Part 6 (1/2)

If alar held the sovereign control over the national econoiven theers of such a crisis and such a change, or rather to prevent such a crisis and a change so abrupt, by exertions in every way, and on the widest scale, to rescue the people fro to it for an uncontested undisturbed continuance of their own domination? But they scorned the idea, if it ever occurred, that the many-headed, many-handed ”monster,” (so na prone, and inert, and submissive, from time immemorial, should at last beco in defiance of their power

It is now for the a tenacious alienation froravate whatever injurious consequences may be threatened by so sudden a revolution; or endeavor to intercept the their best assistance to every plan and expedient for rescuing the lower orders fronorance and debasement

Other remedial measures, besides that of education, are imperiously demanded by the miserable and formidable condition of the populace, but no other, nor all others together, can avail without it

Since the date of the above note, the spirit and policy of the ascendant class have been just that which a philanthropist would have deprecated, and a cynic predicted

Their rin at the acquisition by the people of a new political rank, an event by which they, (the ascendant class,) had for a while appeared aious activity of device and exertion to nullify that rightful acquisition For this purpose have been brought into play, on the widest scale, that of the whole kingdom, all the means and resources of wealth, station, and poith the utmost recklessness of equity, honor, and even hu the venal, and inti the conscientious: insoe is practically reduced to an inconsiderable proportion of its pre-estimated worth; while aristocratic tyranny has rendered it toto possess it no better than an inflicted grievance One important measure for the improvement of the condition of the lower orders has been effected, because the anti-popular party saw it advantageous also to their own interests But for the general course of their policy, we have witnessed a systenition of the rights and wants of the people As to their education, it continues abandoned to the efforts and totally inadequate means of private individuals and societies; except a comparative trifle from the State, not so much for the whole nation for the whole year as the cost of soeant of one day--It is evident the predoher classes trouble themselves very little about the mental condition of the populace It is even understood that a chief obstacle in the way of any coislation on the subject is found or apprehended in the repugnance of those classes to any liberal scheood, should boldly set aside invidious restrictions and a jealous, parsimonious limitation; a scheme that should not work in subjection to the rand purpose of raising radation into rational existence]

Section V

The most serious form of the evil caused by a want of mental improvement, is that which is exposed to us in its consequences with respect to the ion This has been briefly adverted to in a former part of these descriptive observations But the subject seems to merit a more amplified illustration, and may be of sufficient interest to excuse some appearance of repetition The special viehich ish to place it, is that of _the inaptitude of uncultivated ht estiious notions a our uneducated population

_So different in their consciousness fro that faintly responds to the ter with the them on the subject, may be presumed to exist in the minds of all who are advanced a considerable way into youth, or coe, in a country where all are fay, and have the ious use, on spots appointed also for the interment of the dead If this sort ofon the ridiculous, ould recommend those ould smile at it to make some little experiments Let them insinuate themselves into the corown up destitute of everything worth calling education; or of the equally ill-fated beings in the alleys, precincts, and lower eement to avoid the abruptness and judicial formality, which, would preclude a coht take occasion to introduce re, without the express forhts of so God, Jesus Christ, the human soul, the invisible world And the ansould often put them to a stand to conceive, under what suspension of the laws of rational existence the utterers could have been passing so ht dispel, as by a sudden shock, the easy and contented assurance, if so unknowing a notion had been entertained, that almost all the people _must_, in one way or another, have becoion; that this _could_ not have failed to be the case in as expressly constituted a great Christian coation upon it, that none of its members should be left destitute of the reeable assurance would vanish, like a dream interrupted, at the spectacle thus presented, of persons only not quite as devoid of those first principles, after living eighteen, thirty, forty, or twice forty years, under the superintendence of that coinal rovers of the American forests, or natives of unvisited coral-built spots in the ocean If these exaation widely, and with an effect on their senti disclosure of facts, they could find themselves fallen into a very altered estimate of this our Christian tract of the earth A fancied sunshi+ne, spread over it before, would have faded away Fro to an accustomed notion, peculiarly auspicious, as if alious intelligence in the arded as favorable to the develops rather than that_ Plants and trees, the diversity of ani or enlarged to er persons looked at by the supposed exa his questions, with their passions also, and prevailing dispositions,--see how all things can unfold thee to their co to the Alrand purpose of its own existence!

