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AN ESSAY 
 
 THE EVILS 
 
 POPULAR IGNOHANCE: 
 
 A DISCOURSE 
 
 COMMUNICATION OF CHRISTIANITY TOTHKPEOPLE 
 ^ OF HINDOOSTA^^^'^^':R.Ar^ 
 
 TJinVERSITY) 
 
 BY JOHN F(Mm^ OIF- 
 
 NEW EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED. 
 
 Smttteiitlj ©Ijraaiil 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 H. G. BOHN, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 
 
 1853. 
 
Plo 
 
 ION DON : 
 B. CLAY, rnJNJiiR, BREAD STREET HILL. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 If the circumstance of a manner of introduction some- 
 what different from what would be expected in a com- 
 position of the essay class were worth a very few words 
 of explanation, it might be mentioned, that the following 
 production has grown out of the topics of a discourse, 
 delivered at a public anniversary meeting in aid of the 
 British and Foreign School Society. 
 
 When it wais thought, a good while after that occa- 
 sion, that a more extensive use might be made of some 
 of the observations, the writing was begun in the form 
 of a Discourse addressed to an assembly, and com- 
 mencing with a sentence from the Bible, to serve as a 
 general indication to the subject. But after some pro- 
 gress had been made, it became evident that any thing 
 like a comprehensive view of that subject would be in- 
 compatible with the proper limits of such a composition. 
 
 In relinquishing, however, the form of a public 
 address, the ysrriter thought he might be excused for 
 leaving some traces of that character to remain, in both 
 the cast of expression and the theological sentiment ; 
 for reverting repeatedly to the sentence from Scripture; 
 
IV ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 and for continuing the use of the plural pronoun, 
 so commodious for the modest egotism of public dis- 
 coursers. 
 
 In the general design and course of observations, 
 the essay retains the character of the original discourse, 
 which was, in accordance to the presumed expectations 
 of a grave assembly, an attempt to display the im- 
 portance of the education of the people in reference, 
 mainly, to moral and religious interests. There are 
 special relations in which their ignorance or cultivation 
 are of great consequence to the welfare of the com- 
 munity. Some of these are of indispensable considera- 
 tion to the legislator, and to the political economist. 
 But it is in that general and moral view, in which 
 ignorance in the lower orders is beheld the cause of their 
 vice, irreligion, and consequent misery, that the subject 
 IS attempted, imperfectly and somewhat desultorily, to 
 be illustrated in the following pages. 
 
 Nor was it within the writer's design to suggest any 
 particular plans, regulations, or instrumental expedients, 
 in promotion of the system of operations hopefully be- 
 gun, for raising these classes from their degradation. 
 His part has been to make such a prominent repre- 
 sentation of the calamitous effects of their ignorance, 
 as shall prove it an aggravated national guilt to allow 
 another generation to grow up to the same condition as 
 the present and the past. In the course of attempting 
 this, occasions have been seized of exposing the ab- 
 surdity of those who are hostile to the mental improve- 
 ment of the people. If any one should say that this 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. ^ 
 
 is a mere beating of the air, for that all such hostility 
 is now gone by, he may be assured there are many 
 persons, of no insignificant rank in society, who would 
 from their own consciousness smile at the simplicity 
 with which he can so easily shape men's opinions and 
 dispositions to his mind whether they will or not. He 
 must have been the most charitable or the most obtuse 
 of observers. 
 
 It is feared the readers of the following essay will 
 find some defect of distribution and arrangement. To 
 the candour of those who are practised in literary work 
 it would be an admissible plea, that when, in a prepa- 
 ration to meet a particular occasion for which but little 
 time has been allowed, a series of topics and observations 
 has been hastily sketched out, it is far from easy to 
 throw them afterwards into a different order. The 
 author has to bespeak indulgence also, here and there, 
 to something too like repetition. If he qualifies the 
 terms in which this fault is acknowledged, it is because 
 he thinks that, though there be a recurrence of simila- 
 rities, a mere bare iteration is avoided, by means of a 
 diversity and addition of the matter of illustration and 
 enforcement. 
 
 .. Any benevolent writer on the subject would wish he 
 could treat it without such frequent use of the phrases, 
 " lower orders," '• subordinate classes," " inferior por- 
 tion of society," and other expressions of the same 
 kind ; because they have an invidious sound, and have 
 indeed very often been used in contempt. He can only 
 say, that he uses them with no such feeling ; that they 
 
Vl . ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 are employed simply as the most obvious terms of 
 designation ; and that he would like better to employ 
 any less ungracious ones that did not require an affected 
 circumlocution. 
 
 In several parts of the essay, there will be found a 
 language of emphatic censure on that conduct of states, 
 that predominant spirit and system in the administration 
 of the affairs of nations, by which the people have been 
 consigned to such a deplorable condition of intellectual 
 and consequently moral degradation, while resources 
 approaching to immensity have been lavished on objects 
 of vanity and ambition. So far from feeling that such 
 observations can require any apology, the writer thinks 
 it is high time for all the advocates of intellectual, 
 moral, and religious improvement, to raise a protesting 
 voice against that policy of the states denominated 
 Christian, and especially our own, which has, through 
 age after age, found every conceivable thing necessary 
 to be done, at all costs and hazards, rather than to en- 
 lighten, reform, and refine the people. He thinks that 
 nothing can more strongly betray a judgment enslaved, 
 or a time-serving dishonesty, in those who would as- 
 sume to dictate to such an advocate and to censure him, 
 than that sort of doctrine which tells him that it is 
 beside his business, and out of his sphere, as a Christian 
 moralist, to animadvert on the conduct of national 
 authorities, when he sees them, during one long period 
 of time after another, not doing that which is the most 
 important of all things to be done for the people over 
 whom they preside, but doing what is in substance and 
 
ADVERTISEMBNT. Vll 
 
 effect the reverse; and doing it on that great scale, 
 which contrasts so fearfully with the small one, on 
 which the individuals who deplore such perversion of 
 power are confined to attempt a remedy of the conse- 
 quences. 
 
 This interdiction comes with its worst appearance, 
 when it is put forth in terms affecting a profound revcr 
 rence of religion ; a reverence which cannot endure 
 that so holy a thing should be defiled, by being brought 
 in any contact with such a subject as the disastrous 
 effect of bad government, on the intellectual and moral 
 state of the people. The advocate of schemes for the 
 improvement of their rational nature may, it seems, 
 take his ground, his strongest ground, on religion, for 
 enforcing on individuals the duty of promoting such 
 an object. In the name and authority of religion he 
 may press on their consciences with respect to the 
 application of their property and influence ; and he may 
 adopt under its sanction a strongly judicial language in 
 censure of their negligence, their insensibility to their 
 accountableness, and their lavish expenditures foreign 
 to the most important uses : in all this he does well. 
 But the instant he begins to make the like judicial 
 application of its laws to the public conduct of the 
 governing authorities, that instant he debases Chris- 
 tianity to politics, most likely to party-politics ; and a 
 pious horror is affected at the profanation. Christianity 
 is to be honoured somewhat after the same manner as 
 the Lama of Thibet. It is to stay in its temple, to 
 have the proprieties of homage duly preserved within 
 
Vlll ADVERTISEMENT, 
 
 its precincts, but to be exempted (in reverence of its 
 sanctity !) from all cognizance of great public affairs, 
 even in the points where they most interfere with or 
 involve its interests* It could show, perhaps, in what 
 manner the administration of those affairs injures these 
 interests ; but it would degrade its sacred character by 
 talking of any such matter. But Christianity must 
 have leave to decline the sinister compliment of such 
 pretended anxiety to preserve it immaculate. As to 
 its sacred character, it can venture that, on the strength 
 of its intrinsic quality and of its own guardianship, 
 while, regardless of the limits thus attempted in mock 
 reverence to be prescribed, it steps in a censorial capa- 
 city on what will be called a political ground, so far as 
 to take account of what concern has been shown, or 
 what means have been left disposable, for operations to 
 promote the grand essentials of human welfare, by that 
 public system which has grasped and expended the 
 strength of the community. Christianity is not so de- 
 mure a thing that it cannot, without violating its con- 
 secrated character, go into the exercise of this judicial 
 office. And as to its right to do so, — either it has a 
 right to take cognizance now of the manner in which 
 the spirit and measures of states and their regulators 
 bear upon the most momentous interests, or it will have 
 no right to be brought forward as the supreme law for 
 the final award on those proceedings and those men.* 
 
 * A censure on this alleged desecration of religious topics, which 
 had been pronounced on the Essay (first edit.) by a Review making 
 no small pretensions both religious and literary, was the immediate 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. IX 
 
 It is now more than twenty years since a national plan 
 of education for the inferior classes, was brought for- 
 ward by Mr. (now Lord) Brougham. The announce- 
 ment of such a scheme from such an Author, was 
 received with hope and delight by those who had so 
 long deplored the condition of those classes. But when 
 it was formally set forth, its administrative organiza- 
 tion appeared so defective in liberal comprehension, so 
 invidiously restricted and accommodated to the preju- 
 dices and demands of one part of the community, that 
 another great division, the one in which zeal and exer- 
 tions for the education of the people had been more and 
 longer conspicuous, was constrained to make an instant 
 and general protest against it. And at the same time 
 it was understood, that the party in whose favour it 
 had been so inequitably constructed, were displeased at 
 even the very small reserve it made from their mono- 
 poly of jurisdiction. It speedily fell to the ground, to 
 the extreme regret of the earnest friends of popular 
 reformation that a design of so much original promise 
 should have come to nothing. 
 
 All legislative consideration of the subject went into 
 abeyance; and has so remained, with trifling exception, 
 
 cause that prompted these observations. But they were made with 
 a general reference to a hypocritical cant much in vogue at that 
 time, and long before. That it was hypocritical appeared plainly 
 enough from the circumstance, that those solemn rebukes of the 
 profanation of religion, by implicating it with political affairs, 
 smote almost exclusively on one side. Let the religious moralist, 
 or the preacher, amalgamate religion as largely as he pleased with 
 the proper sort of political sentiments, that is, the servile, and then 
 it was all ri^ht. 
 
X ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 through an interval in which far more than a million, 
 in England alone, of the children who were at that 
 time within that stage of their life on which chiefly a 
 general scheme would have acted, have grown up to 
 animal maturity, destitute of all that can, in any decent 
 sense of the word, be called education. Think of the 
 difference between their state as it is, and what it might 
 have been if there had at that time existed patriotism, 
 liberality, and moral principle, enough to enact and 
 carry into effect a comprehensive measure. The longer 
 the neglect the more aggravated the pressure with 
 which the subject returns upon us. It is forcing itself 
 on attention with a demand as peremptory as ever was 
 the necessity of an embankment against the peril of 
 inundation. There are no indications to make us san- 
 guine as to the disposition of the most influential classes; 
 but it were little less than infatuation not to see the 
 necessity of some extraordinary proceeding, to establish 
 a fortified line between us and — not national dishonour; 
 that is flagrantly upon us, but — the destruction of 
 national safety. 
 
 As to national dishonour, by comparison with what 
 may be seen elsewhere, it is hardly possible for a patriot 
 to feel a more bitter mortification than in reading the 
 description, as recently given by M. Cousin, of the 
 state of education in the Prussian dominions, and then 
 looking over the hideous exhibition of ignorance and 
 barbarism in this country ; in representing to himself 
 the vernal intelligence, (as we may rightly name it,) the 
 information, the sense of decorum, the fitness for 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. XI 
 
 rational converse, which must quite inevitably diffuse a 
 value and grace throughout the general youthful cha- 
 racter under such a discipline, and then changing his 
 view to what may be seen all over his own country — 
 an incalculable and ever-increasing tribe of human 
 creatures, growing up in a condition to show what a 
 wretched and offensive thing is human nature left to 
 itself. 
 
