Part 3 (1/2)

An iht to the su numbers of dissenters of other denoht of soreat extension of dissent, it will hardly be considered as a circunorance_ that thus, within the last fifty years, there have been put in activity to iious ideas to the people not fewer (exclusively of the Wesleyans) than several thousand minds that would, under a continuance of the for no such service; that is to say, the service would not have been done at all Let it be considered, too, that the doctrines inculcated as of the first ireatest number of them, were exactly those which the Established Church avowed in its formularies and disowned in its ministry,--one of the circumstances which contributed thethe people--It is to be added, that so ious instruction could not be unaccompanied by an increase of exertion in theit

It is another iainst religious ignorance, that a proportion of the Established Church itself has been recovered to the spirit of its venerable founders, by the progressive forelical ministry; dissenters within their own community, if we may believe the constant loud declarations of the bulk of that conified, learned, and powerful classes in it But in spite of whatever discredit theythus disowned, these worthy and useful ye above other faithful teachers, for influence oninvested with the credentials of the ancient institution, from which the popularits veneration; and for which that sentiment, when not quite extinct, is ready to revive at anyspirit of the Gospel We say, if the sentie proportion of the people are gone beyond the possibility of feeling it any reat of those who experience, at this new appearance, a reanimation of their affection for the Church; and so fondly identify the partial change with the whole institution, that they feel as if a parent, who had for a long while neglected or deserted theard, were beginning to be restored to thenant qualities and cares of the parental character

Thus far the account of the land was not to furnish for its people till the latter part of the eighteenth century, relates to their better instruction in religion This will not be thought beside the purpose of an enunorance_, by any one who can allow that religion, regarded as a subject of the understanding, is the e, and who has observed the fact that religion, when it begins to _interest_ uncultivated ly in favor of the intellectual faculties; an effect exactly the reverse of that of superstition, and produced by the contrary operation; for while superstition represses, and even curses any free action of the intellect, genuine religion both requires and excites it Though it is too true that the great Christian principles, when embraced with conviction and seriousness by a very uneducated reatly partake, by contractedness of apprehension, the ill fortune which has confined his rowth, yet they will often dowithin the sae hireat extension of instruction in a forious, there have been various causes andthe people After it had been seen for centuries in what manner the children of the poor were suffered to spend the Sunday, it struck one observer at last, that they ht to read!--a possibility which had never been suspected; a disclosure as of some hitherto hidden power of nature And then the schools which taught the children to read made some of the parents so much better pleased with their children for their first steps in so new an attain of other schools of a huh the week

It ithin the sae circulation of tracts, by soht be little desirous of instruction, were beguiled into it by the aeniously contrived to convey it; and the most popular of which will ree, and benevolence, of that distinguished benefactor of her country and age, Mrs H More, perhaps even pre-eher strain Later and continual issues of this class of papers, of every diversity of composition, and diffused by the activity of numberless hands, have solicited perhaps a fourth part of the thoughtless beings in the nation to make at least one short effort to think

The enorht of periodical miscellanies, and of newspapers, must be taken as both the indication and the cause that hundreds of thousands of persons were giving soeneral infor the intervals of ti, or drinking their hours away [Footnote: Since this ritten there has been a prodigious augeneral excitement; and happily a diversified multiplication of a class of the the theround with the liberally educated; thus abating the former almost total incapacity, on the part of those inferiors, for intelligent intercommunication]

It is perhaps an item of some small value in the account, that a new class of ideas was furnished by the many wonderful effects of science, in the application of the eleence so effectually inspiriting inaniency, appearing in a certain degree independent ofany simple immediate exertion of _his_ power They saood and iron, fire, water, and air, actuated to the production of effects which ht vie hat their rude ancestors had been accustos,) of giants, icians, alchymists, and monsters; effects, the dream of which, if any one could so have dreaent of the fornorant persons can wonder at such things without deriving much instruction from them; and that much sooner than the more cultivated ones they become so familiarized with them as not to think of the, are apt, if they are but regular in their recurrence, to beconificant to those who have never learnt to inquire into _causes_ But still, it would be so to see what prodigious effects could be produced without any preternatural interference Though not co the science employed, they could comprehend that what they saas_ purely a matter of science, and that the cause and the effect were natural and definite; unlike the present race of Egyptians, who not long since regarded the very ic; and were capable of suspecting that awater from the Nile, should inundate the country in an hour These wonders of science and art must therefore have contributed so at every turn beset by occult powers, under the naue and capricious agency interfering and sporting with events throughout the system around them Their rationality thus obtained an iainst the injury undoubtedly done the which accoressive division of labor; an alteration rendered inevitable, and in other respects so advantageous

