd\ndenial; but, in the ordinary state of feeling, the mind preserves an easy\ndulness of apprehension toward the melancholy vision, and sees it as if it\nsaw it not.\n\nThis fortified insensibility may, indeed, be sometimes broken in upon with\nviolence, by the sudden occurrence of some particular instance of human\ndestruction, in either import of the word, some example of peculiar\naggravation, or happening under extraordinary and striking circumstances,\nor very near us in place or interest. An emotion is excited of pity, or\nterror, or horror; so strong, that if the person so affected has been\nhabitually thoughtless, and has no wish to be otherwise, he fears he shall\nnever recover his state of careless ease; or, if of a more serious\ndisposition, thinks it impossible he can ever cease to feel an awful and\nsalutary effect. This more serious person perhaps also thinks it must be\ninevitable that henceforward his feelings will be more alive to the\nmiseries of mankind. But how obstinate is an inveterate habitual state of\nthe mind against any single impressions made in contravention to it! Both\nthe thoughtless and the more reflective man may probably find, that a\ncomparatively short lapse of time suffices, to relieve them from anything\nmore than slight momentary reminiscences of what had struck them with such\npainful force, and to restore, in regard to the general view of the\nacknowledged misery of the human race, nearly the accustomed tranquillity.\nThe course of feeling resembles a listless stream of water, which, after\nbeing dashed into commotion, by a massive substance flung into it, or by\nits precipitation at a rapid, relapses, in the progress of a few fathoms\nand a few moments, into its former sluggishness of current.\n\nBut is it well that this should be the state of feeling, in the immediate\npresence of the spectacle exhibiting the people under a process of being\ndestroyed? There must be a great and criminal perversion from what our\nnature ought to be, in a tranquillity to which it makes no material\ndifference whether they be destroyed or saved; a tranquillity which would\nhardly, perhaps, have been awaked to an effort of intercession at the\nportentous sign of destruction revealed to the sight of Ornan; or which\nmight at the deluge have permitted the privileged patriarch to sink in a\nsoft slumber, at the moment when the ark was felt to be moving from its\nground. If the original rectitude of that nature had been retained by any\nindividual, he would be confounded to conceive how creatures having their\nlot cast in one place, so near together, so much alike, and under such a\ncomplication of connections and dependences, can yet really be so\ninsulated, as that some of them may behold, with immovable composure,\ninnumerable companies of the rest in such a condition, that it had been\nbetter for them not to have existed.\n\nTo such a condition a vast multitude have been consigned by \"the lack of\nknowledge.\" And we have to appeal concerning them to whatever there is of\nbenevolence and conscience, in those who deem themselves happy instances\nof exemption from this deplorable consignment; and are conscious that\ntheir state of inestimable privilege is the result, under the blessing of\nheaven, of the reception of information, of truth, into their minds.\n\nIf it were suggested to the well instructed in our companies to take an\naccount of the benefit they have received through the medium of knowledge,\nthey would say they do not know where to begin the long enumeration, or\nhow to bring into one estimate so ample a diversity of good. It might be\nsomething like trying to specify, in brief terms, what a highly improved\nportion of the ground, in a tract rude and sterile if left to itself, has\nreceived from cultivation; an attempt which would carry back the\nimagination through a progression of states and appearances, in which the\nnow fertile spots, and picture-like scenes, and commodious passes, and\npleasant habitations, may or must have existed in the advance from the\noriginal rudeness. The estimate of what has ultimately been effected,\nrises at each stage in this retrospect of the progress, in which so many\nvaluable changes and additions still require to be followed by something\nmore, to complete the scheme of improvement. In thus tracing backward the\ncondition of a now fair and productive place of human dwelling and\nsubsistence, it may easily be recollected, what a vast number of the\nearth's inhabitants there are whose places of dwelling are in all those\nstates of worse cultivation and commodiousness, and what multitudes\nleading a miserable and precarious life amidst the inhospitableness of the\nwaste, howling wilderness. Each presented circumstance of fertility or\nshelter, salubrity or beauty, may be named as what is wanting to a much\ngreater number of the occupants of the world, than those to whom the\n\"lines are fallen in such pleasant places.\"\n\nWhen, in like manner, a person richly possessed of the benefits imparted\nby means of knowledge, finds, in attempting to recount them, that they\nrise so fast on his view, in their variety, combinations, and gradations\nfrom less to greater, as to overpower his computing faculty, he may be\nreminded that this account of his wealth is, in truth, that of many other\nmen's poverty. And if, while these benefits are coming so numerously in\nhis sight, like an irregular crowd of loaded fruit-trees, one partially\nseen behind the offered luxury of another, and others still descried,\nthrough intervals, in the distance, he can imagine them all devastated and\nswept away from him, leaving him in a scene of mental desolation,--and if\nhe shall then consider that nearly such is the state of the great\nmultitude,--he will surely feel that a deep compassion is due to so\ndepressed a condition of existence. And how strongly is its infelicity\nshown by the very circumstance, that a being who is himself but very\nimperfectly enlightened, and who is exposed to sorrow and doomed to death,\nis nevertheless in a state to be able to look down upon the victims of the\n\"lack of knowledge\" with profound commiseration. The degree of pity is the\nmeasure of a conscious superiority.\n\nWe may say to persons so favored,--If knowledge has been made the cause\nthat you are, beyond all comparison, better qualified to make the short\nsojourn on this earth to the greatest advantage, think what a fatal thing\nthat must be which condemns so many, whose lot is contemporary and in\nvicinity with yours to pass through the most precious possibilities of\ngood unprofited, and at last to look back on life as a lost adventure. If\nthrough knowledge you have been introduced into a new and superior world\nof ideas and realities, and your intellectual being has there been brought\ninto exercise among the highest interests, and into communication with the\nnoblest objects, think of that condition of the soul to which this better\neconomy has no existence. If knowledge rendered efficacious has become, in\nyour minds, the light and joy of the Christian faith and hope, look at the\nstate of those, whose minds have never been cultivated to an ability to\nentertain the principles of religious truth, even as mere intellectual\nnotions. You would not for the wealth of an empire consent to descend,\nwere it possible, from the comparative elevation to which you have been\nraised by means of knowledge, into melancholy region of spirits abandoned\nto ignorance.\n\nBut in this situation have the mass of the people been, from the time of\nthe prophet whose words we have cited, down to this hour.\n\nThe prophets had their exalted privilege of dwelling amidst the\nilluminations of heaven effectually countervailed, as to any elation of\nfeeling it might have imparted, by the grief of beholding the daily\nspectacle of the grossest manifestations and mischiefs of ignorance among\nthe people, for the very purpose of whose exemption from that ignorance it\nwas that they bore the sacred office. One of the most striking of the\ncharacteristics by which their writings so forcibly seize the imagination\nis, a strange continual fluctuation and strife of lustre and gloom,\nproduced by the intermingling and contrast of the emanations from the\nSpirit of infinite wisdom, with those proceeding from the dark, debased\nsouls of the people. We are tempted to pronounce that nation not only the\nmost perverse, but the most unintelligent and stupid of all human tribes.\nThe revealed law of God in the midst of them; the prophets and other\norgans of oracular communication; religious ordinances and emblems; facts,\nmade and expressly intended to embody truths, in long and various series;\nthe whole system of their superhuman government, constituted as a\nschool--all these were ineffectual to create so much just thought in their\nminds, as to save them from the vainest and the vilest delusions and\nsuperstitions.\n\nBut, indeed, this very circumstance, that knowledge shone on them from Him\nwho knows all things, may in part account for an intellectual perverseness\nthat appears so peculiar and marvellous. The nature of man is in such a\nmoral condition, that anything is the less acceptable for coming directly\nfrom God; it being quite consistent, that the state of mind which is\ndeclared to be \"enmity against him,\" should have a dislike to his coming\nso near, as to impart his communications by his immediate act, bearing on\nthem the fresh and sacred impression of his hand. The supplies for man's\ntemporal being are conveyed to him through an extended medium, through a\nlong process of nature and art, which seems to place the great First Cause\nat a commodious distance; and those gifts are, on that account, more\nwelcome, on the whole, than if they were sent as the manna to the\nIsraelites. The manna itself might not have been so soon loathed, had it\nbeen produced in what we call the regular course of nature. And with\nrespect to the intellectual communications which were given to constitute\nthe light of knowledge in their souls, there can, on the same principle,\nbe no doubt that the people would more willingly have opened their minds\nto receive them and exercise the thinking faculties on them, if they could\nhave appeared as something originating in human wisdom, or at least as\nsomething which, though primarily from a divine origin, had been long\nsurrendered by the Revealer, to maintain itself in the world by the\nauthority of reason only, like the doctrines worked out from mere human\nspeculation. But truth that was declared to them, and inculcated on them,\nthrough a continual immediate manifestation of the Sovereign Intelligence,\nhad a glow of Divinity (if we may so express it) that was unspeakably\noffensive to their minds, which therefore receded with instinctive recoil,\nThey were averse to look toward that which they could not see without\nseeing God; and thus they were hardened in ignorance, through a reaction\nof human depravity against the too luminous approach of the Divine\npresence to give them wisdom.\n\nBut in whatever degree the case might be thus, as to the cause, the fact\nis evident, that the Jewish people were not more remarkable for their\npre-eminence in privilege, than for their grossness of mental vision under\na dispensation specially and miraculously constituted and administered to\nenlighten them. The sacred history of which they are the subject, exhibits\nevery mode in which the intelligent faculties may evade or frustrate the\ntruth presented to them; every way in which the decided preference for\ndarkness may avail to defy what might have been presumed to be\nirresistible irradiations; every perversity of will which renders men as\naccountable and criminal for being ignorant as for acting against\nknowledge; and every form of practical mischief in which the natural\ntendency of ignorance, especially wilful ignorance, is shown. A great part\nof what the devout teachers of that people had to address to them,\nwherever they appeared among them, was in reproach of their ignorance, and\nin order, if possible, to dispel it. And were we to indulge our fancy in\npicturing the forms and circumstances in which it was encountered by those\nteachers, we might be sure of not erring much by figuring situations very\nsimilar to what might occur in much later and nearer states of society. If\nwe should imagine one of these good and wise instructors going into a\npromiscuous company of the people, and asking them, with a view at once to\nsee into their minds and inform them, say, ten plain questions, relative\nto matters somewhat above the ordinary secular concerns of life, but\nessential for them to understand, it would be a quite probable supposition\nthat he did not obtain from the whole company rational answers to more\nthan three, or two, or even one, of those questions; notwithstanding that\nevery one of them might be designedly so framed, as to admit of an easy\nreply from the most prominent of the dictates of the \"law and the\nprophets,\" and from the right application of the memorable facts in the\nnational history of the Jews. In his earlier experiments he might be\nsupposed very reluctant to admit the fact, that so many of his countrymen,\nin one spot, could have been so faithfully maintaining the ascendency of\ndarkness in their spirits, while surrounded by divine manifestations of\ntruth. He might be willing to suspect he had not been happy in the form of\nwords in which his queries had been conveyed. But it may be believed that\nall his changes and adaptations of expression, to elicit from the contents\nof his auditors' understandings something fairly answering to his\nquestions, might but complete the proof that the thing sought was not\nthere. And while he might be looking from one to another, with regret not\nunmingled with indignation at an ignorance at once so unhappy and so\ncriminal, they probably might little care, excepting some slight feeling\nof mortified pride, that they were thus proved to be nearly pagans in\nknowledge within the immediate hearing of the oracles of God.\n\nOr we may represent to ourselves this benevolent promoter of improvement\nendeavoring to instruct such a company, not in the way of interrogation,\nbut in the ordinary manner of discourse, and _assuming_ that they actually\nhad in their minds those principles, those points of knowledge, which\nwould, on the former supposition of a course of questions, have qualified\nthem to make the proper replies. It may indeed be too much to imagine a\ndiscerning man to entertain such a presumption; but supposing he did, and\nproceeded upon it, you can well conceive what reception the reasonings,\nadvices, or reproofs, would find among the hearers, according to their\nrespective temperaments. Some would be content with knowing nothing at all\nabout the matter, which they would perhaps say, might be, for aught they\nknew, something very wise; and, according to their greater or less degree\nof patience and sense of decorum, would wait in quiet and perhaps sleepy\ndulness for the end of the irksome lecture, or escape from it by a stolen\nretreat, or a bold-faced exit. To others it would all seem ridiculous\nabsurdity, and they would readily laugh if any one would begin. A few,\npossessed of some natural shrewdness, would set themselves to catch at\nsomething for exception, with unadroit aim, but with good will for cavil.\nWhile perhaps one or two, of better disposition, imperfectly descrying at\nmoments something true and important in what was said, and convinced of\nthe friendly intention of the speaker, might feel a transient regret for\nwhat they would with honest shame call the stupidity of their own minds,\naccompanied with some resentment against those to whose neglect it was\ngreatly attributable. The instructor also, as the signs grew evident to\nhim of the frustration of his efforts upon the invincible grossness of the\nsubjects before him, would become animated with indignation at the\nincompetence or wicked neglect in the system and office of public\ninstruction, of which the intellectual condition of such a company of\npersons might be taken as a proof and consequence. And in fact there is no\nclass more conspicuous in reprobation, in the solemn invectives of the\nprophets, than those whose special and neglected duty it was to instruct\nthe Jewish people.\n\nNow if such were the state of their intelligence, how would this friend of\ntruth and the people find, how would he have _expected_ to find, their\npiety, their morals, and their happiness affected by such destitution of\nknowledge? Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? We are\nsupposing them to be in ignorance of four parts out of five, or perhaps of\nnine parts out of ten, of what the Supreme Wisdom was maintaining an\nextraordinary dispensation to declare to them. Why to declare, but because\neach particular in this divine promulgation was pointed to some\ncircumstance, some propensity, some temptation, in their nature and\ncondition, and was exactly fitted to be there applied as a rectifier and\nguard? The revelations and signs from heaven were the sum of what the\nPerfect Intelligence judged indispensable to be sent forth from him to his\nsubjects, as seen by him liable to be wrong; and could there be one\ndictate or fact superfluous in such a communication? If not, consider the\ncase of minds in which one, and a second, and the far greater number, of\nthe points of information thus demonstrated to be necessary, had no place\nto shine or exist; of which minds, therefore, the estimates, passions,\nvolitions, principles of action with the actions also, were in so many\ninstances abandoned to take their chance for good or evil. But _had_ they\nany chance for good in such an abandonment? What principle in their nature\nwas to determine them to good, with an impulse that rendered needless the\nrational discrimination of it by the light of truth? It were an\nexceedingly probable thing truly, that some happy instinct, or some\nguiding star of good fortune, should have beguiled into an unknowing\nchoice of what is right, that very nature which knowledge itself,\nincluding a recognition of the will of God, is so often insufficient to\nconstrain to such a choice.\n\nBut further; the absence of knowledge is sure to be something more and\nworse than simple ignorance. Even were that absence but a mere negation, a\nvacancy of truth, (the terms truth and knowledge may be used for our\npresent purpose as nearly synonymous, for what is not truth is not\nknowledge,) it would be by its effect as a _deficiency_, incalculably\ninjurious. But it could not remain a mere deficiency: the vacancy of truth\nwould commonly be found replenished with positive error. Not indeed\nreplenished, (we are speaking of uncultivated persons,) with a\ncomprehensive and arranged set of false notions; for there would not be\nthinking enough to form opinions in any sufficient number to be distinctly\nand specifically the opposites to the many truths that were absent; but a\nfew false notions, such as could hardly fail to take the place of absent\ntruth in the ignorant mind, however crude they might be, and however\ndeficient for constituting a full system of error, would be sure to dilate\nthemselves so as to have an operation at all the points where truth was\nwanting. It is frightful to see what a space in an ignorant mind one false\nnotion can occupy, working nearly the same effect in many distinct\nparticulars, as if there had been so many distinct wrong principles, each\nproducing specifically its own bad effect. So that in that mind a few\nfalse notions, and those the ones most likely to establish themselves\nthere, shall be virtually equivalent to a whole scheme of errors standing\nformally in place of so many truths of which they are the reverse. And\nthus the dark void of ignorance, instead of remaining a mere negation,\nbecomes filled with agents of perversion and destruction; as sometimes the\ngloomy apartments of a deserted mansion have become a den of robbers and\nmurderers.\n\nSuch a friend of the people, then, as we were supposing to expend his life\nand zeal on the object of rescuing them from their ignorance, would see in\nthat ignorance not only the privation of all direction and impulsion to\ngood, but a great positive force of determination toward evil.\n\nBut it may be alleged, that he would not find them _wholly_ destitute of\nright information. True; but he would find that the small portion of\nknowledge which an ignorant people did really possess, could be of little\navail. It is not only that, from the narrowness of its scope, knowledge so\nscanty as to afford no principles directly adapted for application to a\nvast number of matters of judgment and conduct, would of course be of\nsmall use, though it _were_ efficient as far as it reached--of small use\nthough it _did_ produce that very limited quantity of good which ought to\nbe its proper share, in a due proportion to the larger amount of good to\nbe produced by a larger knowledge. This is not the whole of the\nmisfortune; it would not produce that proportionate share. For the fewer\nare the points to which there is knowledge that can be applied, the less\navailing is its application even to those few points. It shall be the kind\nof knowledge apposite to them, and yet be nearly useless; from the obvious\ncause, that a few just notions existing disconnected and confused among\nthe mass of vain and false ones, which will, like noxious weeds, infest\nminds left in ignorance, are not _permitted_ by those bad associates to do\ntheir duty. Weak by being few, insulated, unsupported, and dwelling among\nvicious neighbors, they not only cannot perform their own due service, but\nare liable to be seduced to that of the evil principles whose company they\nare condemned to keep. The _conjunction_ of truths is of the utmost\nimportance for preserving the genuine tendency, and securing the\nappropriate efficacy, of each. It is an unhappy \"lack of knowledge\" when\nthere is not enough to preserve, to what there is of it, the honest\nbeneficial quality of knowledge. How many of the follies, excesses, and\ncrimes, in the course of the world, have taken their pretended warrant\nfrom some fragment of truth, dissevered from the connection of truths\nindispensable to its right operation, and in that detached state easily\nperverted into coalescence with the most pernicious principles, which\nconcealed and gave effect to their malignity under the falsified authority\nof a truth.\n\nThere were many and melancholy exemplifications of all we have said of\nignorance, in the conduct of that ancient people at present in our view.\nDoubtless a sad proportion of the iniquities which, by their necessary\ntendency and by the divine vindictive appointment, brought plagues and\ndestruction upon them, were committed in violation of what they knew. But\nalso it was in no small part from blindness to the manifestation of truth\nand duty incessantly confronting them, that they were betrayed into crimes\nand consequent miseries. This is evident equally from the language in\nwhich their prophets reproached their intellectual stupidity, and from the\nsurprise which they sometimes seem to have felt on finding themselves\ninvolved in retributive suffering, for what they could not conceive to be\nserious delinquencies. It appeared as if they had never so much as dreamed\nof such a-consequence; and their monitors had to represent to them, that\nit had been through their thoughtlessness of divine dictates and warnings,\nif they did not _know_ that such proceedings must provoke such an\ninfliction.\n\nHow one portion of knowledge admitted, with the exclusion of other truths\nequally indispensable to be known, may not only be unavailing, but may in\neffect lend force to destructive error, is dreadfully illustrated in the\nfinal catastrophe of that favored guilty nation. They were in possession\nof the one important point of knowledge, that a Messiah was to come. They\nheld this assurance not slightly, but with strong conviction, and as a\nmatter of the utmost interest. But then, that this knowledge might have\nits appropriate and happy effect, it was of essential necessity for them\nto know also the character of this Messiah, and the real nature of his\ngreat design. But this they closed up their understandings in a fatal\ncontentment not to know. Literally the whole people, with a diminutive\nexception, had failed, or rather refused, to admit, as to that part of the\nsubject, the inspired declarations.\n\nNow comes the consequence of knowing only one thing of several that\nrequire to be inseparable in knowledge. They formed to themselves a false\nidea of the Messiah, according to their own worldly imaginations; and\nthey extended the full assurance which they justly entertained of his\ncoming, to this false notion of what he was to be and to accomplish when\nhe should come. From this it was natural and inevitable that when the\ntrue Messiah should come they would not recognize him, and that their\nhostility would be excited against a person who, while demanding to be\nacknowledged in that capacity, appeared without the characteristics\npictured in their vain imagination, and with directly opposite ones. And\nthus they were placed in an incomparably worse situation for receiving\nhim with honor when he did appear, than if they had had no knowledge that\na Messiah was to come. For on that supposition they might have regarded\nhim as a most striking phenomenon, with curiosity and admiration, with\nawe of his miraculous powers, and as little prejudice as it is possible\nin any case for depravity and ignorance to feel toward sanctity and\nwisdom. But this delusive pre-occupation of their minds formed a direct\ngrand cause for their rejecting Jesus Christ. And how fearful was the\nfinal consequence of _this_ \"lack of knowledge!\" How truly, in all\nsenses, the people were destroyed! The violent extermination at length of\nmultitudes of them from the earth, was but as the omen and commencement\nof a deeper perdition. And the terrible memorial is a perpetual\nadmonition what a curse it is _not to know_. For He, by the rejection of\nwhom these despisers devoted themselves to perish, while he looked on\ntheir great city, and wept at the doom which he beheld impending, said,\n_If_ them hadst _known_, even thou in this thy day.----\n\nSo much for that selected people:--we may cast a glance over the rest of\nthe ancient world, as exemplifying the pernicious effect of the want of\nknowledge.\n\nThe ignorance which pervaded the heathen nations, was fully equal to the\nutmost result that could have been calculated from all the causes\ncontributing to thicken the mental darkness. The traditional glimmering of\nthat knowledge which had been originally received by divine communication,\nhad long since become nearly extinct, having gone out in the act, as it\nwere, of lighting up certain fantastic inventions of doctrine, by ignition\nof an element exhaled from the corruptions of the human soul. In other\nwords, the primary truths, imparted by the Creator to the early\ninhabitants of the earth, gradually losing their clearness and purity, had\npassed, by a transition through some delusive analogies, into the vanities\nof fancy and notion which sprang from the inventive depravity of man;\nwhich inventions carried somewhat of an authority stolen from the grand\ntruths they had superseded. And thus, if we except so much instruction as\nwe may conceive that the extraordinary and sometimes dreadful\ninterpositions of the Governor of the world might convey, unaccompanied\nwith declarations in language, (and it was in but an extremely limited\ndegree that these had actually the effect of illumination,) the human\ntribes were surrendered to their own understanding for all that they were\nto know and think. Melancholy predicament! The understanding, the\nintellect, the reason, which had not sufficed for preserving the true\nlight from heaven, was to be competent to give light in its absence. Under\nthe disadvantage of this loss--after the setting of the sun--it was to\nexercise itself on an unlimited diversity of important things, inquiring,\ncomparing, and deciding. All those things, if examined far, extended into\nmystery. All genuine thinking was a hard repellent labor. Casual\nimpressions had a mighty force of perversion. The senses were not a medium\nthrough which the intellect could receive ideas foreign to material\nexistence. The appetites and passions would infallibly occupy and actuate\nthe whole man. When by these his imagination was put in activity, its\ngleams and meteors would be anything rather than lights of truth. His\ninterest, according to his gross apprehension of it, would in numberless\ninstances require, and therefore would gain, false judgments for\njustification of the wrong manner of pursuing that interest. And all this\nwhile, there was no grand standard and test to which the notions of things\ncould be brought. If there were some spirits of larger and purer thought,\nthat went out in the honest search of truth, they must have felt an\noppression of utter hopelessness in looking round on a world of doubtful\nthings, on no one of which they could obtain the dictate of a supreme\nintelligence. There was no sovereign demonstrator in communication with\nthe earth, to tell benighted man what to think in any of a thousand\nquestions which arose to confound him. There were, instead, impostors,\nmagicians, vain theorists, prompted by ambition and superior native\nability to abuse the credulity of their fellow-mortals, which they did\nwith such success as to become their oracles, their dictators, or even\ntheir gods. The multitude most naturally surrendered themselves to all\nsuch delusions. If it may be conceived to have been possible that their\nfeeble and degraded reason, in the absence of divine light and of sound\nhuman discipline, might by earnest exertion have attained in some small\ndegree to judge better that exertion was precluded by indolence, by the\nimmediate wants and unavoidable employments of life, by sensuality, by\nlove of amusement, by subjection, even of the mind, to superiors and\nnational institutions, and by the tendency of human individuals to fall,\nif we may so express it, in dead conformity and addition to the lump.\n\nThe result of all these causes, the sum of all these effects, was, that\nunnumbered millions of beings, whose value was in their intelligent and\nmoral nature, were, as to that nature, in a condition analogous to what\ntheir physical existence would have been under a total and permanent\neclipse of the sun. It was perpetual night in their souls, with all the\nphenomena incident to night, except the sublimity. While the material\neconomy, constituting the order of things which belonged to their temporal\nexistence, was in conspicuous manifestation around them, pressing with its\nrealities on their senses; while nature presented to them its open and\ndistinctly-featured aspect; while there was a true light shed on them\nevery morning from the sun; while they had constant experimental evidence\nof the nature of the scene; and thus they had a clear knowledge of one\nportion of the things connected with their existence--that portion which\nthey were soon to leave, and look back upon as a dream when one\nawaketh;--all this while there was subsisting, present with them,\nunapprehended except in faint and delusive glimpses, another order of\nthings involving their greatest interest, with no luminary to make that\napparent to them, after the race had willingly forgotten the original\ninstructions from their Creator.\n\nThe dreadful consequences of this \"lack of knowledge,\" as appearing in the\nreligion and morals of the nations, and through these affecting their\nwelfare, equalled and even surpassed all that might by theory have been\npresaged from the cause.\n\nThis ignorance could not annihilate the _principle_ of religion in the\nspirit of man; but in taking away the awful repression of the idea of one\nexclusive sovereign Divinity, it left that spirit to fabricate its\nreligion in its own manner. And as the creating of gods might be the most\nappropriate way of celebrating the deliverance from the most imposing idea\nof one Supreme Being, depraved and insane invention took this direction\nwith ardor. [Footnote: Those who have read Goethe's Memoirs of Himself,\nmay recollect the part where that late idolized \"patriarch\" of German\nliterature tells of the lively interest he had at one time felt in shaping\nout of his imagination and philosophy a theology, beginning with the\nfabrication of a god (or gods,) and amplified into a system of principles,\nexistences, and relations.] The mind threw a fictitious divinity into its\nown phantasms, and into the objects in the visible world. It is amazing to\nobserve how, when one solemn principle was taken away, the promiscuous\nnumberless crowd of almost all shapes of fancy and of matter became, as it\nwere, instinct with ambition, and mounted into gods. They were alternately\nthe toys and the tyrants of their miserable creator. They appalled him\noften, and often he could make sport with them. For overawing him by their\nsupposed power, they made him a compensation by descending to a fellowship\nwith his follies and vices. But indeed this was a condition of their\ncreation; they _must_ own their mortal progenitor by sharing his\ndepravity, even amidst the lordly domination assigned to them over him and\nthe universe. We may safely affirm, that the mighty artificer of\ndeifications, the corrupt soul of man, never once, in its almost infinite\ndiversification of device in their production, struck out a form of\nabsolute goodness. No, if there were ten thousand deities, there should\nnot be one that should be authorized by perfect rectitude in itself to\npunish _him_; not one by which it should be possible for him to be rebuked\nwithout having a right to recriminate.\n\nSuch a pernicious creation of active delusions it was that took the place\nof religion in the absence of knowledge. And to this intellectual\nobscuration, and this legion of pestilent fallacies, swarming like the\nlocusts from the smoke of the bottomless pit in the vision of St. John,\nthe fatal effect on morals and happiness corresponded. Indeed the mischief\ndone there, perhaps even exceeded the proportion of the ignorance and the\nfalse theology; conformably to the rule, that anything wrong in the mind\nwill be the _most_ wrong where it comes the nearest to its ultimate\npractical effect--except when in this operation outward it is met and\nchecked by some foreign counteraction.\n\nThe people of those nations (and the same description is applicable to\nmodern heathens) did not know the essential nature of perfect goodness, or\nvirtue. How should they know it? A depraved mind would not find in itself\nany native conception to give the bright form of it. There were no living\nexamples of it. The men who held the pre-eminence in the community were\ngenerally, in the most important points, its reverse. It was for the\n_Divine_ nature to have presented, in a manifestation of itself, the\narchetype of perfect rectitude, whence might have been derived the\nmodified exemplar for human virtue. And so _would_ the idea of perfect\nmoral excellence have come to dwell and shine in the understanding, if it\nhad been the True Divinity that men beheld in their contemplations of a\nsuperior existence. But when the gods of their heaven were little better\nthan their own evil qualities, exalted to the sky to be thence reflected\nback upon them invested with Olympian charms and splendors, their ideas of\ndeity would evidently combine with the causes which made it impossible for\nthem to conceive a perfect model for human excellence. See the mighty\nlabor of human depravity to confirm its dominion! It would translate\nitself to heaven, and usurp divinity, in order to come down thence with a\nsanction for man to be wicked,--in order, by a falsification of the\nqualities of the Supreme Nature, to preclude his forming the true idea of\nwhat would be perfect rectitude in his own.\n\nA system which could thus associate all the modes of turpitude with the\nmost lofty and illustrious forms of existence, would go far toward\nvitiating essentially the entire theory of moral good and evil. And it\nwould in a great measure defraud of their practical efficacy any just\nprinciples that might, after all, maintain their place in the convictions\nof the understanding, and assert at times their claim with a voice which\nnot even all this ruination could silence.\n\nBut, how small was the number of pure moral principles, (if indeed any,)\nthat among the people of the heathen nations _did_ maintain themselves in\nthe convictions of the understanding. The privation of divine light gave\nfull freedom, if there was any disposition to take such license, for every\nperverse speculation which could operate toward abolishing those\nprinciples in the natural reason of the species. What disposition there\nwould be to take it may be imagined, when the abolishing of those\nprinciples was evidently to be also the destruction of all intrinsic\nauthority in the practical rules founded on them, which destruction would\nconfer an exemption infinitely desirable. The freedom for such thinking\nwould infallibly be taken, in its utmost extent; and in fact the\nspeculation was stimulated by so mighty a force of the depraved passions,\nthat it went beyond the primary intention: it not only annulled the right\nprinciples and rules, but, not stopping at such negation, presumed to set\nforth opposite ones, so that the name and repute of virtues was given to\niniquities without number. It is deplorable to consider how large a\nproportion of all the vices and crimes of which mankind were ever guilty,\nhave actually constituted, in some or other of their tribes and ages, a\npart of the approved moral and religious system. It is questionable\nwhether we could select from the worst forms of turpitude any one which\nhas not been at least admitted among the authorized customs, if not even\nappointed among the institutes of the religion, of some portion of the\nhuman race. And depravities thus become licensed or sacred would have a\nfatal facility of communicating somewhat of their quality to all the other\nparts of the moral system. For this sanction both would reinforce their\nown power of infection, and would so beguile away all repugnance and\ncounteraction, that the rest of the customs and institutes would readily\nadmit the contamination, and become assimilated in evil; as the Mohamedans\nhave no care to avoid contact with their neighbors who are ill of the\nplague, since the plague has the warrant of heaven. Wherever, therefore,\nin the imperfect notices afforded us of ancient nations, we find any one\nvirulent iniquity holding an authorized place in custom or religion, we\nmay confidently make a very large inference, though record were silent, as\nto the corresponding quality that would pervade the remainder of the moral\nsystem of those nations. Indeed the inference is equally justified whether\nwe regard such a sanction and establishment of a flagrant iniquity as a\ncause, or as an effect. Suppose this sanction of some one enormity to\n_precede_ the general and equal corruption of morals,--how powerfully\nwould it tend to bear them all down to a conformity in depravation.\nSuppose it to be (the more natural order) the result and completion of\nthat corruption--how vicious must have been the previous state which could\ngo easily and consistently to such a consummation.\n\nEverything that, under the advantage given by this destitution of\nknowledge, operated to the destruction of the true morality, both in\ntheory and practice, must have had a fatal augmentation of its power in\nthat part especially of this ignorance which respected hereafter. The\ndoctrine of a future existence and retribution did not, in any rational\nand salutary form, interfere in the adjustment of the economy of life. The\nshadowy notion of a future state which hovered about the minds of the\npagans, a vague apparition which alternately came and vanished, was at\nonce too fantastic and too little of a serious belief to be of any avail\nto preserve the rectitude, or to maintain the authority, of the\ndistinction between right and wrong. It was not denned enough, or noble\nenough, or convincing enough, or of judicial application enough, either to\nassist the efficacy of such moral principles as might be supposed to be\ninnate in a rational creature, and competent for prescribing to it some\nvirtues useful and necessary to it even if its present brief existence\nwere all; or to enjoin effectually those higher virtues to which there can\nbe no adequate inducement but in the expectation of a future life.\n\nImagine, if you can, the withdrawment of this doctrine from the faith of\nthose who have a solemn persuasion of it as a part of revealed truth.\nSuppose the grand idea either wholly obliterated, or faded into a dubious\ntrace of what it had been, or transmuted into a poetic dream of classic or\nbarbarian mythology,--and how many moral principles will be found to have\nvanished with it. How many things, before rendered imperative by this\ngreat article of faith, would have ceased to be duties, or would continue\nsuch only on the strength, and to the extent of the requirement, of some\nvery minor consideration which might remain to enforce them, and that\nprobably in a most deteriorated practical form. The sense of obligation,\nif continuing to recognize the nature of duty in things which could then\nno longer retain any such quality, otherwise than as looking to the most\nimmediate and tangible benefit or harm, the lowest of moral calculations,\nwould be reduced to a vulgar and reptile principle. The best of its\nstrength, and all its dignity, would be departed from it when it could\nrefer no more to eternity, an invisible world, and a judgment to come. It\nwould therefore have none of that emphasis of impression which can\nsometimes dismay and quell the most violent passions, as by the mysterious\nawe of the presence of a spirit. It would be deprived of that which forms\nthe chief power of conscience. And it would be impotent in any attempt--if\nso absurd an attempt could be dreamed of--to uphold, in the more dignified\ncharacter of _principle_, that care of what is right which would be\nconstantly degenerating into mere policy, and rationally justifying itself\nin doing so.\n\nThe withdrawment, we said, of the grand truth in question, from a man's\nfaith, (together with everything of taste and _habit_ which that faith\nmight have created,) would necessarily break up the government over his\nconscience. How evident then is it, that among the people of the heathen\nlands, under a disastrous ignorance of this and all the other sublime\ntruths, that are the most fit to rule an immortal being during his sojourn\non earth, no man could feel any peremptory obligation to be universally\nvirtuous, or adequate motives to excite an endeavor to approach that high\nattainment, even were there not a perfect inability to form the true\nconception of it. And then how much of course it was that the general mass\nwould be dreadfully depraved. Though a momentary surprise may at times\nhave seized us on the occurrence, in their history, of some monstrous form\nof flagitiousness, we do not wonder at beholding a state of the people\nsuch in its general character as the sacred writers exhibit, in\ndescriptions to which the other records of antiquity add their confirming\ntestimony and ample illustrations. For while the immense aggregate is\ndisplayed to the mental view, as pervaded, agitated, and stimulated, by\nthe restless forces of appetites and passions, and those forces operating\nwith an impulse no less perverted than strong, let it be asked what kinds\nand measure of restraint there could be upon such a world of creatures so\nactuated, to keep them from rushing in all ways into evil. Conceive, if\nyou can, the fiction of such a multitude, so actuated, having been placed\nunder an adjustment of restraints competent to withhold them. And then\ntake off, in your imagination, one after another of these, to see what\nwill follow. Take off, at last, all the coercion that can be applied\nthrough the belief of a judgment to come, and a future state of\nretribution;--by doing which you would also empower the race to defy, if\nany recognition of him remained, the Supreme Governor, whose possible\ninflictions, being confined to the present life, might at any time be\nescaped by shortening it. All these sacred bonds being thus dissolved,\nbehold this countless multitude abandoned to be carried or driven the\nwhole length to which the impulses of their appetites and passions would\ngo,--or could go before they were arrested by some obstruction opposed to\nthem from a quarter foreign to conscience. And the main and final thing in\nreserve to limit their career, after all the worthier restraints were\nannihilated, would be only this,--the resistance which men's self-interest\nopposes to one another's bad inclinations. A gloomy and humiliating\nspectacle truly it is, to be offered by a world of rational and moral\nagents, if we see that, instead of a repression of the propensity to\nwickedness by reverence of the Sovereign Judge, and the anticipation of a\nfuture life, there is merely a restraint put on its external activity, and\nthat by the force of men's fears of one another. But nearly to this it\nwas, as the only strong restraint, that those heathens were left by their\nignorance, or a notion so slight as to be little better, of a future\nexistence and judgment.\n\nNot but that it has been, in all nations and times, of infinite practical\nservice that there is involved in the constitution of the world a law by\nwhich a coarse self-interest thus interposes to obstruct in a degree the\nviolent propensity to evil; for it has prevented, under Providence, more\nactual mischief, beyond comparison more, than all other causes together.\nThe man inclined to perpetrate an iniquity, of the nature of a wrong to\nhis fellow-mortals, is apprized that he shall provoke a reaction, to\nresist or punish him; that he shall incur as great an evil as that he is\ndisposed to do, or greater; that either a revenge regardless of all\nformalities of justice will strike him, or a process instituted in\norganized society will vindictively reach his property, liberty, or life.\nThis defensive array, of all men against all men, compels to remain shut\nup within the mind an immensity of wickedness which is there burning to\ncome out into action. But for this, Noah's flood had been rendered\nneedless. But for this, our planet might have been accomplishing its\ncircles round the sun for thousands of years past without a human\ninhabitant. Through the effect of this essential law, in the social\neconomy, it was possible for the race to subsist, notwithstanding all that\nignorance of the Divine Being, of heavenly truth, and of uncorrupt\nmorality, in which we are contemplating the heathen nations as benighted.\nBut while thus it prevented utter destruction, it had no corrective\noperation on the depravity of the heart. It was not through a judgment of\nthings being essentially evil that they were forborne; it was not by the\npower of conscience that wicked propensity was kept under restraint. It\nwas only by a hold on the meaner principles of his nature, that the\noffender in will was arrested in prevention of the deed. And so the race\nwere such virtually, as they would have hastened to become actually, could\nthey have ceased to be afraid of one another's strength and retaliation.'\n[Footnote: It is not very uncommon to hear credit given to human nature\napparently in sober simplicity, for the whole amount of the negation of\nbad actions _thus_ prevented, as just so much genuine virtue, by some\ndealers in moral and theological speculation.] But even this restraint\nimposed by mutual apprehension, important as its operation was in the\nabsence of nobler influences, was yet of miserably partial efficacy. Men\nwere continually breaking through this protective provision, and committed\nagainst one another a stupendous amount of crimes. And no wonder, when we\nconsider that the evil passions, endowed as they seem to be with a\nportentous excess of vigor by the very circumstance of _being_ evil, (as\nthe demoniacs were the strongest of men,) are exasperated the more by a\ncertain degree of awe impressed on them by the defensive attitude of their\nobjects. When strength so great might thus be irritated to greater, and\nwhen there were no \"powers of the world to come,\" to invade the dreadful\ncavern of iniquity in the mind, and there combat and subdue it, there\nwould often be no want of the audacity to send it forth into action at all\nhazards, and in defiance and contempt of the restraining force which\noperated through mutual fear of vindictive reaction.\n\nBut it may be said, perhaps, that in thus representing the people who were\ndestitute of divine knowledge, as left with hardly any other control on\ntheir bad dispositions than one of a quality little more dignified than\nfetters literally binding the limbs, we are underrating what there still\nwas among them to take effect in the way of _instruction_. Even this\ncoarse principle of control itself, it may be alleged, this prudence of\nreciprocal fear became refined into something worthier of moral agents.\nFor it passed, by a compromise among the species, from the form of\nindividual self-defence and revenge into that of institutions of _law_;\nand legislation, it will be said, is a teacher of morals. Retaining,\nindeed, the rough expedient of physical force, in readiness to coerce or\npunish where it cannot deter by warning, it yet strongly endeavors the\nrepression of evil emotions by means of right _principles_, marked out,\nexplained, and inculcated. It _teaches_ these principles as dictates of\nreason and justice, while it embodies them in the menacing authority of\nenactments. There was therefore, it may be pleaded, as much _instruction_\namong the ancient heathen as there was legislation.\n\nIn answering this, we may forego any rigorous examination of the quality\nof principles and precepts enunciated by legislators who themselves, in\ncommon with the people, looked on human existence and duty through a worse\nthan twilight medium; who had no divine oracles to impart wisdom, and\nwere, some of them, reduced to begin their operations with the lie that\npretended they had such oracles; from all which it was inevitable that\nsome of their maxims and injunctions would even in their efficacy be\nnoxious, as being at variance with eternal rectitude. It is enough to\nobserve, on the claims of legislation to the character of a moral\npreceptor, that it retained so palpably, after all, the nature of the\ngross element from which it was a refinement or transfusion, that even\nwhat it might teach right, as to the matter, it was unable to teach with\nthe right moral impression. With all its gravity, and phrases of wisdom,\nand show of homage to virtue, it was, and was plainly descried to be, that\nvery same _Noli me tangere,_ in a disguised form; a less provoking and\nhostile manner only of keeping up the state of preparation for defensive\nwar. Every one knew right well that the pure approbation and love of\ngoodness were not the source of law; but that it was an arrangement\noriginating and deriving all its force from self-interest; a contrivance\nby which each man was glad to make the collective strength of society his\nguarantee against his neighbor's interest and wish to do him wrong. While\npleased that others were under this restraint, he was often vexed at being\nunder it also himself; but on the whole deemed this security worth the\ncost of suffering the interdict on his own inclinations,--perhaps as\nbelieving other men's to be still worse than his, or seeing their strength\nto be greater. We repeat that a preceptive system thus estimated could\nnot, even had the principles to which it gave expression in the mandates\nof law been no other than those of the soundest morality, have impressed\nthem with the weight of sanctity on the conscience. And all this but tends\nto show the necessity that the rules and sanctions of morality, to come\nwith simplicity and power on the human mind, should primarily emanate, and\nbe acknowledged as emanating, from a Being exalted above all implication\nand competition of interest with man.\n\nThus we see, that the pagan ignorance precluded one grand requisite for\ncrushing the dominion of iniquity; for there was nothing to insinuate or\nto force its way into the recesses of the soul, to apply _there_ a\nrepressive power to the depraved ardor which glowed in the passions. That\nwas left, inaccessible and inextinguishable, as the subterranean fires in\na volcanic region. And in the mighty impulse to evil with which it was\ncontinually operating as an energy of feeling, it compelled the\nsubservience of the intellect; and thus combined the passions with a\nfaculty skilful to guide their direction, to diversify their objects, to\ninvent expedients, and to seize and create occasions. What was it that\nthis intelligent depravity would stop short of accomplishing? Reflect on\nthe extent of human genius, in its powers of invention, combination, and\nadaptation; and then think of all this faculty, in an immense number of\nminds, through many ages, and in every imaginable variety of situation,\nexerted with unremitting activity in aid of the wrong propensities.\nReflect how many ideas, apt and opportune for this service, would spring\nup casually, or be suggested by circumstances, or be attained by the\nearnest study of beings goaded in pursuit of change and novelty. The\nsimple modes of iniquity were put under an active ministry of art, to\ncombine, innovate, and augment. And so indefatigable was its exercise,\nthat almost all conceivable forms of immorality were brought to\nimagination, most of them into experiment; and the greater number into\nprevailing practice, in those nations: insomuch that the sated monarch\nwould have imposed as difficult a task on ingenuity in calling for the\ninvention of a new vice, as of a new pleasure. They would perhaps have\nbeen nearly identical demands when he was the person to be pleased.\n\nSuch are some of the most obvious illustrations that the absence of\nknowledge was a cause, and added in an unknown measure to the strength of\nall other causes, of the excessive corruption in the heathen nations. And\nif this depravity of a world of moral agents did not, contemplated simply\nas a destruction of their _rectitude_, appear equivalent to the gravest\nimport of the terms \"the people are destroyed,\" the _misery_ inseparable\nfrom the depravity instantly comes in our view to complete their\nverification.\n\nWe are aware that the wickedness and misery of the ancient world, as\nasserted in illustration of the natural effect of estrangement from divine\ntruth, are apt to be regarded as of the order of topics which have\ndwindled into insignificance, worn out by being repeated just because they\nhave often been repeated before; a sort of exhausted quarries and dried-up\nwells. There is a certain class of vain and sneering mortals, in whose\nconceit nothing is such proof of superior sense as discarding the\ngreatest number of topics and arguments as obsolete or impertinent. It is\nto be reckoned on that some of these, on hearing again the old maxims,\nthat a people without divine instruction must be a vicious one, and that a\nvicious people must be an unhappy one,--and those maxims accompanied with\na description of the old pagan world as illustrative evidence,--will be\nprompt to let forth their comments in some such strain as the\nfollowing:--\"The state of the ancient heathens, thus brought upon us in\none cheap declamation more, is now a matter of trivial import, just fit to\ngive some show and exaggeration to the stale common-place, that ignorance\nis likely to produce depravity, and that depravity and misery are likely\nenough to go together. The pagans might be wretched enough; and perhaps\nalso the matter has been extravagantly magnified for the service of a\nfavorite theme, or to make a rhetorical show. At any rate, it is not now\nworth while to go so far back to concern ourselves about it. The ancient\nheathens had their day and their destiny, and it is of little importance\nto us what they were or suffered.\"\n\nIt is fortunate, we may reply, to be \"wiser than the ancients,\" without\nthe trouble of _learning_ anything by means of them. It is fortunate,\nalso, to have ascertained how much of all that ever existed can teach us\nnothing. We have a signal improvement in the fashion of wisdom, when that\nhigh endowment may be possessed as a thing distinct from compass of\nthought, from study of causes and effects as illustrated on the great\nscale, from aptitude to be instructed by the past, and from contemplation\nof the divine government as carried over a wide extent of time. But indeed\nthis is not a privilege peculiar to this later day. In any former age\nthere were men in sufficient number who were wise enough to be indifferent\nto all but immediate passing events, as knowing no lessons that persons\nlike them had to learn from remoter views, looking either into the past or\nthe future; who could even have before them the very monuments of awful\nevents that were gone by, without perceiving inscribed on them any\ncharacters for contemplation to read. It is not impossible there might be\npersons who could plan their schemes, and debate their questions, and even\nfollow their amusements, quite exempt from solemn reflections, within view\nof the ruins of Jerusalem, after the Roman legions had left it and its\nmyriads of dead to silence. Any reference to that dreadful spectacle, as\nan example of the consequences of the ignorance and wickedness of a\npeople, might have been heard with unconcern, and lightly passed over as\nforeign to the matters requiring their attention: it was all over with the\npeople dead, and the people alive had their own concerns to mind. But\nwould not exactly such as these have been the men most likely to fall into\nthe vices and impieties which would provoke the next avenging visitation,\nand to perish in it? In all times, the triflers with the great\nexemplifications of the connection of depravity with misery and ruin, who\nthought it but an impertinent moralizing that attempted to recall such\nfunereal spectacles for admonition, were fools, whatever self-complacency\nthey might feel in a habit of thinking more fitted, they would perhaps\nsay, for making our best advantage of the world as we find it. And we of\nthe present time are convicted of exceeding stupidity, if we think it not\nworth while to go a number of ages back to contemplate the mass of\nmankind, the wide world of beings such as ourselves, sunk in darkness and\nwretchedness, and to consider what it is that is taught by so melancholy\nan exhibition. What is to give fulness of evidence to an instruction, if a\nworld be too narrow; what is to give it weight, if a world be too light?\n\nIt is to be acknowledged, that the mental darkness which we are\nrepresenting as so greatly the cause of the wickedness and unhappiness of\nthose nations of old, had the effect of protecting them, in a measure,\nfrom some kinds of suffering. They had not, as we have been observing,\nillumination enough, to have conscience enough, for inflicting the\nseverest pains of remorse; and for oppressing them with a distinct\nalarming apprehension of a future account. But that they were unhappy,\nwas practically acknowledged in the very quality of what they ardently\nand universally sought as the highest felicities of existence. Those\ndelights were violent and tumultuous, in all possible ways and degrees\nestranged from reflection, and adverse to it. The whole souls of great\nand small, in the most barbarous and in the more polished state, were\npassionately set on revelry, on expedients for inflaming licentiousness\nto madness; or concourses of multitudes for pomps, celebrations, shows,\ngames, combats; on the riots of exultation and revenge after victories.\nThe ruder nations had, in their way, however pitiable on the score of\nmagnificence, their grand festive, triumphal, and demoniac confluxes and\nrevellings. To these joys of tumult, the people of the savage and the\nmore cultivated nations sacrificed everything belonging to the peaceful\neconomy of life, with a desperate, frantic fury. All this was the\nconfession that there was little felicity in the heart or in the home.\nNor was it found in these resources; if the wild elation might be\nmistaken for happiness while it lasted, it was brief in each instance,\nand it subsided in an aggravated dreariness of the soul.\n\nThe fact of their being unhappy had a still more gloomy attestation in the\nmutual enmity which seems to have been of the very essence of life so\nvital a principle, that it could not be spared for an hour. No, they could\nnot live without this luxury drawn from the fountains of death! What is\nthe most conspicuous material of ancient history, what is it that glares\nout the most hideously from that darkness and oblivion in which the old\nworld is veiling its aspect, but the incessant furies of miserable mortals\nagainst their fellow-mortals, \"hateful and hating one another?\" We cannot\nlook that way but we see the whole field covered with inflicters and\nsufferers, not seldom interchanging those characters. If that field widens\nto our view, it is still, to the utmost line to which the shade clears\naway, a scene of cruelty, oppression, and slavery; of the strong trampling\non the weak, and the weak often attempting to bite at the feet of the\nstrong; of rancorous animosities and murderous competitions of persons\nraised above the mass of the community; of treacheries and massacres; and\nof war between hordes, and cities, and nations, and empires; war _never_,\nin spirit, intermitted, and suspended sometimes in act only to acquire\nrenewed force for destruction, or to find another assemblage of hated\ncreatures to cut in pieces. Powerful as \"the spirit of the first-born\nCain\" has continued, down to our age, and in the most improved divisions\nof mankind, there was, nevertheless, in the ancient pagan race, (as there\nis in some portions of the modern,) a more complete, uncontrolled\nactuation of the all-killing, all-devouring fury, a more absolute\npossession of Moloch.\n\nNow it is _as misery_ that we are exhibiting all this depravity. To be\nthus, _was suffering_. The disease and the pain are inseparable in the\ndescription, and they were so in the reality. And both together,\ninevitably seizing on beings who had rejected or lost divine knowledge,\nmaintained a hold as fatal and invincible as that of the intervolved\nserpents of Laocoon.\n\nIt is true, that a comprehensive estimate of the state of the people we\nare contemplating, would bring in view several minor circumstances which,\nthough not availing to change materially the effect of the picture, are\nthemselves of less gloomy color. But at the same time such an estimate\nwould include other forms also of infelicity, besides those which were at\nonce the result and punishment of depravity, the stings with which sin\nrewarded the infatuation that loved it. If the design had been to exhibit\nanything like a general view, we must have taken account of such\nparticulars as these: the unhappiness of being without an assurance of an\nall-comprehending and merciful Providence, and of wanting therefore the\nbest support in sorrow and calamity; the insuppressible impatience, or the\ndeep melancholy, with which the more thoughtful persons must have seen\ndeparting from life, leaving them hopeless of ever meeting again in a life\nelsewhere, the relations or associates who were dear to them in spite of\nthe prevailing effect of paganism to destroy philanthropy; and the gloomy\nsentiment with which they must have thought of their own continual\napproach toward death; a sentiment not always unaccompanied with certain\nintimidating hints and hauntings of possibilities in the darkness beyond\nthat confine. But the more limited intention in the preceding description\nhas been to illustrate their unhappiness as inflicted by their depravity,\nnecessarily consequent on their ignorance. And what words so true, so\nirresistibly prompted at the view of such a scene, as those pronounced of\na nation that at once despised the pagans and imitated them,--\"The people\nare destroyed for lack of knowledge.