 When neither opprobrium, nor prospective policy, 
 nor sense of duty, can constrain the attention of the 
 officially and virtually ruling part of society to an im- 
 portant national interest, it is sure to come on them at 
 last in some more alarming and imperative manifes- 
 tation. The present and very recent times have 
 afforded significant indication of what an ignorant popu- 
 lace are capable of believing, and of being successfully 
 instigated to perpetrate. It is not to be pretended that 
 such ignorance, and such liabilities to mischief, exist 
 only in particular spots of the land, as if the local out- 
 breaks were merely incidental and insulated facts, 
 standing out of community with any thing widely per- 
 vading the mass. Within but very few years of the present 
 date, we have had the spectacle of millions, literally 
 millions, of the people of England, yielding an absolute 
 credence to the most monstrous delusions respecting 
 public questions and measures, imposed on them by 
 dishonest artifice, and what may be called moral incen- 
 diarism; and these delusions of a nature to excite the 
 passions of the multitude to crime. It is difficult to 
 believe that all this can be seen without serious appre- 
 
ADVERTISKMENT. 
 
 liension, by those who sustain the primary responsibility 
 for devising measures to secure the national safety, 
 (that we may take the lowest term of national welfare;) 
 and that they can be content to rest that security on 
 expedients which, in keeping the people in order, make 
 them no wiser or better. It would truly be a glorious 
 change in our history, if we might at length see the 
 national power wielded by enlightened, virtuous, and 
 energetic spirits, not only to the bare effect of with- 
 standing disorder and danger, but in a resolute invin- 
 cible determination to redeem us from the national 
 ignominy of exhibiting to the world, far in the nine- 
 teenth century, a rude, unprincipled, semi-barbarous 
 populace. 
 
 Thus far the hopes which had flattered us with such 
 a change, as a consequence of a political movement so 
 considerable as to be denominated a revolution, have 
 been grievously disappointed. We must wait, but with 
 prognostics little encouraging, to see whether a pro- 
 fessed concern for popular education will result in any 
 effective scheme. That profession has hitherto been 
 followed up with so little appearance of earnest convic- 
 tion, or of high and comprehensive purpose, among the 
 majority of the influential persons who, perhaps for 
 decorum's sake, have made it, as to leave cause for 
 apprehension that, if any such scheme were to be pro- 
 posed, it would be in the first instance very limited in 
 its compass, indecisive in its enforcement, and niggardly 
 in its pecuniary appointments. Many of our legislators 
 have never thought of investigating the condition of 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. xiU 
 
 the people, and are unaware of their deplorable destitu- 
 tion of all mental cultivation ; and many have formed 
 but a low and indistinct estimate of the kind and mea- 
 sure of cultivation desirable to be imparted. Very 
 slowly does the conviction or the desire make its way 
 among the favourites of fortune, that the portion of 
 humanity so far below them should be raised to the 
 highest mental condition compatible with the limitation 
 and duties of their subordinate allotment. 
 
 No doubt, the most genuine zeal for the object would 
 find difiiculties in the way, of a magnitude to require 
 a great and persevering exertion of power, were they 
 only those opposed by the degraded condition of the 
 people themselves; by the utter carelessness of one 
 part, and the intractableness of another. Nor is it to 
 be denied, that the differences of religious opinion, 
 among the promoters of the design, must create con- 
 siderable difficulty as to the mode and extent of religious 
 instruction, to form a part of a comprehensive system. 
 But we are told, besides, of we know not what ob- 
 struction to be encountered from prejudices of pre- 
 scription, privileged and peculiar interests, the jealous 
 pride of venerable institutions, assumed rights of station 
 and rank, punctilios of precedence, the tenacity of 
 parties who find their advantage in things as they are^ 
 and so forth ; all to be deferentially consulted. 
 
 If this mean that the old horror of a bold experi* 
 mental novelty is still to be yielded to ; that nothing in 
 this so urgent affair is to be ventured but in a creeping 
 inch -by-inch movement; that the reign of gross igno- 
 
XIV ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 ranee, with all its attendant vices, is to be allowed a 
 very leisurely retreat, retaining its hold on a large 
 portion of the present and following generations of the 
 children, and therefore the adults ; that their condition 
 and fate shall be mainly left at the discretion of igno- 
 rant and often worthless parents ; that there shall be 
 no considerable positive exaction of local provision for 
 the institution, or of attendance of those who should 
 be benefited by it ; that, in short, there shall not be 
 a comprehensive application of the national power 
 through its organ, the government, by authoritative, 
 and, we must say, in some degree coercive measures, 
 to abate as speedily as possible the national nuisance 
 and calamity of such a state of the juvenile faculties 
 and habits as we see glaring around us; and all 
 this because homage is demanded to anticipated pre- 
 judices, selfishness of privilege, venerable institutions, 
 pride of station, jealousy of the well-endowed, and the 
 like: — if this be what is meant, we may well ask 
 whether these factitious prerogatives, that would thus 
 interfere to render feeble, . partial, and slow, any pro- 
 jected exertion to rescue the nation from barbarism, 
 turpitude, and danger, be not themselves among the 
 most noxious things in the land, and the most deserving 
 to be extirpated. 
 
 How readily will the proudest descend to the plea of 
 impotence when the exhortation is to something which 
 they care not for or dislike, but to which, at the same 
 time, it would be disreputable to avow any other than 
 the most favourable sentiments, to be duly expressed 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. XV 
 
 in the form of great regret that the tiling is impracti- 
 cable. Impracticable — and does the case come at last 
 to be this, that from one cause and another, from the 
 arrogance of the high and the untowardness of the low, 
 the obstinacy of prejudice, and the rashness of innova- 
 tion, the dissensions among friends of a beneficent design 
 and the discountenance of those who are no better than 
 enemies, a mighty state, triumphantly boasting of every 
 other kind of power, absolutely cannot execute a scheme 
 for rescuing its people from being what a great Au- 
 thority on this subject has pronounced "the worst 
 educated nation in Europe ?" Then let it submit, wuth 
 all its pomp, pride, and grandeur, to stand in derision 
 and proverb on the face of the earth. 
 
 "With a view to a wider circulation than that which 
 is limited by the price of the volume published in an 
 expensive form and style of printing, it has been 
 deemed advisable to publish a cheap edition of the 
 " Essay on Popular Ignorance." It is not in any degree 
 an abridgment of the preceding edition; the only omis- 
 sion, of the slightest consequence, being in a few places 
 where changes have been rendered necessary by the 
 subsequent conduct of our national authorities, as affect- 
 ing our speculations and prospects in relation to general 
 education; while, on the other hand, there are numerous 
 little additions and corrections, in attempts to bring out 
 the ideas more fully, or with some little afterthought of 
 discrimination or exception. In some instances the 
 
XVI ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 connexion and dependence of the series of thoughts have 
 been rendered more obvious, and the sentences reduced 
 to a somewhat more simple and compact construction; 
 but the principal object in this final revisal has been 
 literary correction, without any material enlargement 
 or change. 
 
 It is hoped that this reprint in a popular form may 
 serve the purpose of contributing something, in coopera- 
 tion with the present exertions, to expose, and partially 
 remedy, the lamentable and nationally disgraceful igno- 
 rance to which the people of our country have been so 
 long abandoned. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 Defect of sensibility in the view of the unhappiness of mankind. 
 — Ignorance one grand cause of that unhappiness. — Ignorance 
 prevalent among the ancient Jewish people. — Its injurious 
 operation — and ultimately destructive consequence. — More 
 extended consideration of ignorance as the cause of miser}' 
 among the.anpient heathens 1 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 Brief review of the ignorance prevailing through the ages sub- 
 sequent to those of ancient history. — State of the popular mind 
 in Christendom during the complete reign of Popery. — Sup- 
 posed reflections of a Protestant in one of our ancient splendid 
 structures for ecclesiastical use. — Slow progress of the Refor- 
 mation, in its effects on the understandings of the people. — 
 Their barbarous ignorance even in the time of Elizabeth, not- 
 withstanding the intellectual and literary glories of this 
 country in that period. — Sunk in ignorance still in what has 
 often been called our Augustan age. — Strange insensibility of 
 the cultivated part of the nation with regard to the mental and 
 moral condition of the rest. — Almost heathen ignorance of reli- 
 gion at the time when Whitefield and Wesley began to excite the 
 attention of the multitude to that subject. — Signs and means 
 of a change for the better in recent times 40 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 Great ignorance and debasement still manifest in various features 
 
 of the popular character, — Entire want, in early life, of any 
 
 idea of a general and comprehensive purpose to be pursued. — 
 
 Gratification of the senses the chief good. — Cruelty a subsidiary 
 
 b 
 
XVlll CONTENTS. 
 
 resource. — Disposition to cruelty displayed and confirmed by 
 common practices. — Confirmed especially by the manner of 
 slaughtering animals destined for food. — Displayed in the 
 abuse of the labouring animals. — General characteristic of the 
 people an indistinct and faint sense of right and wrong. — Va- 
 rious exemplifications. — Dishonour to our country that the 
 people should have remained in such a condition. — Effects of 
 their ignorance as appearing in several parts of the economy of 
 life ; in their ordinary occupations ; in their manner of spend- 
 ing their leisure time, including the Sunday; in the state of 
 domestic society ; consequences of this last as seen in the old 
 age of parents. — The lower classes placed by their want of edu- 
 cation out of amicable communication with the higher. — Un- 
 happy and dangerous consequences of this. — Great decline of 
 the respect which in former times the people felt toward the 
 higher classes and the existing order of the community. — Pro- 
 gress of a contrary spirit . , , 90 
 
 SECTION lY. 
 
 Objection, that a material increase of knowledge and intelligence 
 among the people would render them unfit for their station, 
 and discontented with it : would excite them to insubordina- 
 tion and arrogance toward their superiors ; and make them the 
 more liable to be seduced by the wild notions and pernicious 
 machinations of declaimers, schemers, and innovators. — Ob- 
 servations in answer. — Special and striking absurdity of this 
 objection in one important particular. — Evidence from matter 
 of fact that the improvement of the popular understanding has 
 not the tendency alleged. — The special regard meant to be had 
 to religious instruction in the education desired for the lower 
 classes, a security against their increased knowledge being per- 
 verted into an excitement to insubordination and disorder. — 
 Absurdity of the notion that an improved education of the 
 common people ought to consist of instruction specifically and 
 almost solely religious. — The diminutive quantity of religious 
 as well as other knowledge to which the people would be 
 limited by some zealous advocates of order and subordination 
 utterly inadequate to secure those objects. — But, question what 
 -is to be understood by order and subordination. — Increased 
 
CONTENTS. XIX 
 
 knowledge and sense in the people certainly not favourable to 
 a credulous confidence and a passive unconditional submission, 
 on their part, toward the presiding classes in the community. 
 
 Advantage, to a wise and upright government, of having 
 
 intelligent subjects.^ — Great effect which a general improvement 
 among the people would necessarily have on the manner of 
 their being governed.— The people arrived, in this age, at a 
 state which renders it impracticable to preserve national tran- 
 quillity without improving their minds and making some con- 
 cession to their claims. — Folly and probable calamity of an 
 obstinate resolution to maintain subordination in the nations 
 of Europe in the arbitrary and despotic manner of former 
 times.— Facility and certain success of abetter system . 153 
 
 SECTION V. 
 