The supposed ansould in ht of God at all was of very rare occurrence, the idea having never beco beheld in the whole creation We should think it probable, as we have said before, that with many, while in health, weeks oronce so presented as to fix the mind in attention to it for one moment of ti, at the end of the days or the weeks, the course of their thoughts, to recollect what particulars in the series had struck the est, it may be suspected that _this_ idea, thus impressively apprehended, would be as rare a recollection as that of having seen a splendid hts, such as they were, shall have run through thousands of changes; and even the name of God may have been pronounced by them a multitude of times, in jocularity or ih thoughtless ignorance, as well as a narrow and difficult one through subtle speculation

But that idea of God which has, by sos, to abide there so nearly in silence and oblivion,--what is it, when soross approxi to the likeness ofa Spirit, has indeed some little effect in prevention of the total debasement of the idea, it prevents it rather by confusion than by nificence It ination to a direct degrading definition; but it does so by a dissolution of the idea as into an attenuated cloud

And ever and anon, this cloudy diffusion is again drawing in, and shaping itself toward an ie, vast perhaps, and spectral, portentous across the firy to the human mode of personality

The divine attribute which is apprehended by them with most of an impression of reality, is a certain vastness of power But, through the grossness of their intellectual at prodigiously huge, rather than sublilorious--As considered in his quality of arded by some of them as more disposed, than there is any reasonable cause, to be displeased hat is done in this world But the far greater nuilant account or concern [Footnote: Some have no very distinct i since, a friend of the writer, in one of the midland counties, fell into talk, on a Sunday, with a man who had been in some very plain violation of the consecrated character of the day He seriously ani, Don't you think God will be displeased at and punish such conduct? or words to that effect The man, after a moment's consideration, answered, with unaffected cool si as how a takes it”

Numerous anecdotes of the sa thehtless man, of worthless character, not in the lowest condition in society, and then consciously near death The religious visitor represented to hi situation of afroe The ment that it was so, yet hoped that God would not be severe with him But the visitor anxiously pressed upon hies by a holy law: to which at last the ansith little eht it out as well as we can” The phrase, in his use of it, did notof the nature of a hostile contest, but siht be done without any great danger or trouble] And even those who entertain the racious apprehension, have it not in sufficient force to make them, once in whole months, deliberately think it worth while to care what he may disapprove]

The notions that should answer to the doctrine of a Providence, are a confusion of soer fancies and impressions of luck and chance; a confusion of the sentiment heard from a hbors, ”Providence must take its chance” And these are still further, and most uncouthly, confounded by the admixture of the ancient heathen notion of fate, reduced fros In many instances, however, this last obtains such a predominance, as to lessen the confusion, and withal to preclude, in a great measure, the sense of accountableness In neither of these rude states of the understanding, (that which confounds Providence and chance, and that which sinks in dull acquiescence to soined like fate,) is there any serious ad the enjoye of prayer

The supposed examinerthe Redeemer of the world They would be found, in nu literally to no more than, that Jesus Christ was a worthy kind of person, (the word has actually been ”gentleman,” in more than one instance that we have heard from unquestionable testimony,) who once, somewhere, (these national Christians had never in their lives, thought of inquiring when or where,) did a great deal of good, and was very ill used by bad people The people now, they think, bad as they may be, would not do so in the like case Some of these persons may occasionally have been at church; and are just aware that his name often recurs in its services; they never considered why; but they have a vague i some kind of virtue, perhaps rather in the nature of a spell--The naelists are by some held literally and technically available for such a use

A few steps withdrawn fro, there arebeen usually affirious for reat i punished for our sins This combination of a majestic superiority to the human nature, with a subsistence yet confessedly human, just passes their minds like a shape fors that may be as it is said, for what they know, but which they need not trouble thes said to be done by hi punished, they see indeed no necessity for such an expedient, but if it is so, very right, and so much the better; for between that circuood, after all that is said of his holiness and wrath, to be severe on such poor creatures, weoff safely at last But multitudes of the miserably poor, however wicked, have a settled assurance of this co effected for men by the Mediator: they shall be exe in consideration of their having suffered so reat numbers, more firmly held than this

It is true, they believe that the o to a state of punishment after death They consider murderers, especially, as under this doo to any settled estimate they have of the deue At least it is short if we could take it exclusively of the additions made to it by the resentments of individuals For each one is apt to make his own particular addition to it, of some offence which he would never have accounted so heinous, but that it has happened to be coainst _him_ We can recollect the exultation of sincere faith, seen _, as well as i, this retribution of some injury he had suffered; a real injury, indeed, yet of a kind which he would have held in small account had he only seen it done to another person--As to the nature of that future punisho scarcely at all beyond the iuish, conveyed by the well-known metaphors They have no impressive idea of the pain of remorse, and scarcely the faintest conception of an infelicity inflicted by the conscious loss of the Divine favor