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLet us not be suspected of having lost sight of the fact, that vice and\nmisery have, in our nature, a deeper source than ignorance; or of being so\nabsurd as to imagine that if the inestimable truths unknown to the heathen\nworld had been, on the contrary, in all men's knowledge, but a slight\nportion of the depravity and wretchedness we have described could then\nhave had an existence. To say, that under long absence of the sun any\ntract of terrestrial nature _must infallibly_ be reduced to desolation, is\nnot to say or imply, that under the benignant influence of that luminary\nthe same region must, as necessarily and unconditionally, be a scene of\nbeauty; but the only hope, for the only possibility, is for the field\nvisited by much of that sweet influence. And it were an absurdity no less\ngross in the opposite extreme to the one just mentioned, to assert the\nuselessness, for rectifying the moral world, of a diffusion of the\nknowledge which shall compel men to see what is wrong; to deny that the\nimpulses of the corrupt passions and will must suffer some abatement of\ntheir force and daring when encountered, like Balaam meeting the angel, by\na clear manifestation of their bad and ruinous tendency, by a convinced\njudgment, a protesting conscience, and the aspect of the Almighty\nJudge,--instead of their being under the tolerance of a judgment not\ninstructed to condemn them, or, (as ignorance is sure to quicken into\nerror,) perverted to abet them.\n\n\n\n\nSection II.\n\n\n\nFrom this view of the prevalence and malignant effects of ignorance among\nthe people of the ancient world, both Jews and Gentiles, we may come\ndown, with a few brief notices in passing over the long subsequent\nperiods, towards our own times. For any attempt to prosecute the object\nthrough the ages and regions of later heathenism, (with the infatuated\nJudaism still more destructive to its subjects,) would be to lose\nourselves in a boundless scene of desolation, an immense amplitude of\ndarkness, frightfully alive throughout with the activity of all noxious\nand hideous things.\n\nBut by this time we are become aware how continually we are driven upon\nwhat will be in hazard of appearing an exaggerated phraseology; insomuch\nthat we are almost afraid of accepting the epithets of description and\naggravation which offer themselves as most appropriate to the subject.\nThere are some self-complacent persons whose minds are so unapt to\nrecognize the magnitude of a subject, or so averse perhaps to the\ncontemplation of it if it be of tragical aspect, that strong terms\naccumulated to exhibit even what surpasses in its plain reality all the\npowers of language, offend them as declamatory exaggeration. Let it then\nbe just observed, without one ambitious epithet, that since that period\nwhen ancient history, strictly so named, left off describing the state of\nmankind, more than a myriad of millions of our race have been on earth,\nand quitted it without one ray of the knowledge the most important to\nspirits sojourning here, and going hence.\n\nBut while any attempt to carry the representation of the fatal effects of\nignorance over the extent of so dreary a scene is declined, let it not be\nforgotten that they have been an awful reality; that they have actually\nexisted, in time, and place, and number of victims; that there actually\n_were_ the men, and so many men, who exemplified, and in so many ways, the\ntruth we are illustrating. And a truth which has its demonstration in\nfacts ought to come with the weight of all the facts that we believe ever\n_did_ demonstrate it. When they are not presented in breadth and detail\nprominently in our view, we are apt to lose the due effect of our knowing\nthem to have existed.\n\nIt will be enough to advert very briefly to the Mohammedan imposture,\nthough that is perhaps the most signal instance within all time, of a\nmalignant delusion maintained directly and immediately by ignorance, by an\nabsolute determination and even a fanatic zeal not to receive one new\nidea. Tenets involving the most palpable impossibilities, and asserted in\nself-contradictory terms, must stand inviolable to all question or\ncontroversy; literature must be scouted as a profane folly; not a\nprinciple of true philosophy is to be admitted; hardly is an application\nof the plainest mechanics to improve a machine or implement to be\ntolerated; or an infidel is to be only _pardoned_, through contempt, for a\nsuccessful obtrusion of science to render the most important service,--to\nsave, for instance, a Mussulman ship-with its proud, besotted commander\nand crew from destruction, [Footnote: There is a very curious example of\nthis related in Dr Clarke's Travels.] lest an acknowledgment made to\nscience should allow one momentary surmise of imperfection to insult the\nall-sufficiency and sanctity of the unalterable creed and institutes; lest\nany diminutive crevice should be made on any side of the temple of the\nvile superstition, for the passage of one glimpse of true light to annoy\nthe foul fiend that dwells there, invested \"in the dunnest smoke of hell.\"\nNot, however, that this is the policy of doubt and apprehension, the\nevading and repelling caution of men who suspect themselves to be wrong\nand dread being forced to meet the proof. For the subjects of this\nexecrable usurpation on the human understanding have, in general, the\nfirmest assurance that all things in the system are right: it has itself\nsecured them against _knowing_ anything that could discompose their sense\nof certainty. No fell savage, or serpent, or monster, ever had a more\nperfect instinct to avail itself of an impervious obscurity for its\nlurking-place, than this imposture has shown to keep out all mental light\nfrom its realm. The delusion is so strong and absolute in ignorance, is so\nidentified with it, and so systematically repels at all points the\napproach of knowledge, that it is difficult to conceive a mode of its\nextermination that shall not involve some fearful destruction, in the most\nliteral sense, of the people whom it possesses. And such a catastrophe it\nis probable the great body of them, in the temper of mind prevailing among\nthem at this hour, would choose to incur by preference, we do not say to a\nserious, patient consideration of the true religion, but even to the\nadmission among them of a system merely favoring knowledge in general, an\norder of measures which should urge upon the adults, and peremptorily\nenforce for the children, a discipline of intellectual improvement. There\nwould be little national hesitation of choice, (at least in the central\nregions of the dominion of this hateful imposture,) between the\nintroduction of any general system of expedients for driving them from\ntheir stupefaction into something like thinking and learning, and a\ngeneral plague, to rage as long as any remained for victims. [Footnote: In\nthe interval since this was written, some change has taken place in favor\nof the admission of the elements of knowledge, in the capital, and in the\nsecond city of the Mohammedan regions; but with very slight alterative\ninfluence on the mass; and with respect to the faith, probably none at\nall. Within this interval, also, the central power has been hastening\nrapidly to its catastrophe.]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut let us now look, for a moment, at the intellectual state of the people\ndenominated Christian, during the ages preceding the Reformation. The best\nof all the acquisitions by earth from heaven, Christianity, might have\nseemed to bring with it an inevitable necessity of a great and permanent\ndifference soon to be effected, in regard to the competence of men's\nknowledge to prevent their destruction. It was as if, in the physical\nsystem, some one production, far more salutary to life than all the other\nthings furnished from the elements, had been reserved by the Creator to\nspring up in a later age, after many generations of men had been\nlanguishing through life, and prematurely dying, from the deficient virtue\nof their sustenance and remedies. The image of the inestimable plant had\nbeen shown to the prophets in their visions, but the reality was now given\nto the world; it was of \"wholly a right seed,\" \"had the seed in itself,\"\nand claimed to be cultivated by the people, who in every land were\nsuffering the maladies which it had the properties to heal. But, while by\nthe greater part of mankind it was not accounted worth admission to a\nplace on their blasted, desolated soil, the manner in which its virtue was\nfrustrated among those who pretended to esteem it, as it was, the best\ngift of the divine beneficence, is recorded in eternal reproach of the\nChristian nations.\n\nAs the hostility of heathenism, in the direct endeavors to extirpate the\nChristian religion, became evidently hopeless, in the nations within the\nRoman empire, there was a grand change of the policy of evil; and all\nmanner of reprobate things, heathenism itself among them, rushed as by\ngeneral conspiracy into treacherous conjunction with Christianity,\nretaining their own quality under the sanction of its name, and by a rapid\nprocess reducing it to surrender almost everything distinctive of it but\nthat dishonored name: and all this under protection of the \"gross darkness\ncovering the people.\" There were indeed in existence the inspired oracles,\nand these could not be essentially falsified. But there was no lack of\nexpedients and pre-texts for keeping them in a great measure secreted. It\nmight be done under a pretence that reverence for their sanctity required\nthey should be secluded as within the recesses of a temple, nor be there\nconsulted but by consecrated personages; a pretence excellently contrived,\nsince it was its own security against exposure, the people being thus kept\nunaware that the sacred writings themselves expressly invited popular\ninspection, by declaring themselves addressed to mankind at large. The\ndeceivers were not worse off for the other facilities. In the progress of\ntranslation, the holy Scriptures could be intercepted and stopped short in\na language but little less unintelligible than the original ones to the\nbulk of the people, in order that this \"profane vulgar\" might never hear\nthe very words of God, but only such report as it should please certain\nmen, at their discretion, to give of what he had said; men, however, of\nwhom the majority were themselves too ignorant to cite it in even a\nfalsified import. But though the people had understood the language, in\nthe usage of social converse, there was a grand security against them in\nkeeping them so destitute of the knowledge of letters, that the Bible, if\nsuch a rare thing ever could happen to fall into any of their hands, would\nbe no more to them than a scroll of hieroglyphics. When to this was added,\nthe great cost of a copy of so large a book before the invention of\nprinting, it remained perhaps just worth while, (and it would be a matter\nof no difficulty or daring,) to make it, in the maturity of the system, an\noffence, and sacrilegious invasion of sacerdotal privilege, to look into a\nBible. If it might seem hard thus to constitute a new sin, in addition to\nthe long list already denounced by the divine law, amends were made by\nindulgently rescinding some articles in that list, and qualifying the\nprinciples of obligation with respect to them all.\n\nIn this latency of the sacred authorities, withdrawn from all\ncommunication with the human understanding, there were retained still many\nof the terms and names belonging to religion. They remained, but they\nremained only such as they could be when the departing spirit of that\nreligion was leaving them void of their import and solemnity, and so\nrendered applicable to purposes of deception and mischief. They were as\nholy vessels, in which the original contents might, as they were escaping,\nbe clandestinely replaced by the most malignant preparations. And as\ncrafty and wicked men had a direct interest in this substitution, the\npernicious operation went on incessantly; and with an ability, and to an\nextent to evince that the utmost barbarism of the times cannot extinguish\ngenius, when it is iniquity that sets it on fire. How prolific was the\ninvention of the falsehoods and absurdities of notion, and of the vanities\nand corruptions of practice, which it was devised to make the terms and\nnames of religion designate and sanction! while it was also managed, with\nno less sedulity and success, that the inventors and propagators should be\nheld in submissive reverence by the community, as the oracular\ndepositaries of truth. That community had not knowledge enough of any\nother kind, to create a resisting and defensive power against this\nimposition in the concern of religion. A sound exercise of reason on\nsubjects out of that province, a moderate degree of instruction in\nliterature and science rightly so called, might have produced, in the\npersons of superior native capacity, somewhat of a competency and a\ndisposition to question, to examine, to call for evidence, and to detect\nsome of the fallacies imposed for Christian faith. But in such\ncompleteness of ignorance, the general mind was on all sides pressed and\nborne down to its fate. All reaction ceased; and the people were reduced\nto exist in one huge, unintelligent, monotonous substance, united by the\ninterfusion of a vile superstition, which permitted just enough mental\nlife in the mass to leave it capable of being actuated to all the purposes\nof cheats, and tyrants,--a proper subject for the dominion of \"our Lord\nGod the Pope,\" as he was sometimes denominated; and might have been\ndenominated without exciting indignation, in the hearing of millions of\nbeings bearing the form of men and the name of Christians.\n\nReflect that all this took place under the nominal ascendency of the best\nand brightest economy of instruction from heaven. Reflect that it was in\nnations where even the sovereign authority professed homage to the\nreligion of Christ, and adopted and enforced it as a grand national\ninstitution, that the popular mass was thus reduced to a material fit for\nall the bad uses to which priestcraft could wish to put the souls and\nbodies of its slaves. And then consider what _should_ have been the\ncondition of this great aggregate, wherever Christianity was acknowledged\nby all as the true religion. The people _should_ have consisted of so many\nbeings having each, in some degree, the independent, beneficial use of his\n_mind_; all of them trained with a reference to the necessity of their\nbeing apprized of their responsibility to their Creator, for the exercise\nof their reason on the matters of belief and choice; all of them\ncapacitated for improvement by being furnished with the rudiments and\ninstrumental means of knowledge; and all having within their reach, in\ntheir own language, the Scriptures of divine truth, some by immediate\npossession, the rest by means of faithful readers, while the book existed\nonly in manuscript; all of them after it came to be printed.\n\nCan any doubt arise, whether there were in the Christian states resources\ncompetent, if so applied, to secure to all the people an elementary\ninstruction, and the possession of the printed Bible? Resources competent!\nAll nations, sufficiently raised above barbarism to exist as states, have\nconsumed, in uses the most foreign and pernicious to their welfare, an\ninfinitely greater amount of means than would have sufficed, after due\nprovision for comfortable physical subsistence, to afford a moderate share\nof instruction to all the people. And in those popish ages, that\nexpenditure alone which went to ecclesiastical use would have been far\nmore than adequate to this beneficent purpose. Think of the boundless cost\nfor supporting the magnificence and satiating the rapacity of the\nhierarchy, from its triple-crowned head, down through all the orders\nbranded with a consecration under that head to maintain the delusion and\nshare the spoil. Recollect the immense system of policy for jurisdiction\nand intrigue, every agent of which was a devourer. Recollect the pomps and\npageants, for which the general resources were to be taxed: while the\ngeneral industry was injured by the interruption of useful employment, and\nthe diversion of the people to such dissipation as their condition\nqualified and permitted them to indulge in. Think also of the incalculable\ncost of ecclesiastical structures, the temples of idolatry as in truth\nthey were. One of the most striking situations for a religious and\nreflective Protestant is, that of passing some solitary hour under the\nlofty vault, among the superb arches and columns, of any one of the most\nsplendid of these edifices remaining at this day in our own country. If he\nhas sensibility and taste, the magnificence, the graceful union of so many\ndiverse inventions of art, the whole mighty creation of genius that\nquitted the world without leaving even a name, will come with magical\nimpression on his mind, while it is contemplatively darkening into the awe\nof antiquity. But he will be recalled--the sculptures, the inscriptions,\nthe sanctuaries enclosed off for the special benefit, after death, of\npersons who had very different concerns during life from that of the care\nof their salvation, and various other insignia of the original character\nof the place, will help to recall him--to the thought, that these proud\npiles were in fact raised to celebrate the conquest, and prolong the\ndominion, of the Power of Darkness over the souls of the people. They were\nas triumphal arches, erected in memorial of the extermination of that\ntruth which was given to be the life of men.\n\nAs he looks round, and looks upwards, on the prodigy of design, and skill,\nand perseverance, and tributary wealth, he may image to himself the\nmultitudes that, during successive ages, frequented this fane in the\nassured belief, that the idle ceremonies and impious superstitions, which\nthey there performed or witnessed, were a service acceptable to heaven,\nand to be repaid in blessings to the offerers.\n\nHe may say to himself, Here, on this very floor, under that elevated and\ndecorated vault, in a \"dim religious light\" like this, but with the\ndarkness of the shadow of death in their souls, they prostrated themselves\nto their saints, or their \"queen of heaven;\" nay, to painted images and\ntoys of wood or wax, to some ounce or two of bread and wine, to fragments\nof old bones, and rags of cast-off vestments. Hither they came, when\nconscience, in looking back or pointing forward, dismayed them, to\npurchase remission with money or atoning penances, or to acquire the\nprivilege of sinning with impunity in a certain manner, or for a certain\ntime; and they went out at yonder door in the perfect confidence that the\npriest had secured, in the one case the suspension, in the other the\nsatisfaction, of the divine law. Here they solemnly believed, as they were\ntaught, that, by donatives to the church, they delivered the souls of\ntheir departed sinful relations from their state of punishment; and they\nwent out of that door resolved, such as had possessions, to bequeath some\nportion of them, to operate in the same manner for themselves another day,\nin the highly probable case of similar need. Here they were convened to\nlisten in reverence to some representative emissary from the Man of Sin,\nwith new dictates of blasphemy or iniquity promulgated in the name of the\nAlmighty: or to witness the trickery of some farce, devised to cheat or\nfrighten them out of whatever remainder the former impositions might have\nleft them of sense, conscience, or property. Here, in fine, there was\nnever presented to their understanding, from their childhood to their\ndeath, a comprehensive, honest declaration of the laws of duty, and the\npure doctrines of salvation. To think! that they should have mistaken for\nthe house of God, and the very gate of heaven, a place where the Regent of\nthe nether world had so short a way to come from his dominions, and his\nagents and purchased slaves so short a way to go thither. If we could\nimagine a momentary visit from Him who once entered a fabric of sacred\ndenomination with a scourge, because it was made the resort of a common\ntraffic, with what aspect and voice, with what infliction but the \"rebuke\nwith flames of fire,\" would he have entered this mart of iniquity,\nassuming the name of his sanctuary, where the traffic was in delusions,\ncrimes, and the souls of men? It was even as if, to use the prophet's\nlanguage, the very \"stone cried out of the wall, and the beam out of the\ntimber answered it,\" in denunciation; for a portion of the means of\nbuilding, in the case of some of these edifices, was obtained as the price\nof dispensations and pardons. [Footnote: That most superb Salisbury\nCathedral, for example.]\n\nIn such a hideous light would the earlier history of one of these mighty\nstructures, pretendedly consecrated to Christianity, be presented to the\nreflecting Protestant; and then would recur the idea of its cost, as\nrelative to what that expenditure might really have done for Christianity\nand the people. It absorbed in the construction, sums sufficient to have\nsupplied, costly as they would have been, even manuscript Bibles, in the\npeople's own language, (as a priesthood of truly apostolic character would\nhave taken care the Scriptures should speak,) to all the families of a\nprovince; and in the revenues appropriated to its ministration of\nsuperstition, enough to have provided men to teach all those families to\nread those Bibles.\n\nIn all this, and in the whole constitution of the Grand Apostasy,\ninvolving innumerable forms of abuse and abomination, to which our object\ndoes not require any allusion, how sad a spectacle is held forth of the\npeople destroyed for lack of knowledge. If, as one of their plagues, an\ninferior one in itself, they were plundered as we have seen, of their\nworldly goods, it was that the spoil might subserve to a still greater\nwrong. What was lost to the accommodation of the body, was to be made to\ncontribute to the depravation of the spirit. It supplied means for\nmultiplying the powers of the grand ecclesiastical machinery, and\nconfirming the intellectual despotism of the usurpers of spiritual\nauthority. Those authorities enforced on the people, on pain of perdition,\nan acquiescence in notions and ordinances which, in effect, precluded\ntheir direct access to the Almighty, and the Saviour of the world;\ninterposing between them and the Divine Majesty a very extensive,\ncomplicated, and heathenish mediation, which in a great measure\nsubstituted itself for the real and exclusive mediation of Christ,\nobscured by its vast creation of intercepting vanities the glory of the\nEternal Being, and thus almost extinguished the true worship. But how\ncalamitous was such a condition!--to be thus intercepted from direct\nintercourse with the Supreme Spirit, and to have the solemn and elevating\nsentiment of devotion flung downward, on objects to some of which even the\nmost superstitious could hardly pay homage without a sense of degradation.\n\nIt was, again, a disastrous thing to be under a directory of practical\nlife framed for the convenience of a corrupt system; a rule which enjoined\nmany things wrong, allowed a dispensation from nearly everything that was\nright, and abrogated the essential principle and ground-work of true\nmorality. Still again, it was an unhappy thing, that the consolations in\nsorrow and the view of death should either be too feeble to animate, or\nshould animate only by deluding. And it was the consummation of evil in\nthe state of the people of those dark ages, it was, emphatically to be\n\"destroyed,\" that the great doctrines of redemption should have been\nessentially vitiated or formally supplanted, so that multitudes of people\nwere betrayed to rest their final hopes on a ground unauthorized by the\nJudge of the world. In this most important matter, the spiritual\nauthorities might themselves be subjects of the fatal delusion in which\nthey held the community; and well they deserved to be so, in judicial\nretribution of their wickedness in imposing on the people, deliberately\nand on system, innumerable things which they knew to be false.\n\nWe have often mused, and felt a gloom and dreariness spreading over the\nmind while musing, on descriptions of the aspect of a country after a\npestilence has left it in desolation, or of a region where the people are\nperishing by famine. It has seemed a mournful thing to behold, in\ncontemplation, the multitude of lifeless? forms, occupying in silence the\nsame abodes in which they had lived, or scattered upon the gardens,\nfields, and roads; and then to see the countenances of the beings yet\nlanguishing in life, looking despair, and impressed with the signs of\napproaching death. We have even sometimes had the vivid and horrid picture\noffered to our imagination, of a number of human creatures shut up by\ntheir fellow mortals in some strong hold, under an entire privation of\nsustenance; and presenting each day their imploring, or infuriated, or\ngrimly sullen, or more calmly woful countenances, at the iron and\nimpregnable gates; each succeeding day more haggard, more perfect in the\nimage of despair; and after awhile appearing each day one fewer, till at\nlast all have sunk. Now shall we feel it as a _relief_ to turn in thought,\nas to a sight of less portentous evil, from the inhabitants of a country,\nor from those of such an accursed prison-house, thus pining away, to\nbehold the different spectacle of national tribes, or any more limited\nportion of mankind, on whose _minds_ are displayed the full effects of\nknowledge denied; who are under the process of whatever destruction it is,\nthat spirits can suffer from want of the vital aliment to the intelligent\nnature, especially from \"a famine of the words of the Lord?\"\n\nTo bring the two to a close comparison, suppose the case, that some of the\npersons thus doomed to perish in the tower were in the possession of the\ngenuine light and consolations of Christianity, perhaps even had actually\nbeen adjudged to this fate, (no extravagant supposition,) for zealously\nand persistingly endeavoring the restoration of the purity of that\nreligion to the deluded community. Let it be supposed that numbers of that\ncommunity, having conspired to obtain this ad-judgment, frequented the\nprecincts of the fortress, to see their victims gradually perishing. It\nwould be quite in the spirit of the popish superstition, that they should\nbelieve themselves to have done God service, and be accordingly pleased at\nthe sight of the more and more deathlike aspect of the emaciated\ncountenances. The while, they might be themselves in the enjoyment of\n\"fulness of bread,\" We can imagine them making convivial appointments\nwithin sight of the prison gates, and going from the spectacle to meet at\nthe banquet. Or they might delay the festivity, in order to have the\nadditional luxury of knowing that the tragedy was consummated; as Bishop\nGardiner would not dine till the martyrs were burnt.--Look at these two\ncontemporary situations, that of the persons with truth and immortal hope\nin their spirits, enduring this slow and painful reduction of their bodies\nto dissolution,--and that of those who, while their bodies fared\nsumptuously, were thus miserably perishing in soul, through its being\nsurrendered to the curse of a delusion which envenomed it with such a\ndeadly malignity: and say which was the more calamitous predicament.\n\nIf we have no hesitation in pronouncing, let us consider whether we have\never been grateful enough to God for the dashing in pieces so long since\nin this land, of a system which maintains, to this hour, much of its\nstability over the greater part of Christendom. If we regret that certain\nfragments of it are still held in veneration here, and that so tedious a\nlength of ages should be required, to work out a complete mental rescue\nfrom the infatuation which possessed our ancestors, let us at the same\ntime look at the various states of Europe, small and great, where this\nsuperstition continues to hold the minds of the people in its odious\ngrasp; and verify to ourselves what we have to be thankful for, by\nthinking what reception _our_ minds would give to an offer of subsistence\non their mummeries, masses, absolutions, legends, relics, mediation of\nsaints, and corruptions, even to complete reversal of the evangelic\ndoctrines.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt was, however, but very slowly that the people of our land realized the\nbenefits of the Reformation, glorious as that event was, regarded as to\nits progressive and its ultimate consequences. Indeed, the thickness of\nthe preceding darkness was strikingly manifested by the deep shade which\nstill continued stretched over the nation, in spite of the newly risen\nluminary, whose beams lost their brightness in pervading it to reach the\npopular mind, and came with the faintness of an obscured and tedious dawn.\n\nA long time there lingered enough of night for the evil spirit of popery\nto be at large and in power, not abashed, as Milton represents the Evil\nAngel on his being surprised by the guardians of paradise. Rather the case\nwas that the vindicator itself of truth and holiness, the true Lucifer,\nshrunk at the rencounter and defiance of the old possessor of the gloomy\ndominion. The Reformation was not empowered to speak with a voice like\nthat which said, \"Let there be light--and there was light.\" Consider what,\non its avowed national adoption in our land, were its provisions for\nacting on the community, and how slow and partial must have been their\nefficacy, for either the dissipation of ignorance in general, or the\nriddance of that worst part of it which had thickened round the Romish\ndelusion, as malignant a pestilence as ever walked in darkness. There was\nan alteration of formularies, a curtailment of rites, a declaration of\nrenouncing, in the name of the church and state, the most palpable of the\nabsurdities; and a change, in some instances of the persons, but in very\nmany others of the professions merely, of the hierarchy. Such were the\nappointments and instrumentality, for carrying an innovation of opinions\nand practices through a nation in which the profoundest ignorance and the\nmost inveterate superstition fortified each other. And we may well imagine\nhow fast and how far they would be effective, to convey information and\nconviction among a people whose reason had been just so much the worse,\nwith respect to religion at least, as it had not been totally dormant; and\nwho were too illiterate to be ever the wiser for the volume of inspiration\nitself, had it been in their native language, in every house, instead of\nbeing scarcely in one house in five thousand.\n\nDoubtless some advantage was gained through this change of institutions,\nby the abolition of so much of the authority of the spiritual despotism as\nit possessed in virtue of being the imperative national establishment. And\nif, under this relaxation of its grasp, a number of persons declined and\nescaped into the new faith, they hardly knew how or why, it was happy to\nmake the transition on _any_ terms, with however little of the exercise of\nreason, with however little competence to exercise it. Well was it to be\non the right ground, though a man had come thither like one conveyed while\npartly asleep. To have grown to a state of mind in which he ceased and\nrefused to worship relics and wafers, to rest his confidence on penance\nand priestly absolution, and to regard the Virgin and saints as in effect\nthe supreme regency of heaven, was a valuable alteration _though_ he could\nnot read, and _though_ he could not assign, and had not clearly\napprehended, the arguments which justified the change. Yes, this would be\nan important thing gained; but not even thus much _was_ gained to the\npassive slaves of popery but in an exceedingly limited extent, during a\nlong course of time after it was supplanted as a national institution. It\ncontinued to maintain in the faith, feelings, and more private habits of\nthe people, a dominion little enfeebled by the necessity of dissimulation\nin public observances. As far as to secure this exterior show of\nsubmission and conformity, it was an excellent argument that the state had\ndecreed, and would resolutely enforce, a change in religion,--that is to\nsay, till it should be the sovereign pleasure of the next monarch, readily\nseconded by a majority of the ecclesiastics, just to turn the whole affair\nround to its former position.\n\nBut the argument would expend nearly its whole strength on this policy of\nsaving appearances. For what was there conveyed in it that could strike\ninward to act upon the fixed tenets of the mind, to destroy there the\neffect of the earliest and ten thousand subsequent impressions, of\ninveterate habit and of ancient establishment? Was it to convince and\npersuade by authority of the maxim, that the government in church and\nstate is wiser than the people, and therefore the best judge in every\nmatter? This, as asserted generally, was what the people firmly believed:\nit has always, till lately, been the popular faith. But then, was the\nbenefit of this obsequious faith to go exclusively to the government of\njust that particular time,--a government which, by its innovations and\ndemolitions, was exhibiting a contemptuous dissent from all past\ngovernment remembered in the land? Were the people not to hesitate a\nmoment to take this innovating government's word for it that all their\nforefathers, up through a long series of ages, had been fools and dupes in\nreverencing, in their time, the wisdom and authority of _their_ governors?\nThe most unthinking and submissive would feel that this was too much:\nespecially after they had proof that the government demanding so\nprodigious a concession might, on the substitution of just one individual\nfor another at its head, revoke its own ordinances, and punish those who\nshould contumaciously continue to be ruled by them. You summon us, they\nmight have said to their governors, at your arbitrary dictate to renounce,\nas what you are pleased to call idolatries and abominations, the faith and\nrites held sacred by twenty generations of our ancestors and yours. We are\nto do this on peril of your highest displeasure, and that of God, by whose\nwill you are professing to act; now who will ensure us that there may not\nbe, some time hence, a vindictive inquisition, to find who among us have\nbeen the most ready of obedience to offer wicked insult to the Holy\nCatholic Apostolic Church?\n\nThis deficiency of the moral power of the government, to promote the\nprogress of conviction in the mind of the nation, would be slenderly\nsupplied by the authority of the class next to the government in the claim\nto deference, and even holding the precedence in actual influence,--that\nis, the families of rank and consequence throughout the country. For the\npeople well knew, in their respective neighborhoods, that many of these\nhad never in reality forsaken the ancient religion, consulting only the\npolicy of a time-serving conformity; and that some of them hardly\nattempted or wished to conceal from their inferiors that they preserved\ntheir fidelity. And then the substituted religion, while it came with a\ngreat diminution of the pomp which is always the delight of the ignorant,\nacknowledged,--proclaimed as one of its chief merits,--a still more fatal\ndefect for attracting converts from among beings whose ignorance had never\nbeen suffered to doubt, till then, that men in ecclesiastical garb could\nmodify, or suspend, or defeat for them the justice of God; it proclaimed\nitself unable to give any exemptions or commutations in matters of\nconscience.\n\nWhen such were the recommendations which the new mode of religion _not_,\nand when the recommendation which it _had_ was simply, (the royal\nauthority set out of the question,) an offer of evidence to the\nunderstanding _that it was true_, no wonder that many of a generation so\ninsensate through ignorance should never become its proselytes. But even\nas to those who did, while it was a happy deliverance, as we have said, to\nescape almost any way from the utter grossness of popery, still they would\ncarry into their better faith much of the unhappy effect of that previous\nmental debasement. How should a man in the rudeness of an intellect left\ncompletely ignorant of truth in general, have a luminous apprehension of\nits most important division? There could not be in men's minds a\nphenomenon similar to what we image to ourselves of Goshen in the\npreternatural night of Egypt, a space of perfect light, defined out by a\nprecise limit amidst the general darkness.\n\nOnly consider, that the new ideas admitted into the proselyte's\nunderstanding as the true faith, were to take their situation there in\nnearly those very same encompassing circumstances of internal barbarism\nwhich had been so perfectly commodious to the superstition recently\ndwelling there; and that which had been favorable and adapted in the\nutmost degree, that which had afforded much of the sustenance of life, to\nthe false notions, could not but be most adverse to the development of the\ntrue ones. These latter, so environed, would be in a condition too like\nthat of a candle in the mephitic air of a vault. The newly adopted\nreligion, therefore, of the uncultivated converts from popery, would be\nfar from exhibiting, as compared with the renounced superstition, a\nmagnitude of change, and force of contrast, duly corresponding to the\ndifference between the lying vanities of priestcraft and a communication\nfrom the living God. The reign of ignorance combined with imposture had\nfixed upon the common people of the age of the Reformation, and of several\ngenerations downward, the doom of being incapable of admitting genuine\nChristianity but with an excessively inadequate apprehension of its\nattributes;--as in the patriarchal ages a man might have received with\nonly the honors appropriate to a saint or prophet, the visitant in whom he\nwas entertaining an angel unawares. Happy for both that ancient\nentertainer of such a visitant, and the ignorant but honest adopter of the\nreformed religion, when that which they entertained rewarded them\naccording to its own celestial quality, rather than in proportion to their\ninadequate reception. We may believe that the Divine Being, in special\ncompassion to that ignorance to which barbarism and superstition had\ncondemned inevitably the greater number of the early converts to the\nreformed religion, did render that faith beneficial to them beyond the\nproportion of their narrow and still half superstitious conception of it.\nAnd this is, in truth, the consideration the most consolatory in looking\nback to that tenebrious period in which popery was slowly retiring, with a\nprotracted exertion of all the craft and strength of an able and veteran\ntyrant contending to the last for prolonged dominion.\n\nIt is, however, no consideration of a portion of the people sincere,\ninquiring, and emerging, though dimly enlightened, from the gloom of so\ndreary a scene, that is most apt to occur to our thoughts in extenuation\nof that gloom. Our unreflecting attention allows itself to be so engrossed\nby far different circumstances of that period of our history, that we are\nimposed upon by a spectacle the very opposite of mournful. For what is it\nbut a splendid and animating exhibition that we behold in looking back to\nthe age of Elizabeth?\n\nAnd _was_ not that, it may be asked, an age of the highest glory to our\nnation? Why repress our delight in contemplating it? How can we refuse to\nindulge an inspiring sympathy with the energy of those times, an elation\nof spirit at beholding the unparalleled allotment of her reign, of\nstatesmen, heroes, and literary geniuses, but for whom, indeed, \"that\nbright occidental star\" would have left no such brilliant track of fame\nbehind her?\n\nPermit us to answer by inquiring, What should the intellectual condition\nof the _people_, properly so denominated, have been in order to correspond\nin a due proportion to the magnificence of these their representative\nchiefs, and complete the grand spectacle as that of a _nation_? Determine\nthat; and then inquire what actually _was_ the state of the people all\nthis while. There is evidence that it was, what the fatal blight and blast\nof popery might be expected to have left it, generally and most wretchedly\ndegraded. What it was is shown by the facts, that it was found impossible,\neven under the inspiring auspices of the learned Elizabeth, with her\nconstellation of geniuses, orators, scholars, to supply the churches\ngenerally with officiating persons capable of going with decency through\nthe task of the public service, made ready, as every part of it was, to\ntheir hands; and that to be able to read, was the very marked distinction\nof here and there an individual. It requires little effort but that of\ngoing low enough, to complete the general estimate in conformity to these\nand similar facts.\n\nAnd here we cannot help remarking what a deception we suffer to pass on us\nfrom history. It celebrates some period in a nation's career, as\npre-eminently illustrious, for magnanimity, lofty enterprise, literature,\nand original genius. There was, perhaps, a learned and vigorous monarch,\nand there were Cecils and Walsinghams, and Shakspeares and Spensers, and\nSidneys and Raleighs, with many other powerful thinkers and actors, to\nrender it the proudest age of our national glory. And we thoughtlessly\nadmit on our imagination this splendid exhibition as in some manner\ninvolving or implying the collective state of the people in that age! The\nethereal summits of a tract of the moral world are conspicuous and fair in\nthe lustre of heaven, and we take no thought of the immensely greater\nproportion of it which is sunk in gloom and covered with fogs. The general\nmass of the population, whose physical vigor, indeed, and courage, and\nfidelity to the interests of the country, were of such admirable avail to\nthe purposes, and under the direction, of the mighty spirits that wielded\ntheir rough agency,--this great assemblage was sunk in such mental\nbarbarism, as to be placed at about the same distance from their\nillustrious intellectual chiefs, as the hordes of Scythia from the finest\nspirits of Athens. It was nothing to this debased, countless multitude\nspread over the country, existing in the coarsest habits, destitute, in\nthe proportion of thousands to one, of cultivation, and still in a great\ndegree enslaved by the popish superstition,--it was nothing to them, in\nthe way of direct influence to draw forth their minds into free exercise\nand acquirement, that there were, within the circuit of the island, a\nprofound scholarship, a most disciplined and vigorous reason, a masculine\neloquence, and genius breathing enchantment. Both the actual possessors of\nthis mental opulence, and the part of society forming, around them, the\nsphere immediately pervaded by the delight and instruction imparted by\nthem, might as well, for anything they diffused of this luxury and benefit\namong the general multitude, have been a Brahminical caste, dissociated by\nan imagined essential distinction of nature. While they were exulting in\nthis elevation and free excursiveness of mental existence, the prostrate\ncrowd were grovelling through a life on a level with the soil where they\nwere at last to find their graves. But this crowd it was that constituted\nthe substance of the _nation_; to which, nation, in the mass, the\nhistorian applies the superb epithets, which a small proportion of the men\nof that age claimed by a striking _exception_ to the general state of the\ncommunity. History too much consults our love of effect and pomp, to let\nus see in a close and distinct manner anything\n\n  \"On the low level of th' inglorious throng;\"\n\nand our attention is borne away to the intellectual splendor exhibited\namong the most favored aspirants of the seats of learning, or in councils,\ncourts, and camps, in heroic and romantic enterprises, and in some\nimmortal works of genius. And thus we are gazing with delight at a fine\npublic bonfire, while, in all the cottages round, the people are shivering\nfor want of fuel.\n\nOur history becomes very bright again with the intellectual and literary\nriches of a much later period, often denominated a golden age,--that which\nwas illustrated by the talents of Addison, Pope, Swift, and their numerous\nsecondaries in fame; and could also boast its philosophers, statesmen, and\nheroes. And in the lapse of four or five ages, according to the average\nterm of human life, since the earlier grand display of mind, what had been\neffected toward such an advancement of intelligence in the community, that\nwhen this next tribe of highly endowed spirits should appear, they would\nstand in much loss opprobrious contrast to the main body of the nation,\nand find a much larger portion of it qualified to receive their\nintellectual effusions. By this time, the class of persons who sought\nknowledge on a wider scale than what sufficed for the ordinary affairs of\nlife, who took an interest in literature, and constituted the _Authors'\nPublic_, had indeed extended a little, extremely little, beyond the people\nof condition, the persons educated in learned institutions, and those\nwhose professions involved some necessity, and might create some taste for\nreading. Still they _were a class_, and that with a limitation marked and\npalpable, to a degree very difficult for us now to conceive. They were in\ncontact, on the one side, with the great thinkers, moralists, poets, and\nwits, but very slightly in communication with the generality of the people\non the other. They received the emanations from the assemblage of talent\nand knowledge, but did not serve as conductors to convey them down\nindefinitely into the community. The national body, regarded in its\nintellectual character, had an inspirited and vigorous superior part, as\nconstituted of these men of eminent talents and attainments, and this\nsmall class of persons in a measure assimilated to them in thinking and\ntaste; but it was in a condition resembling that of a human frame in\nwhich, (through an injury in the spinal marrow,) some of the most\nimportant functions of vitality have terminated at some precise limit\ndownward, leaving the inferior extremities devoid of sensation and the\npower of action.\n\nIt is on record, that works admirably adapted to find readers and to make\nthem, had but an extremely confined and slowly widening circulation,\naccording to _our_ standard of the popular success of the productions of\ndistinguished talents. Nor did the writers _reckon_ on any such popular\nsuccess. In the calculations of their literary ambition, it was a thing of\ncourse that the people went for nothing. It is apparent in allusions to\nthe people occurring in these very works, that \"the lower sort,\" \"the\nvulgar herd,\" \"the canaille,\" \"the mob,\" \"the many-headed beast,\" \"the\nmillion,\" (and even these designations generally meant something short of\nthe lowest classes of all,) were no more thought of in any relation to a\nstate of cultivated intelligence than Turks or Tartars. The readers are\nhabitually recognized as a kind of select community, conversed with on\ntopics and in a language with which the vulgar have nothing at all to\ndo,--a converse the more gratifying on that account. And any casual\nallusions to the bulk of the people are expressed in phrases unaffectedly\nimplying, that they are a herd of beings existing on quite other terms and\nfor essentially other ends, than we, fine writers, and you, our admiring\nreaders. It is evident in our literature of that age, (a feature still\nmore prominent in that of France, at the same and down to a much later\nperiod,) that the main national population, accounted as creatures to\nwhich souls and senses were given just to render their limbs mechanically\nserviceable, were regarded by the intellectual aristocracy with hardly so\nactive a sentiment as contempt; they were not worth that; it was the easy\nindifference toward what was seldom thought of as in existence.\n\nWickedly wrong as such a feeling was, there is no doubt that the actual\nstate of the people was quite such as would naturally cause it, in men\nwhose large and richly cultivated minds did not contain philanthropy or\nChristian charity enough to regret and pity the popular debasement as a\ncalamity. For while they were indulging their pride in the elevation, and\ntheir taste in all the luxuries and varieties, of that ampler higher range\nof existence enjoyed by such men, in what light must they view the bulk of\na nation, that knew nothing of their wit, genius, or philosophy, could not\neven read their writings, but as a coarse mass of living material, the\nmere earthy substratum of humanity, not to be accounted of in any\ncomparison or even relation to what man is in his higher style? While they\nof that higher style were revelling in their mental affluence, the vast\nmajority of the inhabitants of the island were subsisting, and had always\nsubsisted, on the most beggarly pittance on which mind could be barely\nkept alive. Probably they had at that time still fewer ideas than the\npeople of the former age which we have been describing. For many of those\nwith which popery had occupied the faith and fancy of that earlier\ngeneration, had now vanished from the popular mind, without being replaced\nin equal number by better ideas, or by ideas of any kind. And then their\nvices had the whole grossness of vice, and their favorite amusements were\nat best rude and boisterous, and a large proportion of them savage and\ncruel. So that when we look at the shining wits, poets, and philosophers,\nof that age, they appear like gaudy flowers growing in a putrid marsh.\n\nAnd to a much later period this deplorable ignorance, with all its\nappropriate consequences, continued to be the dishonor and the plague of\nthe intellectual and moral condition of the inhabitants of England. Of\nEngland! which had through many centuries made so great a figure in\nChristendom; which has been so splendid in arms, liberty, legislation,\nscience, and all manner of literature: which has boasted its universities,\nof ancient foundation and proudest fame, munificently endowed, and\npossessing, in their accumulations of literary treasure, nearly the whole\nresults of all the strongest thinking there had been in the world: and\nwhich has had also, through the charity of individuals, such a number of\nminor institutions for education, that the persons intrusted to see them\nadministered have, in very numerous instances, not scrupled to divert\ntheir resources to total different purposes, lest, perchance, the cause of\ndamage to the people should change from a lack of knowledge to a repletion\nof it. Of England! so long after the Reformation, and all the while under\nthe superintendence and tuition of an ecclesiastical establishment for\nboth instruction and jurisdiction, co-extended with the entire nation, and\nfurnished for its ministry with men from the discipline of institutions\nwhere everything the most important to be known was professed to be\ntaught. Thus endowed had England been, thus was she endowed at the period\nunder our review, (the former part of the last century,) with the\nfacilities, the provisions, the great intellectual apparatus, to be\nwielded in any mode her wisdom might devise, and with whatever strength of\nhand she chose to apply, for promoting her several millions of rational,\naccountable, immortal beings, somewhat beyond a state of mere physical\nexistence. When therefore, notwithstanding all this, an awful proportion\nof them were under the continual process of destruction for want of\nknowledge, what a tremendous responsibility was borne by whatever part of\nthe community it was that stood, either by office and express vocation, or\nby the general obligation inseparable from ability, in the relation of\nguardianship to the rest.\n\nBut here the voice of that sort of patriotism which is in vogue as well in\nEngland as in China, may perhaps interpose to protest against malicious\nand exaggerated invective. As if it were a question of what might\nbeforehand be reasonably expected, instead of an account of what actually\nexists, it may be alleged that surely it is a representation too much\nagainst antecedent probability to be true, that a civilized, Christian,\nmagnanimous, and wealthy state like that of England, can have been so\ncareless and wicked as to tolerate, during the lapse of centuries, a\nhideously gross and degraded condition of the people.\n\nBut besides that the fact is plainly so, it were vain to presume, in\nconfidence on any supposed consistency of character, that it _must_ be\notherwise. There is no saying _what_ a civilized and Christian nation, (so\ncalled,) may not tolerate. Recollect the Slave Trade, which, with the\nmagnitude of a national concern, continued its abominations while one\ngeneration after another of Englishmen passed away; their intelligence,\nconscience, humanity, and refinement, as quietly accommodated to it, as if\none portion of the race had possessed an express warrant from Heaven to\ncapture, buy, sell, and drive another. This is but one of many mortifying\nillustrations how much the constitution of our moral sentiments resembles\na Manich\u00e6an creation, how much of them is formed in passive submission to\nthe evil principle, acting through prevailing custom; which determines\nthat it shall but very partially depend on the real and most manifest\nqualities of things present to us, whether we shall have any right\nperception of their characters of good and evil. The agency which works\nthis malformation in our sentiments needs no greater triumph, than that\nthe true nature of things should be disguised to us by the very effect of\ntheir being constantly kept in our sight. Could any malignant enchanter\nwish for more than this,--to make us insensible to the odious quality of\nthings not only _though_ they stand constantly and directly in our view,\nbut _because_ they do so? And while they do so, there may also stand as\nobviously in our view, and close by them, the truths which _expose_ their\nreal nature, and might be expected to make us instantly revolt from them;\nand these truths shall be no other than some of the plainest principles of\nreason and religion. It shall be as if men of wicked designs could be\ncompelled to wear labels on their breasts wherever they go, to announce\ntheir character in conspicuous letters; or nightly assassins could be\nforced to carry torches before them, to reveal the murder in their\nvisages; or, as if, according to a vulgar superstition, evil spirits could\nnot help betraying their dangerous presence by a tinge of brimstone in the\nflame of the lamps. Thus evident, by the light of reason and religion,\nshall have been the true nature of certain important facts in the policy\nof a Christian nation; and nevertheless, even the cultivated part of that\nnation, during a series of generations, having directly before their sight\nan enormous nuisance and iniquity, shall yet never be struck with its\nquality, never be made restless by its annoyance, never seriously think of\nit. And so its odiousness shall never be decidedly apprehended till some\nindividual or two, as by the acquisition of a new moral sense, receive a\nsudden intuition of its nature, a disclosure of its whole essence and\nmalignity,--the essence and malignity of that very thing which has been\nexposing its quality, without the least reserve, by the most flagrant\nsigns, to millions of observers.\n\nThus it has been with respect to the barbarous ignorance under which\nnine-tenths of the population of our country have continued, through a\nnumber of ages subsequent to the Reformation, surrendered to everything\nlow, vicious, and wretched. This state of national debasement and dishonor\nlay spread out, a wide scene of moral desolation, in the sight of\nstatesmen, of dignified and subordinate ecclesiastics, of magistrates, of\nthe philosophic speculators on human nature, and of all those whose rank\nand opulence brought them hourly proofs what great influence they might\nhave, in any way in which, they should choose to exert it, on the people\nbelow them. And still it was all right that the multitudes, constituting\nthe grand living agency through the realm, should remain in such a\ncondition that, when they died, the country should lose nothing but so\nmuch animated body, with the quantum of vice which helped to keep it in\naction. When at length some were beginning to apprehend and proclaim that\nall this was wrong, these classes were exceedingly slow in their assent to\nthe reformed doctrine. A large proportion of them even declared, on\nsystem, against the speculations and projects for giving the people, at\nlast, the use and value of their souls as well as their hands. The earnest\nand sanguine philanthropists might be pardoned the simplicity of not\nforeseeing such an opposition, though they ought, perhaps, to have known\nbetter than to be surprised at the phenomenon. They were to be made wiser\nby force, with respect to men's governing prejudices and motives. And from\ncredulity mortified is a short transit to suspicion. So ungracious a\nmanner of having the insight into motives sharpened, does not tend to make\nits subsequent exercise indulgent, when it comes to inspect the altered\nappearances assumed by persons and classes who have previously been in\ndecided opposition. What arguments have prevailed with you, (the question\nmight be,) since you have never frankly retracted your former contempt of\nthose which convinced _us_? May any sinister thought have occurred, that\nyou might defeat our ends by a certain way of managing the means? Or do\nyou hope to deter mine and limit to some subordinate purposes, what we\nwish to prosecute for the most general good? Or would you rather impose on\nyourselves the grievance of promoting an object which you dislike, than\nthat we should have the chief credit of promoting it? Do you sometimes\naccompany your working in the vineyard with maledictions on those who have\nreduced you to such a necessity? Would you have been glad to be saved the\nunwelcome service by _their_ letting it alone?\n\nThose friends of man and their country who were the earliest to combine\nin schemes for enlightening the people, and who continue to prosecute the\nobject on the most liberal and comprehensive principle, have to\nacknowledge surmises like these. Nevertheless, they are willing to forego\nany shrewd investigation into the causes of the later silence and\napparent acquiescence of former opposers; and into the motives which have\ninduced some of them, though in no very amicable mood, to take a part in\nmeasures tending in their general effect to the same end. Whatever were\ntheir suspicion of those motives, they would be reminded of an example,\nnot altogether foreign to the nature of their business, and quite in\npoint to their duty,--that of the magnanimous principle through which the\ngreat Apostle disappointed his adversaries, by finding his own triumph in\nthat of his cause, while he saw that cause availing itself of these foes\nafter the manner of some consummate general, who has had the art to make\nthose who have come into the field as but treacherous auxiliaries,\nco-operate effectually in the battle which they never intended he should\ngain. Some preached Christ of envy, and strife, and contention, supposing\nto add affliction to his bonds; but, says he, What then? notwithstanding\nevery way, whether in pretence or truth, Christ is preached--_the thing\nitself is done_--and I therein rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. When\nanimated by this high principle, this ambition absolutely _for the cause\nitself_, its servant is a gainer, because _it_ is a gainer, by all things\nconvertible into tribute, whatever may be the temper or intention of the\nofficers, either as towards the cause or towards himself. He may say to\nthem, I am more pleased by what you are actually doing, be the motive\nwhat it will, in advancement of the object to which I am devoted, than it\nis possible for you to aggrieve me by letting me see that you would not\nbe sorry for the frustration of _my_ schemes and exertions for its\nservice; or even by betraying, though I should lament such a state of\nyour minds, that you would be content to sacrifice _it_ if that might be\nthe way to defeat _me_.\n\nWe revert but for a moment to the review of past times.--We said that long\nafter the brilliant show of talent, and the creation of literary supplies\nfor the national use, in the early part of the last century, the\ndeplorable mental condition of the people remained in no very great degree\naltered. To pass from beholding that bright and sumptuous display, in\norder to see what there was corresponding to it in the subsequent state of\nthe popular cultivation, is like going out from some magnificent apartment\nwith its lustres, music, refections, and assemblage of elegant personages,\nto be beset by beggars in the gloom and cold of a winter night.\n\nTake a few hours' indulgence in the literary luxuries of Addison, Pope,\nand their secondaries, and then turn to some authentic plain\nrepresentation of the attainments and habits of the mass of the people, at\nthe time when Whitefield and Wesley commenced their invasion of the\nbarbarous community. But the benevolent reader, (or let him be a\npatriotically proud one,) is quite reluctant to recognize his country, his\ncelebrated Christian nation, \"the most enlightened in the world,\" (as song\nand oratory have it,) in a populace for the far greater part as perfectly\nestranged from the page of knowledge, as if printing, or even letters, had\nnever been invented; the younger part finding their supreme delight in\nrough frolic and savage sports, the old sinking down into impenetrable\nstupefaction with the decline of the vital principle.\n\nIf he would eagerly seek to fix on something as a counterbalance to this,\nand endeavor to modify the estimate and relieve the feeling, by citing\nperhaps the courage, and a certain rudimental capacity of good sense, in\nwhich the people are deemed to have surpassed the neighboring nations, he\nwill be compelled to see how these native endowments were overrun and\nbefooled by a farrago of contemptible superstitions;--contemptible not\nonly for their stupid absurdity, but also as having in general nothing of\nthat pensive, solemn, and poetical character which superstition is capable\nof assuming.--It is an exception to be made with respect to the\nnorthernmost part of the island, that superstition did there partake of\nthis higher character. It seems to have had somewhat of the tone imitated,\nbut in a softer mode, in the poetry, denominated of Ossian.\n\nAs to religion, there is no hazard in saying, that several millions had\nlittle further notion of it than that it was an occasional, or, in the\nopinion of perhaps one in twenty, a regular appearance at church, hardly\ntaking into the account that they were to be taught anything there. And\nwhat _were_ they taught--those of them who gave their attendance and\nattention? What kind of notions it was that had settled in their minds\nunder such ministration, would be, so to speak, brought out, it would be\nmade apparent what they were or were not taught, when so strong and\ngeneral a sensation was produced by the irruption among them of the two\nreformers just named, proclaiming, as they both did, (notwithstanding very\nconsiderable differences of secondary order,) the principles which had\nbeen authoritatively declared to be of the essence of Christianity, in\nthat model of doctrine which had been appointed to prescribe and conserve\nthe national faith. If such doctrine _had_ been imparted to a portion of\nthe popular mind, even though with somewhat less positive statement, less\ncopiousness of illustration, and less cogency of enforcement than it\nought; if it had been but in crude _substance_ fixed in the people's\nunderstanding, by the ministry of the many thousand authorized\ninstructors, who were by their institute solemnly enjoined and pledged not\nto teach a different sort of doctrine, and not to fail of teaching this;\nif, we repeat, this faith, so conspicuously declared in the articles,\nliturgy, and homilies, had been in any degree in possession of the people,\nthey would have recognized its main principles, or at least a similarity\nof principles, in the addresses of these two new preachers. They would\nhave done so, notwithstanding a peculiarity of phraseology which\nWhitefield and Wesley carried to excess; and notwithstanding certain\nspecialities which the latter did not, even supposing them to be truths,\nkeep duly subordinate in exhibiting the prominent essentials of\nChristianity. The preaching, therefore, of these men was a test of what\nthe people had been previously taught or allowed to repose in as Christian\ntruth, under the tuition of their great religious guardian, the national\nchurch. What it was or was not would be found, in their having a sense of\nsomething like what they had been taught before, or something opposite to\nit, or some thing altogether foreign and unknown, when they were hearing\nthose loud proclaimers of the old doctrines of the Reformation. Now then,\nas carrying with them this quality of a test, how were those men received\nin the community? Why, they were generally received, on account of the\nimport of what they said, still more than from their zealous manner of\nsaying it, with as strong an impression of novelty, strangeness, and\ncontrariety to everything hitherto heard of, as any of our voyagers and\ntravellers of discovery have been by the barbarous tribes who had never\nbefore seen civilized man, or as the Spaniards on their arrival in Mexico\nor Peru. They might, as the voyagers have clone, experience every local\ndifference of moral temperament, from that which hailed them with\nacclamations, to that which often exploded in a volley of mud and stones;\nbut through all these varieties of greetings, there was a strong sense of\nsomething then brought before them for the first time. \"Thou bringest\ncertain strange things to our ears,\" was an expression not more\nunaffectedly uttered by any hearer of an apostle, preaching in a heathen\ncity. And to many of the auditors, it was a matter of nearly as much\ndifficulty as it would to an inquisitive heathen, and required as new a\nposture of the mind, to attain an understanding of the evangelical\ndoctrines, though they were the very same which had been held forth by the\nfathers and martyrs of the English Church.