 Extreme poverty of religious knowledge among the uneducated 
 people : their notions respecting God, Providence, Jesus 
 Christ, the invisible world. — Fatal efibct of their want of men- 
 tal discipline as causing an inaptitude to receive religious 
 information. — Exemplifications, — in a supposed experiment of 
 religious instruction in a friendly visit to a numerous unedu- 
 cated family; in the stupidity and thoughtlessness often 
 betrayed in attendance on public religious services; in the 
 impossibility of imparting religious truths, with any degree of 
 clearness, to ignorant persons, when alarmed into some serious 
 concern by sickness ; in the insensibility and invincible delu- 
 sion sometimes retained in the near approach to death. — Rare 
 instances of the admirable efficacy of religion to animate and 
 enlarge the faculties, even in the old age of an ignorant man. 
 — Excuses for the intellectual inaptitude and perversion of 
 uncultivated religious minds. — Animadversions on religious 
 teachers 187 
 
 SECTION VI. 
 
 Supposed method of verifying the preceding representation cf the 
 ignorance of the people. — Renewed expressions of wonder and 
 mortification that this should be the true description of the 
 English nation. — Prodigious exertions of this nation for the 
 accomplishment of objects foreign to the improvement of tho 
 
:X CONTENTS. 
 
 people. — ^Effects which might have resulted from far less exer- 
 tion and resource applied to that object. — The contrast between 
 what has been done, and what might have been done by the 
 exertion of the national strength, exposed in a series of parallel 
 representations. — Total unconcern, till a recent period, of the 
 generality of persons in the higher classes respecting the 
 mental state of the populace. — Indications of an important 
 change in the manner of estimating them. — Measures attempted 
 and projected for their improvement. — Some of these measures 
 and methods insignificant in the esteem of projectors of merely 
 political schemes for the amendment of the popular condition. 
 — But questions to those projectors on the efficacy of such 
 schemes. — Most desirable, nevertheless, that the political sys- 
 tems and the governing powers of states could be converted to 
 promote so grand a purpose. — But expostulations addressed to 
 those who, desponding of this aid, despond therefore of the 
 object itself. — Incitement to individual exertion. — Eeference to 
 the sublimest Example. — Imputation of extravagant hope. — 
 Repelled ; first, by a full acknowledgment how much the hopes 
 of sober-minded projectors of improvement are limited by what 
 they see of the disorder in the essential constitution of our 
 nature; and next, by a plain statement, in a series of par- 
 ticulars, of what they nevertheless judge it rational to expect 
 from a general extension of good education. — Answer to the 
 question, whether it be presumed that any merely human dis- 
 cipline can reduce its subjects under the predominance of re- 
 ligion. — Answer to the inquiry, what is the extent of the 
 knowledge of which it is desired to put the common people in 
 possession. — Observations on supposed degrees of possible 
 advancement of the knowledge and welfare of the community ; 
 with reflections of astonishment and regret at the actual state 
 of ignorance, degradation, and wretchedness, after so many 
 thousand years have passed away. Congratulatory notice of 
 those worthy individuals who have been rescued from the con- 
 sequences of a neglected education by their own resolute 
 mental exertions . 219 
 
 A DISCOURSE, &c 283 
 
"A Work, which, popular and admired as it confessedly 
 * is, has never met with the thousandth part of the atten- 
 ** tion which it deserves. It appears to me that we are now 
 " at a crisis in the state of our country, and of the world, 
 "which renders the reasonings and exhortations of that 
 "eloquent production applicable and urgent beyond all 
 "power of mine to express." — Dr. J. Pye Smith. 
 
((UinVBRSI 
 ESSAY ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.^ 
 
 IIOSEA. 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 It may excite in us some sense of wonder, and perliapj* 
 of self-reproacli, to reflect with what a stillness and in-^ 
 difference of the mind we can hear and repeat sentences 
 asserting facts which are awful calamities. And this 
 indifference is more than the accidental and transient 
 state, which might prevail at seasons of peculiar heavi- 
 ness or languor. The self-inspector will often be 
 compelled to acknowledge it as a symptom and ex- 
 emplification of the habit of his mind, that ideas of 
 extensive misery and destruction, though expressed in 
 the plainest, strongest language, seem to come with but 
 a faint glimmer on his apprehension, and die away 
 without awaking one emotion of that sensibility which 
 so many comparatively trifling causes can bring into 
 exercise. 
 
 Will the hearers of the sentence just now repeated 
 from the sacred book, give a moment's attention to the 
 effect it has on them ? We might suppose them accosted 
 with the question, Would you find it diflicult to say 
 what idea, or whether any thing distinct enough to 
 u 
 
2 ON POPULAK IGNORANCE. 
 
 deserve the name of an idea, has been impressed by the 
 sound of words bearing so melancholy a significance ? 
 And would you have to confess, that they excite no 
 interest which would not instantly give place to that of 
 the smallest of your own concerns, occurring to your 
 thoughts; or would not leave free the tendency to wander 
 loose among casual fancies; or would not yield to feel- 
 ings of the ludicrous, at the sight of any whimsical 
 incident ? It would not probably be unfair to suspect 
 such faintness of apprehension, and such unfixedness 
 and indifference of thought, in the majority of any 
 large number of persons, though drawn together osten- 
 sibly to attend to matters of gravest concern. And 
 perhaps many of the most serious of them would ac- 
 knowledge it requires great and repeated efforts, to 
 bring themselves to such a contemplative realization 
 of an important subject, that it shall lay hold on the 
 affections, though it should press on them, as in the 
 present instance, with facts and reflections of a nature 
 the most strongly appealing to a mournful sensibility. 
 That the "people are destroyed," is perceived to 
 have the sound of a lamentable declaration. But its 
 import loses all force of significance in falling on a state 
 of feeling which, if resolvable into distinct sentiments, 
 would be expressed to some such effect as this : — that 
 the people's destruction, in whatever sense of the word, 
 is, doubtless, a deplorable thing, but quite a customary 
 and ordinary matter, the prevailing fact, indeed, in the 
 general state of this world; that, in truth, it would 
 seem as if they were made but to be destroyed, for that 
 they have constantly been, in all imaginable ways, the 
 subjects of destruction; that, subjected in common with 
 all living corporeal beings to the doom of death, and to 
 a fearful diversity of causes tending to inflict it, they 
 have also appeared, through their long sad history, 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE, 8 
 
 consigned to a spiritual and moral destruction, if that 
 term be applicable to a condition the reverse of wisdom, 
 goodness, and happiness; that, in short, such a sentence 
 as that cited from the prophet, is too merely an expres- 
 sion of what has been always and over the whole world 
 self-evident, to excite any particular attention or emotion. 
 
 Thus the destruction, in every sense of the word, of 
 human creatures, is so constantly obvious, as mingled 
 and spread throughout the whole system, that the mind 
 has been insensibly wrought to that protective obtuse- 
 ness which (like the thickness of the natural clothing of 
 animals in rigorous climates) we acquire in defence of 
 our own ease, against the aggrievance of things which 
 inevitably continue in our presence. An instinctive 
 policy to avoid feeling with respect to this prevailing- 
 destruction, has so effectually taught us how to maintain 
 the exemption, by all the requisite sleights of overlook- 
 ing, diverting, forgetting, and admitting deceptive 
 maxims of palliation, that the art or habit is become 
 almost mechanical. When fully matured, it appears 
 like a wonderful adventitious faculty — a power of evad- 
 ing the sight, of not seeing, what is obviously and glar- 
 ingly presented to view on all sides. There is, indeed, 
 a dim general recognition that such things are ; tho 
 hearing of a bold denial of their existence, would give 
 an instant sense of absurdity, which would provoke a 
 pointed attention to them, the more perfectly to verify 
 their reality ; and the perception how real and dreadful 
 they are, might continue distinct as long as we were in 
 tlie spirit of contradicting and exploding that absurd 
 denial ; but, in the ordinary state of feeling, the mind 
 preserves an easy dulness of apprehension toward the 
 melancholy vision, and sees it as if it saw it not. 
 
 This fortified insensibility may, indeed, be sometimes 
 broken in upon with violence, by the sudden occurrence 
 
-» ON POPULAR IGNORANCE, 
 
 of some particular instance of human destruction, in 
 either import of the word, some example of peculiar 
 aggravation, or happening under extraordinary and 
 striking circumstances, or very near us in place or 
 interest. An emotion is excited of pity, or terror, or 
 horror; so strong, that if the person so affected has been 
 habitually thoughtless, and has no wish to be otherwise, 
 he fears he shall never recover his state of careless ease; 
 or, if of a more serious disposition, thinks it impossible 
 he can ever cease to feel an awful and salutary effect. 
 This more serious person perhaps also thinks it must be 
 inevitable that henceforward his feelings will be more 
 alive to the miseries of mankind. But how obstinate is 
 an inveterate habitual state of the mind against any 
 single impressions made in contravention to it! Both 
 the thoughtless and the more reflective man may pro- 
 bably find, that a comparatively short lapse of time 
 suffices, to relieve them from any thing more than 
 slight momentary reminiscences of what had struck them 
 with such painful force, and to restore, in regard to the 
 general view of the acknowledged misery of the human 
 race, nearly the accustomed tranquillity. The course of 
 feeling resembles a listless stream of water, which, after 
 being dashed into commotion, by a massive substance 
 flung into it, or by its precipitation at a rapid, relapses, 
 in the progress of a few fathoms and a few moments, 
 into its former sluggishness of current. 
 
 But is it well that this should be the state of feeling, 
 in the immediate presence of the spectacle exlVbiting the 
 people under a process of being destroyed? There 
 must be a great and criminal perversion from w^hat our 
 nature ought to be, in a tranquillity to which it makes 
 no material difference whether they be destroyed or 
 saved; a tranquillity which would hardly, perhaps, have 
 been awaked to an efibrtof intercession at the portentous 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. S 
 
 sign of destruction revealed to the sight of Oman ; or 
 which might at the deluge have permitted the privileged 
 patriarch to sink in a soft slumber, at the moment when 
 tlie ark was felt to be moving from its ground. If the 
 original rectitude of that nature had been retained by 
 any individual, he would be confounded to conceive how 
 creatures having their lot cast in one place, so near to- 
 gether, so much alike, and under such a complication of 
 connexions and dependences, can yet really be so insu- 
 lated, as that some of them may behold, wath immovable 
 composure, innumerable companies of the rest in such 
 a condition, that it had been better for them not to have 
 existed. 
 
 To such a condition a vast multitude have been con- 
 signed by *' the lack of knowledge." And we have to 
 appeal concerning them to whatever there is of bene- 
 volence and conscience, in those who deem themselves 
 happy instances of exemption from this deplorable con- 
 signment ; and are conscious that their state of inestim- 
 able privilege is the result, under the blessing of heaven, 
 of the reception of information, of truth, into their minds. 
 
 If it were suggested to the well instructed in our 
 companies to take an account of the benefit they have 
 received through the medium of knowledge, they would 
 say they do not know where to begin the long enume- 
 ration, or how to bring into one estimate so ample a 
 diversity of good. It might be something like trying to 
 specify, in brief terms, what a highly improved portion 
 of the ground, in a tract rude and sterile if left to itself? 
 has received from cultivation ; an attempt which would 
 carry back the imagination through a progression of 
 states and appearances, in which the now fertile spots, 
 and picture-like scenes, and commodious passes, and plea- 
 sant habitations, mayor must have existed in the advance 
 from the original rudeness. The estimate of what has 
 
6 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 ultimately been effected, rises at each stage in this retro- 
 spect of the progress, in which so many valuable changes 
 and additions still require to be followed by something 
 more, to complete the scheme of improvement. In thus 
 tracing backward the condition of a now fair and pro- 
 ductive place of human dwelling and subsistence, it 
 may easily be recollected, what a vast number of the 
 earth's inhabitants there are whose places of dwelling are 
 in all those states of worse cultivation and commodious- 
 ness, and what multitudes leading a miserable and 
 precarious life amidst the inhospitableness of the waste 
 howling wilderness. Each presented circumstance of 
 fertility or shelter, salubrity or beauty, may be named 
 as what is wanting to a much greater number of the 
 occupants of the world, than those to whom the " lines 
 are fallen in such pleasant places." 
 