It is ative are their conceptions of that future happiness which _--but what?--as the necessary alternative of the evil they so easily assure the The abstracted, contemplative, and elevated ideas of the celestial happiness are far above their apprehension; and indeed, though they were not, would be little attractive And the ious discourse, (if they should ever have heard enough of such discourse to be acquainted with theenial with their notions of pleasure to have a welcoination or affections Thus the soul, as to this great subject, is vacant and cold And here the reflection again returns, what an inexpressible poverty of the y, and yet have not obtained in its place any knowledge of the true religion The loith the vivid anticipations of Valhalla; the savages of the western continent had their ani visions of the ”land of souls;” the land, who also expect to live after death, do not knohat theyto heaven”

Most of this class of persons think very little in any hatever of the invisible spiritual economy And some of them would be pleased with a stillthem those who are liable to be occasionally affected with certain ghostly recognitions of so out of the common world But it is remarkable how little these ion For instance, a man subject to the terror of apparitions shall not therefore be in the sree the less profane, except just at the time that this terror is upon him A nuht, round a lonely church, encoraves, to which has perhaps lately been added that of a notoriously wicked , for in the road to this very church, to vent their jokes on the persons going thither to attend the offices of religion, and on the perforion, is the state out of which it is desired to redeem a multitude of the people of this land Or rather, we should say, it is sought to save a ned to it For consider, in the next place, (ished especially to point at, in this norance,) consider what a fatal inaptitude for receiving the truths of religion is created by the neglect of training minds to the exercise of their faculties, and the possession of the elee

How inevitably it must be so, from the nature of the case!--There is a sublime economy of invisible realities There is the Supreme Existence, an infinite and eternal Spirit There are spiritual existences, that have kindled into brightness and power, froovernhteous, of that Supre over the creation There is the i predicaation of confor, but perverted to a state of disconfornal anoovernment, the constitution of a new state of relation between the Supreh a Mediator, who makes an atonement for huhty Justice, for those who in grateful accordance to the e There are the several doctrines declaratory of this new constitution through all its parts There is the view of religion in its operative character, or the doctrine of the application of its truths and precepts by a divine agency to transform the mind and rectify the life

And this solemn array of all the subli infinitely away beyond the sensible horizon of our present state to an invisible world, to which the spirits offorever

Look at this scene of faith, so distinct, and stretching to such res; of a subsistence which it is for intellect alone to apprehend; presenting objects hich intellect alone can hold converse Look at this scene; and then consider, whatupon to enter into it by contes who have hardly ever once, in their whole lives, made a real effort to direct and concentrate the action of their faculties on anything abstracted from the objects palpable to the senses; whose entire attention has been engrossed, from their infancy, with the coratifications, the idle talk, the local occurrences, which formed the whole coed interests, of their progenitors Beings who have never been made in the least familiar with even the matters of fact, those especially of the scripture history, by which religious truths have been expressed and illustrated in the substantial fors who, in natural consequence of this unexercised and unfurnished condition of their understandings, will combine the utmost aversion to any effort of purely intellectual labor, with the especial dislike which it is in the human disposition to feel toward this class of subjects What kind of ideas should you iht employ, to place within their intellectual vision sos,--even should you be able, which you often would not, to engage any effort of attention to the subject?--And yet we have heard this disqualification for receiving religious knowledge, in consequence of the want of early ht of by ment had no less a foundation than an academical course and a consecrated profession They wouldso, that a very little, that the barest trifle, of regulated exercise of the h for the coe of religion as they could ever want; that any such thing as a practice of reading, (a practice of hazardous tendency) would be needless for the purpose, since they e by attendance on the public ministration in the church And there must have been a very recent acquiescence in a new fashi+on of opinion, if numbers of the sahts, say so not far different at this hour

But the pretended facility of gaining a coe by such persons on such terms, can only mean, that the smallest conceivable portion of it may suffice For we may appeal to those pious and benevolent persons who have made the most numerous trials, for testimony to the inaptitude of uneducated people to receive that kind of instruction You have visited, perhaps, soe of several related families; to which you had access without aard intrusion, in consequence of the acquaintance arising frohborhood, or of little services you had rendered, or of the circu to your charity schools It was to you soon hted spot of rational nature you were in, by indications unequivocal to your perception, though, it may be, not easily reducible to exact description