\n\nWe have alluded to the violence, which sometimes encountered the endeavor\nto restore these doctrines to the knowledge and faith of the people. And\nif any one should have thought that, in the descriptions we have been\ngiving, too frequent and willing use has been made of the epithet\n\"barbarous,\" or similar words, as if we could have a perverse pleasure in\ndegrading our nation, we would request him to select for himself the\nappropriate terms for characterizing that state of the people, in point of\nsense and civilization, to say nothing of religion, which could admit such\na fact as this to stand in their history--namely, that, in a vast number\nof instances and places, where some person unexceptionable in character as\nfar as known, and sometimes well known as a worthy man, has attempted to\naddress a number of the inhabitants, under a roof or under the sky, on\nwhat it imported them beyond all things in the world to know and consider,\na multitude have rushed together, shouting and howling, raving and\ncursing, and accompanying, in many of the instances, their furious cries\nand yells with loathsome or dangerous missiles; dragging or driving the\npreacher from his humble stand, forcing him, and the few that wished to\nencourage and hear him, to flee for their lives, sometimes not without\nserious injury before they could escape. And that such a history of the\npeople may show how deservedly their superiors were denominated their\n\"betters,\" it has to add, that these savage tumults were generally\ninstigated or abetted, sometimes under a little concealment, but often\navowedly, by persons of higher condition, and even by those consecrated to\nthe office of religious instruction; and this advantage of their station\nwas lent to defend the perpetrators against shame, or remorse, or just\npunishment, for the outrage.\n\nThere would be no hazard in affirming, that since Wesley and Whitefield\nbegan the conflict with the heathenism of the country, there have been in\nit hundreds of occurrences answering in substance to this description.\nFrom any one, therefore, who should be inclined to accuse us of harsh\nlanguage, we may well repeat the demand in what terms _he_ would think he\ngave the true character of a mental and moral condition, manifested in\nsuch uproars of savage violence as the Christian missionaries among\neastern idolaters never had the slightest cause to apprehend. These\noutrages were so far from uncommon, or confined to any one part of the\ncountry, some time before, and for a very long while after, the middle of\nthe last century, that they might be fairly taken as indicating the depth\nat which the greatest part of the nation lay sunk in ignorance and\nbarbarism. Yet the good and zealous men whose lot it was to be thus set\nupon by a depraved, infuriate rabble, the foremost of them active in\ndirect assault, and the rest venting their ferocious delight in a hideous\nblending of ribaldry and execration, of joking and cursing, were taxed\nwith a canting hypocrisy, or a fanatical madness, for speaking of the\nprevailing ignorance and barbarism in terms equivalent to our sentence\nfrom the Prophet, \"The people are destroyed for lack of knowledge,\" and\nfor deploring the hopelessness of any revolution in this empire of\ndarkness by means of the existing institutions, which seemed indeed to\nhave become themselves its strong-holds.\n\nBut they whom serious danger could not deter from renewing and\nindefinitely repeating such attempts at all hazards, were little likely to\nbe appalled by these contumelies of speech. To the persons so abusing them\nthey might coolly reply, \"Now really you are inconsiderately wasting your\nlabor. Don't you know, that on the account of this same business we have\nsustained the battery of stones, brickbats, and the contents of the ditch?\nAnd can you believe we can much care for mere _words_ of insult, after\nthat? Albeit the opprobrious phrases _have_ the fetid coarseness befitting\nthe bluster of property without education, or the more highly inspirited\ntone of railing learnt in a college, they are quite another kind of thing\nto be the mark for, than such assailments as have come from the brawny\narms of some of your peasants, set on probably by broad hints or plain\nexpressions how much you would be pleased with such exploits.\"--It is\ngratifying to see thus exemplified, in the endurance of evil for a good\ncause, that provision in our nature for economizing the expense of\nfeeling, through which the encountering of the greater creates a hardihood\nwhich can despise the less.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThat our descriptive observations do not exaggerate the popular\nignorance, with its natural concomitants, as prevailing at the middle of\nthe last century and far downward, many of the elderly persons among us\ncan readily confirm, from what they remember of the testimony of their\nimmediate ancestors. It will be recollected what pictures they gave of\nthe moral scene spread over the country when they were young. They could\nconvey lively images of the situations in which the vulgar notions and\nmanners had their free display, by representing the assemblages, and the\nfashion of discourse and manners, at fairs, revels, and other rendezvous\nof amusement; or in the field of rural employment, or on the village\ngreen, or in front of the mechanic's workshop. They could recount various\nanecdotes characteristic of the times; and repeat short dialogues, or\nsingle sayings, which expressed the very essence of what was to the\npopulation of the township or province instead of law and prophets, or\nsages or apostles. They could describe how free from all sense of shame\nwhole families would seem to be, from grand-sires down to the third rude\nreckless generation, for not being able to read; and how well content,\nwhen there was some one individual in the neighborhood who could read an\nadvertisement, or ballad, or last dying speech of a malefactor, for the\nbenefit of the rest. They could describe the desolation of the land, with\nrespect to any enlightening and impressive religious instruction in the\nplaces of worship; in the generality of which, indeed, the whole spirit\nand manner of the service tended to what we just now described as the\nfact--that religion, in its proper sense, was absolutely _a thing not\nrecognized at all_. To most of the persons there the forms attended to\nwere _representative_ of literally nothing--they were _themselves_ the\nall. [Footnote: None of the anecdotes, that have come down in traditions\nnow fading away, are more illustrative of those times, than those which\nshow both people and priest satisfied with the observances at church as\n_constituting_ religion, never thinking of them as but the means to\n_teach_ and _inspire_ it. Such anecdotes must have been heard by every\none who has conversed much with such aged persons as remember the most of\nformer times. Some traditions of this kind may be recalled to mind,\nthrough similarity of character, by hearing such an instance as the\nfollowing. A friend of the writer mentions, that he heard his father,\nwhose veracity was above all question, relate as one of the recollections\nof the time when he was a young man, that in the parish church where he\nattended, the service was one Sunday morning performed with a somewhat\nunusual despatch, and every abbreviation that depended on the discretion\nof the minister; who at the conclusion explained the circumstance\npublicly, by saying, that as neighbor such-a-one (mentioning the name)\nwas going to bait his bull in the afternoon, he had been as short as\npossible that the congregation might have good time for the sport.--It is\non the same principle that the Catholics on the continent, having\nattended mass in the morning, never think of doubting their license for\nevery frivolity the rest of the day.] And as to those who really did in\nthe course of their attendance acquire something assignable as their\ncreed, our supposed reporters could tell what wretched and delusive\nnotions of religion, or rather instead of religion, they were permitted\nand authorized, by their appointed spiritual guides, to carry with them\nto their last hour. At which hour, some ceremonial form was to be a\npassport to heaven: a little bread and wine, converted into a mysterious\nobject of superstition, by receiving an ecclesiastical name of unknown\nimport, accompanied with some sentences regarded much in the nature of an\nincantation--and all was safe! The sinner expiring believed so, and the\nsinners surviving were left to go on in their thoughtless way of life, on\na calculation of the same final resource.\n\nThus the past age has left an image of its character in the minds of the\ngeneration now themselves grown old, received by immediate tradition from\npersons who lived in it. Here and there, indeed, there still lingers, so\nlong after the departure of the great company to which he belonged, an\nancient who retains a trace of this image immediately from the reality, as\nhaving become of an age to look at the world, and take a share in its\nactivities, about the middle of the last century. [Footnote: They are here\nsupposed to be looking back from about the year 1820.] And it might be an\nemployment of considerable though rather melancholy interest, for a person\nvisiting many parts of the land, to put in requisition, in each place, for\na day or two, the most faithful of the memories of the most narrative of\nthe oldest people, for materials toward forming an estimate of the mental\nand moral state of the main body of the inhabitants, of town or country,\nin the period of which they themselves saw the latter part, and remember\nit in combination with what their progenitors related of the former. After\nthese few retainers of the original picture from the life shall have left\nthe world, it will be comparatively a faint conception that can be formed\nof that age from written memorials, which exist but in a very imperfect\nand scattered state.\n\nBut supposing the scene could be brought back to the mental eye, in full\nverity and distinctness, as in a vision supernaturally imparted, are we\nsure we should not have the mortification of perceiving that the change,\nfrom the condition of the people then to their condition now, has been in\nbut poor proportion to the amount of the advantages, which we are apt to\nbe elated in recounting as the boast and happiness of later times? To\nassume that we should _not_, is to impute to that former age still more\nignorance and debasement than appear in the above description. For what\ncould, what must that condition have been, if it was worse than the\npresent by anything near the difference made by what would be a tolerably\nfair improvement of the additional means latterly afforded? An estimate\nbeing made of the measure of intelligence and worth found among the\ndescendants, let so much be taken out as we would wish to attribute to the\neffect of the additional means, and what will that remainder be which is\nto represent the state of the ancestors, formed under a system of means\nwanting all those which we are allowing ourselves to think important\nenough to warrant the frequent expression, \"This new era?\"\n\nThe means wanting to the former generation, and that have sprung into\nexistence for the latter, may be briefly noted; and those of a religious\nnature may be named first. It is the most obvious of public expedients,\nthat good men who wish to make others _so should preach_ to them. And\nthere has been a wonderful extension of this practice since the zealous\nexertions of Whitefield, Wesley, and their co-operators awakened other\ngood men to a sense of their capacity and duty. The spirit actuating the\nassociated followers of the latter of those two great agitators, has\nimpelled forth their whole disposable force (to use a military phrase) to\nthis service; and they have sent preachers into many parts of the land\nwhere preaching itself, in any fair sense of the term, was wholly a\nnovelty; and where there was roused as earnest a zeal to crush this\nalarming innovation, as the people of Iceland are described to feel on the\noccasion of the approach of a white bear to invade their folds or poorly\nstocked pastures. [Footnote: The writer had just been reading that\ndescription.] To a confederacy of Christians so well aware of their own\nstrength and progress, it may seem a superfluous testimony that they are\ndoing incalculable good among our population, more good probably than any\nother religious sect. This tribute is paid not the less freely for a\nmaterial difference in theological opinion; nor for a wish, a quite\nfriendly one, that they may admit some little modification of a spirit\nperhaps rather too sectarian in religion, and rather less than independent\nin politics.\n\nAn immense augmentation has been brought to the sum of public instruction,\nby the continually enlarging numbers of dissenters of other denominations.\nWhatever may be thought of some of the consequences of the great extension\nof dissent, it will hardly be considered as a circumstance tending to\nprolong the reign of _ignorance_ that thus, within the last fifty years,\nthere have been put in activity to impart religious ideas to the people\nnot fewer (exclusively of the Wesleyans) than several thousand minds that\nwould, under a continuance of the former state of the nation, have been\ndoing no such service; that is to say, the service would not have been\ndone at all. Let it be considered, too, that the doctrines inculcated as\nof the first importance, in the preaching of far the greatest number of\nthem, were exactly those which the Established Church avowed in its\nformularies and disowned in its ministry,--one of the circumstances which\ncontributed the most to _make_ dissenters of the more seriously disposed\namong the people.--It is to be added, that so much public activity in\nreligious instruction could not be unaccompanied by an increase of\nexertion in the more private methods of imparting it.\n\nIt is another important accession to the enlarged system of operations\nagainst religious ignorance, that a proportion of the Established Church\nitself has been recovered to the spirit of its venerable founders, by the\nprogressive formation in it of a zealous evangelical ministry; dissenters\nwithin their own community, if we may believe the constant loud\ndeclarations of the bulk of that community, and especially of the most\ndignified, learned, and powerful classes in it. But in spite of whatever\ndiscredit they may suffer from being thus disowned, these worthy and\nuseful men have still, in their character of clergymen, a material\nadvantage above other faithful teachers, for influence on many of the\npeople, by being invested with the credentials of the ancient institution,\nfrom which the popular mind has been slow and reluctant in withdrawing its\nveneration; and for which that sentiment, when not quite extinct, is ready\nto revive at any manifestation in it of the quickening spirit of the\nGospel. We say, if the sentiment be not quite extinct; for we are aware\nwhat a very large proportion of the people are gone beyond the possibility\nof feeling it any more. But still the number is great of those who\nexperience, at this new appearance, a reanimation of their affection for\nthe Church; and so fondly identify the partial change with the whole\ninstitution, that they feel as if a parent, who had for a long while\nneglected or deserted them, but for whom they could never cease to cherish\na filial regard, were beginning to be restored to them, with a renewal of\nthe benignant qualities and cares of the parental character.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThus far the account of the means which England was not to furnish for its\npeople till the latter part of the eighteenth century, relates to their\nbetter instruction in religion. This will not be thought beside the\npurpose of an enumeration of expedients for lessening their _ignorance_,\nby any one who can allow that religion, regarded as a subject of the\nunderstanding, is the most important part of knowledge, and who has\nobserved the fact that religion, when it begins to _interest_ uncultivated\nminds, works surprisingly in favor of the intellectual faculties; an\neffect exactly the reverse of that of superstition, and produced by the\ncontrary operation; for while superstition represses, and even curses any\nfree action of the intellect, genuine religion both requires and excites\nit. Though it is too true that the great Christian principles, when\nembraced with conviction and seriousness by a very uneducated man, must\ngreatly partake, by contractedness of apprehension, the ill fortune which\nhas confined his mental growth, yet they will often do more than any other\nthing within the same space of time to avenge him of it.\n\nIn addition to the great extension of instruction in a form specifically\nreligious, there have been various causes and means contributing to the\nincrease of knowledge among the people. After it had been seen for\ncenturies in what manner the children of the poor were suffered to spend\nthe Sunday, it struck one observer at last, that they might on that day\nbe taught to read!--a possibility which had never been suspected; a\ndisclosure as of some hitherto hidden power of nature. And then the\nschools which taught the children to read made some of the parents so\nmuch better pleased with their children for their first steps in so new\nan attainment, that they could not be indifferent to the opening of other\nschools of a humble order to continue that instruction through the week.\nIt was within the same period that there was a large circulation of\ntracts, by some of which many who might be little desirous of\ninstruction, were beguiled into it by the amusing vehicle ingeniously\ncontrived to convey it; and the most popular of which will remain a\nmonument of the talent, knowledge, and benevolence, of that distinguished\nbenefactor of her country and age, Mrs. H. More, perhaps even pre-eminent\nabove her many excellent works in a higher strain. Later and continual\nissues of this class of papers, of every diversity of composition, and\ndiffused by the activity of numberless hands, have solicited perhaps a\nfourth part of the thoughtless beings in the nation to make at least one\nshort effort to think.\n\nThe enormous flight of periodical miscellanies, and of newspapers, must be\ntaken as both the indication and the cause that hundreds of thousands of\npersons were giving some attention to the matters of general information,\nwhere their grandfathers had been, during the intervals of time allowed by\ntheir employments, prating, brawling, sleeping, or drinking their hours\naway. [Footnote: Since this was written there has been a prodigious\naugmentation of all such means of general excitement; and happily a\ndiversified multiplication of a class of them calculated to benefit the\ninferior people, at once by giving them a new and enlarged range of ideas,\nand by bringing them on some tracts of common ground with the liberally\neducated; thus abating the former almost total incapacity, on the part of\nthose inferiors, for intelligent intercommunication.]\n\nIt is perhaps an item of some small value in the account, that a new class\nof ideas was furnished by the many wonderful effects of science, in the\napplication of the elements and mechanical powers. The people saw human\nintelligence so effectually inspiriting inanimate matter, as to create a\nnew and mighty order of agency, appearing in a certain degree independent\nof man himself, and in its power immensely surpassing any simple immediate\nexertion of _his_ power. They saw wood and iron, fire, water, and air,\nactuated to the production of effects which might vie with what their rude\nancestors had been accustomed to believe, (those of them who had heard of\nsuch beings,) of giants, magicians, alchymists, and monsters; effects, the\ndream of which, if any one could so have dreamed, would have been scoffed\nat by even the more intelligent of the former race.\n\nIt is true that very ignorant persons can wonder at such things without\nderiving much instruction from them; and that much sooner than the more\ncultivated ones they become so familiarized with them as not to think of\nthem. All _effects_, however astonishing, are apt, if they are but regular\nin their recurrence, to become soon insignificant to those who have never\nlearnt to inquire into _causes_. But still, it would be some little\nadvantage to the people's understanding to see what prodigious effects\ncould be produced without any preternatural interference. Though not\ncomprehending the science employed, they could comprehend that what they\nsaw _was_ purely a matter of science, and that the cause and the effect\nwere natural and definite; unlike the present race of Egyptians, who not\nlong since regarded the very mechanics of an European as an operation of\nmagic; and were capable of suspecting that a machine constructed by a man\nfrom England, for raising water from the Nile, should inundate the country\nin an hour. These wonders of science and art must therefore have\ncontributed somewhat to rid our people of the impression of being at every\nturn beset by occult powers, under the name perhaps of witchcraft, and to\nexpel the notions of a vague and capricious agency interfering and\nsporting with events throughout the system around them. Their rationality\nthus obtained an improvement, which may be set against the injury\nundoubtedly done them through that diminished exercise of the\nunderstanding which accompanied the progressive division of labor; an\nalteration rendered inevitable, and in other respects so advantageous.\n\nWhen we come down to a comparatively recent time, we see the Bible \"going\nup on the breadth of the land.\" In passing by any given number of houses\nof the inferior class, we may presume there are in them four or five times\nas many copies of that sacred book as there were in the same number thirty\nor forty years since. And when we consider how many more persons in those\nhouses can read, and that in some of them the book may be _more_ read for\nhaving come there as a novelty, than it is in many others where it has\nbeen an old article of the furniture, we may fairly presume that the\nincreased reading is in a greater proportion than the increased number of\nBibles.--This late period has also brought into action a new expedient,\nworthy to stand, in the province of education, parallel and rival to the\nmost useful modern inventions in the mechanical departments; an\norganization for schools, by which, instead of one or two overlabored\nagents upon a mass of reluctant subjects, that whole mass itself shall be\nanimated into a system of reciprocal agency. It has all the merit of a\ncontrivance which associates with mental labor a pleasure never known to\nyoung learners before.\n\nOne more distinction of our times has been, that effect which missionary\nand other philanthropic societies have had, to render familiar to common\nknowledge, by means of their meetings and publications, a great number of\nsuch interesting and important facts, in the state of other countries and\nour own, as were formerly quite beyond the sphere of ordinary information.\n\nIn aid of all these means at work in the trial to raise the people from\nthe condition in which they had been so many ages sunk and immovable,\nthere has been of late years the unpretending but important ministration\nof an incessant multifarious inventiveness in making almost every sort of\ninformation offer itself in brief, familiar, and attractive forms, adapted\nto youth or to adult ignorance; so that knowledge, which was formerly a\nthing to be searched and dug for \"as for hid treasures,\" has seemed at\nlast beginning to effloresce through the surface of the ground on all\nsides of us.\n\nThe statement of what recent times have produced for effecting an\nalteration among the people, must include the prodigious excitement in the\npolitical world. It were absurd, it is true, to name this in the simple\ncharacter of a _cause_, when we speak of the rousing of the popular mind\nfrom a long stagnation; it being itself a proof and result of some\npreceding cause beginning to pervade and disturb that stagnation. But\nwhatever may be assigned as the true and sufficient explanation of its\norigin, we have to look on the mighty operation of its progress, forcing a\nrestlessness, instability, and tendency to change, into almost every part\nof the social economy. In the whole compass of time there has been no\ntrain of events, that has within so short a period stirred to the very\nbottom the mind of so vast a portion of the race. And the power of this\ngreat commotion has less consisted in what may be termed its physical\nenergy, evinced in grand exploits and catastrophes, than in its being an\nintense activity of _principles_. It was as different from other\nconvulsions in the moral world, as would be a tempest attributed to the\ndirect intervention of a mighty spirit, whether believed celestial or\ninfernal, from one raised in the elements by mere natural causes. The\npeople were not, as in other instances of battles, revolutions, and\nstriking alternations of fortune, gazing a at mere show of wonderful\nevents, but regarded these events as the course of a great practical\ndebate of questions affecting their own interests.\n\nAnd now, when we have put all these things together, we may well pause to\nindulge again our wonder what _could_ have been the mental situation of a\nmajority of the inhabitants of this country, antecedently to this creation\nand conjunction of so many means and influences for awaking them to\nsomething of an intelligent existence.\n\n\n\n\nSection III.\n\n\n\nThe review of the past may here be terminated. And how welcome a change\nit would be if we might here completely emerge from the gloom which has\noverspread it. How happy were it if in proceeding to an estimate of the\npeople of the present times, we found so rich a practical result of the\nmeans for forming a more enlightened race, that we should have no further\nrecollection of that sentence from the Prophet, which has hitherto\nsuggested itself again at every step in prosecution of the survey. But we\nare compelled to see how slow is the progress of mankind toward thus\nrendering obsolete any of the darker lines of the sacred record. So\ncompletely, so desperately, had the whole popular body and being been\npervaded by the stupifying power of the long reign of ignorance, with\nsuch heavy reluctance, at the best, does the human mind open its eyes to\nadmit light,--and so incommensurate as yet, even on the supposition of\nits having much less of this reluctance, has been in quantity the whole\nnew supply of means for a happy change,--that a most melancholy spectacle\nstill abides before us. Time, in sweeping away successive generations,\nhas preserved, in substance, the sad inheritance to that which is as yet\nthe latest.\n\nEven that portion of beneficial effect which actually has resulted from\nthis co-operation of new forces, has served to make a more obvious\nexposure of the unhappiness and offensiveness of what is still the\ncondition of the far greater part of our population; as a dreary waste is\nmade, to give a more sensible impression how dreary it is, by the little\ninroads of cultivation and beauty in its hollows, and the faint advances\nof an unwonted green upon its borders. The degradation of the main body of\nthe lower classes is exposed by a comparison with the small reclaimed\nportion within those classes themselves. It is not with the philosophers,\nliterati, and most accomplished persons in higher life, that we should\nthink of placing in immediate comparison the untutored rustics and workmen\nin stones and timber, for the purpose of showing how much is wanting to\nthem. These extreme orders of society would seem less related in virtue of\ntheir common nature, than separated by the wide disparity of its\ncultivation. They would appear so immeasurably asunder, such antipodes in\nthe sphere of human existence, that the state of the one could afford no\nstandard for judging of the defects or wants of the other. It was not in a\nspeculation which amused itself, as with a curious fact, in seeing that\nthe same material can be made into scholars, legislators, sages, and\nmodels of elegance--and also into helots; and then went into a fanciful\nquestion of how near they might possibly be brought together: it was in a\nspeculation which, instead of dwelling on the view of what was impossible\nto the common people in a comparative reference to the highest classes of\ntheir fellow-men, considered what was left practicable to them within\ntheir own narrow allotment, that the schemes originated which have\nactually imparted to a proportion of them an invaluable share of the\nbenefits of knowledge. There has thus been formed a small improved order\nof people amidst the multitude; and it is the contrast between these and\nthe general state of that multitude that most directly exposes the popular\ndebasement. It certainly were ridiculous enough to fix on a laboring man\nand his family, and affect to deplore that he is doomed not to behold the\ndepths and heights of science, not to expatiate over the wide field of\nhistory, not to luxuriate among the delights, refinements, and infinite\ndiversities of literature; and that his family are not growing up in a\ntraining to every high accomplishment, after the pattern of some family in\nthe neighborhood, favored by fortune, and high ability and cultivation in\nthose at their head. But it is a quite different thing to take this man\nand his family, hardly able, perhaps, even to read, and therefore sunk in\nall the grossness of ignorance,--and compare them with another man and\nfamily in the same sphere of life, but who have received the utmost\nimprovement within the reach of that situation, and are sensible of its\nvalue; who often employ the leisure hour in reading, (sometimes socially\nand with intermingled converse,) some easy work of instruction or innocent\nentertainment; are detached, in the greatest degree that depends on their\nchoice, from society with the absolute vulgar; have learnt much decorum of\nmanners; can take an intelligent interest in the great events of the\nworld; and are prevented, by what they read and hear, from forgetting that\nthere is another world. It is, we repeat, after thus seeing what may, and\nin particular instances does exist, in a humble condition, that we are\ncompelled to regard as really a dreadful spectacle the still prevailing\nstate of our national population.\n\nWe shall endeavor to exhibit, though on a small scale, and perhaps not\nwith a very strict regularity of proportion and arrangement, a faithful\nrepresentation of the most serious of the evils conspicuous in an\nuneducated state of the people. Much of the description and reflections\nmust be equally applicable to other countries; for spite of all their\nmutual antipathies and hostilities, and numberless contrarieties of\ncustoms and fashions, they have been wonderfully content to resemble one\nanother in the worst national feature, a deformed condition of their\npeople. But it is here at home that this condition is the most painfully\nforced on our attention; and here also of all the world it is, that such a\nwretched exhibition is the severest reproach to the nation for having\nsuffered its existence.\n\nThe subject is to the last degree unattractive, except to a misanthropic\ndisposition; or to that, perhaps, of a stern theological polemic, when\ntempted to be pleased with every superfluity of evidence for overwhelming\nthe opposers of the doctrine which asserts the radical corruption of our\nnature. As spread over a coarse and repulsive moral and physical scenery,\nit is a subject in the extreme of contrast with that susceptibility of\nmagnificent display, on account of which some of the most cruel evils that\nhave preyed on mankind have ever been favorite themes with writers\nambitious to shine in description. Nor does it present a wild and varying\nspectacle, where a crowd of fantastic shapes (as in a view of the pagan\nsuperstitions,) may stimulate and beguile the imagination though we know\nwe are looking on a great evil. It is a gloomy monotony; Death without his\ndance. Moreover, the representation which exhibits one large class\ndegraded and unhappy, reflects ungraciously, and therefore repulsively, by\nan imputation of neglect of duty, on the other classes who are called upon\nto look at the spectacle. There is, besides, but little power of arresting\nthe attention in a description of familiar matter of fact, plain to every\none's observation. Yet ought it not to be so much the better, when we are\npleading for a certain mode of benevolent exertion, that every one can\nsee, and that no one can deny, the sad reality of all that forms the\nobject, and imposes the duty, of that exertion?\n\nLook, then, at the neglected ignorant class in their childhood and youth.\nOne of the most obvious circumstances is the _perfect non-existence in\ntheir minds of any notion or question what their life is for, taken as a\nwhole._ Among a crowd of trifling and corrupting ideas that soon find a\nplace in them, there is never the reflective thought,--For what purpose am\nI alive? What is it that I should be, more than the animal that I am? Does\nit signify _what_ I may be?--But surely, it is with ill omen that the\nhuman creature advances into life without such a thought. He should in the\nopening of his faculties receive intimations, that something more belongs\nto his existence than what he is about to-day, and what he may be about\nto-morrow. He should be made aware that the course of activity he is\nbeginning ought to have a leading principle of direction, some predominant\naim, a general and comprehensive purpose, paramount to the divers\nparticular objects he may pursue. It is not more necessary for him to\nunderstand that he must in some way be employed in order to live, than to\nbe apprized that life itself, that existence itself, is of no value but as\na mere capacity of something which he should realize, and of which he may\nfail. He should be brought to apprehend that there is a something\nessential for him to _be_, which he will not _become_ merely by passing\nfrom one day into another, by eating and sleeping, by growing taller and\nstronger, seizing what share he can of noisy sport, and performing\nappointed portions of work; and that if he do _not_ become that which, he\n_cannot_ become without a general and leading purpose, he will be\nworthless and unhappy.\n\nWe are not entertaining the extravagant fancy that it is possible, except\nin some rare instances of premature thoughtfulness, to turn inward into\ndeep habitual reflection, the spirit that naturally goes outward in these\nvivacious, active, careless beings, when we assert that it _is_ possible\nto teach many of them with a degree of success, in very juvenile years, to\napprehend and admit somewhat of such a consideration. We have many times\nseen this exemplified in fact. We have found some of them appearing\napprized that _life is for something as a whole_; and that, to answer this\ngeneral purpose, a mere succession of interests and activities, each gone\ninto for its own sake, will not suffice. They could comprehend, that the\nmultiplicity of interests and activities in detail, instead of\nconstituting of themselves the purpose of life, were to be regarded as\nthings subordinate and subservient to a general scope, and judged of,\nselected, and regulated, in reference and amenableness to it.--By the\npresiding comprehensive purpose, we do not specifically and exclusively\nmean a direction of the mind to the _religious_ concern, viewed as a\nseparate affair, and in _contradistinction_ to other interests; but a\npurpose formed upon a collective notion of the person's interests, which\nshall give one general right bearing to the course of his life; an aim\nproceeding in fulfilment of a scheme, that comprehends and combines with\nthe religious concern all the other concerns for the sake of which it is\nworth while to dispose the activities of life into a _plan_ of conduct,\ninstead of leaving them to custom and casualty. The scheme will look and\nguide toward ultimate felicity: but will at the same time take large\naccount of what must be thought of, and what may be hoped for, in relation\nto the present life.\n\nNow, we no more expect to find any such idea of a presiding purpose of\nlife, than we do the profoundest philosophical reflection, in the minds of\nthe uneducated children and youth. They think nothing at all about their\nexistence and life in any moral or abstracted or generalizing reference\nwhatever. They know not any good that it is to have been endowed with a\nrational rather than a brute nature, excepting that it affords more\ndiversity of action, and gives the privilege of tyrannizing over brutes.\nThey think nothing about what they shall become, and very little about\nwhat shall become of them. There is nothing that tells them of the\nrelations for good and evil, of present things with future and remote\nones. The whole energy of their moral and intellectual nature goes out as\nin brute instinct on present objects, to make the most they can of them\nfor the moment, taking the chance for whatever may be next. They are left\ntotally devoid even of the thought, that what they are doing is the\nbeginning of a life as an important adventure for good or evil; their\nwhole faculty is engrossed in the doing of it; and whether it signify\nanything to the next ensuing stage of life, or to the last, is as foreign\nto any calculation of theirs, as the idea of reading their destiny in the\nstars. Not only, therefore, is there an entire preclusion from their minds\nof the faintest hint of a monition, that they should live for the grand\nfinal object pointed to by religion, but also, for the most part, of all\nconsideration of the attainment of a reputable condition and character in\nlife. The creature endowed with faculties for \"large discourse, looking\nbefore and after,\" capable of so much design, respectability, and\nhappiness, even in its present short stage, and entering on an endless\ncareer, is seen in the abasement of snatching, as its utmost reach of\npurpose, at the low amusements, blended with vices, of each passing day;\nand cursing its privations and tasks, and often also the sharers of those\nprivations, and the exactors of those tasks.\n\nWhen these are grown up into the mass of mature population, what will it\nbe, as far as their quality shall go toward constituting the quality of\nthe whole? Alas! it will be, to that extent, just a continuation of the\nignorance, debasement, and misery, so conspicuous in the bulk of the\npeople now. And to _what_ extent? Calculate _that_ from the unquestionable\nfact that hundreds of thousands of the human beings in our land, between\nthe ages, say of six and sixteen, are at this hour thus abandoned to go\nforward into life at random, as to the use they shall make of it,--if,\nindeed, it can be said to be at random, when there is strong tendency and\ntemptation to evil, and no discipline to good. Looking at this proportion,\ndoes any one think there will be, on the whole, wisdom and virtue enough\nin the community to render this black infusion imperceptible or innoxious?\n\nBut are we accounting it absolutely inevitable that the sequel must be in\nfull proportion to this present fact,--_must_ be everything that this fact\nthreatens, and _can_ lead to,--as we should behold persons carried down in\na mighty torrent, where all interposition is impossible, or as the Turks\nlook at the progress of a conflagration or an epidemic? It is in order to\n\"frustrate the tokens\" of such melancholy divination, to arrest something\nof what a destructive power is in the act of carrying away, to make the\nevil spirit find, in the next stages of his march, that all his enlisted\nhost have not followed him, and to quell somewhat of the triumph of his\nboast, \"My name is legion, for we are many;\"--it is for this that the\nfriends of improvement, and of mankind, are called upon for efforts\ngreatly beyond those which are requisite for maintaining in its present\nextent of operation the system of expedients for intercepting, before it\nbe too late, the progress of so large a portion of the youthful tribe\ntoward destruction.\n\nAnother obvious circumstance in the state of the untaught class is, _that\nthey are abandoned, in a direct, unqualified manner, to seize recklessly\nwhatever they can of sensual gratification_. The very narrow scope to\nwhich their condition limits them in the pursuit of this, will not prevent\nits being to them the most desirable thing in existence, when there are so\nfew other modes of gratification which they either are in a capacity to\nenjoy, or have the means to obtain. By the very constitution of the human\nnature, the mind seems half to belong to the senses, it is so shut within\nthem, affected by them, dependent on them for pleasure, as well as for\nactivity, and impotent but through their medium. And while, by this\nnecessary hold which they have on what would call itself a spiritual\nbeing, they absolutely will engross to themselves, as of clear right, a\nlarge share of its interest and exercise, they will strive to possess\nthemselves of the other half too. And they will have it, if it has not\nbeen carefully otherwise claimed and pre-occupied. And when the senses\nhave thus usurped the whole mind for their service, how will you get any\nof it back? Try, if you will, whether this be a thing so easy to be done.\nPresent to the minds so engrossed with the desires of the senses, that\ntheir main action is but in these desires and the contrivances how to\nfulfil them,--offer to their view nobler objects, which are appropriate to\nthe spiritual being, and observe whether that being promptly shows a\nsensibility to the worthier objects, as congenial to its nature, and,\nobsequious to the new attraction, disengages itself from what has wholly\nabsorbed it.\n\nNor would we require that the experiment be made by presenting something\nof a precisely religious nature, to which there is an innate aversion on\naccount of its _divine_ character, separately from its being an\nintellectual thing,--an aversion even though the mental faculties _be_\ncultivated. It may be made with something that ought to have power to\nplease the mind as simply a being of intelligence, imagination, and\nsentiment,--a pleasure which, in some of its modes, the senses themselves\nmay intimately partake; as when, for instance, it is to be imparted by\nsomething beautiful or grand in the natural world, or in the works of art.\nLet this refined solicitation be addressed to the grossly uncultivated, in\ncompetition with some low indulgence--with the means, for example, of\ngluttony and inebriation. See how the subjects of your experiment,\n(intellectual and moral natures though they are,) answer to these\nrespective offered gratifications. Observe how these more dignified\nattractives encounter and overpower the meaner, and reclaim the usurped,\ndebased spirit. Or rather, observe whether they can avail for more than an\ninstant, so much as to divide its attention. But indeed you can foresee\nthe result so well, that you may spare the labor. Still less could you\ndeem it to be of the nature of an experiment, (which implies uncertainty,)\nto make the attempt with ideal forms of nobleness or beauty, with\nintellectual, poetical, or moral captivations.\n\nYet this addiction to sensuality, beyond all competition of worthier modes\nand means of interest, does not altogether refuse to admit of some\ndivision and diversion of the vulgar feelings, in favor of some things of\na more mental character, provided they be vicious. A man so neglected in\nhis youth that he cannot spell the names of Alexander, C\u00e6sar, or Napoleon,\nor read them if he see them spelt, may feel the strong incitement of\nambition. This, instead of raising him, may only propel him forward on the\nlevel of his debased condition and society; and it is a favorable\nsupposition that makes him \"the best wrestler on the green,\" or a manful\npugilist; for it is probable his grand delight may be, to indulge himself\nin an oppressive, insolent arrogance toward such as are unable to maintain\na strife with him on terms of fair rivalry, making his will the law to all\nwhom he can force or frighten into submission.\n\nCoarse sensuality admits, again, an occasional competition of the\ngratifications of cruelty; a flagrant characteristic, generally, of\nuncultivated degraded human creatures, both where the whole community\nconsists of such, as in barbarian and savage tribes, and where they form a\nlarge portion of it, as in this country.--It is hardly worth while to put\nin words the acknowledgment of the obvious and odious fact, that a\nconsiderable share of mental attainment is sometimes inefficient to\nextinguish, or even repress, this infernal principle of human nature, by\nwhich it is gratifying to witness and inflict suffering, even separately\nfrom any prompting of revenge. But why do we regard such examples as\npeculiarly hateful, and brand them with the most intense reprobation, but\n_because_ it is judged the fair and natural tendency of mental cultivation\nto repress that principle, insomuch that its failure to do so is\nconsidered as evincing a surpassing virulence of depravity? Every one is\nready with the saying of the ancient poet, that liberal acquirements\nsuppress ferocious propensities. But if the whole virtue of such\ndiscipline may prove insufficient, think what must be the consequence of\nits being almost wholly withheld, so that the execrable propensity may go\ninto action with its malignity unmitigated, unchecked, by any remonstrance\nof feeling or taste, or reason or conscience.\n\nAnd such a consequence is manifest in the lower ranks of our self-extolled\ncommunity; notwithstanding a diminution, which the progress of education\nand religion has slowly effected, in certain of the once most favorite and\ncustomary practices of cruelty; what we might denominate the classic games\nof the rude populace. These very practices, nevertheless, still keep their\nground in some of the more heathenish parts of the country; and if it were\npossible, that the more improved notions and taste of the more respectable\nclasses could admit of any countenance being given to their revival in the\nmore civilized parts, it would be found that, even there, a large portion\nof the people is to this hour left in a disposition which would welcome\nthe return of savage exhibitions. It may be, that some of the most\natrocious forms and degrees of cruelty would not please the greater number\nof them; there have been instances in which an English populace has shown\nindignation at extreme and _unaccustomed_ perpetrations, sometimes to the\nextent of cruelly revenging them; very rarely, however, when only brute\ncreatures have been the sufferers. Not many would be delighted with such\nscenes as those which, in the _Place de Gr\u00e8ve_, used to be a gratification\nto a multitude of all ranks of the Parisians. But how many odious facts,\ncharacteristic of our people, have come under every one's observation.\n\nWho has not seen numerous instances of the delight with which advantage is\ntaken of weakness or simplicity, to practise upon them some sly mischief,\nor inflict some open mortification; and of the unrepressed glee with which\nthe rude spectators can witness or abet the malice? And if, in such a\ncase, an indignant observer has hazarded a remark or expostulation, the\nfull stare, and the quickly succeeding laugh and retort of brutal scorn,\nhave thrown open to his revolting sight the state of the recess within,\nwhere the moral sentiments are; and shown how much the perceptions and\nnotions had been indebted to the cares of the instructor. Could he help\nthinking what was deserved somewhere, by individuals or by the local\ncommunity collectively, for suffering a being to grow up to quite or\nnearly the complete dimensions and features of manhood, with so vile a\nthing within it in substitution for what a soul should be? We need not\nremark, what every one has noticed, how much the vulgar are amused by\nseeing vexatious or injurious incidents, (if only not quite disastrous or\ntragical,) befalling persons against whom they can have no resentment; how\nferocious often their temper and means of revenge when they _have_ causes\nof resentment; or how intensely delighted, (in company, it is true, with\nmany that are called their betters,) in beholding several of their\nfellow-mortals, whether in anger or athletic competition, covering each\nother with bruises, deformity, and blood.\n\nOur institutions, however, protect, in some considerable degree, man\nagainst man, as being framed in a knowledge of what would else become of\nthe community. But observe a moment what are the dispositions of the\nvulgar as indulged, and with no preventive interference of those\ninstitutions, on the inferior animals. To a large proportion of this class\nit is, in their youth, one of the most vivid exhilarations to witness the\nterrors and anguish of living beings. In many parts of the country it\nwould be no improbable conjecture in explanation of a savage yell heard at\na distance, that a company of rationals may be witnessing the writhings,\nagonies, and cries, of some animal struggling for escape or for life,\nwhile it is suffering the infliction, perhaps, of stones, and kicks, or\nwounds by more directly fatal means of violence. If you hear in the clamor\na sudden burst of fiercer exultation, you may surmise that just then a\ndeadly blow has been given. There is hardly an animal on the whole face of\nthe country, of size enough, and enough within reach to be a marked object\nof attention, that would not be persecuted to death if no consideration of\nownership interposed. The children of the uncultivated families are\nallowed, without a check, to exercise and improve the hateful disposition,\non flies, young birds, and other feeble and harmless creatures; and they\nare actually encouraged to do it on what, under the denomination of\nvermin, are represented in the formal character of enemies, almost in such\na sense as if a moral responsibility belonged to them, and they were\ntherefore not only to be destroyed as a nuisance, but deserving to be\npunished as offenders.\n\nThe hardening against sympathy, with the consequent carelessness of\ninflicting pain, combined as this will probably be, with the _love_ of\ninflicting it, must be confirmed by the horrid spectacle of slaughter; a\nspectacle sought for gratification by the children and youth of the lower\norder; and in many places so publicly exhibited that they cannot well\navoid seeing it, and its often savage preliminary circumstances, sometimes\ndirectly wanton aggravations; perhaps in revenge of a struggle to resist\nor escape, perhaps in a rage at the awkward manner in which the victim\nadjusts itself to a convenient position for suffering. Horrid, we call the\nprevailing practice, because it is the infliction, on millions of sentient\nand innocent creatures every year, in what calls itself a humane and\nChristian nation, of anguish unnecessary to the purpose. Unnecessary--what\nproof is there to the contrary?--To _what_ is the present practice\nnecessary?--Some readers will remember the benevolent (we were going to\nsay _humane_, but that is an equivocal epithet,) attempt made a number of\nyears since by Lord Somerville to introduce, but he failed, a mode of\nslaughter, without suffering; a mode in use in a foreign nation with which\nwe should deem it very far from a compliment to be placed on a level in\npoint of civilization. And it is a flagrant dishonor to such a country,\nand to the class that virtually, by rank, and formally, by official\nstation, have presided over its economy, one generation after another,\nthat so hideous a fact should never, as far as we know, have been deemed\nby the highest state authorities worth even a question whether a\nmitigation might not be practicable. An inconceivable daily amount of\nsuffering, inflicted on unknown thousands of creatures, dying in slow\nanguish, when their death might be without pain as being instantaneous, is\naccounted no deformity in the social system, no incongruity with the\nnational profession of religion of which the essence is charity and mercy,\nnothing to sully the polish, or offend the refinement, of what demands to\nbe accounted, in its higher portions, a pre-eminently civilized and\nhumanized community. Precious and well protected polish and refinement,\nand humanity, and Christian civilization! to which it is a matter of easy\nindifference to know that, in the neighborhood of their abode, those\ntortures of butchery are unnecessarily inflicted, which could not be\nactually witnessed by persons in whom the pretension to these fine\nqualities is anything better than affectation, without sensations of\nhorror; which it would ruin the character of a fine gentleman or lady to\nhave voluntarily witnessed in a single instance.\n\nThey are known to be inflicted, and yet this is a trifle not worth an\neffort toward innovation on inveterate custom, on the part of the\ninfluential classes; who may be far more worthily intent on a change in\nthe fashion of a dress, or possibly some new refinement in the cookery of\nthe dead bodies of the victims. Or the _living_ bodies; as we are told\nthat the most delicious preparation of an eel for exquisite palates is to\nthrust the fish alive into the fire: while lobsters are put into water\n_gradually_ heated to boiling. The latter, indeed, is an old practice,\nlike that of _crimping_ another fish. Such things are allowed or required\nto be done by persons pretending to the highest refinement. It is a matter\nfar below legislative attention; while the powers of definition are\nexhausted under the stupendous accumulation of regulations and\ninterdictions for the good order of society. So hardened may the moral\nsense of a community be by universal and continual custom, that we are\nperfectly aware these very remarks will provoke the ridicule of many\npersons, including, it is possible enough, some who may think it quite\nconsistent to be ostentatiously talking at the very same time of Christian\ncharity and benevolent zeal. [Footnote: This was actually done in a\nreligious periodical publication.] Nor will that ridicule be repressed by\nthe notoriety of the fact, that the manner of the practice referred to\nsteels and depraves, to a dreadful degree, a vast number of human beings\nimmediately employed about it; and, as a spectacle, powerfully contributes\nto confirm, in a greater number, exactly that which it is, by eminence,\nthe object of moral tuition to counteract--men's disposition to make-light\nof all suffering but their own. This one thing, this not caring for what\nmay be endured by other beings made liable to suffering, is the very\nessence of the depravity which is so fatal to our race in their social\nconstitution. This selfish hardness is moral plague enough even in an\ninactive state, as a mere carelessness what other beings may suffer; but\nthere lurks in it a malignity which is easily stimulated to delight in\nseeing or causing their suffering. And yet, we repeat it, a civilized and\nChristian nation feels not the slightest self-displacency for its allowing\na certain unhappy but necessary part in the economy of the world to be\nexecuted, (by preference to a harmless method,) in a manner which probably\ndoes as much to corroborate in the vulgar class this essential principle\nof depravity, as all the expedients of melioration yet applied are doing\nto expel it.\n\nWere it not vain and absurd to muse on supposable new principles in the\nconstitution of the moral system, there is one that we might have been\ntempted to wish for, namely, that, of all suffering _unnecessarily_ and\nwilfully inflicted by man on any class of sentient existence, a bitter\nintimation and participation might be conveyed to him through a mysterious\nlaw of nature, enforcing an avenging sympathy in severe proportion to that\nsuffering, on all the men who are really accountable for its being\ninflicted.\n\nAfter children and youth are trained to behold with something worse than\nhardened indifference, with a gratifying excitement, the sufferings of\ncreatures dying for the service of man, it is no wonder if they are\nbarbarous in their treatment of those that serve him by their life. And\nin fact nothing is more obvious as a prevailing disgrace to our nation,\nthan the cruel habits of the lower class toward the laboring animals\ncommitted to their power. These animals have no security in their best\ncondition and most efficient services; but generally the hateful\ndisposition is the most fully exercised on those that have been already\nthe greatest sufferers. Meeting, wherever we go, with some of these\nstarved, abused, exhausted figures, we shall not unfrequently meet with\nalso another figure accompanying them--that of a ruffian, young or old,\nwho with a visage of rage, and accents of hell, is wreaking his utmost\nmalevolence on a wretched victim for being slow in performing, or quite\nfailing to perform, what the excess of loading, and perhaps the\nfeebleness of old age, have rendered difficult or absolutely\nimpracticable; or for shrinking from an effort to be made by a pressure\non bleeding sores, or for losing the right direction through blindness,\nand that itself perhaps occasioned by hardship or savage violence. Many\nof the exacters of animal labor really seem to resent it as a kind of\npresumption and insult in the slave, that it would be anything else than\na machine, that the living being should betray under its toils that it\nsuffers, that it is pained, weary, or reluctant. And if, by outrageous\nabuse, it should be excited to some manifestation of resentment, that is\na crime for which the sufferer would be likely to incur such a fury and\nrepetition of blows and lacerations as to die on the spot, but for an\ninterfering admonition of interest against destroying such a piece of\nproperty, and losing so much service. When that service has utterly\nexhausted, often before the term of old age, the strength of those\nwretched animals, there awaits many of them a last short stage of still\nmore remorseless cruelty; that in which it is become a doubtful thing\nwhether the utmost efforts to which the emaciated, diseased, sinking\nframe can be forced by violence, be worth the trouble of that violence,\nthe delays and accidents, and the expense of the scanty supply of\nsubsistence. As they must at all events very soon perish, it has ceased\nto be of any material consequence, on the score of interest, how grossly\nthey may be abused; and their tormentors seem delighted with this release\nfrom all restraint on their dispositions. Those dispositions, as indulged\nin some instances, when the miserable creatures are formally consigned to\nbe destroyed, cannot be much exceeded by anything we can attribute to\nfiends. Some horrid exemplifications were adduced, not as single casual\ncircumstances, but as usual practices, by a patriotic senator some years\nsince, in endeavoring to obtain a legislative enactment in mitigation of\nthe sufferings of the brute tribes. The design vanished to nothing in the\nHouse of Commons, under the effect of argument and ridicule from a person\ndistinguished for intellectual cultivation; whose resistance was not only\nagainst that specific measure, but avowedly against the principle itself\non which _any_ measure of the same tendency could ever be founded.\n[Footnote: Lord Erskine's memorable Bill, triumphantly scouted by the\nlate Mr. Windham.--Undoubtedly there are considerable difficulties in the\nway of legislation on the subject; but an equal share of difficulty\nattending some other subjects--an affair of revenue, for instance, or a\nmeasure for the suppression (at that time) of political opinion--would\nsoon have been overcome.] Nor could any victory have pleased him better,\nprobably, than one which contributed to prolong the barbarism of the\npeople, as the best security, he deemed, for their continuing fit to\nlabor at home and fight abroad. It might have added to this gratification\nto hear (as was the fact) his name pronounced with delight by ruffians of\nall classes, who regarded him as their patron saint.\n\nIf any one should be inclined to interpose here with a remark, that after\n_such_ a reference, we have little right to ascribe to those classes, as\nif it were peculiarly one of their characteristics, the insensibility to\nthe sufferings of the brute creation, and to number it formally among the\nresults of the \"lack of knowledge,\" we can only reply, that however those\nof higher order may explode any attempt to make the most efficient\nauthority of the nation bear repressively upon the evil, and however it\nmay in other ways be abetted by them, it is, at any rate, in those\ninferior classes chiefly that the actual perpetrators of it are found. It\nis something to say in favor of cultivation, that it does, generally\nspeaking, render those who have the benefit of it incapable of practising,\n_themselves_, the most palpably flagrant of these cruelties which they may\nbe virtually countenancing, by some things which they do, and some things\nwhich they omit or refuse to do. Mr. Windham would not himself have\npractised a wanton barbarity on a poor horse or ass, though he scouted any\nlegislative attempt to prevent it among his inferiors.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe proper place would perhaps have been nearer the beginning of this\ndescription of the characteristics of our uneducated people, for one so\nnotorious, and one entering so much into the essence of the evils already\nnamed, as that we mention next; _a rude, contracted, unsteady, and often\nperverted sense of right and wrong in general_.