 When, in like manner, a person richly possessed of 
 the benefits imparted by means of knowledge, finds, in 
 attempting to recount them, that they rise so fast on his 
 view, in their variety, combinations, and gradations 
 from less to greater, as to overpower his computing 
 faculity, he may be reminded that this account of his 
 wealth is, in truth, that of many other men's poverty. 
 And if, while these benefits are coming so numerously 
 in his sight, like an irregular crowd of loaded fruit- 
 trees, one partially seen behind the offered luxury of 
 another, and others still descried, through intervals, in 
 the distance, he can imagine them all devastated and 
 swept away from him, leaving him in a scene of mental 
 desolation, — and if he shall then consider that nearly 
 such is the state of the great multitude, — he will surely 
 feel that a deep compassion is due to so depressed a 
 condition of existence. And how strongly is its infelicity 
 shown by the very circumstance, that a being who is 
 himself but very imperfectly enlightened, and who is 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 7 
 
 exposed to sorrow and doomed to death, is nevertheless 
 in a state to be able to look down upon the victims of 
 the " lack of knowledge" with profound commisera- 
 tion. The degree of pity is the measure of a conscious 
 superiority. 
 
 We may say to persons so favoured, — If knowledge 
 has been made the cause that you are, beyond all com- 
 parison, better qualified to make the short sojourn on 
 this earth to the greatest advantage, think what a fatal 
 thing that must be which condemns so many, whose lot 
 is contemporary and in vicinity with yours, to pass 
 through the most precious possibilities of good un- 
 profited, and at last to look back on life as a lost adven- 
 ture. If through knowledge you have been introduced 
 into a new and superior world of ideas and realities, 
 and your intellectual being has there been brought into 
 exercise among the highest interests, and into commu- 
 nication with the noblest objects, think of that condition 
 of the soul to which this better economy has no exist- 
 ence. If knowledge rendered efficacious has become, 
 in your minds, the light and joy of the christian faith 
 and hope, look at the state of those, whose minds have 
 never been cultivated to an ability to entertain the 
 principles of religious truth, even as mere intellectual 
 notions. You would not for the wealth of an empire 
 consent to descend, were it possible, from the compara- 
 tive elevation to which you have been raised by means 
 of knowledge, into the melancholy region of spirits 
 abandoned to ignorance. 
 
 But in this situation have the mass of the people 
 been, from the time of the prophet whose words we 
 have cited, down to this hour. 
 
 The prophets had their exalted privilege of dwelling 
 amidst the illuminations of heaven effectually counter- 
 vailed, as to any elation of feeling it might have 
 
Cr ON POPULAR IGNORANCE, 
 
 imparted, by the grief of beholding the daily spectacle 
 of the grossest manifestations and mischiefs of ignorance 
 among the people, for the very purpose of whose ex- 
 emption from that ignorance it was that they bore the 
 sacred office. One of the most striking of the charac- 
 teristics by which their writings so forcibly seize the 
 imagination is, a strange continual fluctuation and strife 
 of lustre and gloom, produced by the intermingling and 
 contrast of the emanations from the Spirit of infinite 
 wisdom with those proceeding from the dark debased 
 souls of the people. We are tempted to pronounce 
 that nation not only the most perverse, but the most 
 unintelligent and stupid of all human tribes. The re- 
 vealed law of God in the midst of them; the prophets 
 and other organs of oracular communication; religious 
 ordinances and emblems; facts, made and expressly 
 intended to embody truths, in long and various series; 
 the whole system of their superhuman government, 
 constituted as a school — all these were ineffectual to 
 create so much just thought in their minds, as to save 
 them from the vainest and the vilest delusions and 
 superstitions. 
 
 But, indeed, this very circumstance, that knowledge 
 shone on them from Him who knows all things, may 
 in part account for an intellectual perverseness that 
 appears so peculiar and marvellous. The nature of 
 man is in such a moral condition, that any thing is the 
 less acceptable for coming directly from God; it being 
 quite consistent, that the state of mind which is declared 
 to be " enmity against him," should have a dislike to 
 his coming so near, as to impart his communications by 
 his immediate act, bearing on them the fresh and sacred 
 impression of his hand. The supplies for man's temporal 
 being are conveyed to him through an extended medium, 
 through a long process of nature and art, which seems 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. U 
 
 to place the great First Cause at a commodious dis- 
 tance ; and those gifts are, on that account, mora 
 welcome, on the whole, than if they were sent as the 
 manna to the Israelites. The manna itself might not 
 have been so soon loathed, had it been produced in 
 what we call the regular course of nature. And with 
 respect to the intellectual communications which were 
 given to constitute the light of knowledge in their 
 souls, there can, on the same principle, be no doubt 
 that the people would more willingly have opened their 
 minds to receive them and exercise the thinking facul- 
 ties on them, if they could have appeared as something 
 originating in human wisdom, or at least as something 
 which, though primarily from a divine origin, had been 
 long surrendered by the Revealer, to maintain itself in 
 the world by the authority of reason only, like the 
 doctrines worked out from mere human speculation. 
 But truth that was declared to them, and inculcated on 
 them, through a continual immediate manifestation of 
 the Sovereign Intelligence, had a glow of Divinity (if 
 we may so express it) that was unspeakably offensive 
 to their minds, which therefore receded with instinctive 
 recoil. They were averse to look toward that which 
 they could not see without seeing God; and thus 
 they were hardened in ignorance, through a reaction of 
 human depravity against the too luminous approach of 
 the Divine presence to give them wisdom. 
 
 But in whatever degree the case might be thus, as 
 to the cause, the fact is evident, that the Jewish people 
 were not more remarkable for their pre-eminence in 
 privilege, than for their grossness of mental vision 
 under a dispensation specially and miraculously con- 
 stituted and administered to enlighten them. The 
 sacred history of which they are the subject, exhibits 
 every mode in which the intelligent faculties may evade 
 
10 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 or frustrate the truth presented to them; every way in 
 which the decided preference for darkness may avail 
 to defy what might have been presumed to be irresis- 
 tible irradiations; every perversity of will which ren- 
 ders men as accountable and criminal for being ignorant 
 as for acting against knowledge; and every form of 
 practical mischief in which the natural tendency of 
 ignorance, especially wilful ignorance, is shown. A 
 great part of what the devout teachers of that people 
 had to address to them, wherever they appeared among 
 them, was in reproach of their ignorance, and in order, if 
 possible, to dispel it. And were we to indulge our fancy 
 in picturing the forms and circumstances in which it 
 was encountered by those teachers, we might be sure 
 of not erring much by figuring situations very similar 
 to what might occur in much later and nearer states of 
 society. If we should imagine one of these good and 
 wise instructors going into a promiscuous company of 
 the people, and asking them, with a view at once to see 
 into their minds and inform them, say, ten plain ques- 
 tions, relative to matters somewhat above the ordinary 
 secular concerns of life, but essential for them to under- 
 stand, it would be a quite probable supposition that 
 he did not obtain from the whole company rational 
 answers to more than three, or two, or even one, of 
 those questions ; notwithstanding that every one of 
 them might be designedly so framed, as to admit of an 
 easy reply from the most prominent of the dictates of 
 the ** law and the prophets,'' and from the right appli- 
 cation of the memorable facts in the national history of 
 the Jews. In his earlier experiments he might be 
 supposed very reluctant to admit the fact, that so many 
 of his countrymen, in one spot, could have been so faith- 
 fully maintaining the ascendency of darkness in their 
 spirits, while surrounded by divine manifestations of 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 11 
 
 truth. He might be willing to suspect he had not been 
 happy in the form of words in which his queries had 
 been conveyed. But it may be believed that all his 
 changes and adaptations of expression, to elicit from 
 the contents of his auditors' understandings something 
 fairly answering to his questions, might but complete 
 the proof that the thing sought was not there. And 
 while he might be looking from one to another, with 
 regret not unmingled with indignation at an ignorance 
 at once so unhappy and so criminal, they probably 
 might little care, excepting some slight feeling of mor- 
 tified pride, that they were thus proved to be nearly 
 pagans in knowledge within the immediate hearing of 
 the oracles of God. 
 
 Or we may represent to ourselves this benevolent 
 promoter of improvement endeavouring to instruct such 
 a company, not in the way of interrogation, but in the 
 ordinary manner of discourse, and assuming that they 
 actually had in their minds those principles, those points 
 of knowledge, which would, on the former supposition 
 of a course of questions, have qualified them to make 
 the proper replies. It may indeed be too much to 
 imagine a discerning man to entertain such a presump- 
 tion; but supposing he did, and proceeded upon it, you 
 can well conceive what reception the reasonings, 
 advices, or reproofs, would find among the hearers, 
 according to their respective temperaments. Some 
 would be content with knowing nothing at all about 
 the matter, which they would perhaps say, might be, 
 for aught they knew, something very wise ; and, ac- 
 cording to their greater or less degree of patience and 
 sense of decorum, would wait in quiet and perhaps 
 sleepy dulness for the end of the irksome lecture, or 
 escape from it by a stolen retreat, or a bold-faced exit. 
 To others it would all seem ridiculous absurdity, and 
 
12 ON POPULAR IGNOKAT^CE. 
 
 they would readily laugh if any one would begin. A 
 few possessed of some natural shrewdness, would set 
 themselves to catch at something for exception, with 
 unadroit aim but with good will for cavil. While 
 perhaps one or two, of better disposition, imperfectly 
 descrying at moments something true and important in 
 what was said, and convinced of the friendly intention 
 of the speaker, might feel a transient regret for what 
 they would with honest shame call the stupidity of 
 their own minds, accompanied with some resentment 
 against those to whose neglect it was greatly attri- 
 butable. The instructor also, as the signs grew evident 
 to him of the frustration of his efforts upon the invin- 
 cible grossness of the subjects before him, would become 
 animated with indignation at the incompetence or 
 wicked neglect in the system and office of public in- 
 struction, of which the intellectual condition of such a 
 company of persons might be taken as a proof and 
 consequence. And in fact there is no class more 
 conspicuous in reprobation, in the solemn invectives of 
 the prophets, than those whose special and neglected 
 duty it was to instruct the Jewish people. 
 
 Now if such were the state of their intelligence, how 
 would this friend of truth and the people find, how 
 would he have exjiected to find, their piety, their morals, 
 and their happiness affected by such destitution of 
 knowledge ? Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs 
 of thistles ? We are supposing them to be in ignorance 
 of four parts out of five, or perhaps of nine parts out 
 of ten, of what the Supreme Wisdom was maintaining 
 an extraordinary dispensation to declare to them. Why 
 to declare, but because each particular in this divine 
 promulgation was pointed to some circumstance, some 
 propensity, some temptation, in their nature and condi- 
 tion, and was exactly fitted to be there applied as a 
 
ON rOPULAH IGNORANCE. 18 
 
 rectifier and guard ? The revelations and signs from 
 heaven were the sum of what the Perfect InteUigenco 
 judged indispensable to be sent forth from him to his 
 subjects, as seen by him liable to be wrong; and could 
 there be one dictate or fact superfluous in such a com- 
 munication? If not, consider the case of minds in 
 which one, and a second, and the far greater number, 
 of the points of information thus demonstrated to be 
 necessary, had no place to shine or exist; of which 
 minds, therefore, the estimates, passions, volitions, 
 principles of action with the actions also, were in so 
 many instances abandoned to take their chance for good 
 or evil. But had they any chance for good in such an 
 abandonment? What principle in their nature was 
 to determine them to good, with an impulse that rendered 
 needless the rational discrimination of it by the liglit of 
 truth? It were an exceedingly probable thing truly, 
 that some happy instinct, or some guiding star of good 
 fortune, should have beguiled into an unknowing choice 
 of what is right, that very nature which knowledge 
 itself, including a recognition of the will of God, is so 
 often insufficient to constrain to such a choice. 
 