When we cooing up on the breadth of the land” In passing by any given number of houses of the inferior class, we may presume there are in them four or five times as many copies of that sacred book as there were in the same number thirty or forty years since And e consider how many more persons in those houses can read, and that in so come there as a novelty, than it is in many others where it has been an old article of the furniture, we reater proportion than the increased nuht into action a new expedient, worthy to stand, in the province of education, parallel and rival to the most useful anization for schools, by which, instead of one or two overlabored agents upon a mass of reluctant subjects, that whole ency It has all the merit of a contrivance which associates withlearners before

One more distinction of our times has been, that effect which missionary and other philanthropic societies have had, to render fas and publications, a great nu and important facts, in the state of other countries and our own, as were formerly quite beyond the sphere of ordinary information

In aid of all these means at work in the trial to raise the people froes sunk and i but important ministration of an incessantalmost every sort of information offer itself in brief, fanorance; so that knowledge, which was for for ”as for hid treasures,” has seeh the surface of the ground on all sides of us

The state an alteration aious excitement in the political world It were absurd, it is true, to name this in the si of the popularitself a proof and result of sonation But whatever ned as the true and sufficient explanation of its origin, we have to look on thea restlessness, instability, and tendency to change, into almost every part of the social economy In the whole compass of time there has been no train of events, that has within so short a period stirred to the very bottom the reat commotion has less consisted in what rand exploits and catastrophes, than in its being an intense activity of _principles_ It was as different from other convulsions in the moral world, as would be a tehty spirit, whether believed celestial or infernal, from one raised in the elements by mere natural causes The people were not, as in other instances of battles, revolutions, and striking alternations of fortune, gazing a at arded these events as the course of a great practical debate of questions affecting their own interests

And noe have put all these things together, we ain our wonder what _could_ have been the mental situation of a majority of the inhabitants of this country, antecedently to this creation and conjunction of soof an intelligent existence

Section III

The review of the past e it would be if we loo to an estimate of the people of the present times, we found so rich a practical result of the htened race, that we should have no further recollection of that sentence froain at every step in prosecution of the survey But we are coress ofobsolete any of the darker lines of the sacred record So co been pervaded by the stupifying power of the long reign of ignorance, with such heavy reluctance, at the best, does the huht,--and so inco much less of this reluctance, has been in quantity the whole new supply of e,--that a mostaway successive generations, has preserved, in substance, the sad inheritance to that which is as yet the latest

Even that portion of beneficial effect which actually has resulted from this co-operation of new forces, has served to make a more obvious exposure of the unhappiness and offensiveness of what is still the condition of the far greater part of our population; as a dreary waste is ive a more sensible impression how dreary it is, by the little inroads of cultivation and beauty in its hollows, and the faint advances of an unwonted green upon its borders The degradation of the main body of the lower classes is exposed by a comparison with the small reclaimed portion within those classes themselves It is not with the philosophers, literati, and her life, that we should think of placing in immediate comparison the untutored rustics and work howto them These extreme orders of society would seem less related in virtue of their common nature, than separated by the wide disparity of its cultivation They would appear so immeasurably asunder, such antipodes in the sphere of human existence, that the state of the one could afford no standard for judging of the defects or wants of the other It was not in a speculation which a that the saes, and ance--and also into helots; and then went into a fanciful question of how near they ether: it was in a speculation which, instead of dwelling on the vieas impossible to the cohest classes of their fellow-men, considered as left practicable to theinated which have actually imparted to a proportion of thee There has thus been formed a small improved order of people amidst the eneral state of that multitude that most directly exposes the popular debaseh to fix on a laboring man and his family, and affect to deplore that he is doohts of science, not to expatiate over the wide field of history, not to luxuriate ahts, refinements, and infinite diversities of literature; and that his fah accohborhood, favored by fortune, and high ability and cultivation in those at their head But it is a quite different thing to take this man and his family, hardly able, perhaps, even to read, and therefore sunk in all the grossness of ignorance,--and compare them with another man and family in the same sphere of life, but who have received the utmost improvement within the reach of that situation, and are sensible of its value; who often e, (soled converse,) some easy work of instruction or innocent entertainree that depends on their choice, froar; have learnt ent interest in the great events of the world; and are prevented, by what they read and hear, fro that there is another world It is, we repeat, after thus seeing what may, and in particular instances does exist, in a huard as really a dreadful spectacle the still prevailing state of our national population