\n\nIt is curious to look into a large volume of religious casuistry, the work\nof some divine of a former age, (for instance Bishop Taylor's _Ductor\nDubitantium,_) with the reflection what a conscience disciplined in the\nhighest degree might be; and then to observe what this regulator of the\nsoul actually is where there has been no sound discipline of the reason,\nand where there is no deep religious sentiment to rectify the perceptions\nin the absence of an accurate intellectual discrimination of things. This\nsentiment being wanting, dispositions and conduct cannot be taken account\nof according to the distinction between holiness and sin; and in the\nabsence of a cultivated understanding, they cannot be brought to the test\nof the distinguishing law between propriety and turpitude; nor estimated\nupon any comprehensive notion of utility. The evidence of all this is\nthick and close around us; so that every serious observer has been struck\nand almost shocked to observe, in what a very small degree conscience is a\n_necessary_ attribute of the human creature; and how nearly a nonentity\nthe whole system of moral principles may be, as to any recognition of it\nby an unadapted spirit. While that system is of a substance veritable and\neternal, and stands forth in its exceeding breadth, marked with the\nstrongest characters and prominences, it has to these persons hardly the\nreality or definiteness of a shadow, except in a few matters, if we may so\nexpress it, of the grossest bulk. There must be glaring evidence of\nsomething bad in what is done, or questioned whether to be done, before\nconscience will come to its duty, or give proof of its existence. There\nmust be a violent alarm of mischief or danger before this drowsy and\nignorant magistrate will interfere. And since occasions thus involving\nflagrant evil cannot be of very frequent occurrence in the life of the\ngenerality of the people, it is probable that many of them have\nconsiderably protracted exemptions from any interference of conscience at\nall; it is certain that they experience no such pertinacious attendance of\nit, as to feel habitually a monitory intimation, that without great\nthought and care they will inevitably do something wrong. But what may we\njudge and presage of the moral fortunes of a sojourner, of naturally\ncorrupt propensity, in this bad world, who is not haunted, sometimes to a\ndegree of alarm, by this monitory sense, through the whole course of his\nlife? What is likely to become of him, if he shall go hither and thither\non the scene exempt from all sensible obstruction of the many\ninterdictions, of a nature too refined for any sense but the vital\ntenderness of conscience to perceive?\n\nObstructions of a more gross and tangible nature he is continually\nmeeting. A large portion of what he is accustomed to see presents itself\nto him in the character of boundary and prohibition; on every hand there\nis something to warn him what he must not do. There are high walls, and\ngates, and fences, and brinks of torrents and precipices; in short, an\norder of things on all sides signifying to him, with more or less of\nmenace,--Thus far and no further. And he is in a general way obsequious to\nthis arrangement. We do not ordinarily expect to see him carelessly\ntransgressing the most decided of the artificial boundaries, or daring\nacross those dreadful ones of nature. But, nearly destitute of the faculty\nto perceive, (as in coming in contact with something charged with the\nelement of lightning,) the awful interceptive lines of that other\narrangement which he is in the midst of as a subject of the laws of God,\nwe see with what insensibility he can pass through those prohibitory\nsignifications of the Almighty will, which are to devout men as lines\nstreaming with an infinitely more formidable than material fire. And if we\nlook on to his future course, proceeding under so fatal a deficiency, the\nconsequence foreseen is, that those lines of divine interdiction which he\nhas not conscience to perceive as meant to deter him, he will seem as if\nhe had acquired, through a perverted will, a recognition of in another\nquality--as temptations to attract him.\n\nBut to leave these terms of generality and advert to a few particulars of\nillustration:--Recollect how commonly persons of the class described are\nfound utterly violating truth, not in hard emergencies only, but as an\nhabitual practice, and apparently without the slightest reluctance or\ncompunction, their moral sense quite at rest under the accumulation of a\nthousand deliberate falsehoods. It is seen that by far the greater number\nof them think it no harm to take little unjust advantages in their\ndealings, by deceptive management; and very many would take the greatest\nbut for fear of temporal consequences; would do it, that is to say,\nwithout inquietude of conscience, in the proper sense. It is the testimony\nof experience from persons who have had the most to transact with them,\nthat the indispensable rule of proceeding is to assume generally their\nwant of principle, and leave it to time and prolonged trial to establish,\nrather slowly, the individual exceptions. Those unknowing admirers of\nhuman nature, or of English character, who are disposed to exclaim against\nthis as an illiberal rule, may be recommended to act on what they will\ntherefore deem a liberal one--at their cost.\n\nThat power of established custom, which is so great, as we had occasion to\nshow, on the moral sense of even better instructed persons, has its\ndominion complete over that of the vulgar; insomuch that the most\nunequivocal iniquity of a practice long suffered to exist, shall hardly\nbring to their mere recollection the common acknowledged rule not to do as\nwe would wish not done to us. From recent accounts it appears, that the\nentire coast of our island is not yet clear of those people called\n_wreckers_, who felt not a scruple to appropriate whatever they could\nseize of the lading of vessels cast ashore, and even whatever was worth\ntearing from the personal possession of the unfortunate beings who might\nbe escaping but just alive from the most dreadful peril. The cruelty we\nhave so largely attributed to our English vulgar, never recoils on them in\nself-reproach. The habitual indulgence of the irascible, vexatious, and\nmalicious tempers, to the plague or terror of all within reach, scarcely\never becomes a subject of judicial estimate, as a character hateful in the\nabstract, with them a reflection of that estimate on the man's own self.\nHe reflects but just enough to say to himself that it is all right and\ndeserved, and unavoidable, too, for he is unpardonably crossed and\nprovoked; nor will he be driven from this self-approval, when it may be\nevident to every one else that the provocations are comparatively slight,\nand are only taken as offences by a disposition habitually seeking\noccasions to vent its spite. The inconvenience and vexation incident to\nlow vice, may make the offenders fret at themselves for having been so\nfoolish, but it is in general with an extremely trifling degree of the\nsense of guilt. Suggestions of reprehension, in even the discreetest\nterms, and from persons confessedly the best authorized to make them,\nwould not seldom be answered by a grinning, defying carelessness, in some\ninstances by abusive retort; instead of any betrayed signs of an internal\nacknowledgment of deserving reproof.\n\nAnd while thus the censure of a fellow-mortal meets no internal testimony\nto own its justice, this insensate self-complacency is undisturbed also on\nthe side toward heaven. A mere philosopher, that should make little\naccount of religion, otherwise than as capable of being applied to enforce\nand aggravate the sense of obligation with respect to rules of conduct,\nand would not, provided it may have this effect, care much about its truth\nor falsehood,--might be disposed to assert that the ignorant and debased\npart of the population, of this Christian and Protestant country, are but\nso much the worse for the riddance of some parts of the superstitions of\nformer ages. He might allege, with plausibility, that the system which\nimposed so many falsehoods, vain observances, and perversions of moral\nprinciples, acknowledging nevertheless _some_ correct rules of morality,\nas an external practical concern, had the advantage of enjoining them, as\nfar as it chose to do so, with the force of superstition, a stronger\nauthority with a rude conscience than that of plain simple religion. That\nsystem exercised a mighty complexity and accumulation of authority, all\navowedly divine; by which it could artificially augment, or rather\nsupersede, the mere divine prescription of such rules, making _itself_ the\nauthority and prescriber; and thus could infix them in the moral sense of\nthe people with something more, or something else, than the simple divine\nsanction. Whereas, now when those superstitions which held the people so\npowerfully in awe, are gone, and have taken away with them that spurious\nsanction, there remains nothing to exert the same power of moral\nenforcement; since the people have not, in their exemption from the\nsuperstitions of their ancestors, come under any solemn and commanding\neffect of the true idea of the Divine Majesty. And it is undeniable that\nthis is the state of conscience among them. The vague, faint notion, as\nthey conceive it, of a being who is said to be the creator, governor,\nlawgiver, and judge, and who dwells perhaps somewhere in the sky, has not,\nto many of them, the smallest force of intimidation from evil, at least\nwhen they are in health and daylight. One of the large sting-armed insects\nof the air does not alarm them less. A certain transitory fearfulness that\noccasionally comes upon them, points more to the Devil, and perhaps (in\ntimes now nearly gone by) to the ghosts of the dead, than to the Almighty.\nIt may be, indeed, that this feeling is in its ultimate principle, if it\nwere ever followed up so far, an acknowledgment of justice and power in\nGod, reaching to wicked men through these mysterious agents; who though\nintending no service to him, but actuated by dispositions of their own,\nmalignant in the greatest of them, and supposed inauspicious in the\nothers, are yet carrying into effect his hostility. But it is little\nbeyond such proximate objects of apprehension that many minds extend their\nawe of invisible spiritual existence. Even the notion really entertained\nby them of the greatness of God, may be entertained in such a manner as to\nhave but slight power to restrain the inclinations to sin, or to impress\nthe sense of guilt after it is committed. He is too great, they readily\nsay, to mind the little matters that such creatures as we may do amiss;\nthey can do _him_ no harm. The idea, too, of his bounty, is of such\nunworthy consistency as to be a protection against all conscious reproach\nof ingratitude and neglect of service toward him;--he has made us to need\nall this that it is said he does for us; and it costs him nothing, it is\nno labor, and he is not the less rich; and besides, we have toil, and\nwant, and plague enough, notwithstanding anything that he gives.\n\nIt is probable this unhappiness of their condition, oftener than any other\ncause, brings God into their thoughts, and that as a being against whom\nthey have a complaint approaching to a quarrel on account of it. And this\nstrongly assists the reaction against whatever would enforce the sense of\nguilt on the conscience. When he has done so little for us, (something\nlike this is the sentiment,) he cannot think it any such great matter if\nwe _do_ sometimes come a little short of his commands. There is no doubt\nthat their recollections of him as a being to murmur against for their\nallotment, are more frequent, more dwelt upon, and with more of an excited\nfeeling, than their recollections of him as a being whom they ought to\nhave loved and served, but have offended against. The very idea of such\noffence, as the chief and essential constituent of wickedness, is so\nslightly conceived, (because he is invisible, and has his own felicity,\nand is secure against all injury,) that if the thoughts of one of these\npersons _should_, by some rare occasion, be forced into the direction of\nunwillingly seeing his own faults, it is probable his impiety would appear\nthe most inconsiderable thing in the account; that he would easily forgive\nhimself the negation of all acts and feelings of devotion towards the\nSupreme Being, and the countless multiplications of insults to him by\nprofane language.\n\nTo conclude this part of the melancholy statement; it may be observed of\nthe class in question, that they have but very little notion of guilt, or\npossible guilt, in anything but external practice. That busy interior\nexistence, which is the moral person, genuine and complete; the thoughts,\nimaginations, volitions; the motives, projects, deliberations, devices,\nthe indulgence of the ideas of what they cannot or dare not practically\nrealize,--all this, we have reason to believe, passes nearly exempted from\njurisdiction, even of that feeble and undecisive kind which _may_\noccasionally attempt an interference with their actions. They do indeed\ntake such notice of the quality of these things within, as to be aware\nthat some of them are not to be disclosed in their communications; which\nprudential caution has of course little to do with conscience, when the\nthings so withheld are internally cherished in perfect disregard of the\nOmniscient Observer, and with hardly the faintest monition that the\nessence of the guilt is the same, with only a difference in degree, in\nintending or deliberately desiring an evil, and in acting it.\n\nIt is not natural obtuseness of mental faculty that we are attributing,\nall this while, to the uneducated class of our people, in thus exposing\nthe defectiveness of their discernment between right and wrong. If it\nwere, there might arise somewhat of the consolation afforded in\ncontemplating some of the very lowest of the savage tribes of mankind, by\nthe idea that such outcasts of the rational nature must stand very nearly\nexempt from accountableness, through absolute natural want of mind. But in\nthe barbarians of our country we shall often observe a very competent, and\nnow and then an abundant, share of native sense. We may see it evinced in\nrespect to the very questions of morality, in cases where they are quite\ncompelled, as will occasionally happen, to feel themselves brought within\nthe cognizance of one or other of its plainest rules. In such cases we\nhave witnessed a sharpness and activity of intellect claiming almost our\nadmiration. What contrivance of deception and artful evasion. What\ndexterity of quibble, and captious objection, and petty sophistry. What\nvigilance to observe how the plea in justification or excuse takes effect,\nand, if they perceive it does not succeed, what address in sliding into a\ndifferent one. What quickness to avail themselves of any mistake, or\napparent concession, in the examiner or reprover. What copious rhetoric in\nexaggeration of the cause which tempted to do wrong, or of the great good\nhoped to be effected by the little deviation from the right,--a good\nsurely enough to excuse so trifling an impropriety. What facility of\nplacing between themselves and the censure, the recollected example of\nsome good man who has been \"overtaken in a fault.\"\n\nHere _is_ mind, after all, we have been prompted to exclaim; mind\neducating itself to evil, in default of that discipline which should have\neducated it to good. How much of the wisdom of evil, (if we may be allowed\nthe expression,) there is faculty enough in the neglected corrupt popular\nmass of this nation to attain, by the exercise into which the individual's\nmind is carried by its own impulse, and in which he may everywhere and\nevery hour find ample co-operation. Each of these self-improvers in\ndepraved sense has the advantage of finding himself among a great tribe of\nsimilar improvers, forming an immense school, as if for the promotion of\nthis very purpose; where they all teach by a competition in learning;\nwhere the rude faculty which is not expanded into intelligence is,\nhowever, sharpened into cunning; where the spirit which cannot grow into\nan eagle, may take the form and action of a snake. This advantage,--that\nthere should not be a diminution of the superabundant plenty of associates\nalways at hand, to assist each man in making the most of his native\nintellect for its least worthy use,--has been from age to age secured to\nour populace, as if it had been the most valuable birthright of\nEnglishmen. Whatever else the person born to the inheritance of low life\nwas destined to find in it, the national state had made as sure to him as\nit had before made the same privilege to his ancestors, that the\ngenerality of his equals should be found fit and ready to work with him in\nthe acquirement of a depraved shrewdness.\n\nBut while the bulk of the people have been, in every period, abandoned to\nsuch a process of educating themselves and one another, where has been\nthat character of parental guardianship, which seems to be ascribed when\npoets, orators, and patriots, are inspired with tropes, and talk of\nEngland and her children? This imperial matron of their rhetoric seems to\nhave little cared how much she might be disgraced in the larger portion of\nher progeny, or how little cause they might have to all eternity to\nremember her with gratitude. She has had far other concern about them, and\nemployment for them, than that of their being taught the value of their\nspiritual nature, and carefully trained to be enlightened, good, and\nhappy. Laws against crime, it is true, she has enacted for them in liberal\nquantity; appointed her quorums of magistrates; and not been sparing of\npunishments. She has also maintained public sabbath observances to remind\nthem of religion, of which observances she cared not that they little\nunderstood the very terms; except when the reading of a Book of Sports was\nappointed an indispensable part at one time long after her adoption of the\nReformation. But she might plainly see what such provisions did _not_\naccomplish. It was a glaring fact before her eyes, that the majority of\nher children had far more of the mental character of a colony from some\nbarbarian nation, than of that which an enlightened and Christian state\nmight have been expected to impart. She had most ample resources indeed\nfor supplying the remedy; but, provided that the productions of the soil\nand the workshop were duly forthcoming, she thought it of no consequence,\nit should seem, that the operative hands belonged to degraded minds. And\nthen, too, as at all times, her lofty ambition destined a good proportion\nof them to the consumption of martial service, she perhaps judged that the\nless they were trained to think, the more fit they might be to be actuated\nmechanically, as an instrument of blind impetuous force. Or perhaps she\nthought it would be rather an inconsistency, to be making much of the\ninner existence of a thing which was to be, in frequent wholesale lots,\nsent off to be cut or dashed to pieces. [Footnote: \"Killed off,\" was the\nsentimental phrase emitted in parliament, in easy unconsciousness of\noffence, by the accomplished senator named in a former page. He probably\nwas really unaware that the creatures were made for anything better.] And\nbesides, a certain measure of instruction to think, especially if\nconsisting, in a considerable part, of the inculcation of religion, might\nhave done something to disturb that notion, (so worthy to have been\ntransferred from the Mohammedan creed,) which she was by no means desirous\nto expel from her fleets and armies, that death for \"king and country\"\nclears off all accounts for sin.\n\nLet our attention be directed a little while to the effects of the\nprivation of knowledge, as they may be seen conspicuous in the several\nparts of the economy of life, in the uneducated part of the community.\nObserve those people in their daily occupations. None of us need be told\nthat, of the prodigious diversity of manual employments, some consist of,\nor include, operations of such minuteness or complexity, and so much\ndemanding nicety, arrangement, or combination, as to necessitate the\nconstant and almost entire attention of the mind; nor that all of them\nmust require its full attention at times, at particular stages, changes,\nand adjustments, of the work. We allow this its full weight, to forbid any\nextravagant notion of how much it is possible to think of other things\nduring the working time. It is however to be recollected, that persons of\na class superior to the numerous one we have in view, take the chief share\nof those portions of the arts and manufactures which require the most of\nmental effort,--those which demand extreme precision, or inventive\ncontrivance, or taste, or scientific skill. We may also take into the\naccount of the allotment of employments to the uncultivated multitude, how\nmuch facility is acquired by habit, how much use there is of instrumental\nmechanism, (a grand exempter from the responsibility that would lie on the\nmind,) and how merely general and very slight an attention is exacted in\nthe ordinary course of some of the occupations. These things considered,\nwe may venture perhaps to assume, on an average of those employments, that\nthe persons engaged in them might be, as much at least as one third part\nof the time, without detriment to the manual performance, giving the\nthoughts to other things with attention enough for such interest as would\ninvolve improvement. This is particularly true of the more ordinary parts\nof the labors of agriculture, when not under any critical circumstances,\nor special pressure owing to the season.\n\nBut as the case at present is, what does become, during such portion of\nthe time, of the ethereal essence which inhabits the corporeal laborer,\nthis spirit created, it is commonly said and without contradiction, for\nthought, knowledge, religion, and immortality? If we be really to believe\nthis doctrine of its nature and destiny, (for we are not sure that\npoliticians think so,) can we know without regret, that in very many of\nthe persons in the situations supposed, it suffers a dull absorption,\nsubsides into the mere physical nature, is sunk and sleeping in the animal\nwarmth and functions, and lulled and rocked, as it were, in its lethargy,\nby the bodily movements, in the works which it is not necessary for it to\nkeep habitually awake to direct? And its obligation to keep just enough\nawake to see to the right performance of the work, seems to give a\nlicensed exemption from any other stirring of its faculties. The\nemployment _is something to be minded_, in a general way, though but now\nand then requiring a pointed attention; and therefore this said\nintellectual being, if uninformed and unexercised, will feel no call to\nmind anything else: as a person retained for some service which demands\nbut occasionally an active exercise, will justify the indolence which\ndeclines taking in hand any other business in the intervals, under the\npretext that he has his appointment; and so, when not under the immediate\ncalls of that appointment, he will trifle or go to sleep, even in the full\nlight of day, with an easy conscience.\n\nBut here we are to beware of falling into the inadvertency of appearing to\nsay, that the laboring classes, in this country and age, have actually\nthis full exemption, during their employments, from all exercise of\nthought beyond that which is immediately requisite for the right\nperformance of their work. It is true that there is little enough of any\nsuch mental activity directed to the instructive uses we were supposing.\nBut while such partial occupation of the thoughts (of course it is\nadmitted, in an irregular and discontinuous, but still a beneficial\nmanner) with topics and facts of what may be called intellectual and moral\ninterest as we are assuming to be compatible with divers of the manual\noperations, is a thing to which most among the laboring classes are\nstrangers, many of them are equally strangers to an easy vacancy of mind;\nexperiencing amidst their employments a severe arrest of those thoughts\nwhich the mere employment itself may leave free. During the little more\nthan mechanical action of their hands and eyes, the circumstances of their\ncondition press hard into their minds. The lot of many of those classes is\nplaced in a melancholy disproportion between what _must_ be given to the\ncares and toils for a bare subsistence, and what _can_, at most, be given\nto the interests of the nobler part of their nature, either during their\nwork or in its intervals. It is a sad spectacle to behold so many myriads\nof spiritual beings, (proviso, again, that we may call them so without\nbeing suspected to forget that their proper calling is to work with their\nhands,) doomed to consume a proportion so little short of the whole of\ntheir vigor and time, in just merely supporting so many bodies in the\nstruggle to live.\n\nWhen it is in special relation to the present times that we speak of this\nstruggle to live, we of course mean by it something more than that\ncircumstance of the general lot of humanity which is expressed in the\nsentence, \"In the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat thy bread,\" We put the\nemphasis on the peculiar aggravation of that circumstance in this part of\nthe world in this and recent times, by the adventitious effect of some\ndreadful disorder of the social economy, in consequence of which the\nutmost exertions of the body and mind together but barely suffice in so\nmany cases, in some hardly do suffice, for the mere protraction of life;\ncomfortable life being altogether out of the question. The course of the\nadministration of the civilized states, and the recent dire combustion\ninto which they have almost unanimously rushed, as in emulation which of\nthem should with the least reserve, and with the most desperate rapidity,\nannihilate the resources that should have been for the subsistence and\ncompetence of their people, have resulted in such destitution and misery\nin this country as were never known before, except as immediately\ninflicted by the local visitation of some awful calamity. The state of\nvery many of our people, at this hour, is nearly what might be conceived\nas the consequence of a failure of the accustomed produce of the earth.\n[Footnote: No exaggeration at the time when it was written. The condition\nof the working classes during the subsequent years does not admit of any\ncomprehensive uniform description. It has suffered successive harassing\nfluctuations, and been probably at all times severely distressing in one\npart of the country or another.]\n\nThere is no wish to deny or underrate the additions made to the evil by\nthe intervention of causes, whose operation admits of being traced in some\nmeasure distinctly from the effect of this grand one. They may be traced\nin an operation which is _distinguishable_; and referable to each\nrespectively; but it were most absurd to represent them as working out of\nconnection, or otherwise than subordinately concurring, with that cause\nwhich has invaded with its pernicious effects everything that has an\nexistence or a name in the social system. And it were simply monstrous to\nattribute the main substance of so wide and oppressive an evil to causes\nof any debateable quality, while there is glaring in sight a cause of\nstupendous magnitude, which _could not possibly do otherwise than_ produce\nimmense and calamitous effects. It would be as if a man were prying about\nfor this and the other cause of damage, to account for the aspect of a\nregion which has recently been devastated by inundations or earthquakes.\nIt has become much a fashion to explain the distresses of a country on any\nprinciples rather than those that are taught by all history, and\nprominently manifest in the nature of things. And airs of superior\nintelligence shall be assumed on hearing a plain man fix the main charge\nof national exhaustion and distress on the nation's consuming its own\nstrength in an unquenchable fury to destroy that of others; just as if\nsuch madness had never been known to result in poverty and distress, and\nit were perfectly inexplicable how it should. This is partly an\naffectation of science, accompanied, it is likely, by somewhat of that\nsincere extravagance with which some newly developed principle is apt to\nbe accounted the comprehension of all wisdom, a nostrum that will explain\neverything. But we suspect that in many instances this substitution of\nsubordinate causes for a great substantial one, proceeds from something\nmuch worse than such affectation or self-duped extravagance. It is from a\nresolute determination that ambition shall be the noblest virtue of a\nstate; that martial glory shall maintain its ground in human idolatry and\nthat wars and their promoters shall be justified at all hazards.\n\nWe were wishing to show how the laboring people's thoughts might be partly\nemployed, during their daily task, and consistently with industry and good\nworkmanship. But what a state of things is exhibited where the very name\nof industry, the virtue universally honored, the topic of so many human\nand divine inculcations, cannot be spoken without offering a bitter\ninsult; where the heavy toil, denounced on man for his transgression, in\nthe same sentence as death, is in vain implored as the greatest privilege;\nor thought of in despair, as a blessing too great to be attainable; and\nwhen the reply of the artisan to an unwitting admonition, that even amidst\nhis work he might have some freedom for useful thinking, may be,\n\"Thinking! I have no work to confine my thinking; I may, for that, employ\nit all on other subjects; but those subjects are, whether I please or not,\nthe plenty and luxury in which many creatures of the same kind as myself\nare rioting, and the starvation which I and my family are suffering.\"\n\nWe hope in Providence, more than in any wisdom or disposition shown by\nmen, that this melancholy state of things will be alleviated, otherwise\nthan by a reduction of number through the diseases generated by utter\npenury. [Footnote: It _has_ been alleviated; but not till after a\nconsiderable duration. In England it has; but look at Ireland?] We trust\nthe time will come when the Christian monitor shall no longer be silenced\nby the apprehension of such a reply to the suggestion he wishes to make to\nthe humble class, that they should strive against being reduced to mere\nmachines amidst their manual employments; that it is miserable to have the\nwhole mental existence shrunk and shrivelled as it were to the breadth of\nthe material they are working upon; that the noble interior agent, which\nlends itself to maintain the external activity, and direct the operations\nrequired of the bodily powers for the body's welfare, has eminently a\nright and claim to have employments on its own account, during such parts\nof those operations as do not of necessity monopolize its attention. It\nmay claim, in the superintendence of these, a privilege analogous to that\npossessed in the general direction of subordinate agents by a man of\nscience, who will interfere as often as it is necessary, but will not give\nup all other thought and employment to be a constant mere looker-on,\nduring such parts of the operations as are of so ordinary a nature that he\ncould not really fix his attention on them.\n\nBut how is the mind of the laborer or artisan to be delivered from the\nblank and stupified state, during the parts of his employment that do not\nnecessarily engross his thoughts? How, but by its having within some store\nof subjects for thought; something for memory, imagination, reflection; in\na word, by the possession of knowledge? How can it be sensibly alive and\nactive, when it is placed fully and decidedly out of communication with\nall things that are friendly to intellectual life, all things that apply a\nbeneficial stimulus to the faculties, all things, of this world or\nanother, that are the most inviting or commanding to thought and emotion?\nWe can imagine this ill-fated spirit, especially if by nature of the\nsomewhat finer temperament, thus detached from all vital connection,\nsecluded from the whole universe, and inclosed as by a prison wall,--we\ncan imagine it sometimes moved with an indistinct longing for its\nappropriate interests; and going round and round by this dark, dead wall,\nto seek for any spot where there might be a chance of escape, or any\ncrevice where a living element for the soul transpires; and then, as\nfeeling it all in vain, dejectedly resigning itself again to its doom.\nSome ignorant minds have instinctive impulses of this kind; though far\nmore of them are so deeply stupified as to be habitually safe from any\nsuch inquietude. But let them have received, in their youth and\nprogressively afterwards, a considerable measure of interesting\ninformation, respecting, for instance, the many striking objects on the\nglobe they inhabit, the memorable events of past ages, the origin and uses\nof remarkable works within their view, remaining from ancient times; the\ncauses of effects and phenomena familiar to their observation as now\nunintelligible facts; the prospects of man, from the relation he stands in\nto time, and eternity, and God, explained by the great principles and\nfacts of religion. Let there be fixed in their knowledge so many ideas of\nthese kinds, as might be imparted by a comparatively humble education,\n(one quite compatible with the destination to a life of ordinary\nemployment,) and even involuntarily the thoughts would often recur to\nthese subjects, in those moments and hours when the manual occupation can,\nand actually will, be prosecuted with but little of exclusive attention.\nSlight incidents, casual expressions, would sometimes suggest these\nsubjects; by association they would suggest one another. The mere reaction\nof a somewhat cultivated spirit against invading dulness, might recall\nsome of the more amusing and elating ones; and they would fall like a\ngleam of sunshine on the imagination. An emotion of conscience, a\nself-reflection, an occurring question of duty, a monitory sensation of\ndefective health, would sometimes point to the serious and solemn ones.\nThe mind might thus go a considerable way, to recreate or profit itself,\nand, on coming back again, find all safe in the processes of the field or\nthe loom. The man would thus come from these processes with more than the\nbare earnings to set against the fatigue. There would thus be scattered\nsome appearances to entertain, and some sources and productions to\nrefresh, over what were else a dead and barren flat of existence.\n\nThere is no romancing in all this; we have known instances of its\nverification to a very pleasing and exemplary extent. We have heard\npersons of the class in question tell of the exhilarating imaginations, or\nsolemn reflections, which, through the reminiscences of what they had read\nin youth or more advanced years, had visited their minds; and put them, as\nit were, in communication for a while with diversified, remote, and\nelevated objects, while in their humble employments under the open sky or\nthe domestic roof. And is not this, (if it be true, after all, that the\nintellectual, immortal nature is by emphasis the man,) is not this vastly\nbetter than that this mind should lie nearly as dormant, during the\nlaborer's hours of business, as his attendant of the canine species shall\nbe sometimes seen to do in the corner of the field where he is at work?\n\nBut perhaps it will be said, that the minds of the uncultivated order are\nnot generally in this state of utter inanity during their common\nemployments; but are often awake and busy enough in recollections,\nfancies, projects, and the tempers appropriate; and that they abundantly\nshow this when they stop sometimes in their work to talk, or talk as they\nare proceeding in it. So much the stronger, we answer, the argument for\nsupplying them with useful knowledge; for it were better their mental\nbeing _were_ sunk in lethargy, than busy among the reported, recollected,\nor imagined transactions, the wishes, and the schemings, which will be the\nmost likely to occupy the minds of persons abandoned to ignorance,\nvulgarity, and therefore probably to low vice.\n\nWe may add to the representation, the manner in which they spend the part\nof their time not demanded for the regular, or the occasional, exercise of\ntheir industry. It is not to be denied that many of them have too much\ntruth in their pleading that, with the exception of Sunday, they have\nlittle remission of their toils till they are so weary that the remainder\nof the time is needed for complete repose. This is particularly the case\nof the females, especially those who have the chief cares and the actual\nwork of a family. Nevertheless, it is within our constant observation that\na considerable proportion of the men, a large one of the younger men, in\nthe less heavily oppressed divisions of our population, do in fact\ninclude, for substance, their manual employments within such limits of\ntime, as often to leave several hours in the day to be spent nearly as\nthey please. And in what manner, for the most part, is this precious time\nexpended by those of no mental cultivation? It is true, again, that in\nmany departments of labor, a diligent exertion during even this limited\nspace of the day, occasions such a degree of lassitude and heaviness as to\nrender it almost inevitable, especially in certain seasons of the year, to\nsurrender some moments of the spare time, beyond what is necessary for the\nhumble repast, to a kind of listless subsidence of all the powers of both\nbody and mind. But after all these allowances fully conceded, a great\nnumber in the class under consideration have in some days several hours,\nand in the whole six days of the week, on an average of the year, very\nmany hours, to be given, as they choose, to useful purposes or to waste;\nand again we ask, where the mind itself has been left waste how _is_ that\ntime mostly expended?\n\nIf the persons are of a phlegmatic temperament, we shall often see them\njust simply annihilating those portions of time. They will for an hour,\nor for hours together, if not disturbed by some cause from without, sit\non a bench, or lie down on a bank or hillock, or lean on a wall, or fill\nthe fire-side chair; yielded up to utter vacancy and torpor, not asleep\nperhaps, but more lost to mental existence than if they were; since the\ndreams, that would probably visit their slumbers, would be a more lively\ntrain of ideas than any they have awake. Of a piece with this is the\nhabit, among many of this order of people, of giving formally to sleep as\nmuch as one-third part, sometimes considerably more, of the twenty-four\nhours. Certainly there are innumerable cases in which infirmity, care,\nfatigue, and the comfortlessness and penury of the humble dwelling,\neffectually plead for a large allowance of this balm of oblivion. But\nvery many surrender themselves to this excess from destitution of\nanything to keep their minds awake, especially in the evenings of the\nwinter. What a contrast is here suggested to the imagination of those who\nhave read Dr. Henderson's, and other recent descriptions, of the habits\nof the people of Iceland!\n\nThese, however, are their most harmless modes of wasting the time. For,\nwhile we might think of the many hours merged by them in apathy and\nneedless sleep, with a wish that those hours could be recovered to the\naccount of their existence, we might well wish that the hours could be\nstruck out of it which they may sometimes give, instead, to conversation;\nin parties where ignorance, coarse vulgarity, and profaneness, are to\nsupport the dialogue, on topics the most to their taste; always including,\nas the most welcome to that taste, the depravities and scandals of the\nneighborhood; while all the reproach and ridicule, expended with good-will\non those depravities, have the strange result of making the censors the\nless disinclined themselves to practise them, and only a little better\ninstructed how to do it with impunity. In many instances there is the\nadditional mischief, that these assemblings for corrupt communication find\ntheir resort at the public-house, where intemperance and ribaldry may\nseason each other, if the pecuniary means for the former ingredient can be\nafforded, even at the cost of distress at home.--But without including\ndepravity of this degree, the worthlessness of the communications of a\nnumber of grossly ignorant associates is easy to be imagined; besides that\nmost of us have been made judges of their quality by numberless occasions\nof unavoidably hearing samples of them.\n\nIn the finer seasons of the year, much of these leisure spaces of time can\nbe expended out of doors; and we have still only to refer to every one's\nown observation of the account to which they are turned, in the lives of\nbeings whose lot allows but so contracted a portion of time to be, at the\nbest, applied directly to the highest purposes of life.--Here the hater of\nall such schemes of improvement, as would threaten to turn the lower order\ninto what that hater may probably call Methodists, (a term we venture to\ninterpret for him as meaning thoughtful beings and Christians,) comes in\nwith a ready cant of humanity and commiseration. And why, he says, with an\naffected indignation of philanthropy, why should not the poor creatures\nenjoy a little fresh air and cheerful sunshine, and have a chance of\nkeeping their health, confined as many of them are, for the greatest part\nof the time, in narrow, squalid rooms, unwholesome workshops, and every\nsort of disagreeable places and employments? Very true, we answer; and why\nshould not numbers of them be collected in groups by the road-side, in\nreadiness to find in whatever passes there occasions for gross jocularity;\npractising some impertinence, or uttering some jeering scurrility, at the\nexpense of persons going by; shouting with laughter at the success of the\nannoyance, or to _make_ it successful; and all this blended with language\nof profaneness and imprecation, as the very life of the hilarity? Or why\nshould not the boldest spirits among them form a little conventicle for\ncursing, blaspheming, and blackguard obstreperousness in the street, about\nthe entrance of one of the haunts of intoxication; where they are\nperfectly safe from that worse mischief of a gloomy fanaticism, with which\nthey might have been smitten if seduced to frequent the meeting-house\ntwenty paces off? Or why should not the children, growing into the stage\ncalled youth, be turned loose through the lanes, roads, and fields, to\nform a brawling, impudent rabble, trained by their association to every\nlow vice, and ambitiously emulating, in voice, visage, and manners, the\nruffians and drabs of maturer growth? Or why should not the young men and\nwomen collect in clusters, or range about or beyond the neighborhood in\nbands, for revel, frolic, and all kinds of coarse mirth; to come back late\nat night to quarrel with their wretched elders, who perhaps envy them\ntheir capacity for such wild gaieties and strollings, while rating them\nfor their disorderly habits? We say where can be the harm of all this?\nWhat reasonable and benevolent man would think of making any objection to\nit? Reasonable and benevolent,--for these have been among the qualities\nboasted for the occasion by the opposers of any materially improved\neducation of the people; while in such opposition they virtually avowed\ntheir willing tolerance of all that is here described.\n\nWe have allowed most fully the plea of how little time, _comparatively_,\ncould be afforded to the concern of mental improvement by the lower\nclasses from their indispensable employments; and also that of the\nconsequent fatigue, causing a temporary incapacity of effort in any other\nway. But this latter plea cannot be admitted without great abatement in\nthe case of our neglected _young_ people of the working classes; for when\nwe advert to their actual habits, we see that, nevertheless, time,\nstrength, and wakefulness, and spring and spirit for exertion, _are_ found\nfor a vast deal of busy diversion, much of it blended with such folly as\ntends to vice.\n\nIf such is the manner in which the spare time of the week-days goes to\nwaste and worse, the Sunday is welcomed as giving scope for the same\nthings on a larger scale. It is very striking to consider, that several\nmillions, we may safely assert, of our English people, arrived at what\nshould be years of discretion, are almost completely destitute of any\nmanner of conscience respecting this seventh part of time; not merely as\nto any required consecration of it to religion, but as to its being under\nany claim or of any worth at all, otherwise than for amusement. It is\nactually regarded by them as a section of time far less under obligation\nthan any other. They take it as so absolutely at their free disposal, by a\nright so exclusively vested in their taste and will, that a demand made\neven in behalf of their own most important interests, is contemptuously\nrepelled as a sanctimonious impertinence. If the idea occurs at all (with\nmultitudes it never does) of claims which they have heard that God should\nmake on the hours, it is dismissed with the thought that it really cannot\nsignify to him how creatures, condemned by his appointment to toil all the\nrest of the week, may wish to spend this one day, on which the secular\ntaskmaster manumits them, and He, the spiritual one, might surely do as\nmuch. An immense number pay no attention whatever to any sort of religious\nworship; and many of those that do give an hour or two to such an\nobservance, do so, some of them as merely a diversification of amusement,\nand the others by way of taking a license of exemption from any further\naccountableness for the manner in which they may spend the day. It is the\nnatural consequence of all this, that there is more folly, if not more\ncrime, committed on this than on all the other six days together.\n\nThus man, at least _ignorant_ man, is unfit to be trusted with anything\nunder heaven; since a remarkable appointment for raising the general tenor\nof moral existence, has with these persons the effect of sinking it. There\nis interposed, at frequent regular intervals throughout the series of\ntheir days, a richer vein, as it were, of time. The improvement of this,\nin a manner by no means strained to the austerity of exercise prescribed\nin the Puritan rules, might diffuse a worth and a grace over all the time\nbetween, and assist them against the tendency there may be in its\nnecessary habits and employments, to depress the intelligent nature into\nmeanness or debasement. The space which they are passing over is marked,\nat near intervals, with broad lines of a benignant light, which might\nspread an appearance of mild lustre over the whole extent as contemplated\nin retrospect; but how many, in looking back when near the end of their\nprogress, have to perceive its general shade rendered darker by the very\nspaces where that light had been shed from heaven.\n\nThe Sundays of those who do not improve them to a good purpose, will\ninfallibly be perverted to a bad one. But it were still a melancholy\naccount if we could regard them as merely standing for nothing, as a blank\nin the life of this class of the people. It is a deeply unhappy spectacle\nand reflection, to see a man of perhaps more than seventy, sunk in the\ngrossness and apathy of an almost total ignorance of all the most\nmomentous subjects, and then to consider, that, since he came to an age of\nsome natural capacity for the exercise of his mind, there have been more\nthan three thousand Sundays. In their long succession they were _his\ntime_. That is to say, he had the property in them which every man has in\nduration; they were present to him, he had them, he spent them. Perhaps\nsome compassionate friend may have been pleading in his behalf,--Alas!\nwhat opportunity, what time, has the poor mortal ever had? His lot has\nbeen to labor hard through the week throughout almost his whole life. Yes,\nwe answer, but he has had three thousand Sundays; what would not even the\nmost moderate improvement of so vast a sum of hours have done for him? But\nthe ill-fated man, (perhaps rejoins the commiserating pleader,) grew up\nfrom his childhood in utter ignorance of any use he ought to make of time\nwhich his necessary employment would allow him to waste. There, we reply,\nyou strike the mark. Sundays are of no value, nor Bibles, nor the enlarged\nknowledge of the age, nor heaven nor earth, to beings brought up in\nestrangement from all right discipline. And therefore we are pleading for\nthe schemes and institutions which will not _let_ human beings be thus\nbrought up.\n\nIn so pleading, we happily can appeal to one fact in evidence that the\nintellectual and religious culture, in the introductory stages of life,\ntends to secure that the persons so trained shall be, when they are come\nto maturity, marked off from the neglected barbarous mass, by at least an\nexternal respect, but accompanied, we trust, in many of them, by a still\nbetter sentiment, to the means for keeping truth and duty constantly in\ntheir view. Observe the numbers now attending, with a becoming deportment,\npublic worship and instruction, as compared with what the proportion is\nremembered or recorded to have been half a century since, or any time\nprevious to the great exertions of benevolence to save the children of the\ninferior classes from preserving the whole mental likeness of their\nforefathers.\n\nIt can be testified also, by persons whose observation has been the\nlongest in the habit of following children and youth from the instruction\nof the school institutions into mature life, that, in a gratifying number\nof instances, they have been seen permanently retaining too much love of\nimprovement, and too much of the habit of a useful employment of their\nminds, to sink, in their ordinary daily occupations, into that wretched\ninanity we were representing; or to consume the free intervals of time in\nthe listlessness, or worthless gabble, or vain sports, of which their\nneighbors furnished plenty of example and temptation.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThese representations have partly included, what we may yet specify\ndistinctly as one of the unhappy effects of gross ignorance--_a degraded\nstate of domestic society_.\n\nWhatever is of nature to render individuals uninteresting or offensive to\none another, has a specially bad effect among them as members of a family;\nbecause there is in that form of community itself a peculiar tendency to\nfall below the level of dignified and complacent social life.--A number of\npersons cannot be placed in a state of social communication, without\nhaving a certain sense of claiming from one another a conduct meant and\nadapted to please. It is expected that a succession of efforts should be\nmade for this purpose, with a willingness of each individual to forego, in\nlittle things, his own inclination or convenience. This is all very well\nwhen the society is _voluntary_, and the parties can separate when the\ncost is felt to be greater than the pleasure. Under this advantage of\nbeing able soon to separate, even a company of strangers casually\nassembled will often recognize the claim and conform to the law; with a\ncertain indistinct sentiment partaking of reciprocal gratitude for the\ndisposition which is so accommodating. But the members of the domestic\ncommunity also have each this same feeling which demands a mutual effort\nand self-denial to please, while the condition of their association is\nadverse to their _yielding_ what they thus respectively claim. Theirs,\nwhen once it is formed, is not exactly a voluntary companionship, and it\nis one of undefinable continuance. The claim therefore seems as if it were\nto be of a prolongation interminable, while the grateful feeling for the\nconcession is the less for the more compulsory bond of the association.\nAnd to be thus required, in a community which must not be dissolved, and\nin a series that reaches away beyond calculation, to exercise a\nself-restraint on their wills and humors in order to please one another,\ngoes so hard against the great principle of human feeling--namely, each\none's preference of pleasing himself--that there is an habitual impulse of\nreaction against the claim. This shows itself in their deportment, which\nhas the appearance of a practical expression of so many individuals that\nthey _will_ maintain each his own freedom. Hence the absence, very\ncommonly, in domestic society, of the attentiveness, the tone of civility,\nthe promptitude of compliance, the habit of little accommodations,\nvoluntary and supernumerary, which are so observable in the intercourse of\nfriends, acquaintance, and often, as we have said, even of strangers.\n\nAnd then consider, in so close a kind of community, what near and intimate\nwitnesses they are of all one another's faults, weaknesses, tempers,\nperversities; of whatever is offensive in manner, or unseemly in habit; of\nall the irksome, humiliating, or sometimes ludicrous circumstances and\nsituations. And also, in this close association, the bad moods, the\nstrifes, and resentments, are pressed into immediate, lasting, corrosive\ncontact with whatever should be the most vital to social happiness. If\nthere be, into the account, the wants, anxieties, and vexations of severe\npoverty, they will generally aggravate all that is destructive to domestic\ncomplacency and decorum.\n\nNow add gross ignorance to all this, and see what the picture will be. How\nmany families have been seen where the parents were only the older and\nstronger animals than their children, whom they could teach nothing but\nthe methods and tasks of labor. They naturally could not be the mere\ncompanions, for alternate play and quarrel, of their children, and were\ndisqualified by mental rudeness to be their respected guardians. There\nwere about them these young and rising forms, containing the\ninextinguishable principle, which was capable of entering on an endless\nprogression of wisdom, goodness, and happiness! needing numberless\nsuggestions, explanations, admonitions, brief reasonings, and a training\nto attend to the lessons of written instruction. But nothing of all this\nfrom the parent. Their case was as hopeless for receiving these\nnecessaries of mental life, as the condition, for physical nutriment, of\ninfants attempting to draw it, (we have heard of so affecting and mournful\na fact,) from the breast of a dead parent. These unhappy heads of families\npossessed no resources for engaging youthful attention by mingled\ninstruction and amusements; no descriptions of the most wonderful objects,\nor narratives of the most memorable events, to set, for superior\nattraction, against the idle stories of the neighborhood; no assemblage of\nadmirable examples, from the sacred or other records of human character,\nto give a beautiful real form to virtue and religion, and promote an\naversion to base companionship.\n\nRequirement and prohibition must be a part of the domestic economy\nhabitually in operation of course; and in such families you will have\nseen the government exercised, or attempted to be exercised, in the\nroughest, barest shape of will and menace, with no aptitude or means of\nimparting to injunction and censure, a convincing and persuasive quality.\nNot that the seniors should allow their government to be placed on such a\nground that, in everything they enforce or forbid, they may be liable to\nhave their reasons demanded by the children, as an understood condition\nof their compliance. Far from it; they will sometimes have to require a\nprescribed conduct for reasons not intelligible, or which it may not be\ndiscreet to explain, to those who are to obey. But their authority\nbecomes odious, and as a moral force worse than inefficient, when the\nnatural shrewdness of the children can descry that they really _have_ no\nreasons better than an obstinate or capricious will; and infallibly makes\nthe inference, that there is no obligation to submit, but that necessity\nwhich dependence imposes. But this must often be the unfortunate\ncondition of such families.\n\nNow imagine a week, month, or year, of the intercourse in such a domestic\nsociety, the course of talk, the mutual manners, and the progress of mind\nand character; where there is a sense of drudgery approaching to that of\nslavery, in the unremitting necessity of labor; where there is none of the\ninterest of imparting knowledge or receiving it, or of reciprocating\nknowledge that has been imparted and received; where there is not an acre,\nif we might express it so, of intellectual space around them, clear of the\nthick, universal fog of ignorance; where, especially, the luminaries of\nthe spiritual heaven, the attributes of the Almighty, the grand phenomenon\nof redeeming mediation, the solemn realities of a future state and another\nworld, are totally obscured in that shade; where the conscience and the\ndiscriminations of duty are dull and indistinct, from the youngest to the\noldest; where there is no genuine respect on the one side, nor affection\nunmixed with vulgar petulance and harshness, expressed perhaps in language\nof imprecation, on the other; where a mutual coarseness of manners and\nwords has the effect, without their being aware of it as a cause, of\ndebasing their worth in one another's esteem, all round; and where,\nnotwithstanding all, they absolutely must pass a great deal of time\ntogether, to converse, to display their dispositions toward one another,\nand exemplify the poverty of the mere primary relations of life, as\ndivested of the accessories which give them dignity, endearment, and\nconduciveness to the highest advantage of existence.\n\nHome has but little to please the young members of such a family, and a\ngreat deal to make them eager to escape out of the house; which is also a\nwelcome riddance to the elder persons, when it is not in neglect or\nrefusal to perform allotted tasks. So little is the feeling of a peaceful\ncordiality created among them by their seeing one another all within the\nhabitation, that, not unfrequently, the passer-by may learn the fact of\ntheir collective number being there, from the sound of a low strife of\nmingled voices, some of them betraying youth replying in anger or contempt\nto maturity or age. It is wretched to see how early this liberty is boldly\ntaken. As the children perceive nothing in the _minds_ of their parents\nthat should awe them into deference, the most important difference left\nbetween them is that of physical strength. The children, if of hardy\ndisposition, to which they are perhaps trained in battles with their\njuvenile rivals, soon show a certain degree of daring against their\nsuperior strength. And as the difference lessens, and by the time it has\nnearly ceased, what is so natural as that they should assume equality, in\nmanners and in following their own will? But equality assumed where there\nshould be subordination, inevitably involves contempt toward the party in\ndefiance of whom it is asserted.\n\nThe relative condition of such parents as they sink in old age, is most\ndeplorable. And all that has preceded, leads by a natural course to that\nconsequence which we have sometimes beheld, with feelings emphatically\ngloomy,--the almost perfect indifference with which the descendants, and a\nfew other relations, of a poor old man of this class, could consign him to\nthe grave. A human being was gone out of the world, a being they had been\nwith or near all their lives, some of them sustained in their childhood by\nhis labors, and yet perhaps not one heart, at any moment, felt the\nsentiment--I have lost----. They never could regard him with respect, and\ntheir miserable education had not taught them humanity enough to regard\nhim in his declining days as an object of pity. Some decency of attention\nwas perhaps shown him, or perhaps hardly that, in his last hours. His\nbeing now a dead, instead of a living man, was a burden taken off; and the\ninsensibility and levity, somewhat disturbed and repressed at the sight of\nhis expiring struggle, and of his being lowered into the grave, recovered\nby the day after his interment, if not on the very same evening, their\naccustomed tone, never more to be interrupted by the effect of any\nremembrance of him. Such a closing scene one day to be repeated is\nforeshown to us, when we look at an ignorant and thoughtless father\nsurrounded by his untaught children. In the silence of thought we thus\naccost him,--The event which will take you finally from among them,\nperhaps after forty or fifty years of intercourse with them, will leave no\nmore impression on their affections, than the cutting down of a decayed\nold tree in the neighborhood of your habitation.\n\nThere are instances, of rare occurrence, when such a man becomes, late in\nlife, far too late for his family to have the benefit of the change, a\nsubject of the only influence which could awake him to earnest\nthoughtfulness and the full sensibility of conscience. When the sun thus\nbreaks out toward the close of his gloomy day, and when, in the energy of\nhis new life, he puts forth the best efforts of his untaught spirit for a\nlittle divine knowledge, to be a lamp to him in entering ere long the\nshades of death, with what bitter regrets he looks back to the period when\na number of human beings, some perhaps still with him, some now scattered\nfrom him, and here and there pursuing their separate courses in careless\nignorance, were growing up under his roof, within his charge, but in utter\nestrangement from all discipline adapted to ensure a happier sequel. His\ndistressing reflection is often representing to him what they might now\nhave been if they had grown up under such discipline. And gladly would he\nlay down his life to redeem for them but some inferior share of what the\nseason for imparting to them is gone forever.\n\nAnother thing is to be added, to this representation of the evils\nattendant on an uncultivated state of the people, namely--that _this\nmental rudeness puts them decidedly out of beneficial communication with\nthe superior and cultivated classes_.\n\nWe are assuming (with permission) that a national community should be\nconstituted for the good of all its parts, not to be obtained by them as\ndetached, independent portions, but adjusted and compacted into one social\nbody; an economy in which all the parts shall feel they have the benefit\nof an amicable combination; in other words, that they are the better for\none another. But it can be no such constitution when the most palpable\nrelations between the two main divisions of society consist of such direct\nopposites as refinement and barbarism, dignity and gross debasement,\nintelligence and ignorance; which are the distinctions asserted by the\nhigher classes as putting a vast distance between them and the lower. If\nso little of the correct understanding, the information, the liberalized\nfeeling, and the propriety of deportment, which we are to ascribe to the\nhigher and cultivated portion, goes downward into the lower, it should\nseem impossible but there must be more of repulsion than of amicable\ndisposition and communication between them. We may suspect, perhaps, that\nthose more privileged classes are not generally desirous that the interval\nwere much less wide, provided that without cultivation of the lower orders\nthe nuisance of their annoying and formidable temper could be abated. But\nhowever that may be, it is exceedingly desirable, for the good of both,\nthat the upper and inferior orders _should_ be on terms of communication\nand mutual good-will, and therefore that there should be a diminution of\nthat rudeness of mind and habits which must contribute to keep them\nalienated and hostile.\n\nIf it were asked what communication, at all of a nature to be described\nby epithets of social and friendly import, we can be supposing by\npossibility to subsist between classes so different and distant, we may\nexemplify it by such an instance as we have now and then the pleasure of\nseeing. Each reader also, of any moderate compass of observation, may\nprobably recollect an example, in the case of some man in humble station,\nbut who has had (for his condition) a good education; having been well\ninstructed in his youth in the elements of useful knowledge; having had\ngood principles diligently inculcated upon him; having subsequently\ninstructed himself, to the best of his very confined means and\nopportunity, through a habit of reading; and being in his manners\nunaffectedly observant of all the decorums of a respectable human being.\nIt has been seen, that such a man has not found in some of his superiors\nin station and attainment any disposition to shun him; and has not felt\nin himself or his situation any reason why he should seek to shun them.\nHe would occasionally fall into conversation with the wealthy and\naccomplished proprietor, or the professional man of learning, in the\nneighborhood. His intelligent manner of attending to what they said, his\nperfect understanding of the language naturally used by cultivated\npersons, the considerateness and pertinence of his replies, and the\nmodest deference, combined with an honest freedom in making his\nobservations on the matters brought in question, pleased those persons of\nsuperior rank, and induced various friendly and useful attentions, on\ntheir part to him and his family. He and his family thus experienced a\ndirect benefit of superior sense, civility, and good principle, in a\nhumble condition; and were put under a new responsibility to preserve a\ncharacter for those distinctions.