 But further ; the absence of knowledge is sure to be 
 something more and worse than simple ignorance. Even 
 were that absence but a mere negation, a vacancy of 
 truth, (the terms truth and knowledge may be used for our 
 present purpose as nearly vSynonymous, for what is not 
 truth is not knowledge,) it would be by its effect as a 
 deficiency, incalculably injurious. But it could not re- 
 main a mere deficiency : the vacancy of truth w^ould 
 commonly be found replenished with positive error. 
 Not indeed repleiiisiied, (we are speaking of uncul- 
 tivated persons,) with a comprehensive and arranged 
 set of false notions ; for there would not be tli inking 
 enough to form opinions in any sufficient number to bo 
 
14 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 distinctly and specifically the opposites to the many 
 truths that were absent ; but a few false notions, such 
 as could hardly fail to take the place of absent truth in 
 the ignorant mind, however crude they might be, and 
 however deficient for constituting a full system of error, 
 would be sure to dilate themselves so as to have an 
 operation at all the points where truth was wanting. It 
 is frightful to see what a space in an ignorant mind one 
 fidse notion can occupy, working nearly the same effect 
 in many distinct particulars, as if there had been so 
 many distinct wrong principles, each producing speci- 
 fically its own bad effect. So that in that mind a few 
 false notions, and those the ones most likely to establish 
 themselves there, shall be virtually equivalent to a 
 whole scheme of errors standing formally in place of 
 so many truths of which they are the reverse. And 
 thus the dark void of ignorance, instead of remaining 
 a mere negation, becomes filled with agents of perver- 
 sion and destruction ; as sometimes the gloomy apart- 
 ments of a deserted mansion have become a den of 
 robbers and murderers. 
 
 Such a friend of the people, then, as we were sup- 
 posing to expend his life and zeal on the object of 
 rescuing them from their ignorance, would see in that 
 ignorance not only the privation of all direction and 
 impulsion to good, but a great positive force of deter- 
 mination toward evil. 
 
 But it may be alleged, that he would not find them 
 wliolly destitute of right information. True ; but he 
 would find that the small portion of knowledge which 
 an ignorant people did really possess, could be of little 
 avail. It is not only that, from the narrowness of its 
 scope, knowledge so scanty as to afford no principles 
 directly adapted for application to a vast number of 
 matters of judgment and conduct, would of course be 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 15 
 
 of small use, though it were ef^ciGui as far as it reached; 
 — of small use though it did produce that very limited 
 quantity of good which ought to be its proper share, in 
 a due proportion to the larger amount of good to be 
 produced by a larger knowledge. This is not the 
 whole of the misfortune : it would not produce that 
 proportionate share. For the fewer are the points to 
 which there is knowledge that can be applied, the less 
 availing is its application even to those few points. It 
 shall be the kind of knowledge apposite to them, and 
 yet be nearly useless ; from the obvious cause, that a 
 few just notions existing disconnected and confused 
 among the mass of vain and false ones, which will, like 
 noxious weeds, infest minds left in ignorance, are not 
 permitted by those bad associates to do their duty. 
 AYeak by being few, insulated, unsupported, and dwel- 
 ling among vicious neighbours, they not only cannot 
 perform their own due service, but are liable to be 
 seduced to that of the evil principles whose company 
 they are condemned to keep. The conjunction of truths 
 is of the utmost importance for preserving the genuine 
 tendency, and securing the appropriate efficacy, of each. 
 It is an unhappy " lack of knowledge " when there is 
 not enough to preserve, to what there is of it, the 
 honest beneficial quality of knowledge. How many 
 of the follies, excesses, and crimes, in the course of the 
 world, have taken their pretended warrant from some 
 fragment of truth, dissevered from the connexion of 
 truths indispensable to its right operation, and in that 
 detached state easily perverted into coalescence with 
 the most pernicious principles, which concealed and 
 gave effect to their malignity under the falsified autho- 
 rity of a truth. 
 
 There were many and melancholy exemplifications 
 of all we have said of ignorance, in the conduct of that 
 
16 
 
 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 ancient people at present in our view. Doubtless a sad 
 proportion of the iniquities which, by their necessary 
 tendency and by the divine vindictive appointment, 
 brought plagues and destruction upon them, were com- 
 mitted in violation of what they knew. But also it 
 was in no small part from blindness to the manifestation 
 of truth and duty incessantly confronting them, that 
 they were betrayed into crimes and consequent miseries. 
 This is evident equally from the language in which 
 their prophets reproached their intellectual stupidity, 
 and from the surprise which they sometimes seem to 
 have felt on finding themselves involved in retributive 
 suffering, for what they could not conceive to be serious 
 delinquencies. It appeared as if they had never so 
 much as dreamed of such a consequence ; and their 
 monitors had to represent to them, that it had been 
 through their thoughtlessness of divine dictates and 
 warnings, if they did not know that such proceedings 
 must provoke such an infliction. 
 
 How one portion of knowledge admitted, with the 
 exclusion of other truths equally indispensable to be 
 known, may not only be unavailing, but may in effect 
 lend force to destructive error, is dreadfully illustrated 
 in the final catastrophe of that favoured guilty nation. 
 They were in possession of the one important point 
 of knowledge, that a Messiah was to come. They held 
 this assurance not slightly, but with strong conviction, 
 and as a matter of the utmost interest. But then, that 
 this knowledge might have its appropriate and happy 
 effect, it was of essential necessity for them to know 
 also the character of this Messiah, and the real nature 
 of his great design. But this they closed up their un- 
 derstandings in a fatal contentment not to know. Lite- 
 rally the whole people, with a diminutive exception, 
 had failed, or rather refused, to admit, as to that part 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. l7 
 
 oF tbe subject, the inspired declarations. Now comes 
 the consequence of knowing only one thing of several 
 that require to be inseparable in knowledge. They 
 formed to themselves a false idea of the Messiah, ac- 
 cording to their own worldly imaginations ; and they 
 extended the full assurance which they justly enter- 
 tained of his coming, to this false notion of what he 
 was to be and to accomplish when he should come. 
 From this it was natural and inevitable that when the 
 true Messiah should come they would not recognise 
 him, and that their hostility would be excited against a 
 person who, while demanding to be acknowledged in 
 that capacity, appeared without the characteristics 
 pictured in their vain imagination, and with directly 
 opposite ones. And thus they were placed in an 
 incomparably worse situation for receiving him with 
 honour when he did appear, than if they had had no 
 knowledge that a Messiah was to come. For on that 
 supposition they might have regarded him as a most 
 striking phenomenon, with curiosity and admiration, 
 with awe of his miraculous powers, and as little pre- 
 judice as it is possible in any case for depravity and 
 ignorance to feel toward sanctity and wisdom. But 
 this delusive pre-occupation of their minds formed a 
 direct grand cause for their rejecting Jesus Christ. 
 And how fearful was the final consequence of this "lack 
 of knowledge ! " How truly, in all senses, the people 
 were destroyed ! The violent extermination at length 
 of multitudes of them from the earth, was but as the 
 omen and commencement of a deeper perdition. And 
 the terrible memorial is a perpetual admonition what a 
 curse it is not to know. For He by the rejection of 
 whom these despisers devoted themselves to perish, 
 while he looked on their great city, and wept at the 
 c 
 
18 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 doom wliicli he belield impending, said, If thou hadst 
 known, even thou in this thy day. 
 
 So much for that selected people : — we may cast a 
 glance over the rest of the ancient world, as exempli- 
 fying the pernicious effect of the want of knowledge. 
 
 The ignorance which pervaded the heathen nations, 
 was fully equal to the utmost result that could have 
 been calculated from all the causes contributing to 
 thicken the mental darkness. The traditional glim- 
 mering of that knowledge which had been originally 
 received by divine communication, had long since be- 
 come nearly extinct, having gone out in the act, as it 
 were, of lighting up certain fantastic inventions of 
 doctrine, by ignition of an element exhaled from the 
 corruptions of the human soul. In other words, the 
 primary truths, imparted by the Creator to the early 
 inhabitants of the earth, gradually losing their clear- 
 ness and purity, had passed, by a transition through 
 some delusive analogies, into the vanities of fancy and 
 notion which sprang from the inventive depravity of 
 man ; which inventions carried somewhat of an au- 
 thority stolen from the grand truths they had super- 
 seded. And thus, if we except so much instruction as 
 we may conceive that the extraordinary and sometimes 
 dreadful interpositions of the Governor of the world 
 might convey, unaccompanied with declarations in lan- 
 guage, (and it was in but an extremely limited degree 
 that these had actually the effect of illumination,) the 
 human tribes were surrendered to their own under- 
 standing for all that they were to know and think. 
 Melancholy predicament ! The understanding, the 
 intellect, the reason, which had not sufficed for pre- 
 serving the true light from heaven, was to be competent 
 to give light in its absence. Under the disadvantage 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 19 
 
 of this loss — after the setting of the sun — it was to 
 exercise itself on an unlimited diversity of important 
 things, inquiring, comparing, and deciding. All those 
 things, if examined far, extended into mystery. All 
 genuine thinking was a hard repellent labour. Casual 
 impressions had a mighty force of perversion. The 
 senses were not a medium through which the intellect 
 could receive ideas foreign to material existence. The 
 appetites and passions would infallibly occupy and ac- 
 tuate the whole man. When by these his imagination 
 was put in activity, its gleams and meteors would be 
 any thing rather than lights of truth. His interest, 
 according to his gross apprehension of it, would in 
 numberless instances require, and therefore would gain, 
 fiilse judgments for justification of the wrong manner 
 of pursuing that interest. And all this while, there 
 was no grand standard and test to which the notions 
 of things could be brought. If there were some spirits 
 of larger and purer thought, that went out in the honest 
 search of truth, they must have felt an oppression of 
 utter hopelessness in looking round on a world of doubt- 
 ful things, on no one of which they could obtain the 
 dictate of a supreme intelligence. There was no so- 
 vereign demonstrator in communication with the earth, 
 to tell benighted man what to think in any of a thou- 
 sand questions which arose to confound him. There 
 were, instead, impostors, magicians, vain theorists, 
 prompted by ambition and superior native ability to 
 abuse the credulity of their fellow mortals, which they 
 did with such success as to become their oracles, their 
 dictators, or even their gods. The multitude most 
 naturally surrendered themselves to all such delusions. 
 If it may be conceived to have been possible that their 
 feeble and degraded reason, in the absence of divine 
 light and of sound human discipline, miglit by earnest 
 
20 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 exertion have attained in some small degree to judge 
 better, that exertion was precluded by indolence, by 
 the immediate wants and unavoidable employments of 
 life, by sensuality, by love of amusement, by subjection, 
 even of the mind, to superiors and national institutions, 
 and by the tendency of human individuals to fall, if 
 we may so express it, in dead conformity and addition 
 to the lump. 
 
 The result of all these causes, the sum of all these 
 effects, was, that unnumbered millions of beings, whose 
 value was in their intelligent and moral nature, were, 
 as to that nature, in a condition analogous to what their 
 physical existence would have been under a total and 
 permanent eclipse of the sun. It was perpetual night 
 in their souls, with all the phenomena incident to night, 
 except the sublimity. While the material economy, 
 constituting the order of things which belonged to their 
 temporal existence, was in conspicuous manifestation 
 around them, pressing with its realities on their senses ; 
 while nature presented to them its open and distinctly- 
 featured aspect ; while there was a true light shed on 
 them every morning from the sun ; while they had 
 constant experimental evidence of the nature of the 
 scene ; and thus they had a clear knowledge of one 
 portion of the things connected with their existence — 
 that portion which they were soon to leave, and look 
 back upon as a dream when one awaketh ; — all this 
 while there was subsisting, present with them, unap- 
 prehended except in faint and delusive glimpses, another 
 order of things involving their greatest interests, with 
 no luminary to make that apparent to them, after the 
 race had willingly forgotten the original instructions 
 from their Creator. 
 