We shall endeavor to exhibit, though on a sularity of proportion and arrangement, a faithful representation of the most serious of the evils conspicuous in an uneducated state of the people Much of the description and reflections must be equally applicable to other countries; for spite of all their mutual antipathies and hostilities, and numberless contrarieties of customs and fashi+ons, they have been wonderfully content to resemble one another in the worst national feature, a deformed condition of their people But it is here at home that this condition is the most painfully forced on our attention; and here also of all the world it is, that such a wretched exhibition is the severest reproach to the nation for having suffered its existence

The subject is to the last degree unattractive, except to a misanthropic disposition; or to that, perhaps, of a stern theological polemic, when tempted to be pleased with every superfluity of evidence for overwhel the opposers of the doctrine which asserts the radical corruption of our nature As spread over a coarse and repulsive moral and physical scenery, it is a subject in the extrenificent display, on account of which some of the most cruel evils that have preyed on mankind have ever been favorite themes riters ambitious to shi+ne in description Nor does it present a wild and varying spectacle, where a crowd of fantastic shapes (as in a view of the pagan superstitions,) h we knoe are looking on a great evil It is a gloomy monotony; Death without his dance Moreover, the representation which exhibits one large class degraded and unhappy, reflects ungraciously, and therefore repulsively, by an ilect of duty, on the other classes who are called upon to look at the spectacle There is, besides, but little power of arresting the attention in a description of familiar ht it not to be sofor a certain mode of benevolent exertion, that every one can see, and that no one can deny, the sad reality of all that forms the object, and imposes the duty, of that exertion?

Look, then, at the neglected ignorant class in their childhood and youth

One of the most obvious circumstances is the _perfect non-existence in their minds of any notion or question what their life is for, taken as a whole_ A ideas that soon find a place in theht,--For what purpose am I alive? What is it that I should be, nify _what_ I may be?--But surely, it is with ill omen that the huht He should in the opening of his faculties receive intis to his existence than what he is about to-day, and what he may be about to-morrow He should be ht to have a leading principle of direction, soeneral and comprehensive purpose, paramount to the divers particular objects he may pursue It is not more necessary for him to understand that he must in some way be employed in order to live, than to be apprized that life itself, that existence itself, is of no value but as awhich he should realize, and of which he ht to apprehend that there is a so essential for hi fro taller and stronger, seizing what share he can of noisy sport, and perfor appointed portions of work; and that if he do _not_ becoeneral and leading purpose, he will be worthless and unhappy

We are not entertaining the extravagant fancy that it is possible, except in sohtfulness, to turn inward into deep habitual reflection, the spirit that naturally goes outward in these vivacious, active, careless beings, e assert that it _is_ possible to teach ree of success, in very juvenile years, to apprehend and admit somewhat of such a consideration We have many times seen this exe apprized that _life is for soeneral purpose, a one into for its own sake, will not suffice They could comprehend, that the multiplicity of interests and activities in detail, instead of constituting of thes subordinate and subservient to a general scope, and judged of, selected, and regulated, in reference and a comprehensive purpose, we do not specifically and exclusively ious_ concern, viewed as a separate affair, and in _contradistinction_ to other interests; but a purpose formed upon a collective notion of the person's interests, which shall give one general right bearing to the course of his life; an ai in fulfilious concern all the other concerns for the sake of which it is worth while to dispose the activities of life into a _plan_ of conduct, instead of leaving theuide toward ultie account of what ht of, and what may be hoped for, in relation to the present life

Noe nopurpose of life, than we do the profoundest philosophical reflection, in theat all about their existence and life in anyreference whatever They know not any good that it is to have been endoith a rational rather than a brute nature, excepting that it affords e of tyrannizing over brutes

They think nothing about what they shall become, and very little about what shall beco that tells thes with future and rey of their oes out as in brute instinct on present objects, tothe chance for whatever ht, that what they are doing is the beginning of a life as an iood or evil; their whole faculty is engrossed in the doing of it; and whether it signify anything to the next ensuing stage of life, or to the last, is as foreign to any calculation of theirs, as the idea of reading their destiny in the stars Not only, therefore, is there an entire preclusion from their minds of the faintest hint of a rand final object pointed to by religion, but also, for the most part, of all consideration of the attainment of a reputable condition and character in life The creature endoith faculties for ”large discourse, looking before and after,” capable of so n, respectability, and happiness, even in its present short stage, and entering on an endless career, is seen in the abase, as its utmost reach of purpose, at the low a day; and cursing its privations and tasks, and often also the sharers of those privations, and the exactors of those tasks