--Now think of the incalculable\nadvantage to society, if anything approaching to this were the general\nstate of social relation between the lower and the higher orders.\n\nOn the contrary, there is no medium of complacent communication between\nthe classes of higher condition and endowment, and an ignorant, coarse\npopulace. Except on occasion of giving orders or magisterial rebukes, the\ngentleman will never think of such a thing as converse with the clowns in\nhis vicinity. They, on their part, are desirous to avoid him; excepting\nwhen any of them may have a purpose to gain, by arresting his attention,\nwith an ungainly cringe; or when some of those who have no sort of\npresent dependence on him, are disposed to cross his way with a look and\nstrut of rudeness, to show how little they care for him. The servility,\nand the impudence, almost equally repress in him all friendly disposition\ntoward a voluntary intercourse with the class. There is thus as complete\na dissociation between the two orders, as mutual dislike, added to every\nimaginable dissimilarity, can create. And this broad ungracious\nseparation intercepts all modifying influence that might otherwise have\npassed, from the intelligence and refinement of the one, upon the\nbarbarism of the other.\n\nBut there is in human nature a pertinacious disposition to work\ndisadvantages, in one way or other, into privileges. The people, in being\nthus consigned to a low and alien ground, in relation to the cultivated\npart of society, are put in possession, as it were, of a territory of\ntheir own; where they can give their disposition freer play, and act out\ntheir characters in their own manner; exempt equally from the voluntary\nand the involuntary influence of the cultivated superiors; that is to say,\nneither insensibly modified by the attraction of what is the most laudable\nin them as a pattern, nor swayed through policy to a studied accommodation\nto their understood opinion and will. This is a great emancipation enjoyed\nby the inferiors. And however injurious it may be, it is one of which they\nwill not fail to take the full license. For in all things and situations,\nit is one of the first objects with human beings, to verify experimentally\nthe presumed extent of their liberty and privilege. In this dissociation,\nthe people are rid of the many salutary restraints and incitements which\nthey would have been made to feel, if on terms of friendly recognition\nwith the respectable part of the community; they have neither honor nor\ndisgrace, from that quarter, to take into their account; and this\ncontributes to extinguish all sense and care of respectability of\ncharacter,--a care to which there will be no motive in any consideration\nof what they may, as among themselves, think of one another; for, with the\nlow estimate which they mutually and justly entertain, there is a\nconventional feeling among them that, for the ease and privilege of them\nall, they are systematically to set aside all high notions and nice\nresponsibilities of character and conduct. There is a sort of recognized\nmutual _right_ to be no better than they are. And an individual among them\naffecting a high conscientious principle would be apt to incur ridicule,\nas a man foolishly divesting himself of a privilege;--unless, indeed, he\nlet them understand that hypocrisy was his way of maintaining that\nprivilege, and turning it to account.\n\nThe people are thus, by their ignorance, and what inseparably attends it,\nfar removed and estranged from the more cultivated part of their\nfellow-countrymen; and consequently from every beneficial influence under\nwhich a state of friendly contiguity, if we may so express it, would have\nplaced them. Let us now see what, in this abandonment to themselves, are\ntheir growing dispositions toward the superior orders and the existing\narrangements of the community; dispositions which are promoted by causes\nmore definite than this estrangement considered merely as the negation of\nbenevolent intercourse, but to which it mightily contributes.\n\nTimes may have been when the great mass, while placed in such decided\nseparation from the upper orders, combined such a quietude with their\nignorance, that they had little other than submissive feelings toward\nthese superiors, whose property, almost, for all service and\nobsequiousness, they were accustomed to consider themselves; when no\nquestion would occur to them why there should be so vast a difference of\ncondition between beings of the same race; when no other proof was\nrequired of the right appointment of their lot, however humble it might\nbe, than their being, and their forefathers having been, actually in it;\nand when they did not presume, hardly in thought, to make any inferences\nfrom the fact of the immense disproportion of numbers and consequent\nphysical strength between them and their superiors. [Footnote: Here,\nhowever, it should be observed that in the former age, when there was far\nless of jealous invidious feeling between the upper and lower classes than\nhas latterly intervened, there was a more amicable manner of\nintercommunication. The settled and perfectly recognized state of\nsubordination precluded on the one side, all apprehension of encroachment,\nand on the other the disposition to it.] But the times of this perfect,\nunquestioning, unmurmuring succumbency under the actual allotment have\npassed away; except in such regions as the Russian empire, where they have\nyet long to continue. In other states of Europe, but especially in our\nown, the ignorance of the people has nowhere prevented them from acquiring\na sense of their strength and importance; with a certain ill-conceived,\nbut stimulant notion, of some change which they think ought to take place\nin their condition. How, indeed, should it have been possible for them to\nremain unaware of this strength and importance, while the whole civilized\nworld was shaken with a practical and tremendous controversy between the\ntwo grand opposed orders of society, concerning their respective rights;\nor that they should not have taken a strong, and from the rudeness of\ntheir mental condition, a fierce interest, in the principle and progress\nof the strife? And how should they have failed to know that, during this\ncontroversy, innumerable persons raised from the lower rank by talent and\nspirit, had left no place on earth except in courts (and hardly even\nthere) for the dotage of fancying some innate difference between the\nclasses distinguished in the artificial order of society?\n\nThe effect of all this is gone deep into the minds of great numbers who\nare not excited, in consequence, to any worthy exertion for raising\nthemselves, individually, from their degraded condition, by the earnest\napplication and improvement of their means and faculties. The feeling of\nmany of them seems to be, that they must and will sullenly abide by the\nill-starred fate of their order, till some great comprehensive alteration\nin their favor shall absolve them from that bond of hostile sentiment, in\nwhich they make common cause against the superior classes; and shall\ncreate a state of things in which it shall be worth while for the\nindividual to make an effort to raise himself. We can at best, (they seem\nto say,) barely maintain, with the utmost difficulty, a miserable life;\nand you talk to us of cultivation, of discipline, of moral respectability,\nof efforts to come out from our degraded rank! No, we shall even stay\nwhere we are; till it is seen how the question is to be settled between\nthe people of our sort, and those who will have it that they are of a far\nworthier kind. There may then, perhaps, be some chance for such as we; and\nif not, the less we are disturbed about improvement, knowledge, and all\nthose things, the better, while we are bearing the heavy load a few years,\nto die like those before us.\n\nWe said they are banded in a hostile sentiment. It is true, that among\nsuch a degraded populace there is very little kindness, or care for one\nanother's interests. They all know too well what they all are not, to feel\nmutual esteem or benevolence.\n\nBut it is infinitely easier for any set of human beings to maintain a\ncommunity of feeling in hostility to something else, than in benevolence\ntoward another; for here no sacrifice is required of anyone's\nself-interest. And it is certain, that the subordinate portions of society\nhave come to regard the occupants of the tracts of fertility and sunshine,\nthe possessors of opulence, splendor, and luxury, with a deep, settled,\nsystematic aversion; with a disposition to contemplate in any other light\nthan that of a calamity an extensive downfall of the favorites of fortune,\nwhen a brooding imagination figures such a thing as possible; and with but\nvery slight monitions from conscience of the iniquity of the most\ntumultuary accomplishment of such a catastrophe. In a word, so far from\nconsidering their own welfare as identified with the stability of the\nexisting social order, they consider it as something that would spring\nfrom the ruin of that order. The greater number of them have lost that\nveneration by habit, partaking of the nature of a superstition, which had\nbeen protracted downward, though progressively attenuated with the lapse\nof time, from the feudal ages into the last century. They have quite lost,\ntoo, in this disastrous age, that sense of competence and possible\nwell-being, which might have harmonized their feelings with a social\neconomy that would have allowed them the enjoyment of such a state, even\nas the purchase of great industry and care. Whatever the actual economy\nmay have of wisdom in its institutions, and of splendor, and fulness of\nall good things, in some parts of its apportionment, they feel that what\nis allotted to most of _them_ in its arrangements is pressing hardship,\nunremitting poverty, growing still more hopeless with the progress of\ntime, and of what they hear trumpeted as national glory, nay, even\n\"national prosperity and happiness unrivalled.\" This bitter experience,\nwhich inevitably becomes associated in their thoughts with that frame of\nsociety under which they suffer it, will naturally have a far stronger\neffect on their opinion of that system than all that had ever rendered\nthem acquiescent or reverential toward it. That it brings no relief, or\npromise of relief, is a circumstance preponderating in the estimate,\nagainst all that can be said of its ancient establishment, its theoretical\nexcellences, or the blessings in which it may be pretended to have once\nabounded, or still to abound. What were become of the most essential laws\nof human feeling, if such experience _could_ leave those who are\nundergoing its discipline still faithfully attached to the social order on\nthe strength of its consecration by time, and of the former settled\nopinions in its favor,--however tenacious the impressions so wrought into\nhabit are admitted to be? And the minds of the people thus thrown loose\nfrom their former ties, are not arrested and recovered by any\nsubstitutional ones formed while those were decaying. They are not\nretained in a temper of patient endurance and adherence, by the bond of\nprinciples which a sedulous and deep instruction alone could have enforced\non them. The growth of sound judgment under such instruction, might have\nmade them capable of understanding how a proportion of the evil may have\nbeen inevitable, from uncontrollable causes; of perceiving that it could\nnot fail to be aggravated by a disregard of prudence in the proceedings in\nearly life among their own class, and that so far it were unjust to impute\nit to their superiors or to the order of society; of admitting that\nnational calamities are visitations of divine judgment, of which they were\nto reflect whether they had not deserved a heavy share; of feeling it to\nbe therefore no impertinent or fanatical admonition that should exhort\nthem to repentance and reformation, as an expedient for the amendment of\neven their temporal condition; and of clearly comprehending that, at all\nevents, rancor, violence, and disorder, cannot be the way to alleviate any\nof the evils, but to aggravate them all. But, we repeat it, there are\nmillions in this land, and if we include the neighboring island\npolitically united to it, very many millions, who have received no\ninstruction adequate, in the smallest degree, to counteract the natural\neffect of the distresses of their condition; or to create a class of moral\nrestraints and mitigations in prevention of a total hostility of feeling\nagainst the established order, after the ancient attachments to it have\nbeen worn down by the innovations of opinion, and the pressure of\ncontinued distress.\n\nThus uninstructed to apprehend the considerations adapted to impose a\nmoral restraint, thus unmodified by principles of mitigation, there is a\nlarge proportion of human strength and feeling not in vital combination\nwith the social system, but aloof from it, looking at it with \"gloomy and\nmalign regard;\" in a state progressive towards a fitness to be impelled\nagainst it with a dreadful shock, in the event of any great convulsion,\nthat should set loose the legion of daring, desperate, and powerful\nspirits, to fire and lead the masses to its demolition. There have not\nbeen wanting examples to show with what fearful effect this hostility may\ncome into action, in the crisis of the fate of a nation's ancient system;\nwhere this alienated portion of its own people, rushing in, have revenged\nupon it the neglect of their tuition; that neglect which had abandoned\nthem to so utter a \"lack of knowledge,\" that they really understood no\nbetter than to expect their own solid advantage in general havoc and\ndisorder. But how bereft of sense the _State_ too must be, that would thus\n_let_ a multitude of its people grow up in a condition of mind to believe,\nthat the sovereign expedient for their welfare is to be found in\nspoliation and destruction! It might easily have comprehended what it was\nreasonable to expect from the matured dispositions and strength of such of\nits children as it abandoned to be nursed by the wolf.\n\nWhile this principle of ruin was working on by a steady and natural\nprocess, this supposed infatuated State was, it is extremely possible,\ndirecting its chief care to maintain the splendor of a court, or to extort\nthe means for prosecuting some object of vain and wicked ambition, some\nproject of conquest and military glory. And probably nothing could have\nappeared to many of its privileged persons more idle and ridiculous, or to\nothers of them more offensive and ill-intentioned, than a remonstrance\nfounded on a warning of such a consequence. The despisers would have been\nincomparably the greater number; and, \"Go (they would have said) with your\nmock-tragical fortune-telling, to whoever can believe, too, that one day\nor other the quadrupeds of our stalls and meadows may be suddenly\ninspirited by some supernatural possession to turn their strength on us in\na mass, or those of our kennels to imitate the dogs of Act\u00e6on.\"\n\n\n\n\nSection IV.\n\n\n\nThere may be persons ready to make a question here, whether it be so\ncertain that giving the people of the lower order more knowledge, and\nsharpening their faculties, will really tend to the preservation of good\norder. Would not such improvement elate them, to a most extravagant\nestimate of their own worth and importance; and therefore result in\ninsufferable arrogance, both in the individuals and the class? Would they\nnot, on the strength of it, be continually assuming to sit in judgment on\nthe proceedings and claims of their betters, even in the most lofty\nstations; and demanding their own pretended rights, with a troublesome and\nturbulent pertinacity? Would they not, since their improvement cannot,\nfrom their condition in life, be large and deep, be in just such a half\ntaught state, as would make them exactly fit to be wrought upon by all\nsorts of crafty schemers, fierce declaimers, empirics, and innovators? Is\nit not, in short, too probable that, since an increase of mental power is\navailable to bad uses as well as good, the results would greatly\npreponderate on the side of evil?\n\nIt would be curious to observe how objections so plausible, so decisive in\nthe esteem of those who admire them, would sound if expressed in other\nterms. Let them be put in the form of such sentences and propositions as\nthe following:--Though understanding is to be men's guide to right\nconduct, the less of it they possess the more safe are we against their\ngoing wrong. The duty of a human being has many branches; there are\nconnected with all of them various general and special considerations, to\ninduce and regulate the performance; it must be well for these to be\ndefined with all possible clearness; and it is also well for the great\nmajority of men to be utterly incapable of apprehending them with any such\ndefiniteness. It is desirable that the rule, or set of rules, by which the\ndemeanor of the lower orders toward those above them is to be directed,\nshould appear to them _reasonable_ as well as distinctly defined; but let\nus take the greatest care that their reason shall be in no state of\nfitness to perceive this rectitude of the rules. It would be a noble thing\nto have a competent understanding of all that belongs to human interest\nand duty; and therefore the next best thing is to be retained very nearly\nin ignorance of all. It would be a vast advantage to proceed a hundred\ndegrees on the scale of knowledge; but the advantage is nowhere in the\nprogress; each of the degrees is in itself worth nothing; nay, less than\nnothing; for unless a man could attain all, he had better stop at two or\none, than advance to four, six, or ten. Truths support one another; by the\nconjunction of several each is kept the clearer in the understanding, the\nmore efficient for its proper use, and the more adequate to resist the\npressure of the surrounding ignorance and delusion; therefore let there be\nthe greatest caution that we do not give to three truths in a man's\nunderstanding the aid of a fourth, or four the aid of a fifth; let the\ngarrison be so diminutive that its successful resistance to the siege must\nbe a miracle.----The reader will be in little danger of excess in shaping\ninto as many forms of absurdity as he pleases a notion which goes to the\ndepreciation of the desire and use of truth, of all that has been\nvenerated as wisdom, of the divine revelation of knowledge, and of our\nrational nature itself.\n\nIf it _be_ a rational nature that the lower ranks possess as well as the\nsuperior, one should have imagined it must be in the highest degree\nimportant that they, as well as their superiors, should habitually make\ntheir duty and conduct _a matter of thought_, of intelligent\nconsideration, instead of going through it mechanically, or with little\nmore than a brute accommodation of what they do to a customary and imposed\nmanner of doing it; but this thoughtful way of acting will never prevail\namong them, while they are unexercised in that thinking which (generally\nspeaking) men will never acquire but in the exercise of gaining knowledge.\nIt were, again, better, one would think, that they should be capable of\nseeing some reason and use in gradations and unequal distributions in the\ncommunity, than be left to regard it as all a matter of capricious or\niniquitous fortune, to their allotment under which there is no reason for\nsubmission but a bare necessity. The improvement of understanding by which\nwe are wishing to raise them in this humble allotment, without carrying\nthem from the ground where it is placed, will explain to them the best\ncompensations of their condition, will show them it is no essential\ndegradation, and point them to the true respectability which may be\nobtained in it. And even if they _should_ be a little too much elated with\nthe supposed attainments, (while the flattering possession is yet new, and\nfar from general in their class,) what taste would it be in their\nsuperiors not to deem this itself a far better thing than the contented,\nor more probably insolent and malignant, grossness of a stupid\nvulgarity?--as some little excess of self-complacency in appearing in a\nhandsome dress is accounted much less disgusting than a careless\nself-exposure in filth and rags.\n\nAs to their being rendered liable by more knowledge to be caught by\ndeclaimers, projectors, and agitators, we may confidently ask, whether it\nbe the natural effect of more knowledge and understanding to be less\nsuspicious of cajoling professions, less discerning of what is practicable\nand impracticable, and more credulous to extravagant doctrines, and wild\ntheories and schemes. Is it the well-instructed and intelligent poor man\nthat believes the demagogue who may assert or insinuate that, if things\nwere ordered right, all men might live in the greatest plenty? Or if we\nadvert to those of the lower order whom a diminutive freehold or other\nqualification may entitle to vote for a member of parliament, is it the\nwell-instructed and intelligent man among them that is duped by the\ncandidate's professions of kind solicitude for him and his family,\naccompanied with smiling equivocal hints that it may be of more advantage\nthan he is aware for a man who has sons to provide for, to have a friend\nwho has access and interest in a certain high quarter? Nor is it among the\nbest instructed and most thinking part of the subordinate class, that we\nshall find persons capable of believing that a community might, if those\nwho govern it so pleased, be rich and prosperous by other means than a\ngeneral industry in ordinary employments.\n\nIf, again, it is apprehended that a great increase of intelligence among\nthe people would destroy their deference and respectful deportment toward\ntheir superiors, the ground of this apprehension should be honestly\nassigned. If the claim to this respect be definable, and capable of being\nenforced upon good reasons, it is obvious that improved sense in the\npeople will better appreciate them. Especially, if the claim is to owe any\npart of its validity to higher mental qualifications in the claimants, it\nwill so far be incomparably better understood, and if it _be_ valid, far\nmore respected than it is now. By having a measure of knowledge, and of\nthe power and practice of thinking, the people would be enabled to form\nsome notion of what it must be, and what it is worth, to have a great deal\nmore of these endowments. They would observe and understand the\nindications of this ampler possession in the minds of those above them,\nand so would be aware of the great disparity between themselves and those\nsuperiors. And since they would value _themselves_ on their comparatively\nsmall share of these mental advantages, (for this is the very point of the\nobjection against their attaining them,) they would be compelled to\nestimate by the same scale the persons dignified by so far surpassing a\nshare of this admired wealth. Whereas an ignorant populace can understand\nnothing at all about the matter; they have no guess at the great\ndisparity, nor impression of its importance; so that with them the\ncultivated superiors quite lose the weight of this grand difference, and\ncan obtain none of the respect which they may deserve on account of it.\nThe objection against enlightening the lower classes appears so remarkably\nabsurd as viewed in this direction, that it might tempt us to suspect a\nmotive not avowed. It is just the sort of caveat to be uttered by persons\naware that themselves, or many of their class, might happen to betray to\nthe sharpened inspection of a more intelligent people, that a higher\nground in the allotments of fortune is no certain pledge for a superior\nrank of mind. It _were_ strange, very strange indeed, if persons combining\nwith superior station a great mental superiority, should be content, while\nclaiming the deference of the subordinate part of the community around\nthem, that this high distinction should go for nothing in that claim, and\nthat the required respect should be paid only in reverence of the number\nof their acres, the size of their houses, the elegance of their equipage\nand domestic arrangements, and perhaps some official capacity, in which\nmany a notorious blockhead has strutted and blustered.\n\nWe think such considerations as the above, opposed to the objection that\nany very material cultivation of the minds of the common people would\ndestroy their industry in ordinary employments, their contentment with\ntheir station, and their respectful demeanor to their superiors; and would\nrender them arrogant, disorderly, factious, liable to be caught by wild\nnotions, misled by declaimers and impostors, and, in short, all the worse\nfor being able to understand their duty and interest the better, ought to\ngo far toward convicting that objection of great folly,--not to apply\nterms of stronger imputation.\n\nBut we need not have dwelt so long on such arguments, since fortunately\nthere is matter of fact in answer to the objection. To the extent of the\nyet very limited experiment, it is proved that giving the people more\nknowledge and more sense does not tend to disorder and insubordination;\ndoes not excite them to impatience and extravagant claims; does not spoil\nthem for the ordinary business of life, the tasks of duty and necessity;\ndoes not make them the dupes of knaves; nor teach them the most profitable\nuse of their improved faculties is to turn knaves themselves. Employers\ncan testify, from all sides, that there is a striking general difference\nbetween those bred up in ignorance and rude vulgarity, and those who have\nbeen trained through the well-ordered schools for the humble classes,\nespecially when the habits at home have been subsidiary; a difference\nexceedingly in favor of the latter, who are found not only more apt at\nunderstanding and executing, but more decorous, more respectful, more\nattentive to orders, more ready to see and acknowledge the propriety of\ngood regulations, and more disposed to a practical acquiescence in them;\nfar less inclined to ebriety and low company; and more to be depended on\nin point of honesty. In almost any part of the country, where the\nexperiment has been zealously prosecuted for a moderate number of years, a\nlong resident observer can discern a modification in the character of the\nneighborhood; a mitigation of the former brutality of manners, a less\nfrequency of brawls and quarrels, and less tendency to draw together into\nrude riotous assemblages. There is especially a marked difference on the\nSabbath, on which great numbers attend public worship, whose forefathers\nused on that day to congregate for boisterous sport on the common, or even\nwithin the inclosure vainly consecrated round the church; [Footnote: We\nknow a church where, within, the remembrance of an immediate ancestor, it\nwas not unusual, or thought anything amiss, for the foot-ball to be struck\nup within the \"consecrated ground\" at the close of the afternoon service\nof the Sunday.] and who would themselves in all probability have followed\nthe same course, but for the tuition which has led them into a better. In\nnot a few instances, the children have carried from the schools\ninestimable benefits home to their unhappy families; winning even their\ndepraved, thoughtless parents into consideration and concern about their\nmost important interests,--a precious repayment of all the long toils and\ncares, endured to support them through the period of childhood, and an\nexample of that rare class of phenomena, in which (as in the instance of\nthe Grecian Daughter) a superlative beauty arises from an inversion of the\norder of nature.\n\nEven the frightful statements of the increase, in recent years, of active\njuvenile depravity, especially in the metropolis, include a gratifying\ntestimony in favor of education--at least did so some years since. The\nresult of special inquiries, of extensive compass, into the wretched\nhistory of juvenile reprobates, has fortified the promoters of schools\nwith evidence that it was not from _these_ seminaries that such noxious\ncreatures were to go out, to exemplify that the improvement of\nintelligence may be but the greater aptitude for fraud and mischief. No,\nit was found to have been in very different places of resort, that these\nwretches had been, almost from their infancy, accomplished for crime; and\nthat their training had not taken or needed any assistance from an\nexercise on literary rudiments, from Bibles, catechisms, or religious and\nmoral poetry, or from an attendance on public worship. Indeed, as if\nProvidence had designed that the substantial utility should be accompanied\nwith a special circumstance to confound the cavillers, the children and\nyouth of the schools were found to have been more generally preserved from\nfalling into the class of premature delinquents, than a moral calculator,\nkeeping in sight the quality of human nature and the immediate pressure of\nso much temptation, would have ventured to anticipate, upon the moderate\nestimate of the efficacy of instruction.\n\nExperience equally falsifies the notion that knowledge, imparted to the\nlower orders, beyond what is necessary to the handling of their tools,\ntends to factious turbulence; to an impatience (from the instigation of\ncertain wild theories,) under law and regular government in society. The\nmaintainers of which notion should also affirm, that the people of\nScotland have been to this day about the most disaffected, tumultuary,\nrevolutionary rabble in Europe; and that the Cornish miners, now so\nworthily distinguished at once by exercised intellect and religion, are\nincessantly on the point of insurrection, against their employers or the\nstate. And we shall be just as ready to believe them, if they also assert,\nthat, in those popular irregularities which have too often disturbed, in\nparticular places, the peace of our country, the clamorous bands or\ncrowds, collected for purposes of intimidation or demolition, have\nconsisted chiefly of the better instructed part of the poorer\ninhabitants;--yes, or that this class furnished one in twenty or fifty of\nthe numbers forming such lawless bands; even though many of these more\ninstructed of the people might be suffering, with their families, the\nextremity of want, the craving of hunger, which, no less than\n\"oppression,\" may \"make a wise man mad.\" Many of these, in their desolate\nabodes, with tears of parents and children mingled together, have been\ncommitting themselves to their Father in heaven, at the time that the\nruder part of the population have been carrying alarm, and sometimes\nmischief, through the district, and so confirming the faith, we may\nsuppose, of sundry magnates of the neighborhood, who had vehemently\nasserted, a few years before, the pernicious tendency of educating the\npeople. [Footnote: What proportion were found to have been educated, in\nthe very lowest sense of the term, of the burners of ricks and barns in\nthe south-eastern counties, a few years since? What proportion of the\nferocious, fanatical, and sanguinary rout who, the other day, near the\ncentre of the metropolitan see of Canterbury, were brought into action by\nthe madman Thom, _alias_ Sir W. Courtenay; stout, well-fed, proud\nEnglishmen--Englishmen \"the glory of all lands,\" who were capable of\nbelieving that madman a divine personage, Christ himself, invulnerable,\ntill the fact happened otherwise, and then were confident he would come to\nlife again? When will the Government adopt some effectual means to avert\nfrom the nation the infamy of having such a populace in any part of the\ncountry, and especially _such_ a part of it?]\n\nIt would be less than what is due to suffering humanity, to leave this\ntopic without observing, that if a numerous division of the community\nshould be sinking under severe, protracted, unmitigated distress,\ndistress on which there appears to them no dawn of hope from ordinary\ncauses, it is not to be held a disparagement to the value of education,\nif some of those who have enjoyed a measure of that advantage, in common\nwith a greater number who have not, should become feverishly agitated\nwith imaginations of great sudden changes in the social system; and be\nled to entertain suggestions of irregular violent expedients for the\nremoval of insupportable evils. It must, in all reason, be acknowledged\nthe last lesson which education could be expected to teach with practical\neffect, that one part of the community should be willing to resign\nthemselves to a premature mortality, that the others may live in\nsufficiency and tranquillity. Such heroic devotement might not be\ndifficult in the sublime elation of Thermopylae; but it is a very\ndifferent matter in a melancholy cottage, and in the midst of famishing\nchildren. [Footnote: This was almost the desperate condition of\nnumberless families in this country at a period of which they, or the\nsurvivors of them, retain in memory an indelible record; and we think it\nright to retain _here_ also that record. While thankful for all\nsubsequent amendment, we say again, Look at Ireland.]\n\nAfter thus referring to matter of fact, for contradiction of the notion,\nthat the mental cultivation of the lower classes might render them less\nsubject to the rules of good order, we have to say, in further reply, that\nwe are not heard insisting on the advantages of increased knowledge and\nmental invigoration among the people, _unconnected with the inculcation of\nreligion._\n\nUndoubtedly, the zealous friends of popular education account knowledge\nvaluable absolutely, as being the apprehension of things as they are; a\nprevention of delusion; and so far a fitness for right volitions. But\nthey consider religion, (besides being itself the primary and infinitely\nthe most important part of knowledge,) as a principle indispensable for\nsecuring the full benefit of all the rest. It is desired, and endeavored,\nthat the understandings of these opening minds may be taken possession of\nby just and solemn ideas of their relation to the Eternal Almighty Being;\nthat they may be taught to apprehend it as an awful reality, that they\nare perpetually under his inspection; and as a certainty, that they must\nat length appear before him in judgment, and find, in another life, the\nconsequences of what they are in spirit and conduct here. It is to be\nimpressed on them, that his will is the supreme law; that his\ndeclarations are the most momentous truth known on earth; and his favor\nand condemnation the greatest good and evil. Under an ascendency of this\ndivine wisdom it is, that their discipline in any other knowledge is\ndesigned to be conducted; so that nothing in the mode of their\ninstruction may have a tendency contrary to it, and everything be taught\nin a manner recognizing the relation with it, as far as shall consist\nwith a natural, unforced way of keeping this relation in view. Thus it is\nsought to be secured that, as the pupil's mind grows stronger and\nmultiplies its resources, and he therefore has necessarily more power and\nmeans for what is wrong, there may be luminously presented to him, as if\ncelestial eyes visibly beamed upon him, the most solemn ideas that can\nenforce what is right.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSuch is the discipline meditated, for preparing the subordinate classes to\npursue their individual welfare, and act their part as members of the\ncommunity.--They are to be trained in early life to diligent employment of\ntheir faculties, tending to strengthen them, regulate them, and give their\npossessors the power of effectually using them. They are to be exercised\nto form clear, correct notions, instead of crude, vague, delusive ones.\nThe subjects of these ideas will be, a very considerable number of the\nmost important facts and principles; which are to be presented to their\nunderstandings with a patient repetition of efforts to fix them there as\nknowledge that cannot be forgotten. By this measure of actual acquirement,\nand by the habit formed in so acquiring, they will be qualified for making\nfurther attainment in future time, if disposed to improve their\nopportunities. During this progress, and in connection with many of its\nexercises, their duty is to be inculcated on them in the various forms in\nwhich they will have to make a choice between right and wrong, in their\nconduct toward society. There will be reiteration of lessons on justice,\nprudence, inoffensiveness, love of peace, estrangement from the counsels\nand leagues of vain and bad men; hatred of disorder and violence, a sense\nof the necessity of authoritative public institutions to prevent these\nevils, and respect for them while honestly administered to this end. All\nthis is to be taught, in many instances directly, in others by reference\nfor confirmation, from the Holy Scriptures, from which authority will also\nbe impressed, all the while, the principles of religion. And religion,\nwhile its grand concern is with the state of the soul towards God and\neternal interests, yet takes every principle and rule of morals under its\nperemptory sanction; making the primary obligation and responsibility be\ntowards God, of everything that is a duty with respect to men. So that,\nwith the subjects of this education, the sense of _propriety_ shall be\n_conscience_; the consideration of how they ought to be regulated in their\nconduct as a part of the community, shall be the recollection that their\nMaster in heaven dictates the laws of that conduct, and will judicially\nhold them amenable for every part of it.\n\nAnd is not a discipline thus addressed to the purpose of fixing religious\nprinciples in ascendency, as far as that difficult object is within the\npower of discipline, and of infusing a salutary tincture of them into\nwhatever else is taught, the right way to bring up citizens faithful to\nall that deserves fidelity in the social compact?\n\nBut perhaps far less of sacred knowledge than all this pleading admits and\nassumes to be indispensable to them, will answer the end. For it is but a\nslender quantity of it that is, in effect, proposed to be imparted to them\nby those who would give them very little other knowledge. They will talk\nof giving the people an education specifically religious; a training to\nconduct them on through a close avenue, looking straight before them to\ndescry distant spiritual objects, while shut out from all the scene right\nand left, by fences that tell them there is nothing that concerns them\nthere. There may be rich and beautiful fields of knowledge, but they are\nnot to be trampled by vulgar feet.\n\nNow, may we presume that by knowledge, or information, is meant a clear\nunderstanding of a subject? If so, it is but little religious information\nthat _can_ be imparted while that of a more general nature is withheld.\nThe case is so, partly because, in order to a clear conception of the\nprincipal things in the doctrine of religion, the mind wants facts,\nprinciples, associations of ideas, and modes of applying its thoughts,\nwhich are to be acquired from the consideration of various other subjects;\nand partly because, even though it did _not_, and though it _were_\npracticable to understand religious truths clearly without the subsidiary\nideas, and the disciplined mental habit acquired in attention to other\nsubjects, _it is flatly contrary to the radical disposition of human\nnature_ that youthful spirits should yield themselves to a bare\nexclusively religious discipline. It were supposing a reversal of the\nnatural taste and tendency, to expect them to apply their attention so\npatiently, so willingly, so long, and with such interest, to this one\nsubject, as to be brought to an intelligent apprehension through the\nalmost sole exercise of thinking on this. By thinking on this!--which is\nthe subject on which they are by their very nature the least of all\ninclined to think; the subject on which it is the most difficult as well\nas the most important point in education to induce them to think; the\nsubject which, while it is essential to give it the ascendency in the\ninstruction of both the lower classes and all others, it requires so much\ncare and address to present in an attractive light; and which it is so\ndesirable to combine with other subjects naturally more engaging, in order\nto bring it oftener by such associations into the thoughts, in that\nsecondary manner, which causes somewhat less of recoil.\n\nIt is curious to see what some persons can believe, or affect to believe,\nwhen reduced to a dilemma. On the one hand, they cannot endure the idea of\nany considerable raising of the common people by mental improvement, in\nthe general sense: that were ruin to social order. But then on the other,\nif it must not be plainly denied, that the said common people are of the\nvery same rational nature as the most elevated divisions of the race; and\nthat their essential worth must be in this spiritual thinking being, which\nworth is lost to them, if that being is sunk and degraded in gross\nignorance, it follows that some kind of cultivation is required. Well\nthen; we must give them some religious knowledge, unaccompanied by such\nother knowledge as would much more attractively invite them to exercise\ntheir minds, and _it will be practicable and easy enough_ to engage their\nhabitual attention to that very subject, almost exclusively, to which the\nnatural taste of the species is peculiarly averse.\n\nIn exposing the absurdity of any scheme of education for the inferior\nclasses, which should propose to make them intelligent about religion\nwhile intelligent about nothing else except their ordinary employments, we\ndo not forget the instances now and then met with of pious poor men who,\nwhile very uncultivated in the general sense, evince a remarkable\nclearness of conception on religious topics, and in the application of\nthese topics to their duties as men and citizens. But \"remarkable\" we\ninvoluntarily call these phenomena, whenever adverting to them. We\nnaturally use some expression importing a degree of wonder at such a fact.\nWe think it a striking illustration of the power of _religion itself_, and\nnot of the power of religious instruction. The extreme force with which\nthe vital spirit has seized and actuated his faculties, has in a measure\nremedied the incapacity he had otherwise been under of forming clear ideas\nof the subject. Even, however, while acknowledging and admiring this\neffect of a special influence from heaven, we still find ourselves\ninvoluntarily surmising, in such an instance, that the man must also have\nbeen superior in natural capacity to the generality of ignorant persons;\nso much out of the common course of things we account it for a man who\nknows so few things to know this one thing so well. We account it so from\nthe settled conviction received through experience, that it is very\nunlikely a man ignorant of almost all other things _should_ well\nunderstand _one_ subject, of a nature quite foreign to that of his\nordinary occupations.\n\nIt is superfluous to observe, that such instances of a very considerable\ncomprehension of religious truth, obtained in spite of what naturally\nmakes so much against its being attainable, cannot affect the calculation\nwhen we are devising schemes which can only work according to natural laws\nand with ordinary powers. They who devise and apply them will rejoice at\nthese evidences that there is an Agent who can open men's minds to the\nlight of religion independently and in the absence of other intellectual\nadvantages. But the question being how to bring the people, by the\nordinary means of education, to a competent knowledge of religious truth,\nwe have to consider what way of attempting to impart that knowledge may be\nthe best fitted, at once to obviate the natural indisposition to the\nsubject, and to provide that when it does obtain a place in their\nunderstanding, it shall not be a meagre, diminutive, insulated occupant\nthere, but in its proper dimensions and relations. And if, in attentively\nstudying this, there be any who come to ascertain, that the right\nexpedient is a bare inculcation of religious instruction, disconnected, on\nsystem, from the illustrative aid of other knowledge, divested of the\nmodification and attraction of associated ideas derived from subjects less\nuncongenial with the natural feelings,--they really may take the\nsatisfaction of having ascertained one thing more, namely, that human\nnature has become at last so mightily changed, that it may be left to work\nitself right very soon, as to the affair of religion, with little further\ntrouble of theirs.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe special view in which we were pleading, on behalf of popular\neducation, that religious instruction would form a material part of it,\nwas, that this essential ingredient would be a security against its being\ninjurious to the good order and subordination in society. It is the more\nnecessary to be particular on this, as some of those who have professed\nto lay much stress on the _religious_ instruction of the people have\nseemed to have little further notion of the necessity or use of religion\nto the lower classes, than as merely a preserver of good order. In this\ncharacter it has been insisted on by persons who avowed their aversion to\nevery idea of an education in a more enlarged sense. We have heard it so\ninsisted on, no such long while past, by members of the most learned\ninstitutions, at the same moment that they expressed more than a doubt of\nthe prudence of enabling the common people to read, literally to _read_,\nthe Bible. But assuredly the good order of a populace left in the stupid\ngeneral ignorance to which some of these good friends of theirs would\nhave doomed them, cannot be preserved by any such feeble infusion of\nreligious knowledge as these same good friends would instil into their\nmental grossness. As long as they are in this condition, there must be\nsome far stronger power acting on them to preserve that good order. And\nif there actually _has_ been such a power, hitherto competent to preserve\nit, with only such an impotent scantling of religious knowledge in the\nmajority of the mass, and competent still to preserve it, a great deal of\nhypocritical canting might have been spared, on the part of those whose\nchief or only argument for teaching the people religion is the\nmaintenance of that good order.\n\nBut all this while we are forgetting to inquire how much is to be\nunderstood as included in that good order, that deference and\nsubordination, which the possession of more mind and knowledge by the\npeople might disturb or destroy. May not the notion of it, as entertained\nby some persons, be rather an image of the polity of an age long past, or\nof that which remains unaltered as if it were a part of eternal nature in\nthe dominions of the East, than a model for the conformation of society\nhere in the present times? Is it required, that there should be a\nsentiment of obsequiousness in the people, affecting them in a manner like\nthe instinct by which a lower order of animals is in awe of a higher, by\nwhich the common tribe of beasts would cower at the sight of lions? Or, is\nthe deference expected to be paid, not on any understanding of reciprocal\nadvantage, but absolutely and unconditionally, as to a claim founded in\nabstract or divine right? Is it to be held a criminal presumption in the\npeople, to think of examining their relations to the community any further\nthan the obligation of being industrious in the employments to which it\nassigns them, and dutiful to its higher orders? Are they to entertain no\nquestion respecting the right adjustment of their condition in the\narrangements of the great social body? Are they forbidden ever to admit a\nsingle doubt of its being quite a matter of course, that everything which\ncould be done for the interests of their class, consistently with the\nwelfare of the whole, _is_ done; or, therefore, to pretend to any such\nright as that of examining, representing, complaining, remonstrating, or\nan ultimate recourse, perhaps, in a severe necessity, to stronger\nexpedients?\n\nA subordination founded in such principles, and required to such a degree,\nit is true enough that the communication of knowledge is not the way to\nperpetuate. For the first use which men will infallibly make of an\nenlargement of their faculties and ideas, will be, to take a larger view\nof their interests; and they may happen, as soon as they do so, to think\nthey discover that it was quite time; and the longer they do so, to retain\nstill less and less of implicit faith that those interests will be done\njustice to, without their own vigilance and intervention. An educated\npeople must be very slow indeed in the application of what they learn, if\nthey do not soon grow out of all belief in the _necessary_ wisdom and\nrectitude of any order of human creatures whatever. They will see how\nunreasonable it were to expect, that any sort of men will fail in fidelity\nto the great natural principle, of making their own advantage the first\nobject; and therefore they will not be apt to listen, with the gravity\nwhich in other times and regions may have been shown in listening, to\ninjunctions of gratitude for the willingness evinced by the higher orders\nto take on them the trouble of watching and guarding the people's welfare,\nby keeping them in due submission.\n\nBut neither will it necessarily be in the spirit of hostility, in the\nworst sense of the word, that a more instructed people will thus show a\ndiminished credulity of reverence toward the predominant ranks in the\nsocial economy; and will keep in habitual exercise upon them a somewhat\nsuspicious observation, and a judicial estimate; with an honest freedom in\nsometimes avowing disapprobation, and strongly asserting any right which\nis believed to be endangered or withheld. This will only be expressing\nthat, since all classes naturally consult by preference their own\ninterests, it is plainly unfit, that one portion of the community should\nbe trusted with an unlimited discretion in ordering what affects the\nwelfare of the others; and that, in all prudence, the people must refuse\nan entire affiance, and unconditional, unexamining acquiescence; \"except\nthe gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh,\" would come to harmonize, and\nthen administer, interests which are so placed unappeasably at strife;--at\nstrife; for, what is so often asserted of those interests being in reality\nthe same, is true only on that comprehensive theory which neither party is\nprompt to understand, or willing to make sacrifices of a more immediate\nself-interest to realize; and it is evidently impossible for either, even\nif believing it true, to concede to the other the exclusive adjustment of\nthe practical mode of identification.\n\nBut only let the utmost that is possible be done, to train the people,\nfrom their early years, to a sound use of their reason, under a discipline\nfor imparting a valuable portion of knowledge, and assiduously inculcating\nthe principles of social duty and of religion; and then something may be\nsaid, to good purpose, to their understanding and conscience, while they\nare maintaining the competition of claims with their superiors. They will\nthen be capable of seeing put in a fair balance, many things which\nheadlong ignorance would have taken all one way. They will be able to\nappreciate many explanations, alleged causes of delay, statements of\ndifficulty between opposing reasons, which would be thrown away on an\nignorant populace. And it would be an inducement to their making a real\nexertion of the understanding, that they thus found themselves so formally\nput upon their responsibility for its exercise; that they were summoned to\na rational discussion, instead of being addressed in the style of Pharaoh\nto the Israelites. The strife of interests would thus come to be carried\non with less fierceness and malice, in the spirit and manner, on the part\nof the people. And the ground itself of the contention, the substance of\nthe matters in contest, would be gradually diminished, by the concessions\nof the higher classes to the claims of the lower; for there is no\naffecting to dissemble, that a great mental and moral improvement of the\npeople would necessitate, though there were not a single movement of rude\nforce in the case, important concessions to them, on the part of the\nsuperior orders. A people advanced to such a state, would make its moral\npower felt in a thousand ways, and every moment. This general augmentation\nof sense and right principle would send forth, against all arrangements\nand inveterate or more modern usages, of the nature of invidious\nexclusion, arbitrary repression, and the debasement of great public\ninterests into a detestable private traffic, an energy, which could no\nmore be resisted than the power of the sun, when he advances in the spring\nto annihilate the relics and vestiges of the winter. This plastic\ninfluence would modify the institutions of the national community, to a\nstate better adapted to secure all the popular rights; and to convey the\ngenuine, collective opinion, to bear directly on the counsel and\ntransaction of national concerns. That opinion would be so unequivocally\nmanifested, as to leave no pretence for a doubtful interpretation of its\nsigns; and with such authority as to preclude any question whether to set\nit at defiance.\n\nThat such effects _would_ be inseparable from a great general advancement\nof the people in knowledge and corrected character, must be freely\nacknowledged to its disapproves. And is it _because_ these would be the\nconsequences, that they disapprove it? Then let them say, what it is that\n_they_ would expect from an opposite system. _What_ is it, that they could\nseriously promise themselves, from the conservative virtue of all the\nignorance, that can henceforward be retained among the people of this part\nof the world? It is true, the remaining ignorance is so great that they\ncannot well overrate its _general_ amount; but how can they fail to\nperceive the importance of those _particulars_ in which its dominion has\nbeen broken up? There is indeed a hemisphere of \"gross darkness over the\npeople;\" it may be possible to withhold from it long the illumination of\nthe sun; but in the mean time it has been rent by portentous lights and\nflashes, which have excited a thought and agitation not to be stilled by\nthe continuance of the gloom. There have come in on the popular mind some\nideas, which the wisest of those who dread or hate their effect there,\nlook around in vain for the means of expelling. And these glimpses of\npartial intelligence, these lights of dubious and possibly destructive\ndirection amidst the night, will continue to prompt and lead that mind,\nwith a hazard which can sease only with the opening upon it of the true\ndaylight of knowledge. That knowledge should have been antecedent to the\nfalling of these inflammatory ideal among the people; and if they have\ncome before the proper time, that is to say, before the people were\nprepared to judge rationally of their rights, and to apprehend clearly the\nduties inseparable from them as a condition of their enjoyment, the\ncalamitous consequences to the higher classes, as seen in the recent\nhistory of Europe, may be regarded as a righteous judgment of heaven upon\nthem, for having suffered it to be _possible_ for these new ideas of\nliberty and rights to come to the people in a state so unprepared. What\nwere all their commanding authorities of government, their splendid\necclesiastical establishments, their great personal wealth and\ninfluence,--all their lofty powers and distinctions which even their\nbasest sycophants, sacerdotal or poetical, told them, as one topic of\nadulation, that they were not entrusted with for their own sole\ngratification,--what were all these for, if the great body of the\ncommunities over which they presided were to be retained in a state in\nwhich they could not be touched by a few bold speculations in favor of\npopular rights, without exploding as with infernal fire? How appropriate a\nretribution of Sovereign Justice, that those who were wickedly the cause\nshould be the victims of the effect.\n\nWhere such a consequence has not followed, but where, nevertheless, these\nnotions of popular rights have come into the minds of the people very much\nin precedence and disproportion to the general cultivation of their\nintelligence and moral sense, it is most important that all diligence\nshould be given to bring up these neglected improvements to stand in rank\nwith those too forward speculations.\n\nWhether this shall be done or not, these notions and feelings are not\nthings come into life without an instinct of what they have to do. The\ndisapproves of schemes for throwing the greatest practicable measure of\nsound corrective knowledge into the minds of the multitude, may take\ninstruction or may decline it from seeing that, both in this country and\nother states of Europe, there has gone forth among the mass of the people\na spirit of revolt from the obligation, which would retain their reverence\nto institutions on the strength simply of their being established or being\nancient; a spirit that reacts, with deep and settled antipathy, against\nsome of the arrangements and claims of the order into which the national\ncommunity has been disposed by institutions and the course of events; a\nspirit which regards some of the appointments and requirements of that\norder, as little better than adaptations of the system to the will and\ngratification of the more fortunate divisions of the species. And it has\nshown itself in a very different character from that of a mere pining\ndespondency, or the impotent resentment excited sometimes in timidity\nitself by severe grievance, but quelled by alarm at its own rashness. The\nelement and the temperament of its nature, and the force of its action,\nhave been displayed in the tremendous concussions attending its conflict\nwith the power arrayed in behalf of the old order of things to crush it.\nAnd _is_ this spirit crushed? Is it subdued? Is it in the least degree\nreduced?--reduced, we mean, in its internal power, as a combination of the\nmost absolute opinion with the impulse of some of the strongest passions.\n\nIs it, we repeat, repressed? There may have been persons who could not,\n\"good easy men,\" conceive a possibility of its surviving the fiery storm\nof the whole resources of the world converted into the materials of war,\nto be poured on it, and followed by the mightiest leagues and the most\nsystematic legislation, all aimed at its destruction; surviving to come\nforth with unabated vigor at the opportune junctures in the future\nprogress of events; like some great serpent, coming out again to glare on\nthe sight, with his appalling glance and length of volume, after a volley\nof missiles had sent him to his retreat. The old approved expedients\nagainst unreasonable discontents, and refractory tempers, and local\nmovements of hostility excited by some worthless competitor for power, had\nbeen combined and applied on the grand scale; and henceforward all was to\nbe still. It was not given to these spell-bound understandings to\napprehend that the spirit to be repressed might be of a nature impassive\nto these expedients, possibly to be confirmed by their application.\nRepressed! What is it that is manifesting itself in the most remarkable\nevents in the old, and what has been called the new world, at the present\ntime? And what are the measures of several of the great state authorities\nof Europe, whether adopted in deliberate policy, or in a fitful mood\nbetween rashness and dismay; what are, especially, the meetings,\nconferences, and military preparations, of the mightiest despots of the\nglobe, assembled at this very hour against a small and unoffending nation,\n[Footnote: The meeting of imperial and royal personages at Troppau and\nLaybach, for the detestable purpose of crushing the newly acquired liberty\nof the kingdom of Naples.--January, 1821.]--what are these but a\nconfession or proclamation, that the spirit which the most enormous\nexertions had been made to overwhelm, has preserved its life and energy;\nlike those warring immortal powers whom Milton describes as having\nmountains thrown on them in vain? The progress of time renders it but more\nevident, that the principle in action is something far different from a\nsuperficial transient irritation; that it has gone the whole depth of the\nmind; has possessed itself of the very judgment and conscience of an\ninnumerable legion, augmented by a continual and endless accession. No\ndoubt is permitted to remain of the direction which has been taken by the\ncurrent of the popular feeling,--to be recovered to its ancient obsequious\ncourse when some great river which has farced a new channel shall resume\nthat which it has abandoned. For when once the great mass, of the lower\nand immensely larger division of the community, shall have become filled\nwith an absolute, and almost unanimous conviction, that they, the grand\nphysical agency of that community; that they, the operators, the\nproducers, the preparers, of almost all it most essentially wants; that\nthey, the part, therefore, of the social assemblage so obviously the most\nessential to its existence, and on which all the rest must depend; that\nthey have their condition in the great social arrangement so disposed as\nnot to acknowledge this their importance, as not to secure an adequate\nreward of these their services;--we say, when this shall have become the\npervading intense conviction of the millions of Europe, we put it as a\nquestion to any rational thinker, whether and how this state of feeling\ncan be reversed or neutralized, if the economy which has provoked it shall\nyield to no modification. But it _is_ no question, he will confess. Then\nwill he pretend not to foresee any material change in an order of things\nobnoxious to so vast a combination of wills and agents? This may indeed be\nseriously avowed by some, who are so walled up in old prejudice and\npresumption that they really have no look out; who, because a thing has\nbeen long established, mistake its artificial substruction of crumbling\nmaterials for the natural rock; and it will be pretended by others, who\nthink the bravado of asserting the impossibility of the overthrow may be a\ngood policy for deterring the attempt. There has not been one of the great\nalterations effected by the popular spirit within the last half-century,\nthat was not preceded by professions of contemptuous incredulity, on the\npart of the applauders of things as they were, toward those who calculated\non the effects of that spirit. There were occasionally betrayed, under\nthese shows of confidence and contempt, some signs of horror at the\nundeniable excitement and progress of popular feeling; but the scorn of\nall serious and monitory predictions of its ultimate result was at all\nevents to be kept up,--in whatever proportions a time-serving interest and\nan honest fatuity might share in dictating this elated and contemptuous\nstyle. Should the latter of these ingredients at present predominate in\nthe temper which throws off the fume of this high style, it will not leave\nmuch faculty in the defiers of all revolution, for explaining what it is\nthey have to trust to as security against such consequences as we should\nanticipate from the progress of disapprobation and aversion in the people;\nunless indeed the security mainly relied on is just that plain, simple\nexpedient--force, for all nations on earth--downright force. It is plainly\nthis that is meant, when persons disinclined to speak out give us a\ncircumlocution of delicate phrases, \"the conservative energies of the\npublic institutions,\" \"the majesty of the law,\" perhaps, and others of\nsimilar cast;--which fine phrases suggest to one's imagination the\nornamented fashion of the handle and sheath of the scimitar, which is not\nthe less keen, nor the less ready to be drawn, for all this finery that\nhides and garnishes so menacing a symbol of power.\n\nThe economy of states _shall_ not be modified in favor of the great body\nof those who constitute them.