 The dreadful consequences of this " lack of know- 
 ledge,'' as appearing in the religion and morals of the 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. fil 
 
 nations, and through these affecting their welfare, 
 equalled and even surpassed all that might by theory 
 have been presaged from the cause. 
 
 This ignorance could not annihilate the principle of 
 religion in the spirit of man ; but in taking, away the 
 awful repression of the idea of one exclusive sovereign 
 Divinity, it left that spirit to fabricate its religion in 
 its own manner. And as the creating of gods might 
 be the most appropriate way of celebrating the deliver- 
 ance from the most imposing idea of one Supreme 
 Being, depraved and insane invention took this direction 
 with ardour.* The mind threw a fictitious divinity 
 into its own phantasms, and into the objects in the visible 
 world. It is amazing to observe how, when one solemn 
 principle was taken away, the promiscuous numberless 
 crowd of almost all shapes of fancy, and of matter be- 
 came, as it were, instinct with ambition, and mounted 
 into gods. They were alternately the toys and the 
 tyrants of their miserable creator. They appalled him 
 often, and often he could make sport with them. For 
 overawing him by their supposed power, they made 
 him a compensation by descending to a fellowship with 
 his follies and vices. But indeed this was a condition 
 of their creation; they must own their mortal progenitor 
 by sharing his depravity, even amidst the lordly domi- 
 nation assigned to them over him and the universe. We 
 may safely affirm, that the mighty artificer of deifica- 
 tions, the corrupt soul of man, never once, in its almost 
 infinite diversification of device in their production, 
 struck out a form of absolute goodness. No, if there 
 
 * Those who have read Goethe's Memoirs of Himself, may re- 
 collect the part where that late idolized "patriarch" of German 
 literature tells of the lively interest he had at one time felt in 
 shaping out of his imagination and philosoptiy a theology, hegin- 
 nng with the fdbrication of a god (or gods), and amplified into a 
 system of principles, existences, and relations. 
 
22 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 were ten thousand deities, there should not be one that 
 should be authorized by perfect rectitude in itself to 
 punish him; not one by which it should be possible for 
 him to be rebuked without having a right to re- 
 criminate. 
 
 Such a pernicious creation of active delusions it was 
 that took the place of religion in the absence of know- 
 ledge. And to this intellectual obscuration, and this 
 legion of pestilent fallacies, swarming like the locusts 
 from the smoke of the bottomless pit in the vision of 
 St. John, the fatal effect on morals and happiness cor- 
 responded. Indeed the mischief done there, perhaps 
 even exceeded the proportion of the ignorance and the 
 false theology ; conformably to the rule, that anything 
 wrong in the mind will be the most wrong where it 
 comes the nearest to its ultimate practical effect — ex- 
 cept when in this operation outward it is met and 
 checked by some foreign counteraction. 
 
 The people of those nations (and the same description 
 is applicable to modern heathens) did not know the 
 essential nature of perfect goodness, or virtue. How 
 should they know it? A depraved mind would not 
 find in itself any native conception to give the bright 
 form of it. There were no living examples of it. 
 The men who held the pre-eminence in the community 
 were generally, in the most important points, its re- 
 verse. It was for the Divine nature to have presented, 
 in a manifestation of itself, the archetype of perfect 
 rectitude, whence might have been derived the modified 
 exemplar for human virtue. And so would the idea 
 of perfect moral excellence have come to dwell and 
 shine in the understanding, if it had been the True 
 Divinity that men beheld in their contemplations of a 
 superior existence. But when the gods of their heaven 
 where little better than their own evil qualities, exalted 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 23 
 
 to the sky to be thence reflected back upon them in- 
 vested with Olympian charms and splendours, their 
 ideas of deity would evidently combine with the causes 
 which made it impossible for them to conceive a perfect 
 model for human excellence. See the mighty labour 
 of human depravity to confirm its dominion ! It would 
 translate itself to heaven, and usurp divinity, in order 
 to come down thence with a sanction for man to be 
 wicked, — in order, by a falsification of the qualities of 
 the Supreme Nature, to preclude his forming the true 
 idea of what would be perfect rectitude in his own. 
 
 A system which could thus associate all the modes of 
 turpitude with the most lofty and illustrious forms of 
 existence, would go far toward vitiating essentLilly the 
 entire theory of moral good and evil. And it would 
 in a great measure defraud of their practical efficacy 
 any just principles that might, after all, maintain their 
 place in the convictions of the understanding, and 
 assert at times their claim with a voice which not even 
 all this ruination could silence. 
 
 But, how small was the number of pure moral prin- 
 ciples, (if indeed any,) that among the people of the 
 heathen nations did maintain themselves in the con- 
 victions of the understanding. The privation of divine 
 light gave full freedom, if there was any disposition to 
 take such license, for every perverse speculation which 
 could operate toward abolishing those principles in the 
 natural reason of the species. What disposition there 
 would be to take it may be imagined, when the abo- 
 lishing of those principles was evidently to be also the 
 destruction of all intrinsic authority in the practical 
 rules founded on them, which destruction would confer 
 an exemption infinitely desirable. The freedom for 
 such thinking would infallibly be taken, in its utmost 
 extent; and in fact the speculation was stimulated by 
 
24 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 SO mighty a force of the depraved passions, that it went 
 beyond the primary intention: it not only annulled the 
 right principles and rules, but, not stopping at such 
 negation, presumed to set forth opposite ones, so that 
 the name and repute of virtues were given to iniquities 
 without number. It is deplorable to consider how 
 large a proportion of all the vices and crimes of which 
 mankind were ever guilty, have actually constituted, in 
 some or other of their tribes and ages, a part of the 
 approved moral and religious system. It is questionable 
 whether we could select from the worst forms of turpi- 
 tude any one which has not been at least admitted 
 among the authorized customs, if not even appointed 
 among the institutes of the religion, of some portion 
 of the human race. And depravities thus become 
 licensed or sacred would have a fatal facility of com- 
 municating somewhat of their quality to all the other 
 parts of the moral system. For this sanction both 
 would reinforce their own power of infection, and would 
 so beguile away all repugnance and counteraction, that 
 the rest of the customs and institutes would readily 
 admit the contamination, and become assimilated in 
 evil ; as the Mohammedans have no care to avoid con- 
 tact with their neighbours who are ill of the plague, 
 since the plague has the warrant of heaven. Wherever, 
 therefore, in the imperfect notices afforded us of ancient 
 nations, we find any one virulent iniquity holding an 
 authorized place in custom or religion, we may confi- 
 dently make a very large inference, though record were 
 silent, as to the corresponding quality that would per- 
 vade the remainder of the moral system of those nations. 
 Indeed the inference is equally justified whether we 
 regard such a sanction and establishment of a flagrant 
 iniquity as a cause, or as an effect. Suppose this sanc- 
 tion of some one enormity to precede the general and 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 25 
 
 equal corruption of morals, — how powerfully would it 
 tend to bear them all down to a conformity in depra- 
 vation. Suppose it to be (the more natural order) the 
 result and completion of that corruption — how vicious 
 must have been the previous state which could go easily 
 and consistently to such a consummation. 
 
 Every thing that, under the advantage given by this 
 destitution of knowledge, operated to the destruction of 
 the true morality, both in theory and practice, must 
 have had a fatal augmentation of its power in that part 
 especially of this ignorance which respected hereafter. 
 The doctrine of a future existence and retribution did 
 not, in any rational and salutary form, interfere in the 
 adjustment of the economy of life. The shadowy notion 
 of a future state which hovered about the minds of the 
 pagans, a vague apparition which alternately came and 
 vanished, was at once too fantastic and too little of a 
 serious belief to be of any avail to preserve the recti- 
 tude, or to maintain the authority, of the distinction 
 between right and wrong. It was not defined enough, 
 or noble enough, or convincing enough, or of judicial 
 application enough, either to assist the efficacy of such 
 moral principles as might be supposed to be innate in a 
 rational creature, and competent for prescribing to it 
 some virtues useful and necessary to it even if its 
 present brief existence were all ; or to enjoin effectually 
 those higher virtues to which there can be no adequate 
 inducement but in the expectation of a future life. 
 
 Imagine, if you can, the withdrawment of this doc- 
 trine from the faith of those who have a solemn persua- 
 sion of it as a part of revealed truth. Suppose the grand 
 idea either wholly obliterated, or faded into a dubious 
 trace of what it had been, or transmuted into a poetic 
 dream of classic or barbarian mythology, — and how many 
 moral principles would be found to have vanished with it. 
 
26 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 How many things, before rendered imperative by tliis 
 great article of faith, would have ceased to be duties, or 
 would continue such only on the strength, and to the 
 extent of the requirement, of some very minor con- 
 sideration which might remain to enforce them, and 
 that probably in a most deteriorated practical form. 
 The sense of obligation, if continuing to recognise the 
 nature of duty in things which could then no longer 
 retain any such quality, otherwise than as looking to 
 the most immediate and tangible benefit or harm, the 
 lowest of moral calculations, would be reduced to a 
 vulgar and reptile principle. The best of its strength, 
 and all its dignity, would be departed from it when it 
 could refer no more to eternity, an invisible vi^orld, and 
 a judgment to come. It would therefore have none of 
 that emphasis of impression which can sometimes dis- 
 may and quell the most violent passions, as by the 
 mysterious awe of the presence of a spirit. It would 
 be deprived of that which forms the chief power of 
 conscience. And it would be impotent in any attempt 
 — if so absurd an attempt could be dreamed of — to 
 uphold, in the more dignified character of /;mi6'i/?/<?, that 
 care of what is right which would be constantly dege- 
 nerating into mere policy, and rationally justifying 
 itself in doing so. 
 
 The withdrawment, we said, of the grand truth in 
 question, from a man's faith, (together with every thing 
 of taste and habit which that faith might have created) 
 would necessarily break up the government over his 
 conscience. How evident then is it, that among the 
 people of the heathen lands, under a disastrous igno- 
 rance of this and all the other sublime truths, that are 
 the most fit to rule an immortal being during his sojourn 
 on earth, no man could feel any peremptory obligation 
 to be universally virtuous, or adequate motives to excite 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 27 
 
 an endeavour to approach that high attauiment, even 
 were there not a perfect inability to form the true con- 
 ception of it. And then how much of course it was 
 that the general mass would be dreadfully depraved. 
 Though a momentary surprise may at times have seized 
 us on the occurrence, in their history, of some monstrous 
 form of flagitiousness, we do not wonder at beholding a 
 state of the people such in its general character as the 
 sacred writers exhibit, in descriptions to which the other 
 records of antiquity add their confirming testimony and 
 ample illustrations. For while the immense aggregate 
 is displayed to the mental view, as pervaded, agitated, 
 and stimulated, by the restless forces of appetites and 
 passions, and those forces operating with an impulse no 
 less perverted than strong, let it be asked what kinds 
 and measure of restraint there could be upon such a 
 world of creatures so actuated, to keep them from 
 rushing in all ways into evil. Conceive, if you can, the 
 fiction of such a multitude, so actuated, having been 
 placed under an adjustment of restraints competent to 
 withhold them. And then take off, in your imagination, 
 one after another of these, to see what will follow. Take 
 off, at last, all the coercion that can be applied through 
 the belief of a judgment to come, and a future state of 
 retribution ; — by doing which you would also empower 
 the race to defy, if any recognition of him remained, 
 the Supreme Governor, whose possible inflictions, 
 being confined to the present life, might at any time be 
 escaped by shortening it. All these sacred bonds being 
 thus dissolved, behold this countless multitude aban- 
 doned to be carried or driven the whole length to which 
 the impulses of their appetites and passions would go, — 
 or could go before they were arrested by some obstruc- 
 tion opposed to them from a quarter foreign to con- 
 science. And the main and final thing in reserve to 
 
28 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 limit tlieir career, after all the worthier restraints were 
 annihilated, would be only this, — the resistance which 
 men's self-interest opposes to one another's bad incli- 
 nations. A gloomy and humiliating spectacle truly it 
 is, to be offered by a world of rational and moral agents, 
 if we see that, instead of a repression of the propensity 
 to wickedness by reverence of the Sovereign Judge, 
 and the anticipation of a future life, there is merely a 
 restraint put on its external activity, and that by the 
 force of men's fears of one another. But nearly to this 
 it was, as the only strong restraint, that those heathens 
 were left by their ignorance, or a notion so slight as to 
 be little better, of a future existence and judgment. 
 
 Not but that it has been, in all nations and times, of 
 infinite practical service that there is involved in the 
 constitution of the world a law by which a coarse self- 
 interest thus interposes to obstruct in a degree the 
 violent propensity to evil ; for it has prevented, undel* 
 Providence, more actual mischief, beyond comparison 
 more, than all other causes together. The man inclined 
 to perpetrate an iniquity, of the nature of a wrong to 
 his fellow-mortals, is apprised that he shall provoke a 
 reaction, to resist or punish him ; that he shall incur 
 as great an evil as that he is disposed to do, or greater; 
 that either a revenge regardless of all formalities of 
 justice will strike him, or a process instituted in 
 organized society will vindictively reach his property, 
 liberty, or life. This defensive array, of all men against 
 all men, compels to remain shut up within the mind an 
 immensity of wickedness which is there burning to 
 come out into action. But for this, Noah's flood had 
 been rendered needless. But for this, our planet might 
 have been accomplishing its circles round the sun for 
 thousands of years past without a human inhabitant. 
 Through the effect of this essential law in the social 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 2d; 
 
 economy, It was possible for the race to subsist, not- 
 withstanding all that ignorance of the Divine Being, 
 of heavenly truth, and of uncorrupt morality, in which 
 we are contemplating the heathen nations as benighted. 
 But while thus it prevented utter destruction, it had 
 no corrective operation on the depravity of the heart. 
 It was not through a judgment of things being essen- 
 tially evil that they were forborne ; it was not by the 
 power of conscience that wicked propensity was kept 
 under restraint. It was only by a hold on the meaner 
 principles of his nature, that the offender in will was 
 arrested in prevention of the deed. And so the race 
 Avere such virtually, as they would have hastened to 
 become actually could they have ceased to be afraid of 
 one another's strength and retaliation.* 
 
 But even this restraint imposed by mutual appre- 
 hension, important as its operation was in the absence 
 of nobler influences, was yet of miserably partial 
 efficacy. Men were continually breaking through this 
 protective provision, and committed against one another 
 a stupendous amount of crimes. And no wonder, when 
 we consider that the evil passions, endowed as they seem 
 to be with a portentous excess of vigour by the very 
 circumstance of being evil, (as the demoniacs were the 
 strongest of men,) are exasperated the more by a certain 
 degree of awe impressed on them by the defensive 
 attitude of their objects. When strength so great 
 might thus be irritated to greater, and when there were 
 no " powers of the world to come," to invade the dread- 
 ful cavern of iniquity in the mind, and there combat and 
 subdue it, there would often be no want of the audacity 
 
 * It is not very uncommon to hear credit given to human nature 
 apparently in sober simplicity, for the whole amount of the negation 
 of bad actions thus prevented, as just so much genuine virtue, by 
 some dealers in moral and theological speculation. 
 
so ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 to send it forth into action at all hazards, and in defiance 
 and contempt of the restraining force which operated 
 through mutual fear of vindictive reaction. 
 
 But it may be said, perhaps, that in thus representing 
 the people who were destitute of divine knowledge, as left 
 with hardly any other control on their bad dispositions 
 than one of a quality little more dignified than fetters 
 literally binding the limbs, we are underrating what 
 there still was among them to take effect in the way of 
 instmiction. Even this coarse principle of control itself, 
 it may be alleged, this prudence of reciprocal fear, 
 became refined into something worthier of moral agents. 
 For it passed, by a compromise among the species, from 
 the form of individual self-defence and revenge into 
 that of institutions of law ; and legislation, it will be 
 said, is a teacher of morals. Retaining, indeed, the 
 rough expedient of physical force, in readiness to coerce 
 or punish where it cannot deter by warning, it yet 
 strongly endeavours the repression of evil emotions by 
 means of right 2^'f^inciples, marked out, explained, and 
 inculcated. It teaches these principles as dictates of 
 reason and justice, while it embodies them in the menac- 
 ing authority of enactments. There was therefore, it 
 may be pleaded, as much instruction among the ancient 
 heathen as there was legislation. 
 
 In answering this, we may forego any rigorous exa- 
 mination of the quality of principles and precepts 
 enunciated by legislators who themselves, in common with 
 the people, looked on human existence and duty through 
 a worse than twilight medium; who had no divine 
 oracles to impart wisdom, and were, some of them, 
 reduced to begin their operations with the lie that pre- 
 tended they had such oracles ; from all which it was 
 inevitable that some of their maxims and injunctions 
 would even in their efficacy be noxious, as being at 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 81 
 
 variance with eternal rectitude. It is enough to observe, 
 on the chiims of legislation to the character of a moral 
 preceptor, that it retained so palpably, after all, the 
 nature of the gross element from which it was a refine- 
 ment or transfusion, that even what it might teach right, 
 as to the matter, it was unable to teach with the right 
 moral impression. With all its gravity, and phrases 
 of wisdom, and show of homage to virtue, it was, and 
 was plainly descried to be, that very same Noli me 
 tanfjei'ey in a disguised form; a less provoking and 
 hostile manner only of keeping upthe state of preparation 
 for defensive war. Every one knew right well that the 
 pure approbation and love of goodness were not the 
 source of law; but that it was an arrangement origi- 
 nating and deriving all its force from self-interest ; a 
 contrivance by which each man was glad to make the 
 collective strength of society his guarantee against his 
 neighbour's interest and wish to do him wrong. While 
 pleased that others were under this restraint, he was 
 often vexed at being under it also himself; but on the 
 whole deemed this security worth the cost of suffering 
 the interdict on his own inclinations, — perhaps as 
 believing other men's to be still worse than his, or see- 
 ing their strength to be greater. We repeat that a 
 preceptive system thus estimated could not, even had 
 the principles to which it gave expression in the man- 
 dates of law been no other than those of the soundest 
 morality, have impressed them with the weight of 
 sanctity on the conscience. And all this but tends to 
 show the necessity that the rules and sanctions of 
 morality, to come with simplicity and power on the 
 human mind, should primarily emanate, and be acknow- 
 ledged as emanating, from a Being exalted above all 
 implication and competition of interest with man. 
 Thus we see, that the pagan ignorance precluded one 
 
32 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 grand requisite for crushing the dominion of iniquity; 
 for there was nothing to insinuate or to force its way into 
 the recesses of the soul, to apply there a repressive 
 power to the depraved ardour which glowed in the 
 passions. That was left, inaccessible and inextinguish- 
 able, as the subterranean fires in a volcanic region. And 
 in the mighty impulse to evil with which it was con- 
 tinually operating as an energy of feeling, it compelled 
 the subservience of the intellect; and thus combined the 
 passions with a faculty skilful to guide their direction, 
 to diversify their objects, to invent expedients, and to 
 seize and create occasions. What was it that this in- 
 telligent depravity would stop short of accomplishing? 
 Eeflect on the extent of human genius, in its powers of 
 invention, combination, and adaptation; and then think 
 of all this faculty, in an immense number of minds, 
 through many ages, and in every imaginable variety of 
 situation, exerted with unremitting activity in aid of the 
 wrong propensities. Reflect how many ideas, apt and 
 opportune for this service, Avould spring up casually, or 
 be suggested by circumstances, or be attained by the 
 earnest study of beings goaded in pursuit of change and 
 novelty. The simple modes of iniquity were put under 
 an active ministry of art, to combine, innovate, and 
 augment. And so indefatigable was its exercise, 
 that almost all conceivable forms of immorality were 
 brought to imagination, most of them into experiment, 
 and the greater number into prevailing practice, in 
 those nations : insomuch that the sated monarch would 
 have imposed as difficult a task on ingenuity in calling 
 for the invention of a new vice, as of a new pleasure. 
 They would perhaps have been nearly identical demands 
 when he was the person to be pleased. 
 
 Such are some of the most obvious illustrations that 
 the absence of knowledge was a cause, and added in an 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 33 
 
 unknown measure to the strength of all other causes, 
 of the excessive corruption in the heathen nations. And 
 if this depravity of a world of moral agents did not, 
 contemplated simply as a destruction of their rectitude, 
 appear equivalent to the gravest import of the terms 
 " the people are destroyed," the m/^cr^/ inseparable from 
 the depravity instantly comes in our view to complete 
 their verification. 
 
 We are aware that the wickedness and misery of the 
 ancient world, as asserted in illustration of the natural 
 effect of estrangement from divine truth, are apt to be 
 regarded as of the order of topics which have dwindled 
 into insignificance, worn out by being repeated just 
 because they have often been repeated before; a sort 
 of exhausted quarries and dried-up wells. There is a 
 certain class of vain and sneering mortals, in whose 
 conceit nothing is such proof of superior sense as dis- 
 carding the greatest number of topics and arguments as 
 obsolete or impertinent. It is to be reckoned on that some 
 of these, on hearing again the old maxims, that a people 
 without divine instruction must be a vicious one, and that 
 a vicious people must be an unhappy one, — and those 
 maxims accompanied with a description of the old pagan 
 world as illustrative evidence, — will be prompt to let 
 forth their comments in some such strain as the follow- 
 ing: — " The state of the ancient heathens, thus brought 
 upon us in one cheap declamation more, is now a matter 
 of trivial import, just fit to give some show and ex- 
 aggeration to the stale common-place, that ignorance is 
 likely to produce depravity, and that depravity and 
 misery are likely enough to go together. The pagans 
 might be wretched enough; and perhaps also the matter 
 has been extravagantly magnified for the service of a 
 favourite theme, or to make a rhetorical show. At 
 any rate, it is not now worth while to go so far back to 
 J> 
 
34 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 concern ourselves about it. The ancient heathens had 
 their day and their destiny, and it is of little importance 
 to us what they were or suffered." 
 