--And are, then, the higher and privileged\nportions of the national communities to have, henceforward, just this one\ngrand object of their existence, this chief employment for their\nknowledge, means, and power, namely, to keep down the lower orders of\ntheir fellow-citizens by stress of coercion? Are they resolved and\nprepared for a rancorous, interminable hostility in prosecution of such a\nbenign purpose; with a continual exhaustion upon it of the resources which\nmight be applied to diminish that wretchedness of the people, which is the\ngrand inflamer of those principles that have caused an earthquake under\nthe foundations of the old social systems? But, \"interminable\" is no\nproper epithet to be applied to such a course. This policy of a bare\nuncompromising rigor, exerted to keep the people just where they are, in\npreference to adjustments formed on a calculation of a material change,\nand adapted to prepare them for it--how long could it be successful--not\nto ask what would be the value or the glory of that success? With the\nlight of recent history to aid the prognostication, by what superstitious\nmode of estimating the self-preserving, and self-avenging competence of\nany artificial form of social order, can we believe in its power to throw\nback the general opinions, determinations, and efforts, of the mass of\nmankind in endless recoil on themselves? That must be a very firm\nstructure, must be of gigantic mass or most excellent basis and\nconformation, against which the ocean shall unremittingly wear and foam in\nvain. And it does not appear what there can be of such impregnable\nconsistence in any particular construction of the social economy which is,\nby the supposition, resolved to be maintained in sovereign immutability,\nin permanent frustration of the persevering, ever-growing aim and impulse\nof the great majority, pressing on to achieve important innovations in\ntheir favor; innovations in those systems of institution and usage, under\nwhich they will never cease to think they have had far less happiness, or\nmeans of happiness, than they ought to have had. We cannot see how this\nimpulse can be so repelled or diverted that it shall not prevail at\nlength, to the effect of either bearing down, or wearing away, a portion\nof the order of things which the ascendant classes in every part of Europe\nwould have fondly wished to maintain in perpetuity, without one particle\nof surrender.\n\nBut though they cannot preserve its entireness, the manner in which it\nshall yield to modification is in a great measure at their command. And\nhere is the important point on which all these observations are meant to\nbear. If a movement has really begun in the general popular mind of the\nnations, and if the principle of it is growing and insuppressible, so that\nit must in one manner or another ultimately prevail, what will the state\nbe of any national community where it shall be an unenlightened,\nhalf-barbarous people that so prevails?--a people no better informed,\nperhaps, than to believe that all the hardship and distress endured by\nthemselves and their forefathers were wrongs, which they suffered from the\nhigher orders; than to ascribe to bad government, and the rapacity and\nselfishness of the rich, the very evils caused by inclement seasons; and\nthan to assume it as beyond question, that the whole accumulation of their\nresentments, brought out into action at last, is only justice demanding\nand inflicting a retribution.\n\nIn such an event, what would not the superior orders be glad to give and\nforego, in compromise with principles, tempers, and demands, which they\nwill know they should never have had to encounter, to the end of time, if,\ninstead of spending their vast advantages on merely their own state and\nindulgence, they had applied them in a mode of operation and influence\ntending to improve, in every way, the situation and character of the\npeople? It is true, that such a wild triumph of overpowering violence\nwould necessarily be short. A blind, turbulent monster of popular power\nnever can for a long time maintain the domination of a political\ncommunity. It would rage and riot itself out of breath and strength,\nsuccumb under some strong coercion of its own creating, and lie subject\nand stupified, till its spirit should be recovered and incensed for new\ncommotion. But this impossibility of a very prolonged reign of confusion,\nwould be little consolation for the classes against whose privileged\ncondition the first tremendous eruption should have driven. It would not\nmuch cheer a man who should see his abode carried away, and his fields and\nplantations devastated, to tell him that the agent of this ruin was only a\ntransient mountain torrent. A short prevalence of the overturning force\nwould have sufficed for the subversion of the proudest, longest\nestablished state of privilege; and most improbable would it be, that\nthose who lost it in the tumult, would find the new authority, of whatever\nshape or name it were, that would arise as that tumult subsided, either\nable or disposed to restore it. They might perhaps, (on a favorable\nsupposition,) survive in personal safety, but in humiliated fortunes, to\nruminate on their manner of occupying their former elevated situation, and\nof employing its ample means of power, a due share of which, exerted for\nthe improvement of the general condition, both intellectual and civil,\nwith an accompanying liberal yet gradual concession of privileges to the\npeople, would have prevented the catastrophe.\n\nLet us urge, then, that a zealous endeavor to render it absolutely\nimpossible that, in any change whatever, the destinies of a nation should\nfall under the power of an ignorant infuriated multitude, may take place\nof the presumption that there _is_ no great change to be ever effected by\nthe progressive and conscious importance of the people; a presumption than\nwhich nothing can appear more like infatuation, when we look at the recent\nscenes and present temperament of the moral world. Lay hold on the myriads\nof juvenile spirits, before they have time to grow up through ignorance\ninto a reckless hostility to social order; train them to sense and good\nmorals: inculcate the principles of religion, simply and solemnly _as_\nreligion, as a thing directly of divine dictation, and not as if its\nauthority were chiefly in virtue of human institutions; let the higher\norders generally make it evident to the multitude that they are desirous\nto raise them in value, and promote their happiness; and then _whatever_\nthe demands of the people as a body, thus improving in understanding and\nthe sense of justice, shall come to be, and _whatever_ modification their\npreponderance may ultimately enforce on the great social arrangements, it\nwill be infallibly certain that there never _can_ be a love of disorder,\nan insolent anarchy, a prevailing spirit of revenge and devastation. Such\na conduct of the ascendant ranks would, in this nation at least, secure\nthat, as long as the world lasts, there never would be any formidable\ncommotion, or violent sudden changes. All those modifications of the\nnational economy to which an improving people would aspire and would\ndeserve to obtain, would be gradually accomplished, in a manner by which\nno party would be wronged, and all would be the happier.\n\n[Footnote: The considerations in the latter part of this section (so\nplainly on the surface of the subject that they would occur to any\nthoughtful and observant man) have been verified in part by the course of\nevents in our country, since the time they were written. At that, time the\nsuperior, and till then irresistibly and invariably predominant, portion\nof the community, felt themselves in perfect security against any\ncomprehensive and radical change within the ensuing twelve or fourteen\nyears. There might indeed be one or two subordinate matters in the\nestablished national system in which they might deem it not unlikely that\nthe advocates and laborers for innovation would be successful; but such an\namount of innovation did not come within the view of even a feverish\ndream. Any man who should have predicted, especially, the recent greatest\nachievement against the inveterate system, [Footnote: The Reform Bill.]\nwould have been laughed at as an incorrigible visionary; so proudly\nconfident were they that the structure would be kept compact and\nimpregnable in all its essential parts, by the cement of ancient\ninstitution, national veneration, opulence, and the inherence of actual\npower, possessed from generation to generation.\n\nIn the next place, they were obstinately resolute against all material\nconcessions. When at intervals the complaints, claims, and remonstrances\nof the people sought to be heard, they treated them as unreasonable,\nabsurd, factious; and asserted that none of the good sense and right\nfeeling of the nation went that way. They declared that the existing order\nof things was on the whole so superlatively excellent that, if there were,\nperhaps, any trifling defects, it were far better to let them alone than\nto presume to touch with an innovating hand the integrity of so noble a\nsystem, the admiration and envy of all the world. As it was, it had\n\"worked well\" for our happiness and glory; and who could say, if a\ntampering of alteration were once suffered to begin, where it might end?\nOrder the people to be quiet; let their factious demands and seditious\nmovements be promptly and firmly repressed by authority; and they would\nsink into insignificance and silence. To think of such a thing as\ncondescending to conciliate by moderate concessions would be weakness, and\nmight eventually bring a hazard which otherwise could have no existence.\n\nAnd now for the consequence: the popular spirit, thus set at naught in\npresent account and in calculation for the future, was discouraged from\nactive outward manifestation, by the invetorate, perfectly organized, and,\nfor the present, resistless domination. But under the pressure of\nwide-spread and unabating grievance, which quickened and envenomed every\nsentiment previously entertained regarding the rights and wrongs of the\npeople, it was gradually acquiring, throughout the country, a more\ndeterminate sense of being absolved from all submissive respect toward the\nascendant party, a more entire conviction of its right to vindicate its\nclaims in any manner that should become practicable, and a hostility, but\nthe more deep and intense for its being kept under by despondency of\npresent success, against those who were rejecting and contemptuously\ndefying those claims. It wanted, then, only some occurrence that should\npresent a possibility and a hope of success to burst out in sudden ardor.\nIt was thus in collective power and readiness for action, when several\nevents of prodigious excitement came close together; and then, like a\nstream in one of the Swiss valleys, dammed up by a mound of earth or ice\nfallen across, to a lake deepening without noise, till its vast weight\nbreaks away the obstruction with a tremendous tumult, the popular will\nbore down the aristocratic embankment, consolidated through so many years\nor ages. The overpowered party found the consequence of their obstinate\nand _entire_ resistance; and had to reflect with unmixed mortification how\nmuch less than they had lost, and without mitigating by the loss the\nhostile feeling of those who had taken it from them, would have been\nreceived with gratitude if yielded in the way of gradual voluntary\nconcession. Happily the change was not left to be accomplished by physical\nforce, as all such changes must be in purely despotic states; but the\npeople fully believe that they chiefly owe the forced surrender to the\nalarm which their demonstrations excited lest they should bring the\nquestion ere long to that arbitrament.\n\nBut in the last place, there is a deplorable circumstance, attending this\nsudden rising of the popular spirit into power, and which throws a strong\nlight on the criminal infatuation of a State that suffers the commonalty\nof its citizens to remain grossly uncultivated and uncivilized--perhaps\neven fancies it sees in that ignorance a main security for its own\nstability. The fact is, that the people have acquired their power and\nprivileges, before they are (speaking as to many of them) qualified for a\nwise and useful exercise of them. A large proportion of those who are now\nbrought into what may be called political existence have grown up so\ndestitute of all means and habits for a right use of their minds, that\ntheir notions, wishes, expectations, and determinations, respecting public\ninterests, will exemplify anything rather than a competent judgment. And\nthe proportion so raised is but perhaps a minor part of the multitude in\nwhich the popular spirit is embodied and vehemently excited. Great numbers\non a lower level, and having no formal political capacity to act in, are\nnevertheless pervaded by a spirit which will bring the rude impulse of\nmass and combination into the movement of the popular will.\n\nIf alarmed at such a view, will not they who have so long held the\nsovereign control over the national economy feel the bitterest regret\nthat it had not been given them to obviate the possible dangers of such a\ncrisis and such a change, or rather to prevent such a crisis and a change\nso abrupt, by exertions in every way, and on the widest scale, to rescue\nthe people from their ignorance and barbarism, instead of trusting to it\nfor an uncontested undisturbed continuance of their own domination? But\nthey scorned the idea, if it ever occurred, that the many-headed,\nmany-handed \"monster,\" (so named in the dialect of some of them,) after\nlying prone, and inert, and submissive, from time immemorial, should at\nlast become instinct with spirit, and rise up roaring in defiance of\ntheir power.\n\nIt is now for them to consider whether, by maintaining a temper and\nattitude of sullen, vindictive, pugnacious alienation from the people,\nthey shall wilfully aggravate whatever injurious consequences may be\nthreatened by so sudden a revolution; or endeavor to intercept them by\ngiving their best assistance to every plan and expedient for rescuing the\nlower orders from the curse and calamity of ignorance and debasement.\nOther remedial measures, besides that of education, are imperiously\ndemanded by the miserable and formidable condition of the populace, but no\nother, nor all others together, can avail without it.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nSince the date of the above note, the spirit and policy of the ascendant\nclass have been just that which a philanthropist would have deprecated,\nand a cynic predicted.\n\nTheir moral chagrin at the acquisition by the people of a new political\nrank, an event by which they, (the ascendant class,) had for a while\nappeared amazed and stunned, has soon recovered to a prodigious activity\nof device and exertion to nullify that rightful acquisition. For this\npurpose have been brought into play, on the widest scale, that of the\nwhole kingdom, all the means and resources of wealth, station, and power;\nwith the utmost recklessness of equity, honor, and even humanity; deluding\nthe ignorant, corrupting the venal, and intimidating and punishing the\nconscientious: insomuch that the nominally conceded right or privilege is\npractically reduced to an inconsiderable proportion of its pre-estimated\nworth; while aristocratic tyranny has rendered it to many of the most\ndeserving to possess it no better than an inflicted grievance. One\nimportant measure for the improvement of the condition of the lower orders\nhas been effected, because the anti-popular party saw it advantageous also\nto their own interests. But for the general course of their policy, we\nhave witnessed a systematic determination to frustrate measures framed in\nrecognition of the rights and wants of the people. As to their education,\nit continues abandoned to the efforts and totally inadequate means of\nprivate individuals and societies; except a comparative trifle from the\nState, not so much for the whole nation for the whole year as the cost of\nsome useless, gaudy, barbaric pageant of one day.--It is evident the\npredominant portion of the higher classes trouble themselves very little\nabout the mental condition of the populace. It is even understood that a\nchief obstacle in the way of any comprehensive legislation on the subject\nis found or apprehended in the repugnance of those classes to any liberal\nscheme: any scheme that, aiming simply at the general good, should boldly\nset aside invidious restrictions and a jealous, parsimonious limitation; a\nscheme that should not work in subjection to the mean self-interest of\nthis party or that, but for the one grand purpose of raising millions from\ndegradation into rational existence.]\n\n\n\n\nSection V.\n\n\n\nThe most serious form of the evil caused by a want of mental improvement,\nis that which is exposed to us in its consequences with respect to the\nmost important concern of all, Religion. This has been briefly adverted to\nin a former part of these descriptive observations. But the subject seems\nto merit a more amplified illustration, and may be of sufficient interest\nto excuse some appearance of repetition. The special view in which we wish\nto place it, is that of _the inaptitude of uncultivated minds for\nreceiving religious instruction._--But first, a slight estimate may be\nattempted of the actual state of religious notions among our uneducated\npopulation.\n\n_Some_ notion of such a concern, something different in their\nconsciousness from the absolute negation of the idea, something that\nfaintly responds to the terms which would be used by a person conversing\nwith them, in the way of questioning them on the subject, may be presumed\nto exist in the minds of all who are advanced a considerable way into\nyouth, or come to mature age, in a country where all are familiar with\nseveral of the principal terms of theology, and have the monitory\nspectacle of edifices for religious use, on spots appointed also for the\ninterment of the dead. If this sort of measured caution in the assumption\nseem bordering on the ridiculous, we would recommend those who would smile\nat it to make some little experiments. Let them insinuate themselves into\nthe company of some of the innumerable rustics who have grown up destitute\nof everything worth calling education; or of the equally ill-fated beings\nin the alleys, precincts, and lower employments of towns. With due\nmanagement to avoid the abruptness and judicial formality, which, would\npreclude a communicative disposition, they might take occasion to\nintroduce remarks tending, without the express form of questions in the\nfirst instance, to draw out the thoughts of some of these persons\nrespecting God, Jesus Christ, the human soul, the invisible world. And the\nanswers would often put them to a stand to conceive, under what suspension\nof the laws of rational existence the utterers could have been passing so\nmany years in the world. These answers might dispel, as by a sudden shock,\nthe easy and contented assurance, if so unknowing a notion had been\nentertained, that almost all the people _must_, in one way or another,\nhave become decently apprized of a few first principles of religion; that\nthis _could_ not have failed to be the case in what was expressly\nconstituted a great Christian community, with an obligation upon it, that\nnone of its members should be left destitute of the most essential\nrequisite to their well-being. This agreeable assurance would vanish, like\na dream interrupted, at the spectacle thus presented, of persons only not\nquite as devoid of those first principles, after living eighteen, thirty,\nforty, or twice forty years, under the superintendence of that community,\nas if they had been the aboriginal rovers of the American forests, or\nnatives of unvisited coral-built spots in the ocean. If these examiners\nwere to prosecute the investigation widely, and with an effect on their\nsentiments correspondent to the enlarging disclosure of facts, they could\nfind themselves fallen into a very altered estimate of this our Christian\ntract of the earth. A fancied sunshine, spread over it before, would have\nfaded away. From appearing to them, according to an accustomed notion,\npeculiarly auspicious, as if almost by some virtue of its climate, to the\ngrowth of religious intelligence in the minds of the people, it might come\nto be regarded as favorable to the development of _all things rather than\nthat_. Plants and trees, the diversity of animal forms and powers, the\nhuman frame, the features enlarging or enlarged to manhood in the younger\npersons looked at by the supposed examiner while answering his questions,\nwith their passions also, and prevailing dispositions,--see how all things\ncan unfold themselves in our territory, and grow and enlarge to their\ncompleteness,--except the ideas of the human soul relating to the\nAlmighty, and to the grand purpose of its own existence!\n\nThe supposed answers would in many instances betray, that any thought of\nGod at all was of very rare occurrence, the idea having never become\nstrongly associated with anything beheld in the whole creation. We should\nthink it probable, as we have said before, that with many, while in\nhealth, weeks or months often pass away without this idea being once so\npresented as to fix the mind in attention to it for one moment of time. If\nthey could be set to any such task as that of retracing, at the end of the\ndays or the weeks, the course of their thoughts, to recollect what\nparticulars in the series had struck the most forcibly and stayed the\nlongest, it may be suspected that _this_ idea, thus impressively\napprehended, would be as rare a recollection as that of having seen a\nsplendid meteor. Yet during that space of time, their thoughts, such as\nthey were, shall have run through thousands of changes; and even the name\nof God may have been pronounced by them a multitude of times, in\njocularity or imprecation. Thus there is a broad easy way to atheism\nthrough thoughtless ignorance, as well as a narrow and difficult one\nthrough subtle speculation.\n\nBut that idea of God which has, by some means, found its way into their\nunderstandings, to abide there so nearly in silence and oblivion,--what is\nit, when some direct call does really evoke it? It is generally a gross\napproximation of the conception of the Infinite Being to the likeness of\nman. If what they have heard of his being a Spirit, has indeed some little\neffect in prevention of the total debasement of the idea, it prevents it\nrather by confusion than by magnificence. It may somewhat restrain and\nbaffle the tendency of the imagination to a direct degrading definition;\nbut it does so by a dissolution of the idea as into an attenuated cloud.\nAnd ever and anon, this cloudy diffusion is again drawing in, and shaping\nitself toward an image, vast perhaps, and spectral, portentous across the\nfirmament, but in some near analogy to the human mode of personality.\n\nThe divine attribute which is apprehended by them with most of an\nimpression of reality, is a certain vastness of power. But, through the\ngrossness of their intellectual atmosphere, this appears to them in the\ncharacter of something prodigiously huge, rather than sublimely\nglorious.--As considered in his quality of moral judicial Governor, God is\nregarded by some of them as more disposed, than there is any reasonable\ncause, to be displeased with what is done in this world. But the far\ngreater number have no prevailing sentiment that he takes any very\nvigilant account or concern. [Footnote: Some have no very distinct\nimpression the one way or the other. Not very long since, a friend of the\nwriter, in one of the midland counties, fell into talk, on a Sunday, with\na man who had been in some very plain violation of the consecrated\ncharacter of the day. He seriously animadverted on this, adding, Don't you\nthink God will be displeased at and punish such conduct? or words to that\neffect. The man, after a moment's consideration, answered, with unaffected\ncool simplicity, exactly thus: \"That's according as how a takes it.\"\n\nNumerous anecdotes of the same cast have been more recently heard; and\namong them that of a conversation with a thoughtless man, of worthless\ncharacter, not in the lowest condition in society, and then consciously\nnear death. The religious visitor represented to him the serious and\nalarming situation of a man on the point of going from a sinful life into\nthe presence of God as a Judge. The man, with a sort of general\nacknowledgment that it was so, yet hoped that God would not be severe with\nhim. But the visitor anxiously pressed upon him the consideration that God\nis a just Being, and judges by a holy law: to which at last the answer\nwas, with little emotion, \"Then God and I must fight it out as well as we\ncan.\" The phrase, in his use of it, did not mean anything of the nature of\na hostile contest, but simply the _settling of an affair_, which he\nthought might be done without any great danger or trouble.] And even those\nwho entertain the more ungracious apprehension, have it not in sufficient\nforce to make them, once in whole months, deliberately think it worth\nwhile to care what he may disapprove.]\n\nThe notions that should answer to the doctrine of a Providence, are a\nconfusion of some crude idea of a divine superintendence, with stronger\nfancies and impressions of luck and chance; a confusion of them not\nunaptly exemplified in a grave and well-meaning sentiment heard from a man\nin a temporal condition to be envied by many of his neighbors, \"Providence\nmust take its chance.\" And these are still further, and most uncouthly,\nconfounded by the admixture of the ancient heathen notion of fate, reduced\nfrom its philosophy to its dregs. In many instances, however, this last\nobtains such a predominance, as to lessen the confusion, and withal to\npreclude, in a great measure, the sense of accountableness. In neither of\nthese rude states of the understanding, (that which confounds Providence\nand chance, and that which sinks in dull acquiescence to something\nobscurely imagined like fate,) is there any serious admission, at least\nduring the enjoyment of health, of the duty or advantage of prayer.\n\nThe supposed examiner may endeavor to possess himself of the notions\nconcerning the Redeemer of the world. They would be found, in numerous\ninstances, amounting literally to no more than, that Jesus Christ was a\nworthy kind of person, (the word has actually been \"gentleman,\" in more\nthan one instance that we have heard from unquestionable testimony,) who\nonce, somewhere, (these national Christians had never in their lives,\nthought of inquiring when or where,) did a great deal of good, and was\nvery ill used by bad people. The people now, they think, bad as they may\nbe, would not do so in the like case. Some of these persons may\noccasionally have been at church; and are just aware that his name often\nrecurs in its services; they never considered why; but they have a vague\nimpression of its repetition having some kind of virtue, perhaps rather in\nthe nature of a spell.--The names of the four evangelists are by some held\nliterally and technically available for such a use.\n\nA few steps withdrawn from this thickest of the mental fog, there are many\nwho are not entirely uninformed of something having been usually affirmed,\nby religious formularies and teachers, of Jesus Christ's being more than a\nman, and of his having done some thing of great importance toward\npreventing our being punished for our sins. This combination of a majestic\nsuperiority to the human nature, with a subsistence yet confessedly human,\njust passes their minds like a shape formed of a shadow, as one of the\nunaccountable things that may be as it is said, for what they know, but\nwhich they need not trouble themselves to think about. As to the great\nthings said to be done by him, to save men from being punished, they see\nindeed no necessity for such an expedient, but if it is so, very right,\nand so much the better; for between that circumstance in our favor, and\nGod's being too good, after all that is said of his holiness and wrath, to\nbe severe on such poor creatures, we must have a good chance of coming off\nsafely at last. But multitudes of the miserably poor, however wicked, have\na settled assurance of this coming off well at last, independently of\nanything effected for men by the Mediator: they shall be exempted, they\nbelieve, from any future suffering in consideration of their having\nsuffered so much here. There is nothing, in the scanty creed of great\nnumbers, more firmly held than this.\n\nIt is true, they believe that the most atrociously wicked must go to a\nstate of punishment after death. They consider murderers, especially, as\nunder this doom. But the offences so adjudged, according to any settled\nestimate they have of the demerit of bad actions, are comprised in a very\nshort catalogue. At least it is short if we could take it exclusively of\nthe additions made to it by the resentments of individuals. For each one\nis apt to make his own particular addition to it, of some offence which he\nwould never have accounted so heinous, but that it has happened to be\ncommitted against _him_. We can recollect the exultation of sincere faith,\nseen mingling with the anger, of an offended man, while _predicting_, as\nwell as imprecating, this retribution of some injury he had suffered; a\nreal injury, indeed, yet of a kind which he would have held in small\naccount had he only seen it done to another person.--As to the nature of\nthat future punishment, the ideas of these neglected minds go scarcely at\nall beyond the images of corporal anguish, conveyed by the well-known\nmetaphors. They have no impressive idea of the pain of remorse, and\nscarcely the faintest conception of an infelicity inflicted by the\nconscious loss of the Divine favor.\n\nIt is most striking to observe how almost wholly negative are their\nconceptions of that future happiness which must be _something_--but\nwhat?--as the necessary alternative of the evil they so easily assure\nthemselves of escaping. The abstracted, contemplative, and elevated ideas\nof the celestial happiness are far above their apprehension; and indeed,\nthough they were not, would be little attractive. And the more ordinary\nmodes of representing it in religious discourse, (if they should ever have\nheard enough of such discourse to be acquainted with them,) are too\nuncongenial with their notions of pleasure to have a welcome, or abiding\nplace, in their imagination or affections. Thus the soul, as to this great\nsubject, is vacant and cold. And here the reflection again returns, what\nan inexpressible poverty of the mind there is, when the people have no\nlonger a mythology, and yet have not obtained in its place any knowledge\nof the true religion. The martial vagrants of Scandinavia glowed with the\nvivid anticipations of Valhalla; the savages of the western continent had\ntheir animating visions of the \"land of souls;\" the modern Christian\nbarbarians of England, who also expect to live after death, do not know\nwhat they mean by the! phrase of \"going to heaven.\"\n\nMost of this class of persons think very little in any way whatever of the\ninvisible spiritual economy. And some of them would be pleased with a\nstill more complete exemption from such thought. For there are among them\nthose who are liable to be occasionally affected with certain ghostly\nrecognitions of something out of the common world. But it is remarkable\nhow little these may contribute to enforce the salutary impressions of\nreligion. For instance, a man subject to the terror of apparitions shall\nnot therefore be in the smallest degree the less profane, except just at\nthe time that this terror is upon him. A number of persons, not one of\nwhom durst walk, alone, at midnight, round a lonely church, encompassed\nwith graves, to which has perhaps lately been added that of a notoriously\nwicked man, will nevertheless, on a fine Sunday morning, form a row of\nrude idlers, standing in the road to this very church, to vent their jokes\non the persons going thither to attend the offices of religion, and on the\nperformers of those offices.\n\nSuch, as regarding religion, is the state out of which it is desired to\nredeem a multitude of the people of this land. Or rather, we should say,\nit is sought to save a multitude from being consigned to it. For consider,\nin the next place, (what we wished especially to point at, in this most\nimportant article in the enumeration of the evils of ignorance,) consider\nwhat a fatal inaptitude for receiving the truths of religion is created by\nthe neglect of training minds to the exercise of their faculties, and the\npossession of the elements of knowledge.\n\nHow inevitably it must be so, from the nature of the case!--There is a\nsublime economy of invisible realities. There is the Supreme Existence, an\ninfinite and eternal Spirit. There are spiritual existences, that have\nkindled into brightness and power, from nothing, at his creating will,\nThere is an universal government, omnipotent, all-wise, and righteous, of\nthat Supreme Being over the creation. There is the immense tribe of human\nspirits, in a most peculiar and alarming predicament, held under eternal\nobligation of conformity to a law proceeding from the holiness of that\nBeing, but perverted to a state of disconformity to it, and opposition to\nhim. Next, there is a signal anomaly of moral government, the constitution\nof a new state of relation between the Supreme Governor and this alienated\nrace, through a Mediator, who makes an atonement for human iniquity, and\nstands representative before Almighty Justice, for those who in grateful\naccordance to the mysterious appointment consign themselves to this\ncharge. There are the several doctrines declaratory of this new\nconstitution through all its parts. There is the view of religion in its\noperative character, or the doctrine of the application of its truths and\nprecepts by a divine agency to transform the mind and rectify the life.\nAnd this solemn array of all the sublimest reality, and most important\nintelligence, is extending infinitely away beyond the sensible horizon of\nour present state to an invisible world, to which the spirits of men\nproceed at death for judgment and retribution, and with the prospect of\nliving forever.\n\nLook at this scene of faith, so distinct, and stretching to such\nremoteness, from the field of ordinary things; of a subsistence which it\nis for intellect alone to apprehend; presenting objects with which\nintellect alone can hold converse. Look at this scene; and then consider,\nwhat manner of beings you are calling upon to enter into it by\ncontemplation. Beings who have never learned to think at all. Beings who\nhave hardly ever once, in their whole lives, made a real effort to direct\nand concentrate the action of their faculties on anything abstracted from\nthe objects palpable to the senses; whose entire attention has been\nengrossed, from their infancy, with the common business, the low\namusements and gratifications, the idle talk, the local occurrences, which\nformed the whole compass of the occupation, and practically acknowledged\ninterests, of their progenitors. Beings who have never been made in the\nleast familiar with even the matters of fact, those especially of the\nscripture history, by which religious truths have been expressed and\nillustrated in the substantial form of events, and personal characters.\nBeings who, in natural consequence of this unexercised and unfurnished\ncondition of their understandings, will combine the utmost aversion to any\neffort of purely intellectual labor, with the especial dislike which it is\nin the human disposition to feel toward this class of subjects. What kind\nof ideas should you imagine to be raised in their minds, by all the words\nyou might employ, to place within their intellectual vision some portion\nof this spiritual order of things,--even should you be able, which you\noften would not, to engage any effort of attention to the subject?--And\nyet we have heard this disqualification for receiving religious knowledge,\nin consequence of the want of early mental culture, made very light of by\nmen whose pretensions to judgment had no less a foundation than an\nacademical course and a consecrated profession. They would maintain, with\nevery appearance of thinking so, that a very little, that the barest\ntrifle, of regulated exercise of the mind in youth, would be enough for\nthe common people as a preparation for gaining as much knowledge of\nreligion as they could ever want; that any such thing as a practice of\nreading, (a practice of hazardous tendency.) would be needless for the\npurpose, since they might gain a competence of that knowledge by\nattendance on the public ministration in the church. And there must have\nbeen a very recent acquiescence in a new fashion of opinion, if numbers of\nthe same class of men would not, in honestly avowing their thoughts, say\nsomething not far different at this hour.\n\nBut the pretended facility of gaining a competence of religious knowledge\nby such persons on such terms, can only mean, that the smallest\nconceivable portion of it may suffice. For we may appeal to those pious\nand benevolent persons who have made the most numerous trials, for\ntestimony to the inaptitude of uneducated people to receive that kind of\ninstruction. You have visited, perhaps, some numerous family, or Sunday\nassemblage of several related families; to which you had access without\nawkward intrusion, in consequence of the acquaintance arising from near\nneighborhood, or of little services you had rendered, or of the\ncircumstance of any of their younger children coming to your charity\nschools. It was to you soon made sensible what a sterile, blighted spot\nof rational nature you were in, by indications unequivocal to your\nperception, though, it may be, not easily reducible to exact description.\nAnd those indications were perhaps almost equally apparent in the young\npersons, in those advanced to the middle of life, and in those who were\nevidently destined not long to remain in it, the patriarch, perhaps, and\nthe eldest matron, of the kindred company. You attempted by degrees, with\nall managements of art, as if you had been seeking to gain a favor for\nyourselves, to train into the talk some topic bearing toward religion;\nand which could be followed up into a more explicit reference to that\ngreat subject, without the abruptness which causes instant silence and\nrecoil. We will suppose that the gloom of such a moral scene was not\naugmented to you, by the mortification of observing impatience of this\nsuspension of their usual and favorite tenor of discourse, betrayed in\nmarks of suppressed irritation, or rather by the withdrawing of one, and\nanother, from the company. But it was quite enough to render the moments\nand feelings some of the most disconsolate you had ever experienced, to\nhave thus immediately before you a number of rational beings as in a dark\nprison-house, and to feel the impotence of your friendly efforts to bring\nthem out. Their darkness of ignorance infused into your spirit the\ndarkness of melancholy, when you perceived that the fittest words you\ncould think of, in every change and combination in which you could\ndispose them, failed to impart to their understanding, in the meaning you\nwanted to convey, the most elementary and essential ideas of the most\nmomentous subject.\n\nYou thought again, perhaps, and again, Surely _this_ mode of expression,\nor _this_, as it is in words not out of common usage, will define the\nthing to their apprehension. But you were forced to perceive that the\ncommon phraseology of the language, those words which make the substance\nof ordinary discourse on ordinary subjects, had not, for the\nunderstandings of these persons, a general applicableness. It seemed as if\nthe mere elemental vehicle, (if we may so name it,) available\nindifferently for conveying all sorts of sense, except science, had become\nin its meaning special and exclusive for their own sort of topics. Their\nnarrow associations had rendered it incapable of conveying sense to them\non matters foreign to their habits. When used on a subject to which they\nwere quite unaccustomed, it became like a stream which, though one and the\nsame current, flows clear on the one side, and muddy (as we sometimes see\nfor a space) on the other; and to them it was clear only at their own\nedge. And if thus even the plain popular language turned dark on their\nunderstandings when employed in explanation of religion, it is easy to\nimagine what had been the success of a more peculiarly theological\nphraseology, though it were limited to such terms as are of frequent use\nin the Bible.\n\nYou continued, however, the effort for a while. As desirous to show you\ndue civility, some of the persons, perhaps the oldest, would give assent\nto what you said, with some sign of acknowledgment of the importance of\nthe concern. The assent would perhaps be expressed in a form meant and\nbelieved to be equivalent to what you had said. And when it gave an\nintelligible idea, it might probably betray the grossest possible\nmisconception of the first principles of Christianity. It might be a crude\nformation from the very same substance of which some of the worst errors\nof popery are constituted; and might strongly suggest to you, in a glance\nof thought, how easily popery might have become the religion of ignorance;\nhow naturally ignorance and corrupt feeling mixing with a slight vague\nnotion of Christianity, would turn it into just such a thing as popery.\nYou tried, perhaps, with repeated modifications of your expression, and\nattempts at illustration, to loosen the false notion, and to place the\ntrue one contrasted with it in such a near obviousness to the\napprehension, that at least the difference should be seen, and (perhaps\nyou hoped) a little movement excited to think on the subject, and make a\nserious question of it. But all in vain. The hoary subject of your too\nlate instruction, (a spectacle reminding you painfully of the words which\ndenominate the sign of old age \"crown of glory,\") either would still take\nit that it came all to the same thing, or, if compelled to perceive that\nyou really were trying to make him _unthink_ his poor old notions, and\nlearn something new and contrary, would probably retreat, in a little\nwhile, into a half sullen, half despondent silence, after observing, that\nhe was too old, \"the worse was the luck,\" to be able to learn about such\nthings, which he never had, like you, the \"scholarship\" and the time for.\n\nIn several of the party you perceived the signs of almost a total blank.\nThey seemed but to be waiting for any trifling incident to take their\nattention, and keep their minds alive. Some one with a little more of\nlistening curiosity, but without caring about the subject, might have to\nobserve, that it seemed to him the same kind of thing that the methodist\nparson, (the term most likely to be used if any very serious and earnest\nChristian instructor had appeared in the neighborhood,) was lately saying\nin such a one's funeral-sermon. It is too possible that one or two of the\nvisages of the company, of the younger people especially, might wear,\nduring a good part of the time, somewhat of a derisive smile, meaning,\n\"What odd kind of stuff all this is;\" as if they could not help thinking\nit ludicrously strange that any one should be talking of God, of the\nSaviour of mankind, the facts of the Bible, the welfare of the soul, the\nshortness and value of life, and a future account, when he might be\ntalking of the neighboring fair, past or expected, or the local quarrels,\nor the last laughable incident or adventure of the hamlet. It is\nparticularly observable, that grossly ignorant persons are very apt to\ntake a ludicrous impression from high and solemn subjects; at least when\nintroduced in any other time or way than in the ceremonial of public\nreligious service; when brought forward as a personal concern, demanding\nconsideration everywhere, and which may be urged by individual on\nindividual. You have commonly enough seen this provoke the grin of\nstupidity and folly. And if you asked yourselves, (for it were in vain to\nask _them_,) why it produced this so perverse effect, you had only to\nconsider that, to minds abandoned through ignorance to be totally\nengrossed by the immediate objects of sense, the grave assumption, and\nemphatic enforcement, of the transcendent importance of a wholly unseen\nand spiritual economy, has much the appearance and effect of a great lie\nattempted to be passed on them. You might indeed recollect also, that the\nmost which some of them are likely to have learnt about religion, is the\ncircumstance, that the persons professing to make it an earnest concern\nare actually regarded as fit objects of derision by multitudes, not of the\nvulgar order only, but including many of the wealthy, the genteel, the\nmagisterial, and the dignified in point of rank.\n\nIndividuals of the most ignorant class may stroll into a place of worship,\nbearing their character so conspicuously in their appearance and manner as\nto draw the particular notice of the preacher, while addressing the\ncongregation. It may be, that having taken their stare round the place,\nthey go out, just, it may happen, when he is in the midst of a marked,\nprominent, and even picturesque illustration, perhaps from some of the\nstriking facts or characters of the Scripture history, which had not made\nthe slightest ingress on their thoughts or imagination. Or they are\npleased to stay through the service; during which his eye is frequently\nled to where several of them may be seated together. Without an appearance\nof addressing them personally, he shall be excited to direct a special\neffort toward what he surmises to be the state of their minds. He may in\nthis effort acquire an additional force, emphasis, and pointedness of\ndelivery; but especially his utmost mental force shall be brought into\naction to strike upon their faculties with vivid, rousing ideas, plainly\nand briefly expressed. And he fancies, perhaps, that he has at least\narrested their attention; that what is going from his mind is in some\nmanner or other taking a place in theirs; when some inexpressibly trivial\noccurring circumstance shows him, that the hold he has on them is not of\nthe strength of a spider's web. Those thoughts, those intellects, those\nsouls, are instantly and wholly gone--from a representation of one of the\nawful visitations of divine judgment in the ancient world--a description\nof sublime angelic agency, as in some recorded fact in the Bible--an\nillustration of the discourse, miracles, or expiatory sorrows of the\nRedeemer of the world--a strong appeal to conscience on past sin--a\nstatement, perhaps in the form of example, of an important duty in given\ncircumstances--a cogent enforcement of some specific point as of most\nessential moment in respect to eternal safety;--from the attempted grasp,\nor supposed seizure, of any such subject, these rational spirits started\naway, with infinite facility, to the movements occasioned by the falling\nof a hat from a peg.\n\nBy the time that any semblance of attention returns, the preacher's\naddress may have taken the form of pointed interrogation, with very\ndefined supposed facts, or even real ones, to give the question and its\nprinciple as it were a tangible substance. Well; just at the moment when\nhis questions converge to a point, which was to have been a dart of\nconviction striking the understanding, and compelling the common sense\nand conscience of the auditors to answer for themselves,--at that moment,\nhe perceives two or three of the persons he had particularly in view\nbegin an active whispering, prolonged with the accompaniment of the\nappropriate vulgar smiles. They may possibly relapse at length, through\nsheer dulness, into tolerable decorum; and the instructor, not quite\nlosing sight of them, tries yet again, to impel some serious ideas\nthrough the obtuseness of their mental being. But he can clearly\nperceive, after the animal spirits have thus been a little quieted by the\nnecessity of sitting still awhile, the signs of a stupid vacancy, which\nis hardly sensible that anything is actually saying, and probably makes,\nin the case of some of the individuals, what is mentally but a slight\ntransition to yawning and sleep.\n\nUtter ignorance is a most effectual fortification to a bad state of the\nmind. Prejudice may perhaps, be removed; unbelief may be reasoned with;\neven demoniacs have been compelled to bear witness to the truth; but the\nstupidity of confirmed ignorance not only defeats the ultimate efficacy of\nthe means for making men wiser and better, but stands in preliminary\ndefiance to the very act of their application. It reminds us of an\naccount, in one of the relations of the French Egyptian campaigns, of the\nattempt to reduce a garrison posted in a bulky fort of mud. Had the\ndefences been of timber, the besiegers might have set fire to and burned\nthem; had they been of stone, they might have shaken and ultimately\nbreached them by the battery of their cannon; or they might have\nundermined and blown them up. But the huge mound of mud had nothing\nsusceptible of fire or any other force; the missiles from the artillery\nwere discharged but to be buried in the dull mass; and all the means of\ndemolition were baffled.\n\nThe most melancholy of the exemplifications of the effect of ignorance, as\nconstituting an incapacity for receiving religious instruction, have been\npresented to those who have visited persons thus devoid of knowledge in\nsickness and the approach to death. Supposing them to manifest alarm and\nsolicitude, it is deplorable to see how powerless their understandings\nare, for any distinct conception of what, or why, it is that they fear, or\nregret, or desire. The objects of their apprehension come round them as\nvague forms of darkness, instead of distinctly exhibited dangers and foes,\nwhich they might steadily contemplate, and think how to escape or\nencounter. And how little does the benevolent instructor find it possible\nfor him to do, when he applies his mind to the painful task of reducing\nthis gloomy confused vision to the plain defined truth of their unhappy\nsituation, set in order before their eyes.\n\nHe deems it necessary to speak of the most elementary principles--the\nperfect holiness and justice of God--the corresponding holiness and the\nall-comprehending extent of his law, appointed to his creatures--the\nabsolute duty of conformity to it in every act, word, and thought--the\nnecessary condemnation consequent on failure--the dreadful evil,\ntherefore, of sin, both in its principle and consequences. God--perfect\nholiness--justice--law--universal conformity--sin--condemnation! Alas!\nthe hapless auditor has no such sense of the force of terms, and no such\nanalogical ideas, as to furnish the medium for conveying these\nrepresentations to his understanding. He never had, at any time; and now\nthere may be in his mind all the additional confusion, and incapacity of\nfixed attention, arising from pain, debility, and sleeplessness. All this\ntherefore passes before him with a tenebrious glimmer; like lightning\nfaintly penetrating to a man behind a thick black curtain.\n\nThe instructor attempts a personal application, endeavoring to give the\ndisturbed conscience a rational direction, and a distinct cognizance. But\nhe finds, as he might expect to find, that a conscience without knowledge\nhas never taken but a very small portion of the man's habits of life under\nits jurisdiction; and that it is a most hopeless thing to attempt to send\nit back reinforced, to reclaim and conquer, through all the past, the\nwhole extent of its rightful but never assumed dominion. So feeble and\nconfined in the function of judgment through which it must see and act, it\nis especially incapable of admitting the monitor's estimate of the measure\nof guilt involved in omission, and in an irreligious state of the mind, as\nan exceedingly grave addition to the account of criminal action. The man\nis totally and honestly unable to conceive of the substantial guilt of\nanything of which he can ask, what injury it has done to anybody. This\nsingle point--whether positive harm has been done to any one--comprehends\nthe whole essence and sum of the conscious accountableness of very\nignorant people. Material wrong, _very_ material wrong, to their fellow\nmortals, they have a conscience that they should not do; a conscience,\nhowever, which they would deem it hard to be obliged to maintain entire\neven to this confined extent; and which therefore admits some compromise\nand gives some license, with respect especially to any kind of wrong which\nhas the extenuation, as they deem it, of being commonly practised in their\nclass; and against which there is a sort of understanding that each one\nmust take the best care he can of himself. At this confine, so undecidedly\nmarked, of practical, tangible wrong, these very ignorant persons lose the\nsense of obligation, and feel absolved from any further jurisdiction. So\ncoarse and narrow a conscience as to what they _do_, is not likely to be\nrefined and extended into a cognizance of what they _are_. As for a duty\nabsolute in the nature of things, or as owing to themselves, in respect to\ntheir own nature, or as imposed by the Almighty--_that their minds should\nbe in a certain prescribed state_--there does really require a perfectly\nnew manner of the action of intellect to enable them to apprehend its\nexistence. And this habitual insensibility to any jurisdiction over their\ninternal state, now meets, in its consequences, the supposed instructor.\nIn consideration of the vast importance of this part of a rational\ncreature's accountableness, and partly, too, from a desire to avoid the\ninvidiousness of appearing as a judicial censor of the sick man's\npractical conduct, he insists in an especial manner on this subject of the\nstate within, endeavoring to expose that dark world by the light of\nreligion to the sick man's conscience. But to give in an hour the\n_understanding_ which it requires the discipline of many years to render\ncompetent! How vain the attempt! The man's sense of guilt fixes almost\nexclusively on something that has been improper in his practical courses.\nHe professes to acknowledge the evil of this; and perhaps with a certain\nstress of expression; intended, by an apparent respondence to the serious\nemphasis which the monitor is laying on another part of the\naccountableness and guilt, to take him off from thus endeavoring, as it\nappears to the ignorant sufferer, to make him more of a sinner than there\nis any reason, so little can he conceive that it should much signify what\nhis thoughts, tempers, affections, motives, and so forth, may have been.\nBy continuing to press the subject, the instructor may find himself in\ndanger of being regarded as having taken upon him the unkind office of\ninquisitor and accuser in his own name, and of his own will and authority.\n\nWhen inculcating the necessity of repentance, he will perceive the\nindistinctness of apprehension of the difference between the horror of\nsin merely from dread of impending consequences, and an antipathy to its\nessential nature. And even if this distinction, which admits of easy\nforms of exemplification, should thus be rendered in a degree\nintelligible, the man cannot make the application. The instructor\nobserves, as one of the most striking results of a want of disciplined\nmental exercise, an utter inability for self-inspection. There is before\nhis eyes, looking at him, but a stranger to himself, a man on whose mind\nno other mind, except One, can shed a light of self-manifestation, to\nsave him from the most fatal mistakes.\n\nIf the monitor would turn, (rather from an impulse to relieve the gloom of\nthe scene, than from anything he sees of a hopeful approach toward a right\napprehension of the austerer truths of religion,) if he would turn his\nefforts, to the effect of directing on this dark spirit the benign rays of\nthe Christian redemption, what is he to do for terms,--yes, for very\nterms? Mediator, sacrifice, atonement, satisfaction, faith; even the\nexpression, believing in Christ; merit of the death of Christ, acquittal,\nacceptance, justification;--he knows, or soon will find, that he is\ntalking the language of an occult science. And he is forced down to such\nexpedients of grovelling paraphrase, and humiliating analogy, that he\nbecomes conscious that his method of endeavoring to make a divine subject\ncomprehensible, is to divest it of its dignity, and reduce it, in order\nthat it may not confound, to the rank of things which have not majesty\nenough to impress with awe. And after this has been done, to the utmost of\nhis ability, and to the unavoidable weariness of his suffering auditor, he\nis distressed to think of the proportion between the insignificance of any\nideas which this man's mind now possesses of the economy of redemption,\nand the magnitude of the interest in which he stands dependent on it. A\nsymptom or assurance which should impart to the sick man a confidence of\nhis recovery, would appear to him a far greater good than all he can\ncomprehend as offered to him from the Physician of the soul. Some crude\nsentiment, as that he \"hopes Jesus Christ will stand his friend;\" that it\nwas very good of the Saviour to think of us; that he wishes he knew what\nto do to get his help; that Jesus Christ has done him good in other\nthings, and he hopes he will now again at the last; [Footnote: Such an\nexpression as this would hardly have occurred but from recollection of\nfact, in the instance of an aged farmer, (the owner of the farm,) in his\nlast illness. In the way of reassuring his somewhat doubtful hope that\nChrist would not fail him when now had recourse to, at his extreme need,\nhe said, (to the writer,) \"Jesus Christ has sent me a deal of good\ncrops.\"]--such expressions will afford little to alleviate the gloomy\nfeelings, with which the serious visitor descends from the chamber in\nwhich, perhaps, he may hear, a few days after, that the man he conversed\nwith lies a dead body.\n\nBut such benevolent visitors have to tell of still more melancholy\nexemplifications of the effects of ignorance in the close of life. They\nhave seen the neglect of early cultivation, and the subsequent\nestrangement from all knowledge and thinking, except about business and\nfolly, result in such a stupefaction of mind, that irreligious and immoral\npersons, expecting no more than a few days of life, and not in a state of\nphysical lethargy, were absolutely incapable of being alarmed at the near\napproach of death. They might not deny, nor in the infidel sense\ndisbelieve, what was said to them of the awfulness of that event and its\nconsequences; but they had actually never thought enough of death to have\nany solemn associations with the idea. And their faculties were become so\nrigidly shrunk up, that they could not now admit them; no, not while the\nportentous spectre was unveiling his visage to them, in near and still\nnearer approach; not when the element of another world was beginning to\npenetrate through the rents of their mortal tabernacle. It appeared that\nliterally their thoughts _could not_ go out from what they had been\nthrough life immersed in, to contemplate, with any realizing feeling, a\ngrand change of being, expected so soon to come on them. They could not go\nto the fearful brink to look off. It was a stupor of the soul not to be\nawaked but by the actual plunge into the realities of eternity. In such a\ncase the instinctive repugnance to death might be visible and\nacknowledged. But the feeling was, If it must be so, there is no help for\nit; and as to what may come after, we must take our chance. In this temper\nand manner, we recollect a sick man, of this untaught class, answering the\ninquiry how he felt himself, \"Getting worse; I suppose I shall make a die\nof it.\" And some pious neighbors, earnestly exhorting him to solemn\nconcern and preparation, could not make him understand, we repeat with\nemphasis, _understand_ why there was occasion for any extraordinary\ndisturbance of mind. Yet this man was not inferior to those around him in\nsense for the common business of life.\n\nAfter a tedious length of suffering, and when death is plainly\ninevitable, it is not very uncommon for persons under this infatuation to\nexpress a wish for its arrival, simply as a deliverance from what they\nare enduring, without disturbing themselves with a thought of what may\nfollow. \"I know it will please God soon to release me,\" was the\nexpression to his religious medical attendant, of such an ignorant and\ninsensible mortal, within an hour of his death, which was evidently and\ndirectly brought on by his vices. And he uttered it without a word, or\nthe smallest indicated emotion, of penitence or solicitude; though he had\npassed his life in a neighborhood abounding with the public means of\nreligious instruction and warning.\n\nWhen earnest, persisting, and seriously menacing admonitions, of pious\nvisitors or friends, almost literally compel such unhappy persons to some\nprecise recognition of the subject, their answers will often be faithfully\nrepresentative, and a consistent completion, of their course through\nmental darkness, from childhood to the mortal hour. We recollect the\ninstance of a wicked old man, who, within that very hour, replied to the\nurgent admonitions by which a religious neighbor felt it a painful duty to\nmake a last effort to alarm him, \"What! do you believe that God can think\nof damning me because I may have been as bad as other folk? I am sure he\nwill do no such thing: he is far too good for that.\"\n\nWe cannot close this detailed illustration of so gloomy a subject, without\nagain adverting to a phenomenon as admirable as, unhappily, it is rare;\nand for which the observers who cannot endure mystery in religion, or\nreligion itself, may go, if they choose, round the whole circle of their\nphilosophy, and begin again, to find any adequate cause, other than the\nmost immediate agency of the Almighty Spirit. Here and there an instance\noccurs, to the delight of the Christian philanthropist, of a person\nbrought up in utter ignorance and barbarian rudeness, and so continuing\ntill late in life; and then at last, after such a length of time and habit\nhas completed its petrifying effect, suddenly seized upon by a mysterious\npower, and taken, with an alarming and irresistible force, out of the dark\nhold in which the spirit has lain imprisoned and torpid, into the sphere\nof thought and feeling.\n\nOccasion is taken this once more of adverting to such facts, not so much\nfor the purpose of magnifying the nature, as of simply exhibiting the\neffect, of an influence that can breathe with such power on the obtuse\nintellectual faculties; which it appears, in the most signal of these\ninstances, almost to create anew. It is exceedingly striking to observe\nhow the contracted, rigid soul seems to soften, and grow warm, and expand,\nand quiver with life. With the new energy infused, it painfully struggles\nto work itself into freedom, from the wretched contortion in which it has\nso long been fixed as by the impressed spell of some infernal magic. It is\nseen filled with a distressed and indignant emotion at its own ignorance;\nactuated with a restless earnestness to be informed; acquiring an unwonted\npliancy of its faculties to thought; attaining a perception, combined of\nintelligence and moral sensibility, to which numerous things are becoming\ndiscernible and affecting, that were as non-existent before. It is not in\nthe very extreme strength of their import that we employ such terms of\ndescription; the malice of irreligion may easily parody them into poetical\nexcess; but we have known instances in which the change, the intellectual\nchange, has been so conspicuous, within a brief space of time, that even\nan infidel observer must have forfeited all claim to be esteemed a man of\nsense, if he would not acknowledge,--This that you call divine grace,\nwhatever it may really be, is the strangest awakener of faculties after\nall. And to a devout man, it is a spectacle of most enchanting beauty,\nthus to see the immortal plant, which has been under a malignant blast\nwhile sixty or seventy years have passed over it, coming out at length in\nthe bloom of life.\n\nWe cannot hesitate to draw the inference, that if religion is so\nauspicious to the intellectual faculties, the cultivation and exercise of\nthose faculties must be of great advantage to religion.\n\nThese observations on ignorance, considered as an incapacitation for\nreceiving religious instruction, are pointed chiefly at that portion of\nthe people, unhappily the largest, who are little disposed to attend to\nthat kind of instruction. But we should notice its prejudicial effect on\nthose of them to whom religion has become a matter of serious and\ninquisitive concern. The preceding assertions of the efficacy of a strong\nreligious interest to excite and enlarge the intellectual faculty will not\nbe contradicted by observing, nevertheless, that in a dark and crude state\nof that facility those well-disposed persons, especially if of a warm\ntemperament withal, are unfortunately liable to receive delusive\nimpressions and absurd notions, blended with religious doctrine and\nsentiment. It would be no less than plain miracle or inspiration, a more\nentire and specific superseding of ordinary laws than that which we have\njust been denominating \"an immediate agency of the Almighty Spirit,\" if a\nmind left uncultivated all up through the earlier age, and perhaps far on\nin life, should not come to its new employment on a most important subject\nwith a sadly defective capacity for judgment and discrimination. The\nsituation reminds us of an old story of a tribe of Indians denominated\n\"moon-eyed,\" who, not being able to look at things by the light of the\nsun, were reduced to look at them under the glimmering of the moon, by\nwhich light it is an inevitable circumstance of human vision to receive\nthe images of things in perverted and deceptive forms.\n\nEven in such an extremely rare instance as that above described, an\nexample of the superlative degree of the animating and invigorating\ninfluence of religion on the uncultivated faculties, there would be\nvisible some of the unfortunate consequences of the inveterate rudeness; a\ntendency, perhaps, to magnify some one thing beyond its proportionate\nimportance to adopt hasty conclusions; to entertain some questionable or\nerroneous principle because it appears to solve a difficulty, or perhaps\nfalls in with an old prepossession; to make too much account of variable\nand transitory feelings; or to carry zeal beyond the limits of discretion.\nIn examples of a lower order of the correction or reversal of the effects\nof ignorance by the influence of religion, the remains will be still more\npalpable. So that, while it is an unquestionable and gratifying fact, that\namong the uneducated subjects of genuine religion many are remarkably\nimproved in the power and exercise of their reason; and while we may\nassume that _some_ share of this improvement reaches to all who are really\nunder this most beneficent influence in the creation, [Footnote: _Really_\nunder this influence, we repeat, pointedly; for we justly put all others\nout of the account. It is nothing (as against this asserted influence on\nthe intelligent faculty) that great numbers who may contribute to swell a\npublic bustle about religion; who may run together at the call of whim,\nimposture, or insanity, assuming that name; who may acquire, instead of\nany other folly, a turn for talking, disputing, or ranting, about that\nsubject: it is nothing, in short, that _any_ who are not in real,\nconscientious seriousness the disciples of religion, can be shown to be no\nbetter for it, in point of improved understanding.] it still is to be\nacknowledged of too many, who are in a measure, we may candidly believe,\nunder the genuine efficacy of religion, that they have attained, through\nits influence, but so inferior a proportion of the improvement of\nintellect, that they can be well pleased with the great deal of absurdity\nof religious notions and language. But while we confess and regret that it\nis so, we should not overlook the causes and excuses that may be found for\nit, in unfortunate super-addition to their lack of education; partly in\nthe natural turn of the mind, partly in extraneous circumstances. Many\nwhose attention is in honest earnestness drawn to religion, are endowed by\nnature with so scanty an allotment of the thinking power, strictly so\ndenominated, that it would have required high cultivation to raise them to\nthe level of moderate understanding. There are some who appear to have\nconstitutionally an invincible tendency to an uncouth, fantastic mode of\nforming their notions. It is in the nature of others, that whatever\ncultivation they might have received, it would still have been by their\npassions, rather than, in any due proportion, by their reason, that an\nimportant concern would have taken and retained hold of them. It may have\nhappened to not a few, that circumstances unfavorable to the understanding\nwere connected with the causes or occasions of their first effectual\nreligious impressions. Some quaint cast in the exposition of the Christian\nfaith, not essentially vitiating, but very much distorting and cramping\nit, or some peculiarity or narrow-mindedness of the teachers, may have\nconveyed their effect, to enter, as it were, at the door at the same\nmoment that it was opened by the force of a solemn conviction, and to be\nretained and cherished ever after on the strength of this association.\nThis may have tended to give an obliquity to the disciple's understanding,\nor to arrest and dwarf its growth; to fix it in prejudices instead of\ntraining it to judgments; or to dispense with its exercise by merging it\nin a kind of quietism; so that the proper tendency of religion to excite\nintellectual activity was partly overruled and frustrated. It is most\nunfortunate that thus there may be, from things casually or\nconstitutionally associated with a man's piety, an influence operating to\ndisable his understanding; as if there had been mixed with the incense of\na devout service in the temple, a soporific ingredient which had the\neffect of closing the worshipper's eyes in slumber.\n\nNow suppose all these worthy persons, with so many things of a special\nkind against them, to be also under the one great calamity of a neglected\neducation, and is it any wonder that they can admit religious truths in\nshapes very strange and faintly enlightened; that they have an uncertain\nand capricious test of what is genuine, and not much vigilance to\nchallenge plausible semblances; that they should be caught by some\nfanciful exhibition of a truth which would be of too intellectual a\nsubstance as presented in its pure simplicity; and should be ready to\nreceive with approbation not a little of what is a heavy disgrace to the\nname of religious doctrine and ministration? Where is the wonder that\ncrudeness, incoherence, and inconsistency of notions, should not\ndisappoint and offend minds that have not, ten times since they came into\nthe world, been compelled to form two ideas with precision, and then\ncompare them discriminately or combine them strictly, on any subject\nbeyond the narrow scope of their ordinary pursuits? Where is the wonder,\nif many such persons take noise and fustian for a glowing zeal and a lofty\nelevation; if they mistake a wheedling cant for affectionate solicitude;\nif they defer to pompous egotism and dogmatical assertion, when it is so\nconvenient a foundation for all their other faith to believe their teacher\nis an oracle? No marvel if they are delighted with whimsical conceits as\nstrokes of discovery and surprise, and yet at the same time are pleased\nwith common-place, and endless repetition, as an exemption from mental\neffort; and if they are gratified by vulgarity of diction and\nillustration, as bringing religion to the level where they are at home?\nNay, if an artful pretender, or half-lunatic visionary, or some poor set\nof dupes of their own inflated self-importance, should give out that they\nare come into the world for the manifestation, at last, of true\nChristianity, which the divine revelation has failed, till their advent,\nto explain to any of the numberless devout and sagacious examiners of\nit,--what is there in the minds of the most ignorant class of persons\ndesirous to secure the benefits of religion, that can be securely relied\non to certify them, that they shall not forego the greatest blessing ever\noffered to them by setting at naught these pretensions?\n\nIt is grievous to think there should be an active extensive currency of a\nlanguage conveying crudities, extravagances, arrogant dictates of\nignorance, pompous nothings, vulgarities, catches of idle fantasy, and\nimpertinences of the speaker's vanity, as religious instruction to\nassemblages of ignorant people. But then for the means of depreciating\nthat currency, so as to drive it at last out of circulation? The thing to\nbe wished is, that it were possible to put some strong coercion on the\n_minds_ (we deprecate all other restraint) of the teachers; a compulsion\nto feel the necessity of information, sound sense, disciplined thinking,\nthe correct use of words, and an honest, careful purpose to make the\npeople wiser. There are signs of amendment, certainly; but while the\npassion of human beings for notoriety lasts, (which will be yet some\ntime,) there will not fail to be men, in any number required, ready to\nexhibit in religion, in any manner in which the people are willing to be\npleased with them. Let us, then, try the inverted order, and endeavor to\nsecure that those who assemble to be taught, shall already have learnt so\nmuch, _by other means_, that no professed teacher shall feel at liberty to\ntreat them as an unknowing herd. But by what other means, except the\ndiscipline of the best education possible to be given to them, and the\nsubsequent voluntary self-improvement to which it may be hoped that such\nan education would often lead?\n\nWe cannot dismiss this topic, of the unhappy effect of extreme ignorance\non persons religiously disposed, in rendering them both liable and\ninclined to receive their ideas of the highest subject in a disorderly,\nperverted, and debased form, mixed largely with other men's folly and\ntheir own, without noticing with pleasure an additional testimony to the\nconnection between genuine religion and intelligence. It arises from the\nfact, apparent to any discriminating observer, that as a _general_ rule\nthe most truly pious of the illiterate disciples of religion, those who\nhave the most of its devotional feeling and its humility, do certainly\nmanifest more of the operation of judgment in their religion than is\nevinced by those of less solemn and devout sentiment. The former will\nunquestionably be found, when on the same level as to the measure of\nnatural faculty and the want of previous cultivation, to show more\ndiscernment, to be less captivated by noise and extravagance, and more\nintent on obtaining a clear comprehension of that faith, which they feel\nit is but a reasonable obligation that they should endeavor to understand,\nif they are to repose on it their most important hopes.\n\n\n\n\nSection VI.\n\n\n\nThus it has been attempted, we fear with too much prolixity and\nrepetition, to describe the evils attendant on a neglected state of the\nminds of the people. The representation does not comprehend all those even\nof magnitude and prominence; but it displays that portion of them which is\nthe most serious and calamitous, as being the effect which the people's\nignorance has on their moral and religious interests. And we think no one\nwho has attentively surveyed the state and character of the lower orders\nof the community, in this country, will impute exaggeration to the\npicture. It is rather to be feared that the reality is of still darker\nshade; and that a more strikingly gloomy exhibition might be formed, by\nsuch a process as the following:--That a certain number of the most\nobservant of the philanthropic persons, who have had most intercourse with\nthe classes in question, for the purposes of instruction, charitable aid,\nor perhaps of furnishing employment, should relate the most characteristic\ncircumstances and anecdotes within their own experience, illustrative of\nthis mental and moral condition; and that these should be arranged,\nwithout any comment, under the respective heads of the preceding sketch,\nor of a more comprehensive enumeration. Each of them might repeat, in so\nmany words, the most notable things he has heard uttered as disclosing the\nnotions entertained of the Deity, or any part of religion; or those which\nhave been formed of the ground and extent of duty and accountableness; or\nthe imaginations respecting the termination of life, and a future\nretribution. They might relate the judgments they have heard pronounced on\ncharacters and particular modes of conduct; on important events in the\nworld; on anything, in short, which may afford a test of the quality and\ncompass of uncultivated thought. Let the recital include both the\nexpressions of individual conception, and those of the most current maxims\nand common-places; and let them be the sayings of persons in health, and\nof those languishing and dying. Then let there be produced a numerous\nassortment of characteristic samples of practical conduct; conduct not\nsimply proceeding, in a general way, from wrong disposition, but bearing\nthe special marks of the cast and direction which that disposition takes\nthrough extreme ignorance: samples of action that is wrong because the\nactor cannot think right, or does not think at all. The assemblage of\nthings thus recounted, when the actual circumstances were also added of\nthe wretchedness corresponding and inseparable, would constitute such an\nexhibition of fact, as any description of those evils in general terms\nwould incur the charge of rhetorical excesses in attempting to rival. We\ncan well imagine that some of these persons, of large experience, may have\naccompanied us through the foregoing series of illustrations, with a\nfeeling that they could have displayed the subject with a far more\nstriking prominence.\n\nAnd now again the mortifying reflection comes on us, that all this is the\ndescription of too probably the major part of the people of our own\nnation. Of this nation, the theme of so many lofty strains of panegyric;\nof this nation, stretching forth its powers in ambitious enterprise, with\ninfinite pride and cost, to all parts of the globe;--just as if a family\nwere seen eagerly intent on making some new appropriation, or going out to\nmaintain some competition or feud with its neighbors, or mixing perhaps in\nthe strife of athletic games, or drunken frays, at the very time that\nseveral of its members are lying dead in the house. So that the fame of\nthe nation resounded, and its power made itself felt, in every clime, it\nwas not worth a consideration that a vast proportion of its people were\nsystematically consigned, through ignorance and the irreligion and\ndepravity inseparable from it, to a wretchedness on which that fame was\nthe bitterest satire. It is matter for never-ending amazement, that during\none generation after another, the presiding wisdom in this chief of\nChristian and Protestant States, should have thrown out the living\nstrength of that state into almost every mode of agency under heaven,\nrather than that of promoting the state itself to the condition of a happy\ncommunity of cultivated beings. What stupendous infatuation, what\ndisastrous ascendency of the Power of Darkness, that this energy should\nhave been sent forth to pervade all parts of the world in quest of\nobjects, to inspirit and accomplish innumerable projects, political and\nmilitary, and to lavish itself, even to exhaustion and fainting at its\nvital source, on every alien interest; while here at home, so large a part\nof the social body was in a moral and intellectual sense dying and\nputrefying over the land. And it was thus perishing for want of the\nvivifying principle of knowledge, which one-fifth part of this mighty\namount of exertion would have been sufficient to diffuse into every corner\nand cottage in the island. Within its circuit, a countless multitude were\nseen passing away their mortal existence little better, in any view, than\nmere sentient shapes of matter, and by their depravity immeasurably worse;\nand yet this hideous fact had not the weight of the very dust of the\nbalance, in the deliberation whether a grand exertion of the national\nvigor and resource could have any object so worthy, (with God for the\nJudge,) as some scheme of foreign aggrandizement, some interference in\nremote quarrels, an avengement by anticipation of wrongs pretended to be\nforeseen, or the obstinate prosecution of some fatal career, begun in the\nvery levity of pride, by a decision in which some perverse individual or\nparty in ascendency had the influence to obtain a corrupt, deluded, or\nforced concurrence.\n\nThe national _honor_, perhaps, would be alleged, in a certain matter of\npunctilio, for the necessity of undertakings of incalculable consumption,\nby men who could see no national _disgrace_ in the circumstance that\nseveral millions of the persons composing the nation could not read the\nten commandments. Or the national _safety_ has been pleaded to a similar\npurpose, with a rant or a gravity of patriotic phrases, upon the\nappearance of some slight threatening symptoms; and the wise men so\npleading, would have scouted as the very madness of fanaticism any\ndissuasion that should have advised,--\"Do you, instead, apply your best\nefforts, and the nation's means, to raise the barbarous population from\ntheir ignorance and debasement, and you really may venture some little\ntrust in Divine Providence for the nation's safety meanwhile.\"\n\nIf a contemplative and religious man, looking back through little more\nthan a century, were enabled to take, with an adequate comprehension of\nintellect, the sum and value of so much of the astonishing course of the\nnational exertions of this country as the Supreme Judge has put to the\ncriminal account of pride and ambition; and if he could then place in\ncontrast to the transactions on which that mighty amount has been\nexpended, a sober estimate of what so much exerted vigor _might_ have\naccomplished for the intellectual and moral exaltation of the people, it\ncould not be without an emotion of horror that he would say, Who is to be\naccountable, who _has been_ accountable, for this difference? He would no\nlonger wonder at any plagues and judgments which may have been inflicted\non such a state. And he would solemnly adjure all those, especially, who\nprofess in a peculiar manner to feel the power of the Christian Religion,\nto beware how they implicate themselves, by avowed or even implied\napprobation, in what must be a matter of fearful account before the\nhighest tribunal. If some such persons, of great merit and influence,\nhonored performers of valuable public services in certain departments,\nhave habitually given, in a public capacity, this approbation, he would\nurge it on their consciences, in the evening of life, to consider whether,\nin the prospect of that tribunal, they have not one duty yet to\nperform,--to throw off from their minds the servility to party\nassociations, to estimate as Christians, about to retire from the scene,\nthe actual effects on this nation of a policy which might have been nearly\nthe same if Christianity had been extinct; and then to record a solemn,\nrecanting, final protest against a system to which they have concurred in\nthe profane policy of degrading that religion itself into a party.\n\nAny reference made to such a prospect implies, that there is attributed to\nthose who can feel its seriousness a state of mind perfectly unknown to\nthe generality of what are called public men. For it is notorious that, to\nthe mere working politician, there is nothing on earth that sounds so idly\nor so ludicrously as a reference to a judgment elsewhere and hereafter, to\nwhich the policy and transactions of statesmen are to be carried. If the\nDivine jurisdiction would yield to contract its comprehension, and retire\nfrom all the ground over which a practical infidelity heedlessly\ndisregards or deliberately rejects it, how large a province it would leave\nfree! If it be assumed that the province of national affairs _is_ so left\nfree, on the pretence that they _cannot_ be transacted in faithful\nconformity to the Christian standard, that plea is reserved to be tried in\nthe great account, when the responsibility for them shall be charged. For\nassuredly there will be persons found, to be summoned forth as accountable\nfor that conduct of states which we are contemplating. Such a moral agency\ncould not throw off its responsibility into the air, to be dissipated and\nlost, like the black smoke of forges or volcanoes. This one grand thing\n(the improvement of the people) left undone, while a thousand arduous\nthings have been done or strenuously endeavored, cannot be less than an\nawful charge _somewhere_. And where?--but on all who have voluntarily\nconcurred and co-operated in systems and schemes, which could deliberately\nput _such_ a thing last? Last! nay, not even that; for they have, till\nrecently, as we have seen, thrown it almost wholly out of consideration. A\nlong succession of men invested with ample power are gone to this audit.\nHow many of those who come after them will choose to proceed on the same\nprinciples, and meet the same award?\n\nWe were supposing a thoughtful man to draw out to his view a parallel and\ncontrast, exhibiting, on the one side, the series of objects on which,\nduring several ages, an enormous exertion of the national energy has been\ndirected; and on the other, those improvements of the people which might\nhave been effected by so much of that exertion as he deems to have been\nworse than wasted. In this process, he might often be inclined to single\nout particular parts in the actual series, to be put in special contrast\nover against the possibilities on the opposite line. For example; there\nmay occur to his view some inconsiderable island, the haunt of fatal\ndiseases, and rendered productive by means involving the most flagrant\niniquity; an iniquity which it avenges by opening a premature grave for\nmany of his countrymen, and by being a moral corrupter of the rest. Such\nan infested spot, nevertheless, may have been one of the most material\nobjects of a widely destructive war, which has in effect sunk incalculable\ntreasure in the sea, and in the sands, ditches, and fields of\nplague-infested shores; with a dreadful sacrifice of blood, life, and all\nthe best moral feelings and habits. Its possession, perhaps, was the chief\nprize and triumph of all the grand exertion, the equivalent for all the\ncost, misery, and crime.\n\nOr there may occur to him the name of some fortress, in a less remote\nregion, where the Christian nations seem to have vied with one another\nwhich of them should deposit the greatest number of victims, securely kept\nin the charge of death, to rise and testify for them, at the last day, how\nmuch they have been governed by the peaceful spirit of their professed\nreligion. He reads that his countrymen, conjoined with others, have\nbattled round this fortress, wasting the vicinity, but richly manuring the\nsoil with blood. They have co-operated in hurling upon the abodes of\nthousands of inhabitants within its walls, a thunder and lightning\nincomparably more destructive than those of nature; and have put fire and\nearthquake under the fortifications; shouting, \"to make the welkin ring,\"\nat sight of the consequent ruin and chasm, which have opened an entrance\nfor hostile rage, or compelled an immediate submission, if, indeed, it\nwould then be accepted to disappoint that rage of its horrible\nconsummation. They have taken the place,--and they have surrendered it.\nThe next year perhaps they have taken it again; to be again at last given\nup, on compulsion or in compromise, to the very same party to which it had\nbelonged previously to all this destructive commotion. The operations in\nthis local and very narrow portion of the grand affray of monarchies, he\nmay calculate to have cost his country as much as the amount earned by the\ntoils of half the life of all the inhabitants of one of its populous\ntowns; setting aside from his view the more portentous part of the\naccount,--the carnage, the crimes, and the devastation perpetrated on the\nforeign tract, the place of abode of people who had little interest in the\ncontest, and no power to prevent it. And why was all this? He may not be\nable to divest himself of the principles that should rule the judgment of\na moralist and a Christian, in order to think like a statesman; and\ntherefore may find no better reason than that, when despots would quarrel,\nBritain must fancy itself called upon to take the occasion to prove itself\na great power, by bearing a high hand amidst their rivalries; or must\nseize the opportunity of revenging some trivial offence of one of them;\nthough this should be at the expense of having the scene at home chequered\nbetween children learning little more than how to curse, and old persons\ndying without knowing how to put words together to pray.\n\nThe question may have been, in one part of the world or another, which of\ntwo wicked individuals of the same family, competitors for sovereign\nauthority, should be actually invested with it, they being equal in the\nqualifications and dispositions to make the worst use of it. And the\ndecision of such a question was worthy that England should expend what\nremained of her depressed strength from previous exertions of it in some\nequally meritorious cause.\n\nOr the supposed reviewer of our national history may find, somewhere in\nhis retrospect, that a certain brook or swamp in a wilderness, or a stripe\nof waste, or the settlement of boundaries in respect to some insignificant\ntraffic, was difficult of adjustment between jealous, irritated, and\nmutually incursive neighbors; and therefore, national honor and interest\nequally required that war should be lighted up by land and sea, through\nseveral quarters of the globe. Or a dissension may have arisen upon the\nmatter of some petty tax on an article of commerce: an absolute will had\nbeen rashly signified on the claim; pride had committed itself, and was\nperemptory for persisting; and the resolution was to be prosecuted through\na wide tempest of destruction, protracted perhaps many years; and only\nending in the forced abandonment by the leading power concerned, of\ninfinitely more than war had been made in the determination not to forego;\nand after an absolutely fathomless amount of every kind of cost, financial\nand moral, in this progress to final frustration.--But there would be no\nend of recounting facts of this order.\n\nNow the comparative estimator has to set against the extended rank of such\nenormities the forms of imagined good, which might, during the ages of\nthis retrospect, have been realized by an incomparably less exhausting\nseries of exertion, an exertion, indeed, continually renovating its own\nresources. Imagined good, we said;--alas! the evil stands in long and\nawful display on the ground of history; the hypothetical good presents\nitself as a dream; with this circumstance only of difference from a dream,\nthat there is resting on the conscience of beings somewhere still\nexisting, a fearful accountableness for its not having been a reality.\n\nFor such an _island_, as we have supposed our comparer to read of, he can\nlook, in imagination, on a space of proportional extent in any part of his\nnative country, taking a district as a detached section of a general\nnational picture. And he can figure to himself the result, resplendent\nupon this tract, of so much energy, there beneficently expended, as that\nisland had cost: an energy, we mean _equivalent in measure_, while put\nforth in the infinitely different _mode_ of an exertion, by all\nappropriate means, to improve the reason, manners, morals, and with them\nthe physical condition of the people. What a prevalence of intelligence,\nwhat a delightful civility of deportment, what repression of the more\ngross and obtrusive forms of vice, what domestic decorum, attentive\neducation of the children, appropriateness of manner, and readiness of\napprehension in attendance on public offices of religion, sense and good\norder in assemblages for the assertion and exercise of civil and political\nrights! All this he can imagine as the possible result.\n\nWe were supposing his attention fixed a while on the recorded operations\nagainst some strongly fortified place, in a region marked through every\npart with the traces and memorials of the often-renewed conflicts of the\nChristian states. And we suppose him to make a collective estimate of all\nkinds of human ability exerted around and against that particular devoted\nplace; an estimate which divides this off as a portion of the whole\nimmense quantity of exertion, expended by his country in all that region\nin the campaigns of a war, or of a century's wars. He may then again\nendeavor, by a rule of equivalence, to conceive the same amount of\nexertion in quite another way; to imagine human forces equal in\n_quantity_ to all that putting forth of strength, physical, mental, and\nfinancial, for annoyance and destruction, expended instead, in the\noperation of effecting the utmost improvement which they _could_ effect,\nin the mental cultivation and the morals of the inhabitants of one large\ntown in his own country.\n\nIn figuring to himself the channels and instrumentality, through which\nthis great stream of energy might have passed into this operation, on a\ndetached spot of his country, he will soon have many specific means\npresented to his view: schools of the most perfect appointment, in every\nsection and corner of the town; a system of friendly but cogent dealing\nwith all the people of inferior condition, relatively to the necessity of\ntheir practical accordance to the plans of education;[Footnote: It is here\nconfidently presumed, that any man who looks, in a right state of his\nsenses, at the manner in which the children are still brought up, in many\nparts of the land, will hear with contempt any hypocritical protest\nagainst so much interference with the discretion, the liberty of\nparents;--the discretion, the liberty, forsooth, of bringing up their\nchildren a nuisance on the face of the earth.] an exceedingly copious\nsupply, for individual possession, of the best books of elementary\nknowledge; accompanied, as we need not say, by the sacred volume; a number\nof assortments of useful and pleasing books for circulation, established\nunder strict order, and with appointments of honorary and other rewards to\nthose who gave evidence of having made the best use of them; a number of\nplaces of resort where various branches of the most generally useful and\nattainable knowledge and arts should be explained and applied, by every\nexpedient of familiar, practical, and entertaining illustration, admitting\na degree of co-operation by those who attended to see and hear; and an\nabundance of commodious places for religious instruction on the Sabbath,\nwhere there should be wise and zealous men to impart it. Our speculator\nhas a right to suppose a high degree of these qualifications in his public\nteachers of religion, when he is to imagine a parallel in this department\nto the skill and ardor displayed in the supposed military operations. He\nmay add as subsidiary to such an apparatus, everything of magistracy and\nmunicipal regulation; a police, vigilant and peremptory against every\ncognizable neglect and transgression of good order; a resolute breaking up\nof all haunts and rendezvous of intemperance, dishonesty and other vice;\nand the best devised and administered institutions for correcting and\nreclaiming those whom education had failed to preserve from such\ndepravity; and besides all this, there would be a great variety of\nundefinable and optional activity of benevolent and intelligent men of\nlocal influence.\n\nUnder so auspicious a combination of discipline, he will not indeed fancy,\nin his transient vision, that he beholds Athens revived, with its bright\nintelligence all converted to minister to morality, religion, and\nhappiness; but he will, in sober consistency, we think, with what is known\nof the relation of cause and effect, imagine a place far surpassing any\nactual town or city on earth. And let it be distinctly kept in view, that\nto reduce the ideal exhibition to reality, he is not dreaming of means and\nresources out of all human reach, of preternatural powers, discovered\ngold-mines, grand feats of genius. He is just supposing to have been\nexpended, on the population of the town, a measure of exertion and means\nequal, (as far as agencies in so different a form and direction can be\nbrought to any rule of comparative estimate) to what has been expended by\nhis country in investing, battering, undermining, burning, taking, and\nperhaps retaking, one particular foreign town, in one or several\ncampaigns.\n\nIf he should perchance be sarcastically questioned, how he can allow\nhimself in so strange a conceit as that of supposing such a quantity of\nforces concentrated to act in one exclusive spot, while the rest of the\ncountry remained under the old course of things; or in such an absurdity\nas that of fancying that _any_ quantity of those forces could effectually\nraise one local section of the people eminently aloft, while continuing\nsurrounded and unavoidably in constant intercourse with the general mass,\nremaining still sunk in degradation--he has to reply, that he is fancying\nno such thing. For while he is thus converting, in imagination, the\nmilitary exertions against one foreign town, into intellectual and moral\noperations on one town at home, why may he not, in similar imagination,\nmake a whole country correspond to a whole country? He may conceive the\nincalculable amount of exertion made by his country, in martial operations\nover all that wide foreign territory of which he has selected a particular\nspot, to have been, on the contrary, expended in the supposed beneficent\nprocess on the great scale of this whole nation. Then would the\nhypothetical improvement in the one particular town, so far from being a\nstrange insulated phenomenon, absurd to be conceived as existing in\nexception and total contrast to the general state of the people, be but a\nspecimen of that state.\n\nHe may proceed along the series of such confronted spectacles as far as\nbitter mortification will let him. But he will soon be sick of this\nprocess of comparison. And how sick will he thenceforward be, to perpetual\nloathing, of the vain raptures with which an immortal and anti-Christian\npatriotism can review a long history of what it will call national glory,\nacquired by national energy ambitiously consuming itself in a continual\nsuccession and unlimited extent of extraneous operations, of that kind\nwhich has been the grand curse of the human race ever since the time of\nCain; while the one thing needful of national welfare, the very _summum\nbonum_ of a state, has been regarded with contemptuous indifference.\n\nThese observations are not made on an assumption, that England could in\nall cases have kept clear of implication in foreign interests, and remote\nand sanguinary contests. But they are made on the assumption of what is\nadmitted and deplored by every thoughtful religious man, whose\nunderstanding and moral sense are not wretchedly prostrated in homage to a\nprevailing system, and chained down by a superstition that dares not\nquestion the wisdom and probity of high national authorities and counsels.\nWhat is so admitted and deplored by the true and Christian patriots is,\nthat this nation has gone to an awfully criminal extent beyond the line of\nnecessity; that it has been extremely prompt to find or make occasions for\nappearing again, and still again, in array for the old work of waste and\ndeath; and that the advantage possessed by the preponderating classes in\nthis protestant country, for being instructed (if they had cared for such\ninstruction) to look at these transactions in the light of religion, has\nreflected a peculiar aggravation on the guilt of a policy persevered in\nfrom age to age, in disregard of the laws of Christianity, and the warning\nof accountableness to the Sovereign Judge.\n\nThese observations assume, also, that there _cannot_ be such a thing as a\nnation so doomed to a necessity and duty of expending its vigor and means\nin foreign enterprise, as to be habitually absolved from the duty of\nraising its people from brutish ignorance. _This_ concern is a duty at all\nevents and to an entire certainty; is a duty imperative and absolute; and\nany pretended necessity for such a direction of the national exertion as\nwould be, through a long succession of time, incompatible with a paramount\nattention to this, would be a virtual denial of the superintendence of\nProvidence. It would be the same thing as to assert of an individual, that\nhis duties of other kinds are so many and great, as to render it\nimpossible for him to give a competent attention to his highest interests,\nand that therefore he stands exempted from the obligations of religion.\n\nSuch as we have described has been, for ages, the degraded state of the\nmultitude. And such has been the indifference to it, manifested by the\nsuperior, the refined, the ascendant portion of the community; who,\ngenerally speaking, could see these sharers with them of the dishonored\nhuman nature, in endless numbers around them, in the city and the field,\nwithout its ever flashing on conscience that on them was lying a solemn\nresponsibility, destined to press one day with all its weight, for that\nill arrangement of the social order which abandoned these beings to an\nexclusion from the sphere of rational existence. It never occurred to many\nof them as a question of the smallest moment, in what manner the mind\nmight be living in all these bodies, if only it were there in competence\nto make them efficient as machines and implements. Contented to be gazed\nat, to be envied, or to be regarded as too high even for envy, and to have\nthe rough business of the world performed by these inhalers of the vital\nair, they perhaps thought, if they reflected at all on the subject, that\nthe best and most privileged state of such creatures was to be in the\nleast possible degree morally accountable: and that therefore it would be\nbut doing them an injury to enlarge their knowledge. And might not the\nthought be suggested at some moment, (see how many things may be envied in\ntheir turns!) how happy _they_ should be, if, with the vast superiority of\ntheir advantages, they could still be just as little accountable? But if\neven in this way, of envy, they received an unwelcome admonition of their\nown high responsibility, not even then was it suggested to them, that they\nshould ever be arraigned on a charge to which they would vainly wish to be\npermitted to plead, \"Were we our brothers' keepers?\" And if an office\ndesignated in those terms had been named to them, as a part of their duty,\nby some unearthly voice of imperious accent, their thoughts might have\ntraversed hither and thither, in various conjectures and protracted\nperplexity, before the objects of that office had been presented\nexplicitly to their apprehension as no other than the reason, principles,\nconsciences, and the whole moral condition of the vulgar mass. They would\nunderstand that its condition was, _in some way or other_, a concern lying\nat their door, but probably not in this.--We speak generally, and not\nuniversally.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut we would believe there are signs of a revolution beginning; a more\nimportant one, by its higher principle and its expansive impulse toward a\nwide and remote beneficence, than the ordinary events of that name. What\nhave commonly been the matter and circumstance of revolutions? The last\ndeciding blow in a deadly competition of equally selfish parties; actions\nand reactions of ambition and revenge; the fiat of a conqueror; a burst of\nblind fury, suddenly sweeping away an old order of things, but\noverwhelming to all attempts to substitute a better institution; plots,\nmassacres, battles, dethronements, restorations: all actuated by a\nfermentation of the ordinary or the basest elements of humanity. How\nlittle of the sublime of moral agency has there been, with one or two\npartial exceptions, in these mighty commotions; how little wisdom or\nvirtue, or reference to the Supreme Patron of national interests; how\nlittle nobleness or even distinctness of purpose, or consolidated\nadvantage of success! But here is, as we trust, the approach of a\nrevolution with different phenomena. It displays the nature of its\nprinciple and its ambition in a conviction, far more serious and extensive\nthan heretofore, of the necessity of education to the mass of the\npopulation, with earnest discussions of its scope and methods by both\nspeculative and practical men; in schemes, more speedily animated into\noperation than good designs were wont to be, for spreading useful\nknowledge over tracts of the dead waste where there was none; in exciting\ntens of thousands of young persons to a benevolent and patient activity in\nthe instruction of the children of the poor; in an extended and extending\nsystem of means and exertions for the universal diffusion of the sacred\nscriptures; in multiplying endeavors, in all regular and all uncanonical\nways, to render it next to impossible for the people to avoid hearing some\nsounds at least of the voice of religion; in the formation of useful local\ninstitutions too various to come under one denomination; in enterprises to\nattempt an opening of the vast prison-houses of human spirits in dark\ndistant regions; in bringing to the test of principles many notions and\npractices which have stood on the authority of prejudice, custom, and\nprescription: and all this taking advantage of the new and powerful spirit\nwhich has come on the world to drive its affairs into commotion and\nacceleration; as bold adventurers have sometimes availed themselves of a\nformidable torrent to be conveyed whither the stream in its ordinary state\nwould never have carried them; or as we have heard of heroic assailants\nseizing the moment of a tempest to break through the enemy's lines.--Such\nare some of the insignia by which it stands distinguished out and far off\nfrom the rank of ordinary revolutions.\n\nWe are not unaware that, with certain speculators on this same subject of\nmeliorating the state and character of the people, some of the things here\nspecified will be of small account, either as signs of a great change, or\nas means of promoting it. The widely spreading activity of a humble class\nof laborers, who seek no fame for their toils and sacrifices, is but a\ncreeping process, almost invisible in the survey. The multiplied,\nvoluntary, and extraordinary efforts to diffuse some religious knowledge\nand sentiment among the vulgar, appear to them, if not even of doubtful\ntendency, at least of such impotence for corrective operation, that any\nconfidence founded on them is simple fanaticism; that the calculation is,\nto use a commercial term, mere moonshine. We remember when a publication\nof great note and influence flung contempt on the sanguine expectations\nentertained from the rapid circulation of Bibles among the inferior\npopulation. At the hopeful mention of expedients of the religious kind\nespecially, the class of speculators in question might perhaps be reminded\nof Glendower's grave and believing talk of calling up spirits to perform\nhis will; or (should they ever have happened to read the Bible) of the\npeople who seized, in honest credulous delight, the mockery of a proposal\nof pulling a city, to the last stone, into the river with ropes, as a\nprime stroke of generalship.\n\nWhen we see such expedients rated so low in the process for raising the\npopulace from their degradation, we ask what means these speculators\nthemselves would reckon on for the purpose. And it would appear that their\nscheme would calculate mainly on some supposed dispositions of a political\nand economical nature. Let the people be put in possession of all their\nrights as citizens, and thus advanced in the scale of society. Let all\ninvidious distinctions which are artificial, arbitrary, and not\ninevitable, be abolished; together with all laws and regulations\ninjuriously affecting their temporal well-being. Give them thus a sense of\nbeing _something_ in the great social order, a direct palpable interest in\nthe honor and prosperity of the community. There will then be a dignified\nsense of independence; the generous, liberalizing, ennobling sentiments of\nfreedom; the self-respect and conscious responsibility of men in the full\nexercise of their rights; the manly disdain of what is base; the innate\nperception of what is worthy and honorable, developing itself\nspontaneously on the removal of the ungenial circumstances in the\nconstitution of society, which have been as a long winter on the\nintellectual and moral nature of its inferior portions. All this will\nconduce to the practicability and efficacy of education. It will be an\neducation _to fit them for an education_ to be introduced with the\nprogress of that fitness; intellectual culture finding a felicitous\nadaptation of the soil. We may then adopt with some confidence a public\nsystem, or stimulate and assist all independent local exertions for the\ninstruction of the people in the rudiments of literature and general\nknowledge; and religion too, if you will.\n\nBut, to say nothing of the vain fancies of the virtues ready to disclose\nthemselves in a corrupt mass, under the auspices of improved political\ninstitutions, it is unfortunate for any such speculation that what it\ninsists on as the primary condition cannot as yet, but very imperfectly,\nbe had. The higher and commanding portion of the community have, very\nnaturally, the utmost aversion to concede to the people what are claimed\nas theoretically their rights. They have, indeed, latterly been\nconstrained to make considerable concessions in name and semblance. But\ntheir great and various power will be strenuously exerted, for probably a\nlong while yet, to render the acquisitions made by the people as nearly as\npossible profitless in their hands. And unhappily these predominant\nclasses have to allege the mental and moral rudeness of the lower, in\nvindication of this determined policy of repression and frustration; thus\nturning the consequences of their own criminal neglect into a defence of\ntheir injustice. They will say, If the subordinate millions had grown up\ninto a rational existence; if they had been rendered capable of thinking,\njudging, distinguishing, if they were in possession of a moderate share of\nuseful information, and withal a strong sense of duty; then might this and\nthe other privilege, or call it right, in the social constitution be\nyielded to them. But as long as they continue in their present mental\ngrossness they are unfit for the possession, because unqualified for the\nexercise, of any such privileges as would take them from under our\nauthoritative control.\n\nSince they can and will, for the present, maintain this controlling power,\nto the extent of nearly invalidating any political advancement attained,\nor likely to be soon attained, by the lower grades, a speculation that\nshould place on that advancement, as a pre-requisite, our hope of a great\nchange in the mental condition of the people, would be, to adopt a humble\nfigure, setting us to climb to an upper platform without a ladder, or\nrather telling us not to climb at all. And while this supposed\npre-requisite will be refused, on the allegation that the uncultivated\ncondition of the people renders them unfit for a liberal political\narrangement, the parties so refusing will be little desirous to have the\nobstacle removed; foreseeing, as the inevitable consequence of a highly\nimproved cultivation, a more resolute demand of the advantages withheld, a\nconstantly augmenting force of popular opinion, and therefore a diminution\nof their own predominant power. They will deem it much more commodious for\nthemselves, that the people should not be so enlightened and raised as to\ncome into any such competition. And since they, with these dispositions,\nhave the preponderance in what we denominate the State, we fear we are not\nto look with much hope to the State for a liberal and effective system of\nnational education.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhat then is to be done?--We earnestly wish it might please the Sovereign\nRuler to do one more new thing in the earth, compelling the dominant\npowers in the nations to an order of institutions and administrations that\n_would_ apply the energy of the state to so noble a purpose. Nor can we\nimagine any test of their merits so fair as the question whether, and in\nwhat degree, they do this; nor any test by which they may more naturally\ndecline to have those merits tried. But since, to the shame of our nature,\nthere is no use to which we are so prone to turn our condemnation of evil\nin one form, as that of purchasing a license for it in another, the\npersons who are justly arraigning the powers at the head of nations should\nbe warned that they do not take from the guilty omissions of states a\nsanction for individuals to do nothing. Let them not suffer an imposition\non their minds in the notion entertained of a state, as a thing to be no\notherwise accounted of than in a collective capacity, acting by a\ngovernment; as if the collective power and agency of a nation became, in\nbeing exerted through that political organ, an affair altogether foreign\nto the will, the action, the duty, the responsibility, of the persons of\nwhom the nation is composed. Let them not put out of sight that whatever\nis the duty of the national body in that collective capacity, acting\nthrough its government, is such only because it is the duty of the\nindividuals composing that body, as far as it is in the power of each; and\nthat it would be their duty individually not the less, though the\ngovernment, as the depositary of the national power, neglect it. But more\nthan this; to speak generally, and with certain degrees of possible\nexception, we may affirm that a government _cannot_ be lastingly\nneglectful of a great duty but because the individuals constituting the\ncommunity are so. An assertion, that a government has been utterly and\ncriminally neglectful of the moral condition of the inferior population,\nage after age, and through every change of its administrators; but that,\nnevertheless, the generality of the individuals of intelligence, wealth,\nand influence, have all the while been of a quite opposite spirit,\nzealously intent on remedying the flagrant evil, would be instantly\nrejected as a contradiction. Such an enlightened and philanthropic spirit\nprevailing widely among the individuals of the nation would carry its\nimpulse into the government in one manner or another. It would either\nconstrain the administrators of the state to act in conformity, or\nultimately displace them in favor of better men. Even if, short of such a\n_general_ activity of the respectable and locally influential members of\nsociety, a large proportion of them had vigorously prosecuted such a\npurpose, it would have compelled the administrators of the state to\nconsider, even for their own sake, whether they should be content to see\nso important a process going on independently of them, and in contrast\nwith their own disgraceful neglect.\n\nBut at the worst, and on the supposition that they were obstinately\ninaccessible to all moral and philanthropic considerations, still a grand\nimprovement would have been accomplished, if many thousands of the\nresponsible members of the community had attempted it with zealous and\npersevering exertion. The neglect, therefore, of the improvement of the\npeople, so glaring in the review of our conduct as a nation, has been, to\na very great extent, the insensibility of individuals to obligations lying\non them as such, independently of the institutions and administration of\nthe state.\n\nAnd are individuals _now_ absolved from all such responsibility; and the\nmore so, that the conviction of the importance of the object is come upon\nthem with such a new and cogent force? When they say, reproachfully, that\nthe nation, as a body politic, concentrating its powers in its government,\ndisowns or neglects a most important duty, is it to be understood that\nthis accusatory testimony is _their_ share, or something equivalent in\nsubstitution for their share, of that very duty? Does a collective duty of\nsuch very solid substance, vanish into nothing under any attempted process\nof resolving it into fractions and portions for individuals? And do they\nthemselves, as some of the individuals to whom this duty might thus be\ndistributively assigned,--do they themselves, in spite of self-love,\nself-estimation, and all the sentiments which they will at other times\nindulge in homage of their own importance,--do they, when this assignment\nis attempted to be made to them, instantly and willingly surrender to a\nfeeling of crumbling down from this proud individuality into an\nundistinguishable existence in the mass; and, profaning the language of\nreligion, say to the State, \"In thee we live, move, and have a being?\" Or,\nwill they, (in assimilation to eastern pagans, who hold that a divinity so\npervades them as to be their wills and do their actions, leaving the mere\nhuman vehicle without power, duty, or accountableness,) will they account\nthemselves but as passive matter, moved or fixed, and in all things\nnecessitated, by a sovereign mythological something denominated the state?\n\nNo, not in all things. It is not so that they feel with respect to those\nother interests and projects, which they are really in earnest to promote,\nthough those concerns may lie in no greater proportion than the one in\nquestion does within the scope of their individual ability. The incubus\nhas then vanished; and they find themselves in possession of a free\nagency, and a degree of power, which they will not patiently hear\nestimated in any such contemptuous terms. What is there then that should\nreduce them, as individual agents, to such utter and willing\ninsignificance in the affair of which we are speaking? Besides, they may\nform themselves, in indefinite number, into combination. And is there no\npower in any collective form in which they can be associated, save just\nthat one in which the aggregation is constituted under the political shape\nand authority denominated a state? Or is it at last that some alarm of\nsuperstitious loyalty comes over them; that they grow uneasy in conscience\nat the high-toned censure they have been stimulated and betrayed to\npronounce on the state; that they relapse into the obsequiousness of\nhesitating, whether they should presume to do good of a kind which the\n\"Power ordained of God\" has not seen fit to do; that they must wait for\nthe sanction of its great example; that till the \"shout of kings is among\nthem\" it were better not to march against the vandalism and the paganism\nwhich are, the while, quite at their ease, destroying the people?\n\nBut if such had always been the way in which private individuals, single\nor associated, had accounted of themselves and their possible exertions,\nin regard to great general improvements, but very few would ever have been\naccomplished. For the case has commonly been, that the schemes of such\nimprovements have originated with persons not invested with political\npower; have been urged on by the accession and co-operation of such\nindividuals; and at length slowly and reluctantly acceded to by the\nholders of dominion over the community, always, through some malignant\nfatality, the last to admit what had long appeared to the majority of\nthinking men no less than demonstrative evidence of the propriety and\nadvantage of the reformation.\n\nIn all probability, the improvement of mankind is destined, under\nProvidence, to advance nearly in proportion as good men feel the\nresponsibility for it resting on themselves as individuals, and are\nactuated by a bold sentiment of independence, (humble at the same time, in\nreference to the necessity of Divine intervention,) in the prosecution of\nit. Each person who is standing still to look, with grief or indignation,\nat the evils which are overrunning the world, would do well to recollect\nwhat he may have read of some gallant partisan, who, perceiving where a\nprompt movement, with the comparatively slender force at his own command,\nwould make an impression infallibly tending to the success of the warfare,\ncould not endure to lose the time till some great sultan should find it\nconvenient to come in slow march, and the pomp of state, to take on him\nthe direction of the campaign.\n\nIn laying this emphasis of incitement and hope on the exertions of good\nmen as individuals, we cannot be understood to mean that the government of\nstates, if ever they did come to be intent on rendering the condition of\nsociety better and happier, could not contribute beyond all calculation to\nthe force and efficacy of _every_ project and measure for that grand\npurpose. How far from it! it is melancholy to consider what they might do\nand do not. But it is because their history, thus far, affords such feeble\nprognostics of their becoming, till some better age, actuated by such a\nspirit,--it is because the Divine Governor has hitherto put upon them so\nlittle of the honor of being the instruments of his beneficence,--that the\nanticipations of good, and the exhortations to attempt it, are so\npeculiarly directed to its promoters in an individual capacity.\n\nHappily, the accusatory part of such exhortations is becoming, we trust we\nmay say fast becoming, less extensively applicable; and we return with\npleasure to the animating idea of that revolution of which we were noting\nthe introductory signs. It is a revolution in the manner of estimating the\nsouls of the people, and consequently in the judgment of what should be\ndone for both their present and future welfare. Through many ages, that\nimmense multitude had been but obscurely presented to view in any such\ncharacter as that of rational, improvable creatures. They were recognized\nno otherwise than as one large mass of rude moral substance, but faintly\ndistinguishable into individuals; existing, and to be left to exist, in\ntheir own manner; and that manner hardly worth concern or inquiry. Little\nconsideration could there be of how much spiritual immortal essence must\nbe going to waste, absorbed in the very earth, all over the wide field\nwhere the inferior portion of humanity was seen only through the gross\nmedium of an economical estimate, by the more favored part of the race.\nBut now it is as if a mist were rising and dispersing from that field, and\nleaving the multitude of possessors of uncultivated and degraded mind\nexhibited in a light in which they were never seen before, except by the\nfaithful promoters of Christianity, and a few philanthropists of a less\nspecial order.\n\nIt is true, this manifestation forms so tragic a vision, that if we had\nonly to behold it _as a spectacle_, we might well desire that the misty\nobscurity should descend on it again, to shroud it from sight; while we\nshould be left to indulge and elate our imaginations by dwelling on the\npomps and splendors of the terrestrial scene,--the mighty empires, the\nheroes, the victories, the triumphs; the refinements and enjoyments of the\nmost highly cultivated of the race; the brilliant performances of genius,\nand the astonishing reach of science. So the tempter would have beguiled\nour Lord into a complacent contemplation of the kingdoms and glories of\nthe world. But he was come to look on a different aspect of it! Nor could\nhe be withdrawn from the gloomy view of its degradation and misery. And a\ngood reason why. For the sole object for which he had appeared in the only\nworld where temptation could even in form approach him was to begin in\noperation, and finish in virtue, a design for changing that state of\ndegradation and misery. In the prosecution of such a design, and in the\nspirit of that divine benevolence in which it sprung, he could endure to\nfix on the melancholy and odious character of the scene, the contemplation\nwhich was vainly attempted to be diverted to any other of its aspects.\nWhat, indeed, could sublunary pomps and glories be to him in any case; but\nemphatically what, when his object was to redeem the people from darkness\nand destruction?\n\nThose who, actuated by a spirit in some humble resemblance to his, have\nentered deeply into the state of the people, such as it is found in our\nown nation, have often been appalled at the spectacle disclosed to them.\nThey have been astonished to think, what _can_ have been the direction,\nwhile successive ages have passed away, of so many thousands of acute and\nvigilant mental eyes, that so dreadful a sight should scarcely have been\ndescried. They have been aware that in describing it as they actually saw\nit, they would be regarded by some as gloomy fanatics, tinctured with\ninsanity by the influence of some austere creed; and that others, of\nkinder nature, but whose sensibility has more of self-indulging refinement\nthan tendency to active benevolence, would almost wish that so revolting\nan exhibition had never been made, though the fact be actually so. There\nmay have been moments when they themselves have experienced a temporary\nrecoil of their benevolent zeal, under the impression at once of the\nimmensity of the evil, so defying the feebleness of their remedial means\nand efforts, and of its noisome quality. At times, the rudeness of the\nsubjects, and perhaps the ungracious reception and thankless requital of\ntheir disinterested labors, aggravating the general feeling of the\nmiserableness (so to express it) of seeing so much misery, have lent\nseduction to the temptations to ease and self-indulgence. Why should they,\njust _they_ of all men, condemn themselves to dwell so much in the most\ndreary climate of the moral world, when they could perhaps have taken\ntheir almost constant abode in a little elysium of elegant knowledge,\ntaste, and refined society? Then was the time to revert to the example of\nHim \"who, though he was rich, for our sakes became poor.\"\n\nOr, again, they may have been betrayed to indulge too long in the bitter\nmood of thinking, how entirely the higher and more amply furnished powers\nleave such generous designs to proceed as they can, in the mere strength\nof private individual exertion. And they may have yielded to depressive\nfeelings after the fervor of indignant ones; for such indignation, unless\nqualified by the purest principle--unless it be the \"anger that sins\nnot\"--is very apt, when it cools, to settle into misanthropic despondency.\nIt is as if (they have said) armies and giants would stand aloof to amuse\nthemselves, while we are to be committed and abandoned in the ceaseless,\nunavailable toil of a conflict, which these armies and giants have no\nbusiness even to exist as such but for the very purpose of waging. We are,\nif we will,--and if we will we may let it alone--to try to effect in\ndiminutive pieces, and detached local efforts, a little share of that, to\nthe accomplishment of which the greatest human force on earth might be\napplied on system, and to the widest compass. So they have said, perhaps,\nand been tempted to leave their object to its destiny.\n\nBut really it is now too late for this resentful and desponding\nabandonment. They cannot now retire in the tragic dignity of despair. It\nmust be some more forlorn predicament that would allow them any grace of\nrhetoric in saying, as in parody of Cato, \"Witness heaven and earth, that\nwe have done our duty, but the stars and fate are against us; and here it\nbecomes us to terminate a strife, which would degenerate into the\nridiculous, if prosecuted against impossibilities.\" On the contrary, the\nzeal which could begin so onerous a work, and prosecute it thus far, could\nnot now remit without convicting its past ardor of cowardice lurking under\nits temporary semblance of bravery. Is it for the projectors of a noble\nedifice of public utility, to abandon the undertaking when it has risen\nfrom its foundation to be seen above the ground; or is just come to be\nlevel with the surface of the waters, in defiance of which it has been\ncommenced, and the violence of which it was designed to control, or the\nunfordable depths and streams of which it was to bear people over? Let the\npromoters of education and Christian knowledge among the inferior classes,\nreflect what has already been accomplished; though regarding it as quite\nthe incipient stage. It is most truly as yet \"the day of small things;\"\nand shall they despise it, from an idea of what it might have been if the\ngreat powers had been directed to its advancement? They have found that in\nthe good cause thus unaided they have not wholly labored in vain; that it\n_can_ be brought in contact with a considerable portion of what would\notherwise be so much human existence abandoned; and that already, as from\nthe garments of the Divine Healer of diseases, a sanative virtue goes out\nof it. Let them recount the individuals they have seen, and not despond as\nto many more, rescued from what had all the signs of a destination to the\nlowest debasement, and utter ruin; some of whom are returning animated\nthanks, and will do so in the hour of death, for what these, their best\nhuman friends, have been the means of imparting to them. Let them\nrecollect of how many families they have seen the domestic condition\npleasingly, and in some instances eminently and delightfully amended. And\nlet them reflect how they have trampled down prejudices, nearly silenced a\nheathenish clamor, and provoked the imitative and rival efforts of many\nwho would, but for them, have been willing enough for all such schemes to\nlie in abeyance to the end of time. Let them think of all this, and\nfaithfully persist in the trial what it may please God that they shall\naccomplish, whether the possessors of national power will acknowledge his\ndemand for such an application of it or not; whether, when the infinite\nimportance of the concern is represented to them, they will hear, or\nwhether they will forbear.\n\nBut let them not doubt that the time will come, when the rulers and the\nascendant classes in states will comprehend it to be their best policy to\npromote all possible improvement of the people. It will be given to them\nto understand, that the highest glory of those at the head of great\ncommunities, must consist in the eminence attained by those communities\ngenerally, in whatever it is that constitutes the worth, the honor, the\nhappiness, of individuals; a glory with which would be combined the\nadvantage that the office of presiding over such a nation could be\nadministered in a liberal spirit. They will one day have learned to esteem\nit a far nobler form of power to lead and direct an immense society of\nintelligent minds, than to delude, coerce, and drive a vast semi-barbarous\nherd. Providence surely will one day, in the progress of society, confer\non it such wise and virtuous rulers as can feel, that it is better for\nthem to have a people who can understand and rationally approve, when\ndeserving of approbation, their system and measures, than one bent in\nstupid submission, even if ignorance could henceforward suffice (which it\ncannot) to retain the people in that posture; better, therefore, by a\nstill stronger reason, than to have a people fermenting in ignorant\ndisaffection, constantly believing the governors to be in the wrong, and\nwithout the sense to comprehend any arguments in justification, excepting\nsuch as might be addressed in the shape of bribes to corruption. And a\ntime will come when it will not be left to the philanthropic or censorial\nspeculatists alone, to make the comparative estimate between what has been\neffected by the enormously expensive apparatus of coercive and penal\nadministration--the prisons, prosecutions, transportations, and a large\nmilitary police, (things quite necessary in our past and present national\ncondition,)--and what _might_ have been effected by one half of that\nexpenditure devoted to popular reformation, to be accomplished by means of\nschools, and every practicable variety of methods for placing men's\njudgment and conscience as the \"lion in the way,\" when they are inclined\nand tempted to go wrong.--All this will come to pass at length. And if the\npromoters of the best designs see cause to fear that the time is remote,\nthis should but enforce upon them the more strongly the admonition that no\ntime is _theirs_, but the present.\n\nIt was not possible to pursue the long course of these observations so\nnearly to the conclusion, without being reminded still again of what we\nhave adverted to before, that there will be persons ready to impute\nsanguine extravagance to our expectations of the result of such an order\nof means and exertions, for the improvement of the education and mental\ncondition of the people, as we see already beginning to work. When the\nmeans are of so little splendid a quality, it will be said, by what\ninflation of fancy is their power admeasured to such effects?\n\nAnd what _is_ it, then, and how much, that is expected as the result, by\nthe zealous advocates of schools, and the whole order of expedients, for\nthe instruction of that part of the rising generation till lately so\nneglected? Are they heard maintaining that the communication of knowledge,\nor true notions of things, to youthful minds, will _infallibly_ ensure\ntheir virtue and happiness? They are not quite so new to the world, to\nexperimental labor in the business of tuition, or to self-observation.\nTheir vigilance would hardly overlook such a circumstance as the very\ndifferent degree of assurance with which the effects may be predicted, of\nignorance on the one hand, and of knowledge on the other. There is very\nnearly an absolute certainty of success in the method for making clowns,\nsots, vagabonds, and ruffians. You may safely leave it to themselves to\ncarry on the process for becoming complete. Let human creatures grow up\nwithout discipline, destitute therefore of salutary information, sound\njudgment, or any conscience but what will shape itself to whatever they\nlike, serving in the manner of some vile friar pander in the old\nplays,--and no one takes any credit for foresight in saying they will be a\nnoxious burden on the earth; except indeed in those tracts of it where\nthey seem to have their appropriate place and business, in being matched\nagainst the wolves and bears of the wilderness. When they infest what\nshould be a civilized and Christianized part of the world, the\nphilanthropist is sometimes put in doubt whether to repress, or indulge,\nthe sentiment which tempts him to complacency in the operation of an\nepidemic which is thinning their numbers.\n\nThe consequences of ignorance are certain, unless almost a miracle\ninterpose; but unhappily those of knowledge are of diffident and\nrestricted calculation; unless we could make a trifle of the testimony of\nall ages, and suppress the evidence of present experience, that men may\nsee and approve the better, and yet follow the worse. It is the hapless\npredicament of our nature, that the noblest of its powers, the\nunderstanding, has but most imperfectly and precariously that commanding\nhold on the others, which is essential to the good order of the soul. Our\nconstitution is like a machine in which there is a constant liability of\nthe secondary wheels to be thrown out of the catch and grapple of the\nmaster one. And worse than so, these powers which ought to be subordinate\nand obedient to the understanding, are not left to stand still when\ndetached from its control. They have a strong activity of their own, from\nthe impulse of other principles: indeed, it is this impulse that _causes_\nthe detachment. It is frightful to look at the evidence from facts, that\nthese active powers _may_ grow strong in the perversity which will set the\njudgment at defiance, during the very time that it is successfully\ntraining to a competence for dictating to them what is right. The\nassertions of those who are determined to find the chief or only cause of\nthe wrong direction of the passions and will in misapprehension of the\nunderstanding, are a gross assumption, in a question of fact, against an\ninfinite crowd of facts pressing round with their evidence. This evidence\nis offered by men without number distinctly and deliberately acknowledging\ntheir conviction of the evil quality and fatal consequences, of courses\nwhich they are soon afterwards seen pursuing, and without the smallest\npretence of a change of opinion; by the same men in more advanced stages\nstill owning the same conviction, and sometimes in strong terms of\nself-reproach, in the checks and pauses of their career; and by men in the\nnear prospect of death and judgment expressing, in bitter regret, the\nacknowledgment that they had persisted in acting wrong when they knew\nbetter. And this assumption, made against such evidence, is to be\nmaintained for no better reason, that appears, than a wilful determination\nthat human nature cannot, must not, shall not, be so absurd and depraved\nas to be capable of such madness: as if human nature were taking the\nsmallest trouble to put on any disguise before them, to beguile them into\na good opinion; as if it could be cajoled by their flattery to assume even\na semblance of deserving it; as if it had the complaisance to check one\nbad propensity, to save them from standing contradicted and exposed to\nridicule for speaking of it with indulgence or respect; as if it stayed or\ncared to thank them for their pains in attempting to make out a plausible\nextenuation. It has, and keeps, and shows its character, in perfect\nindifference to the puzzled efforts of its apologists to reduce its moral\nturpitude to just so much error of the understanding. But, as for\nunderstanding--it should be time to look to their own, when they find\nthemselves asserting, in other words, that there is actually as much\nvirtue in the world as there is knowledge of its principles and laws. We\nshould rather have surmised that, deplorably deficient as that knowledge\nis, the reduction of a fifth or tenth part of it to practice would make a\nglorious change in England and Europe.\n\nThe persons, therefore, whose zeal is combined with knowledge in the\nprosecution of plans for the extension of education, proceed on a\ncalculation of an effect more limited, in apparent proportion to the\nmeans, and with less certainty of even that more limited measure in any\nsingle instance, than they would have been justified in anticipating in\nmany other departments of operation. They would, for example, predict more\npositively the results of an undertaking to cultivate any tract of waste\nland, to reclaim a bog, or to render mechanical forces available in an\nuntried mode of application; or, in many cases, the decided success of the\nhealing art as applied to a diseased body. They must needs be moderate in\ntheir confidence of calculation for good, on a moral nature whose\ncorruption would yield an enemy of mankind a gratifying probability in\ncalculating for evil. In comparing these opposite calculations, they would\nbe glad if they might make an exchange of the respective probabilities.\nThat is to say, let a man, if such there be, who could be pleased with the\ndepravity and misery of the race, a sagacious judge too, of their moral\nconstitution, and a veteran observer of their conduct,--let him survey\nwith the look of an evil spirit a hundred children in one of the\nbenevolent schools, and indulge himself in prognosticating, on the\nstrength of what he knows of human nature, the proportion, in numbers and\ndegree, in which these children will, in subsequent life, exemplify the\n_failure_ of what is done for their wisdom and welfare;--let him make his\ncalculation, and, we say, there may be times when the friends of these\ninstitutions would be glad to transfer the quantity of probability from\nhis side to theirs; would feel they should be happy if the proportion in\nwhich they fear he may be right in calculating on evil from the nature of\nthe beings under discipline, were, instead, the proportion in which it is\nrational to reckon on good from the efficacy of that discipline. \"Evil, be\nthou my good,\" might be their involuntary apostrophe, in the sense of\nwishing to possess the stronger power, transmuted to the better quality.\n\nBut we shall know where to stop in the course of observations of this\ndarkening color: and shall take off the point of the derider's taunt, just\nforthcoming, that we are here unsaying, in effect, all that we have been\nso laboriously urging about the vast benefit of knowledge to the people.\nIt was proper to show, that the prosecutors of these designs are not\nsuffering themselves to be duped out of a perception of what there is, in\nthe nature of the youthful subjects, to counteract the intention of the\ndiscipline, and with too certain a power to limit its efficacy to a very\npartial measure of the effect desired. These projectors might fairly be\nrequired to prove they are not unknowing enthusiasts; but then, in keeping\nclear of the vain extravagances of expectation, they are not to surrender\ntheir confidence that something great and important can be done; it should\nbe possible for a man to be sober, short of being dead. They are not to\ngravitate into a state of feeling as if they thought the understanding and\nthe moral powers are but casually associated in the mind; as if an\nimportant communication to the one, might, so to speak, never be heard of\nby the others; as if these subordinates had just one sole principle of\naction--that of disobeying their chief, so that it could be of no use to\nappeal to the master of the house respecting the conduct of his inmates;\nas if, therefore, _all_ presumption of a relation between means and ends,\nas a ground of confidence in the efficacy of popular instruction, must be\nillusory. It might not indeed be amiss for them to be _told_ that the case\nis so, by those who would desire, from whatever motive, to repress their\nefforts and defeat their designs. For so downright a blow at the vital\nprinciple of their favorite object would but serve to provoke them to\nascertain more definitely what there really is for them to found their\nschemes and hopes upon, and therefore to verify to themselves the reasons\nthey have for persisting, in assurance that the labor will be far from\nwholly lost. And for this assurance it is, at the very lowest,\nself-evident, that there is at any rate such an efficacy in cultivation,\nas to give a certainty that a well-cultivated people _cannot_ remain on\nthe same degraded moral level as a neglected ignorant one--or anywhere\nnear it. None of those even that value such designs the least, ever\npretend to foresee, in the event of their being carried into effect, an\nundiminished prevalence of rudeness and brutality of manners, of delight\nin spectacles and amusements of cruelty, of noisy revelry, of sottish\nintemperance, or of disregard of character. It is not pretended to be\nforeseen, that the poorer classes will then continue to display so much of\nthat almost desperate improvidence respecting their temporal means and\nprospects, which has aggravated the calamities of the present times. It is\nnot predicted that a universal school-discipline will bring up several\nmillions to the neglect, and many of them in an impudent contempt, of\nattendance on the ministrations of religion. The result will at all\nhazards, by every one's acknowledgment, be _the contrary of this_.\n\nBut more specifically:--The promoters of the plans of popular education\nsee a most important advantage gained in the very outset, in the obvious\nfact, that in their schools a very large portion of time is employed well,\nthat otherwise would infallibly be employed ill. Let any one introduce\nhimself into one of these places of concourse, where there has been time\nto mature the arrangements. He should not enter as an important personage,\nin patronizing and judicial state, as if to demand the respectful looks of\nthe whole tribe from their attention to their printed rudiments and their\nslates; but glide in as a quiet observer, just to survey at his leisure\nthe character and operations of the scene. Undoubtedly he may descry here\nand there the signs of inattention, weariness or vacancy, not to say of\nperverseness. Even these individuals, however, are out of the way of\npractical harm; and at the same time he will see a multitude of youthful\nspirits acknowledging the duty of directing their best attention to\nsomething altogether foreign to their wild amusements; of making a rather\nprotracted effort in one mode or another of the strange business of\n_thinking_. He will perceive in many the unequivocal indications of a\nserious and earnest effort made to acquire, with the aid visible signs and\nimplements, a command of what is invisible and immaterial. They are thus\nrising from the mere animal state to tread in the precincts of an\nintellectual economy; the economy of thought and truth, in which they are\nto live forever; and never, in all futurity, will they have to regret, for\nitself, [Footnote: _For itself_--a phrase of qualification inserted to\nmeed the captious remark, that there have been instances of bad men, under\nthe reproach of conscience of the dread of consequences, expressing a\nregret that they had ever been well instructed, since this was an\naggravation of their guilt, and perhaps had subserved their evil\npropensities with the more effectual means and ability.] _this_ period and\npart of their employments. He will be delighted to think how many\nregulated actions of the mind, how many just ideas distinctly admitted,\nthat were unknown or unimpressed at the beginning of the day's exercise,\n(and among these ideas, some to remind them of God and their highest\ninterest,) there will have been by the time the busy and well-ordered\ncompany breaks up in the evening, and leaves silence within these walls.\nHe will not indeed grow romantic in hope; he knows the nature of which\nthese beings partake; knows therefore that the desired results of this\nprocess will but partially follow; but still rejoices to think those\npartial results which will most certainly follow, will be worth\nincomparably more than all they will have cost to the learners, or the\nteachers, or the patrons.\n\nNow let him, when he has contemplated this scene, consider how the\ngreatest part of this numerous company would have been employed during the\nsame hours, whether of the Sabbath or other days, but for such a provision\nof means for their instruction. And, for the contrast, he has only to\nleave the school, and walk a mile round the neighborhood, in which it will\nbe very wonderful, (we may say this of most parts of England,) if he shall\nnot, in a populous district, especially near a great town, and on a fine\nday, meet with a great number of wretched, disgusting imps, straggling or\nin knots, in the activity of mischief and nuisance, or at least the full\ncry of vile and profane language; with here and there, as a lord among\nthem, an elder larger one growing fast into an insolent adult blackguard.\nHe may make the comparison, quite sure that such as they are, and so\nemployed, would many now under the salutary discipline of yonder school\nhave been, but for its institution. But the two classes so beheld in\ncontrast, might they not seem to belong to two different nations? Do they\nnot seem growing into two extremely different orders of character? Do they\nnot even seem preparing for different worlds in the final distribution?\n\nThe friends of these designs for a general and highly improved education,\nmay proceed further in this course of verifying to themselves the grounds\nof their assurance of happy consequences. A number of ideas, the most\nimportant that were ever formed in human thought, or imparted to men from\nthe Supreme Mind, will be so communicated and impressed in these\ninstitutions, that it is absolutely certain they will be fixed irrevocably\nin the minds of the pupils. And in the case of many, if not the majority\nof these destined adventurers into the temptations of life, these\nimportant ideas, thus inserted deep in their souls, will distinctly\npresent themselves to judgment and conscience an incalculable number of\ntimes. What a number, if the sum of all these reminiscences, in all the\nminds now assembled in a numerous school, could be conjectured! But if one\nin a hundred of these recollections, if one in a thousand, shall be\nefficacious, who can compute the amount of the good resulting from the\ninstruction which shall have so enforced and fixed these ideas that they\nshall inevitably be thus recollected? And is it altogether out of reason\nto hope that the desired efficacy will, far oftener than once in a\nthousand times, attend the luminous rising again of a solemn idea to the\nview of the mind! Is still less than _this_ to be predicted for our\nunhappy nature, while, however fallen, it is not abandoned by the care of\nits Creator!\n\nThe institutions themselves will gradually improve, in both the method and\nthe compass of their discipline. They will acquire a more vigorous\nmechanism, and a more decidedly intellectual character. In this latter\nrespect, it is but comparatively of late years that schools for the\ninferior classes have ventured anything beyond the humblest pretensions.\nMental cultivation--enlarged knowledge--elements of science--habit of\nthinking--exercise of judgment--free and enlightened opinion--higher\ngrade in society--were terms which they were to be reverently cautious of\ntaking in vain. There would have been an offensive sound in such phrases,\nas seeming to betray somewhat of the impertinence of a _disposition_, (for\nthe idea of the _practicability_ of any such invasion would have been\nscorned,) to encroach on a ground exclusively appropriate to the superior\norders. Schools for the poor were to be as little as possible scholastic.\nThey were to be kept down to the lowest level of the workshop, excepting\nperhaps in one particular--that of working hard: for the scholars were to\nthrow time away rather than be occupied with anything beyond the merest\nrudiments. The advocates and the petitioners for aid of such schools, were\nto avow and plead how little it was that they pretended or presumed to\nteach. The argument in their behalf was either to begin or end with\nsaying, that they taught _only_ reading and writing; or if it could not be\ndenied that there was to be some meddling with arithmetic and grammar,--we\nmay safely appeal to some of the veterans of these pleaders, whether they\ndid not, thirty or forty years since, bring out this addition with the\nmanagement and hesitation of a confession and apology. It is a prominent\ncharacteristic of that happy revolution we have spoken of as in\ncommencement, that this aristocratic notion of education is breaking up.\nThe theory of the subject is loosening into enlargement, and will cease by\ndegrees to impose a niggardly restriction on the extent of the\ncultivation, proper to be attempted in schools for the inferiors of the\ncommunity.\n\nAs these institutions go on, augmenting in number and improving in\norganization, their pupils will bring their quality and efficacy to the\nproof, as they grow to maturity, and go forth to act their part in\nsociety. And there can be no doubt, that while too many of them may be\nmournful exemplifications of the power with which the evil genius of the\ncorrupt nature, combined with the infection of a bad world, resists the\nbetter influences of instruction, and may, after the advantage of such an\nintroductory stage, be carried down towards the old debasement, a very\nconsiderable proportion will take and permanently maintain a far higher\nground. They will have become imbued with an element, which must put them\nin strong repulsion to that coarse vulgar that will be sure to continue in\nexistence, in this country, long enough to be a trial of the moral taste\nof this better cultivated race. It will be seen that they cannot associate\nwith it by choice, and in the spirit of companionship. And while they are\nthus withheld on their part, from approximating, it may be hoped that in\ncertain better disposed parts of that vulgar, there may be a conversion of\nthe repelling principle into an impulse to approach and join them on their\nown ground. There will be numbers among it who cannot be so entirely\ninsensate or perverse, as to look with carelessness at the advantages\nobtained through the sole medium of personal improvement, by those who had\notherwise been exactly on the same level of low resources and estimation\nas themselves. The effect of this view on pride, in some, and on better\npropensities, it may be hoped, in others, will be to excite them to make\ntheir way upward to a community which, they will clearly see, could commit\nno greater folly than to come downward to them. And we will presume a\nfriendly disposition in most of those who shall have been raised to this\nhigher standing, to meet such aspirers and help them to ascend.\n\nAnd while they will thus draw upward the less immovable and hopeless part\nof the mass below them, they will themselves, on the other hand, be\nplaced, by the respectability of their understanding and manners, within\nthe influence of the higher cultivation of the classes above them; a great\nadvantage, as we have taken a former occasion to notice:--a great\nadvantage, that is to say, if the cultivation among those classes _be_\ngenerally of such a quality and measure, that the people could not be\nbrought a few degrees nearer to them without becoming, through the effect\nof their example, more in love with sense, knowledge, and propriety of\nconduct. For it were somewhat too much of simplicity, perhaps, to take it\nfor quite a thing of course that the people would always perceive such\nintellectual accomplishments as would keep them modest or humble in their\nestimate of their own, and such liberal spirit and manners as would at\nonce command their respect and conduce to their refinement, when they made\nany approach to a communication with the classes superior in possessions\nand station. If this _might_ have been assumed as a thing of course, and\nif therefore it might have been confidently reckoned on, that the more\nimproving of the people would receive from the ranks above them a salutary\ninfluence, similar to that which we have been supposing they will\nthemselves exert on a part of the vulgar mass below them, there had been a\nhappy omen for the community; and if it may not be so assumed, are we to\nhave the disgraceful deficiencies of the upper classes pleaded as an\nargument against raising the lower from their degradation? Must the\nmultitude flounder along the mud at the bottom of the upward slope,\nbecause their betters will not be at the cost of making for themselves a\nhigher terraced road across it than that they are now walking on?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nBut it would be an admirable turn to make the lower orders act\nbeneficially on the higher. And it is an important advantage likely to\naccrue from the better education of the common people, that their rising\nattainments would compel not a few of their superiors to look to the state\nof their own mental pretensions, on perceiving that _this_, at last, was\nbecoming a ground on which, in no small part, their precedence was to be\nmeasured. Surely it would be a most excellent thing, that they should find\nthemselves thus incommodiously pressed upon by the only circumstance,\nperhaps, that could make them sensible there are more kinds of poverty\nthan that single one to which alone they had hitherto attached ideas of\ndisgrace; and should be forced to preserve that ascendency for which\nwealth and station would formerly suffice, at the cost, now, of a good\ndeal more reading, thinking, and general self-discipline. And would it be\na worthy sacrifice, that to spare some substantial agriculturalists, idle\ngentlemen, and sporting or promenading ecclesiastics, such an afflictive\nnecessity, the actual tillers of the ground, and the workers in\nmanufacture and mechanics, should continue to be kept in stupid ignorance?\n\nIt is very possible this may excite a smile, as the threatening of a\nnecessity or a danger to these privileged persons, which it is thought\nthey may be comfortably assured is very remote. This danger (namely, that\na good many of them, or rather of those who are coming in the course of\nnature to succeed them in the same rank, will find that its relative\nconsequence cannot be sustained but at a very considerably higher pitch of\nmental qualification) is threatened upon no stronger presages than the\nfollowing:--Allow us first to take it for granted, that it is not a very\nprotracted length of time that is to pass away before the case comes to\nbe, that a large proportion of the children of the lower classes are\ntrained, through a course of assiduous instruction and exercise in the\nmost valuable knowledge, during a series of years, in schools which\neverything possible is done to render efficient. Then, if we include in\none computation all the time they will have spent in real mental effort\nand acquirement there, and all those pieces and intervals of time which we\nmay reasonably hope that many of them will improve to the same purpose in\nthe subsequent years, a very great number of them will have employed, by\nthe time they reach middle age, many thousands of hours more than people\nin their condition have heretofore done, in a way the most directly\ntending to place them greatly further on in whatever of importance for\nrepute and authority intelligence is to bear in society. And how must we\nbe estimating the natural capacities of these inferior classes, or the\nperceptions of the higher, not to foresee as a consequence, that these\nlatter will find their relative situation greatly altered, with respect to\nthe measure of knowledge and mental power requisite as one most essential\nconstituent of their superiority, in order to command the unfeigned\ndeference of their inferiors?\n\nOur strenuous promoters of the schemes for cultivating the minds of all\nthe people, are not afraid of professing to foresee, that when schools, of\nthat completely disciplinarian organization which they are, we hope,\ngradually to attain, shall have become general, and shall be vigorously\nseconded by all those auxiliary expedients for popular instruction which\nare also in progress, a very pleasing modification will become apparent in\nthe character, the moral color, if we might so express it, of the people's\nordinary employment. The young persons so instructed, being appointed, for\nthe most part, to the same occupations to which they would have been\ndestined had they grown up in utter ignorance and vulgarity, are expected\nto give evidence that the meanness, the debasement almost, which had\ncharacterized many of those occupations in the view of the more refined\nclasses, was in truth the debasement of the men more than of the callings;\nwhich will come to be in more honorable estimation as associated with the\nsense, decorum, and self-respect of the performers, than they were while\nblended and polluted with all the low habits, manners, and language, of\nignorance and vulgar grossness. And besides, there is the consideration of\nthe different degrees of merit in the performance itself; and who will be\nthe persons most likely to excel, in the many branches of workmanship and\nbusiness which admit of being better done in proportion to the degree of\nintelligence directed upon them? And again, who will be most in\nrequisition for those offices of management and superintendence, where\nsomething must be confided to judgment and discretion, and where the value\nis felt, (often vexatiously felt from the want,) of some capacity of\ncombination and foresight?\n\nSuch as these are among the subordinate benefits reasonably, we might say\ninfallibly, calculated upon. Our philanthropists are confident in\nforeseeing also, that very many of these better educated young persons\nwill be valuable co-operators with all who may be more formally employed\nin instruction, against that ignorance from which themselves have been so\nhappily saved; will exert an influence, by their example and the steady\navowal of their principles, against vice and folly in their vicinity; and\nwill be useful advisers of their neighbors in their perplexities, and\nsometimes moderators in their discords. It is predicted, with a confidence\nso much resting on general grounds of probability, as hardly to need the\ninstances already afforded in various parts of the country to confirm it,\nthat here and there one of the well-instructed humbler class will become a\ncompetent and useful public teacher of the most important truth. It is, in\nshort, anticipated with delightful assurance, that great numbers of those\nwho shall go forth from under the friendly guardianship which will take\nthe charge of their youthful minds, will be examples through life and at\nits conclusion, of the power and felicity of religion.\n\nHere we can suppose it not improbable that some one may, in pointed terms,\nput the question,--Do you then, at last, mean to affirm that you can, by\nthe proposed course, by any course, of discipline, absolutely secure that\neffectual operation and ascendency of religion in the mind, which shall\nplace it in the right condition toward God, and in a state of fitness for\npassing, without fear or danger, into the scenes of its future endless\nexistence?\n\nWe think the cautious limitation of language, hitherto observed in setting\nforth our expectations, might preclude such a question. But let it be\nasked, since there can be no difficulty to reply. We do _not_ affirm that\nany form of discipline, the wisest and best in the power of the wisest and\nbest men to apply, is competent of itself thus to subject the mind\ndecidedly and permanently to the power of religion. On the contrary, we\nbelieve that grand effect can be accomplished only by a special influence\nof the Divine Being, operating by the means applied in a well-judged\nsystem of instruction, or, if he pleases, independently of them. But next,\nit is perfectly certain, notwithstanding, that the application of these\nhuman means will, in a multitude of instances, be efficacious to that most\nhappy end.\n\nThis certainty arises from a few very plain general considerations. The\nfirst is, that the whole system of means appointed by the Almighty to be\nemployed as a human process for presenting religion solemnly in view\nbefore men's minds, and enforcing it on them, is an appointment _expressly\nintended_ for working that great effect which secures their final\nfelicity; though to what extent in point of number is altogether unknown\nto the subordinate agents. They are perfectly certain, in employing the\nappointed expedients in prosecution of the work, that they must be\nproceeding on the strength of a positive relation subsisting between those\nmeans and the results to be realized, in what instances, in what measure,\nat what time, it shall please the sovereign Power. The appointment cannot\nbe one of mere exercise for the faculties and submissive obedience of\nthose who are summoned to be active in its execution.\n\nAccordingly, there are in the divine revelation very many explicit and\nanimating assurances, that their exertions shall certainly be in a measure\neffectual to the proposed end. And if these assurances are made in favor\nof the exertions for inculcating religion generally, that is, on men of\nall conditions and ages, they may be assumed as giving special\nencouragement to those for impressing it on young minds, before they can\nbe preoccupied and hardened by the depravities of the world. There is\nplainly the more hope for the efficacy of those exertions the less there\nis to frustrate them. But besides, the authority itself, which has assured\na measure of success to religious instruction as administered generally,\nhas marked with peculiar strength the promise of its success as applied to\nthe young; thus affording rays of hope which have in ten thousand\ninstances animated the diligence of pious parents, and the other\nbenevolent instructors of children.\n\nThere is also palpable matter of fact to the point, that an education\nwhich combines the discipline of the conscience and the intellectual\nfaculty will be rendered, in many instances, efficacious to the formation\nof a religious character. This obvious fact is, that a much greater\nproportion of the persons so educated do actually become the subjects of\nreligion, than of a similar number of those brought up in ignorance and\nprofligacy. Take collectively any number of families in which such an\neducation prevails, and the same number in which it does not, and follow\nthe young persons respectively into subsequent life. But any one who hears\nthe suggestion, feels there is no need to wait the lapse of time and\nfollow their actual course. As instructed by what he has already seen in\nsociety, he can go forward with them prophetically, with perfect certainty\nthat many more of the one tribe than that of the other, will become\npersons not only of moral respectability but decided piety. Any one that\nshould assert respecting them that the probabilities are equal and\nindifferent, would be considered as sporting a wilful absurdity, or\nbetraying that he is one of those who did not come into the world for\nanything they can learn in it. And the experience which thus authorizes a\nperfect confidence of prediction, is evidence that, though discipline must\nwholly disclaim an absolute power to effect the great object in question,\nthere is, nevertheless, such a constitution of things that it most\ncertainly will, as an instrumental cause, in many instances effect it.\n\nThe state of the matter, then, is very simple. The Supreme Cause of men's\nbeing \"made wise to salvation,\" in appointing a system of means, to be put\nby human activity in operation toward this effect, has also appointed that\nin this operation they shall infallibly be attended with a measure of\nsuccess in accomplishing that highest good,--a measure which was not to be\naccomplished otherwise than by such means. So much he has signified to men\nas an absolute certainty: but then, he has connected this certainty in an\narbitrary, and as to our knowledge, indefinite manner with the system. It\nis a certainty connected with the system _as taken generally and\ncomprehensively_; and which it is not given to us to affix to the\nparticular instances in which the success will take place. It is a Divine\nVolition suspended over the whole scene of cultivation; like a cloud from\nwhich we cannot tell where precisely the shower to fertilize it will fall,\ncertain, however, that there are spots whose verdure and flowers will tell\nafter awhile. The agents under the Sovereign Dispenser are to proceed on\nthis positive assurance that the success _shall be somewhere_, though they\ncannot know that it will be in this one instance, or in the other: \"In the\nmorning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thy hand; for thou\nknowest not whether shall prosper, this, or that.\" If they rate the value\nof their agency so high, as to hold it derogatory to their dignity that\nany part of their labors should be performed under the condition of\npossibly being unsuccessful, they may be assured that such is not exactly\nthe estimate of Him to whom they look for the acceptance of their\nservices, and for the reward.\n\nBut it may be added, that the great majority of those who are intent on\nthe schemes for enlightening and reforming mankind, are entertaining a\nconfident hope of the approach of a period, when the success will be far\ngreater in proportion to the measure of exertion in every department of\nthe system of instrumentality for that grand object. We cherish this\nconfidence, not on the strength of any pretension to be able to resolve\nprophetic emblems and numbers, into precise dates and events of the\npresent and approaching times. It rests on a more general mode of\napprehending a relation between the extraordinary indications of the\nperiod we live in, and the substantial purport of the divine predictions.\nThere unquestionably gleams forth, through the plainer lines, and through\nthe mystical imagery of prophecy, the vision of a better age, in which the\napplication of the truths of religion to men's minds will be irresistible.\nAnd what should more naturally be interpreted as one of the dawning signs\nof its approach, than a new spirit come into action with insuppressible\nimpulse, at once to dispel the fog from their intellects and bring the\nheavenly light to shine close upon them; accompanied by a prodigious\nconvulsion in the old system of the world, which hardly recognized in the\ninferior millions the very existence of souls to need or be worth such an\nillumination? It is true that an eruptive activity of evil, beyond what\nwas witnessed by our forefathers, has attended and followed that\nconvulsion; as mephitic exhalations are emitted through the rents of an\nearthquake. Viewed in itself, this outbreak of the bad principles and\npassions might seem to portend anything rather than a grand improvement in\nthe state of a nation or of mankind. It appears like an actual\naugmentation of the evil previously existing. But it should rather be\nregarded as the setting loose of the noxious elements accumulated and\nrankling under the old system; a phenomenon inevitably attendant on its\nbreaking up, by a catastrophe absolutely necessary to open and clear the\nfield for operations on the great scale against those evils themselves,\nand to give scope and means for the advancement toward a better condition\nof humanity.\n\nThe laborers in the institutions for instructing the young descendants of\nan ill-fated generation, may often regret to perceive how little the\nprocess is as yet informed with the energy which is ultimately to pervade\nthe world. But let them regard as one great undivided economy and train of\noperation, these initiatory efforts and all that is to follow, till that\ntime \"when all shall know the Lord;\" and take by anticipation, as in\nfraternity with the happier future laborers, their just share of that\nultimate triumph. Those active spirits, in the happier periods, will look\nback with this sentiment of kindred and complacency to those who sustained\nthe earlier toils of the good cause, and did not suffer their zeal to\nlanguish under the comparative smallness of their success.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe shall conclude with a few sentences in the way of reply to another\nquestion, which we can surmise there may be persons ready to ask, after\nthis long iteration of the assertion of the necessity of knowledge to the\ncommon people. The question would be to this effect: What do you, all this\nwhile, mean to assign as the _measure_ of knowledge proper for the people\nto be put in possession of?--for you do not specify the kinds, or limit\nthe extent: you talk in vague general terms of mental improvement; you\nleave the whole matter indefinite; and for all that appears, the people\nare never to know when they know enough.\n\nIt is answered, that we _do_ leave the extent undefined, and should\nrequest to be informed where, and why, the line of circumscription and\nexclusion should be drawn.\n\nIs it, we could really wish to know, a point at all yet decided, wherein\nconsist the value and importance of the human nature? Any liberal scheme\nfor its universal cultivation is met by such a jealous parsimony toward\nthe common people, such a ready imputation of wild theory, such protesting\ndeclamations against the mischief of practically applying abstract\nprinciples, such an undisguised or betrayed precedence given to mere\ninterests of state, and those perhaps very sordid ones, before all others,\nand such whimsical prescriptions for making a salutary compound of a\nlittle knowledge and much ignorance,--that it might seem to be doubtful,\nafter all, whether the human nature, in the mass of mankind at least, be\nof any such consistence, or for any such purpose, as is affirmed in our\ncommon-places on the subject. It is uniformly assumed in the language of\ndivines, and of the philosophers in most repute, that the worth, the\ndignity, the importance of man, are in his rational, immortal nature; and\nthat therefore the best condition of _that_ is his true felicity and\nglory, and the object chiefly to be aimed at in all that is done by him,\nand for him, on earth. But whether this should be regarded as anything\nmore than the elated faith of ascetics, a fine dogma of academics, or a\ntheme for show in the pomp of moral rhetoric? For we often see, and it is\nvery striking to see, how principles which are suffered to pass for\ninfallible truth while content to stay within the province of speculation,\nand to be pronounced as mere doctrine, may be disowned and repelled when\nthey come demanding to have their appropriate place and influence in the\npractical sphere. Even many pretended advocates of Christianity, who in\nnaming certain principles would seem to make them of the very essence of\nthe moral part of that religion, and, in discoursing merely as\n_religionists_, will insist on their vital importance, will yet shuffle\nand equivocate about these principles, and in effect set them aside, when\nthey are attempted to be applied to some of their most legitimate uses.\nIf, for example, these religionists are among the servile adherents of\ncorrupted institutions and iniquity invested with power, they will easily\nfind accommodating interpretations, or pleas of exemption from the direct\nauthority, of some of the most sacred maxims of their professed religion.\nServe the true God when we happen to be in the right place; but at all\nevents we must attend our master to pay homage in the temple of Eimmon,\nor, should he please to require it, that of Moloch,--with this signal\ndifference from the ancient instance of peccant servility, that whereas in\nthat case pardon for it was implored, in the present case a merit is made\nof the sycophancy and the idolatry. Unless the principles of Christianity\nwill acknowledge the supremacy of _something else_ than Christianity, in\nthe mode of their application to estimate the importance of the popular\nmind, they may take their repose in bodies of divinity, sermons,\ncatechisms, systems of ethics, or wherever they can find a place.\n\nBut _is_ it really admitted, as a great principle for practical\napplication, that the mind, the intelligent, imperishable existence, is\nthe supremely valuable thing in man? It is then admitted, inevitably, that\nthe discipline, the correction, the improvement, the maturation of this\nspiritual being to the highest attainable degree, is the great object to\nbe desired by men, for themselves and one another. That is to say, that\nknowledge, cultivation, salutary exercise, wisdom, all that can conduce to\nthe perfection of the mind, form the state in which it is due to man's\nnature that he should be endeavored to be placed. But then, this is due to\nhis nature by an absolutely _general_ law. He cannot be so circumstanced\nin the order of society that this shall _not_ be due to it. No situation\nin which the arrangements of the world, or say of Providence, may place\nhim, can constitute him a specific kind of creature, to which is no longer\nfit and necessary that which is necessary to the well-being of man\nconsidered generally, as a spiritual, immortal nature. The essential law\nof this nature cannot be abrogated by men's being placed in humble and\nnarrow circumstances, in which a very large portion of their time and\nexertions are required for mere subsistence. This accident of a confined\nsituation is no more a reason why their minds should not require the best\nattainable cultivation, than would be the circumstance that the body in\nwhich a man's mind is lodged happens to be of smaller dimensions than\nthose of other men.\n\nThat under the disadvantages of this humble situation they _cannot_\nacquire all the mental improvement, desirable for the perfection of their\nintelligent nature, that the situation renders it impracticable, is quite\nanother matter. So far as this inhibition is real and absolute, that is,\nso far as it must remain after the best exertion of human wisdom and means\nin their favor, it must be submitted to as one of the infelicities of\ntheir allotment by Providence. What we are insisting on is, that since by\nthe law of their nature there is to them the same general necessity as to\nany other human beings, of that which is essential to the well-being of\nthe mind, they should be advanced in this improvement _as far as they\ncan_; that is, as far as a wise and benevolent disposition of the\ncommunity can make it practicable for them to be advanced.\n\nIt is an odious hypocrisy to talk of the narrow limits to this advancement\nas an ordination of Providence, when a well-ordered constitution and\nmanagement of the community might enlarge those limits. At least it is so\nin the _justifiers_ of that social system: those who deplore and condemn\nit _may_ properly speak of the appointment of Providence, but in another\nsense; as they would speak of the dispensations of Providence in\nconsolation to a man iniquitously imprisoned or impoverished.\n\nLet the people then be advanced in the improvement of their rational\nnature as far as they can. A greater degree of this progress will be more\nfor their welfare than a less. This might be shown in forms of\nillustration easily conceived, and as easily vindicated from the\nimputation of extravagance, by instances which every observer may have met\nwith in real life. A poor man, cultivated in a small degree, has acquired\na few just ideas of an important subject, which lies out of the scope of\nhis daily employments for subsistence. Be that subject what it may, if\nthose ideas are of any use to him, by what principle would one idea more,\nor two, or twenty, be of _no_ use to him? Of no use!--when all the\nthinking world knows, that every additional clear idea of a subject is\nvaluable by a ratio of progress greater than that of the mere numerical\nincrease, and that by a large addition of ideas a man triples the value of\nthose with which he began. He has read a small meagre tract on the\nsubject, or perhaps only an article in a magazine, or an essay in the\nliterary column of a provincial newspaper. Where would be the harm, on\nsupposition he can fairly afford the time, in consequence of husbanding it\nfor this very purpose, of his reading a well-written concise book, which\nwould give him a clear, comprehensive view of the subject?\n\nBut perhaps another branch of the tree of knowledge bends its fruit\ntemptingly to his hand. And if he should indulge, and gain a tolerably\nclear notion of one more interesting subject, (still punctually regardful\nof the duties of his ordinary vocation,) where, we say again, is the harm?\nConverse with him; observe his conduct; compare him with the wretched\nclown in a neighboring dwelling; and say that he is the worse for having\nthus much of the provision for a mental subsistence. But if thus much has\ncontributed greatly to his advantage, why should he be interdicted still\nfurther attainments? Are you alarmed for him, if he will needs go the\nlength of acquiring some knowledge of geography, the solar system, and the\nhistory of his own country and of the ancient world? [Footnote: These\ndenominations of knowledge, so strange as they will to some person?\nappear, in such a connection, we have ventured to write from, observing\nthat they stand in the schemes of elementary instruction in the Missionary\nschools for the children of the natives of Bengal. But of course we are to\nacknowledge, that the vigorous, high-toned spirits of those Asiatic\nidolaters are adapted to receive a much superior style of cultivation to\nany of which the feeble progeny of England can be supposed to be capable.]\nLet him proceed; supply him gratuitously with some of the best books on\nthese subjects; and if you shall converse with him again, after another\nyear or two of his progress, and compare him once more with the ignorant,\nstunted, cankered beings in his vicinity, you will see whether there be\nanything essentially at variance between his narrow circumstances in life\nand his mental enlargement.\n\nYou are willing, perhaps, that he _should_ know a few facts of ancient\ntimes, and can, though with hesitation, trust him with some such slight\nstories as Goldsmith's Histories of Greece and Rome. But if he should then\nby some means find his way into such a work as that of Rollin, (of moral\nand instructive tendency, however defective otherwise,) or betray that he\ncovets an acquaintance with those of Gillies, or even Thirlwall,--it is\nall over with him for being a useful member of society in his humble\nsituation. You would consent (may we suppose?) to his reading a slender\nabridgment of voyages and travels; but what _is_ to become of him if\nnothing less will content him than the whole-length story of Captain Cook?\nHe will direct, it is to be hoped, some of his best attention to the\nsupreme subject of religion. And you would quite approve of his perusing\nsome useful tracts, some manuals of piety, some commentary on a catechism,\nsome volume of serious, plain discourses; but he is absolutely undone if\nhis ambition should rise at length to Barrow, or Howe, or Jeremy Taylor.\n[Footnote: It should be unnecessary to observe, that the object in citing\n_any_ names in this paragraph was, to give a somewhat definite cast to the\ndescription of the supposed progress of the plebeian self-instructor. The\nprincipal of them are mentioned simply as being of such note in their\ndepartments, that he would be likely to hear of them among the first of\nthe authors to be sought, if he were aspiring to something beyond his\npreviously humble and abridged reading. The reader may substitute for\nthese names any others, of the superior order, that he may think more\nproper to stand in their place. It would therefore be animadversion or\nridicule misspent, to make the charge of extravagance on this imagined\ncourse of a plain man's reading, with a specific reference to the authors\nhere named, as if it had been meant that precisely these, by a peculiar\nselection, were to be the authors he may be supposed to peruse, and in\nperusing, to waste his time and destroy his sense of duty.] He is by all\nmeans, you say, to be kept out of all such pernicious company, in which it\nis impossible he can learn any lesson but one,--an aversion to good\nmorals, just laws, virtuous kings, a polished and benevolent gentry, and\nlearned and pious teachers. Well; _let_ him be kept as far as possible\nfrom the mischief of all such books and knowledge; let him hardly know\nthat there _was_ an ancient world, or that there _are_ on the globe such\nregions and wonders as travellers have described; or that a reason and\neloquence above the pitch of some plain homily ever illustrated and\nenforced religion. _Let_ him keep clear of all such evil communications;\nand then, (since we were expressly making it a condition, that he can\nfairly spare the time for such reading from his common employment,) and\nthen,--he will have just so much the more time for needless sleep, for\ndiscussing the trifles and characters of the neighborhood, or, (supposing\nhim still of a religious habit,) for tiring his friends and family with\nthe well-meant but very unattractive iteration of a few serious phrases\nand remarks, of which they will have long since learnt to anticipate the\nlast word from hearing the first. Advantages like these he certainly may\nenjoy in consequence of his preclusion from the higher and wider field of\nideas. But however valuable these may be in themselves, they will not\nensure his being better qualified for the common business and proprieties\nof his station, than another man in the same sphere of life whose mind has\nacquired that larger reach which we are describing. It is no more than\nwhat we have repeatedly seen exemplified, when we represent this\ntransgressor into the prohibited field as probably acquitting himself with\nexemplary regularity and industry in his allotted labors, and even in this\nvery capacity preferred by the men of business to the illiterate tools in\nhis neighborhood; nay, most likely preferred, in the more technical sense\nof the word, to the honorable, but often sufficiently vexatious office of\ndirecting and superintending the operations of those tools.\n\nAnd where, now, is the evil he is incurring or causing, during this\nprogress of violating, step after step, the circumscription by which the\naristocratic compasses were again and again, with small reluctant\nextensions to successive greater distances, defining the scope of the\nknowledge proper for a man of his condition? It is a bad thing, is it,\nthat he has a multiplicity of ideas to relieve the tedium incident to the\nsameness of his course of life; that, with many things which had else been\nbut mere insignificant facts, or plain dry notions and principles, he has\na variety of interesting associations; like woodbines and roses wreathing\nround the otherwise bare, ungraceful forms of erect stones or withered\ntrees; that the world is an interpreted and intelligible volume before his\neyes; that he has a power of applying himself to _think_ of what it\nbecomes at any time necessary for him to understand? Is it a judgment upon\nhim for his temerity, in \"seeking and intermeddling with wisdom\" with\nwhich he had no business, that he has so much to impart to his children as\nthey are growing up, and that if some of them are already come to\nmaturity, they know not where to find a man to respect more than their\nfather? Or if he takes a part in the converse and devotional exercises of\nreligious society, is no one there the better for the clearness and the\nplenitude of his thoughts and the propriety of his expression?--But there\nwould be no end of the preposterous suppositions fairly attachable to the\nnotion, that the mental improvement of the common people has some proper\nlimit of arbitrary prescription, on the ground simply of their _being_ the\ncommon people, and quite distinct from the restriction which their\ncircumstances may invincibly impose on their ability.\n\nTaken in this latter view, we acknowledge that their condition would be a\nsubject for most melancholy contemplation,--if we did not hope for better\ntimes. The benevolent reflector, when sometimes led to survey in thought\nthe endless myriads of beings with minds within the circuit of a country\nlike this, will have a momentary vision of them as they would be if all\nimproved to the highest mental condition to which it is _naturally\npossible_ for them to be exalted a magnificent spectacle; but it instantly\nfades and vanishes. And the sense is so powerfully upon him of the\nunchangeable economy of the world, which, even if the fairest visions of\nthe millennium itself were realized, would still render such a thing\n_actually_ impossible, that he hardly regrets the bright scene was but a\nbeautiful _mirage_, and melts away. His imagination then descends to view\nthis immense tribe of rational beings in another, and comparatively\nmoderate state of the cultivation of their faculties, a state not\none-third part so lofty as that in which he had beheld all the individuals\nimproved to the utmost of their natural capacity; and he thinks, that the\ncondition of man's abode on earth _might_ admit of their being raised to\n_this_ elevation. But he soon sees that, till a mighty change shall come\non the management of the affairs of nations, this too is impossible; and\nwith regret he sees even this inferior ideal spectacle pass away, to rest\non an age in distant prospect. At last he takes his imaginary stand on\nwhat he feels to be a very low level of the supposed improvement of the\ngeneral popular mind; and he says, Thus much, at the least, should be a\npossibility allowed by the circumstances of the people under _any_\ntolerable disposition of national interests;--and then he turns to look\ndown on an actual condition in which care, and toil, and distress, render\nit impossible for a great proportion of the people to reach, or even\napproach, this his last and lowest conception of what the state of their\nminds ought to be.\n\nIn spite of all the optimists, it _is_ a grievous reflection, after the\nrace has had on earth so many thousands of years for attaining its most\nadvantageous condition there, that all the experience, the philosophy, the\nscience, the art, the power acquired by mind over matter,--that all the\ncontributions of all departed and all present spirits and bodies, yes, and\nall religion too, should have come but to this;--to this, that in what is\nself-adulated as the most favored and improved nation of all terrestrial\nspace and time, a vast proportion of the people are found in a condition\nwhich confines them, with all the rigor of necessity, to a mere childhood\nof intelligent existence, without its innocence.\n\nBut at the very same time, and while the compassion rises, at such a view,\nthere comes in on the other hand the reflection, that even in the actual\nstate of things, there are a considerable number of the people who _might_\nacquire a valuable share of improvement which they do not. Great numbers\nof them, grown up, waste by choice, and multitudes of children waste\nthrough utter neglect, a large quantity of precious time which their\nnarrow circumstances still leave free from the iron dominion of necessity.\nAnd they will waste it, it is certain that they will, till education shall\nhave become general, and much more vigorous in discipline. If through a\nmiracle there were to come down on this country, with a sudden, delightful\naffluence of temporal melioration, resembling the vernal transformation\nfrom the dreariness of winter, a universal prosperity, so that all should\nbe placed in comparative ease and plenty, it would require another miracle\nto prevent this benignity of heaven from turning to a dreadful mischief.\nWhat would the great tribe of the uneducated people do with the half of\ntheir time, which we will suppose that such a state would give to their\nvoluntary disposal? Every one can answer infallibly, that the far greater\nnumber of them would consume it in idleness, vanity or every sort of\nintemperance. Educate them, then, bring them under a grand process of\nintellectual and moral reformation;--or, in all circumstances and events,\ncalamitous or prosperous, they are still a race made in vain!\n\nIn taking leave of the subject, we wish to express, in strong terms, the\napplause and felicitations due to those excellent individuals, found here\nand there, who In very humble circumstances, and perhaps with very little\nadvantage of education in their youth, have been excited to a strenuous,\ncontinued exertion for the improvement of their minds; and thus have made\n(the unfavorable situation considered,) admirable attainments, which are\nverifying to them that \"knowledge is power,\" over rich resources for their\nown enjoyment, and are in many instances passing with inestimable worth\ninto the instruction of their families, and a variety of usefulness within\ntheir sphere. They have nobly struggled with their threatened destiny, and\nhave overcome it. When they think, with regret, how confined, after all,\nis their portion of knowledge, as compared with the possessions of those\nwho have had from their infancy all facilities and the amplest time for\nits acquirement, let them be consoled by reflecting, that the value of\nmental progress is not to be measured solely by the quantity of knowledge\npossessed, but partly, and indeed still more, in the corrective,\ninvigorating effect produced on the mental powers by the resolute\nexertions made in attaining it. And therefore, since, under their great\ndisadvantages, it has required a much greater degree of this resolute\nexertion in them to force their way victoriously out of ignorance, than it\nhas required in those who have had everything in their favor to make a\nlong, free career over the field of knowledge, they may be assured they\npossess one greater benefit in _proportion_ to the measure of their\nacquirements. This persistence of a determined will to do what has been so\ndifficult to be done, has infused a peculiar energy into the exercise of\ntheir powers; a valuable compensation, in part, for their more limited\nshare of the advantage that one part of knowledge becomes more valuable in\nitself by the accession of many others. Let them persevere in this worthy\nself-discipline, appropriate to the introductory period of an endless\nmental life. Let them go on to complete the proof how much a mind incited\nto a high purpose may triumph over a depression of its external\ncondition;--but solemnly taking care, that all their improvements may tend\nto such a result, that at length the rigor of their lot and the\nconfinement of mortality itself bursting at once from around them, may\ngive them to those intellectual revelations, that everlasting sunlight of\nthe soul, in which the truly wise will expand all their faculties in a\nhappier economy.\n\n\n\nThe End.","title":"An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":92380}