 It is fortunate, we may reply, to be " wiser than the 
 ancients," without the trouble of learning any thing by 
 means of them. It is fortunate, also, to have ascertained 
 how much of all that ever existed can teach us nothing. 
 We have a signal improvement in the fashion of wisdom, 
 when that high endowment may be possessed as a thing 
 distinct from compass of thought, from study of causes 
 and effects as illustrated on the great scale, from aptitude 
 to be instructed by the past, and from contemplation of 
 the divine government as carried over a wide extent of 
 time. But indeed this is not a privilege peculiar to this 
 later day. In any former age there were men in suffi- 
 cient number who were wise enough to be indifferent 
 to all but immediate passing events, as knowing no 
 lessons that persons like them had to learn from remoter 
 views, looking either into the past or the future; who could 
 even have before them the very monuments of awful 
 events that were gone by, without perceiving inscribed 
 on them any characters for contemplation to read. It 
 is not impossible there might be persons who could plan 
 their schemes, and debate their questions, and even 
 follow their amusements, quite exempt from solemn re- 
 flections, within view of the ruins of Jerusalem, after the 
 Roman legions had left it and its myriads of dead to 
 silence. Any reference to that dreadful spectacle, as 
 an example of the consequences of the ignorance and 
 wickedness of a people, might have been heard with 
 unconcern, and lightly passed off as foreign to the matters 
 requiring their attention: it was all over with the people 
 dead, and the people alive had their own concerns to 
 mind. But would not exactly such as these have 
 been the men most likely to fall into the vices and 
 
ON POPULAR IGNOBANCE. So 
 
 impieties which would provoke the next avenging visi- 
 tation, and to perish in it? In all times, the trifiers with 
 the great exemplifications of the connexion of depravity 
 with misery and ruin, who thought it but an imperti- 
 nent moralizing that attempted to recall such funereal 
 spectacles for admonition, were fools, whatever self- 
 complacency they might feel in a habit of thinking more 
 fitted, they would perhaps say, for making our best 
 advantage of the world as we find it. And we of the 
 present time are convicted of exceeding stupidity, if we 
 think it not worth while to go a number of ages back 
 to contemplate the mass of mankind, the wide world of 
 beings such as ourselves, sunk in darkness and wretched- 
 ness, and to consider what it is that is taught by so melan- 
 choly an exhibition. What is to give fulness of evidence 
 to an instruction, if a world be too narrow; what is to 
 give it weight, if a world be too light ? 
 
 It is to be acknowledged, that the mental darkness 
 which we are representing as so greatly the cause of the 
 wickedness and unhappiness of those nations of old, had 
 the effect of protecting them, in a measure, from some 
 kinds of suffering. They had not, as we have been 
 observing, illumination enough, to have conscience 
 enough, for inflicting the severest pains of remorse; and 
 for oppressing them with a distinct alarming apprehen- 
 sion of a future account. But that they were unhappy, 
 was practically acknowledged in the very quality of what 
 they ardently and universally sought as the highest 
 felicities of existence. Those delights wei;e violent and 
 tumultuous, in all possible ways and degrees estranged 
 from reflection, and adverse to it. The whole souls of 
 great and small, in the most barbarous and in the more 
 polished state, were passionately set on revelry, on 
 expedients for inflaming licentiousness to madness; or 
 concourses of multitudes for pomps, celebrations, shows, 
 
36 CN POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 games, combats; on the riots of exultation and revenge 
 after victories. The ruder nations had, in their way, 
 however pitiable on the score of magnificence, their 
 grand festive, triumphal, and demoniac confluxes and 
 re veilings. To these joys of tumult, the people of the 
 savage and the more cultivated nations sacrificed every 
 thing belonging to the peaceful economy of life, with a 
 desperate frantic fury. All this was the confession that 
 there was little felicity in the heart or in the home. 
 Nor was it found in these resources; if the wild elation 
 might be mistaken for happiness while it lasted, it was 
 brief in each instance, and it subsided in an aggravated 
 dreariness of the soul. 
 
 The fact of their being unhappy had a still more 
 gloomy attestation in the mutual enmity which seems to 
 have been of the very essence of life, so vital a principle 
 that it could not be spared for an hour. No, they could 
 not live without this luxury drawn from the fountains 
 of death ! What is the most conspicuous material of 
 ancient history, what is it that glares out the most 
 hideously from that darkness and oblivion in which the 
 old world is veiling its aspect, but the incessant furies 
 of miserable mortals against their fellow-mortals, "hate- 
 ful and hating one another?" We cannot look that way 
 but we see the whole field covered with inflicters and 
 sufferers, not seldom interchanging those characters. If 
 that field widens to our view, it is still, to the utmost 
 line to which the shade clears away, a scene of cruelty, 
 oppression, and slavery; of the strong trampling on the 
 w^eak, and the weak often attempting to bite at the feet 
 of the strong; of rancorous animosities and murderous 
 competitions of persons raised above the mass of the 
 community; of treacheries and massacres; and of war, 
 between hordes, and cities, and nations, and empires; war 
 never, in spirit, intermitted, and suspended sometimes 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 87 
 
 in act only to acquire renewed force for destruction, or 
 to find another assemblage of hated creatures to cut in 
 pieces. Powerful as "the spirit of the first-born Cain" 
 has continued, down to our own age, and in the most 
 improved divisions of mankind, there was nevertheless, 
 in the ancient pagan race, (as there is in some portions 
 of the modern,) a more complete, uncontrolled actuation 
 of the all-killing, all-devouring fury, a more absolute 
 possession of Moloch. 
 
 Now it is as misery that we are exhibiting all this 
 depravity. To be thus, was suffering. The disease and 
 the pain are inseparable in the description, and they 
 were so in the reality. And both together, inevitably 
 seizing on beings who had rejected or lost divine 
 knowledge, maintained a hold as fatal and invincible 
 as that of the intervolved serpents of Laocoon. 
 
 It is true, that a comprehensive estimate of the state 
 of the people we are contemplating, would bring in 
 view several minor circumstances which, though not 
 availing to change materially the effect of the picture, 
 are themselves of less gloomy colour. But at the same 
 time such an estimate would include other forms also 
 of infelicity, besides those which were at once the re- 
 sult and punishment of depravity, the stings with 
 which sin rewarded the infatuation that loved it. If 
 the design had been to exhibit any thing like a general 
 view, we must have taken account of such particulars 
 as these : the unhappiness of being without an assurance 
 of an all-comprehending and merciful Providence, and 
 of wanting therefore the best support in sorrow and 
 calamity; the insuppressible impatience, or the deep 
 melancholy, with which the more thoughtful persons 
 must have seen departing from life, leaving them hope- 
 less of ever meeting again in a life elsewhere, the 
 relations or associates who were dear to them in spito 
 
38 ON POPULAR IGNORA^XE. 
 
 of the prevailing effect of paganism to destroy philan- 
 thropy; and the gloomy sentiment with which they 
 must have thought of their own continual approach 
 toward death; a sentiment not always unaccompanied 
 with certain intimidating hints and hauntings of possi- 
 bilities in the darkness beyond that confine. But the 
 more limited intention in the preceding description has 
 been to illustrate their unhappiness as inflicted by their 
 depravity, necessarily consequent on their ignorance. 
 And what words so true, so irresistibly prompted at 
 the view of such a scene, as those pronounced of a 
 nation that at once despised the pagans and imitated 
 them, — '*" The people are destroyed for lack of know- 
 ledge." 
 
 Let us not be suspected of having lost sight of the 
 fact, that vice and misery have, in our nature, a deeper 
 source than ignorance; or of being so absurd as to 
 imagine that if the inestimable truths unknown to the 
 heathen world had been, on the contrary, in all men's 
 knowledge, but a slight portion of the depravity and 
 wretchedness we have described could then have had 
 an existence. To say, that under long absence of the 
 sun any tract of terrestrial nature must infallibly be 
 reduced to desolation, is not to say or imply, that under 
 the benignant influence of that luminary the same 
 region must, as necessarily and unconditionally, be a 
 scene of beauty; but the only hope, for the only pos- 
 sibility, is for the field visited by much of that sweet 
 influence. And it were an absurdity no less gross in 
 the opposite extreme to the one just mentioned, to 
 assert the uselessness, for rectifying the moral world, of 
 a diff*usion of the knowledge which shall compel men 
 to see what is wrong; to deny that the impulses of the 
 corrupt passions and will must suffer some abatement 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 39 
 
 of their force and daring when encountered, like 
 Balaam meeting the angel, by a clear manifestation of 
 their bad and ruinous tendency, by a convinced judg- 
 ment, a protesting conscience, and the aspect of the 
 Almighty Judge, — instead of their being under the 
 tolerance of a judgment not instructed to condemn 
 them, or, (as ignorance is sure to quicken into error,) 
 perverted to abet them. 
 
40 
 
 SECTION IL 
 
 From this view of the prevalence and malignant effects 
 of ignorance among the people of the ancient world, 
 both Jews and Gentiles, we may come down, with a 
 few brief notices in passing over the long subsequent 
 periods, towards our own times. For any attempt to 
 prosecute the object through the ages and regions of 
 later heathenism, (with the infatuated Judaism still 
 more destructive to its subjects), would be to lose our- 
 selves in a boundless scene of desolation, an immense 
 amplitude of darkness, frightfully alive throughout with 
 the activity of all noxious and hideous things. 
 
 But by this time we are become aware how con- 
 tinually we are driven upon what will be in hazard of 
 appearing an exaggerated phraseology; insomuch that 
 we are almost afraid of accepting the epithets of de- 
 scription and aggravation which offer themselves as most 
 appropriate to the subject. There are some self-com- 
 placent persons whose minds are so unapt to recognise 
 the magnitude of a subject, or so averse perhaps to 
 the contemplation of it if it be of tragical aspect, that 
 strong terms accumulated to exhibit even what surpasses 
 in its plain reality all the powers of language, offend 
 them as declamatory exaggeration. Let it then be just 
 observed, without one ambitious epithet, that since that 
 period when ancient history, strictly so named, left off 
 describing the state of mankind, more than a myriad 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 41 
 
 of millions of our race have been on earth, and quitted 
 it, without one ray of the knowledge the most important 
 to spirits sojourning here, and going hence. 
 
 But while any attempt to carry the representation 
 of the fatal effects of ignorance over the extent of so 
 dreary a scene is declined, let it not be forgotten that 
 they have been an awful reality; that they have actually 
 existed, in time, and place, and number of victims; 
 that there actually were the men, and so many men, 
 who exemplified, and in so many ways, the truth we 
 are illustrating. And a truth which has its demon- 
 stration in facts ought to come with the weight of all 
 the facts that we believe ever did demonstrate it. 
 When they are not presented in breadth and detail 
 prominently in our view, we are apt to lose the due 
 effect of our knowing them to have existed. 
 
 It will be enough to advert very briefly to the Mo- 
 hammedan imposture, though that is perhaps the most 
 signal instance within all time, of a malignant delusion 
 maintained directly and immediately by ignorance, by an 
 absolute determination and even a fanatic zeal not to 
 receive one new idea. Tenets involving the most pal- 
 pable impossibilities, and asserted in self-contradictory 
 terms, must stand inviolable to all question or contro- 
 versy; literature must be scouted as a profane folly; 
 not a principle of true philosophy is to be admitted ; 
 hardly is an application of the plainest mechanics to 
 improve a machine or implement to be tolerated; or an 
 infidel is to be only pardoned, through contempt, for a 
 successful obtrusion of science to render the most 
 important service, — to save, for instance, a Mussulman 
 ship with its proud besotted commander and crew from 
 destruction,* — lest an acknowledgment made to science 
 
 * There is a very curious example of this related in Dr. Clarke's 
 Travels. 
 
42 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 should allow one momentary surmise of imperfection 
 to insult the all-sufficiency and sanctity of the unal- 
 terable creed and institutes; lest any diminutive crevice 
 should be made on any side of the temple of the vile 
 superstition, for the passage of one glimpse of true 
 light to annoy the foul fiend that dwells there, invested 
 *'in the dunnest smoke of hell." Not, however, that 
 this is the policy of doubt and apprehension, the 
 evading and repelling caution of men who suspect them- 
 selves to be wrong and dread being forced to meet the 
 proof. For the subjects of this execrable usurpation 
 on the human understanding have, in general, the 
 firmest assurance that all things in the system are right: 
 it lias itself secured them against knowing anything 
 that could discompose their sense of certainty. No fell 
 savage, or serpent, or monster, ever had a more perfect 
 instinct to avail itself of an impervious obscurity for 
 its lurking place, than this imposture has shown to keep 
 out all mental light from its realm. The delusion is so 
 strong and absolute in ignorance, is so identified with 
 it, and so systematically repels at all points the approach 
 of knowledge, that it is difficult to conceive a mode of 
 its extermination that shall not involve some fearful 
 destruction, in the most literal sejise, of the people 
 whom it possesses. And such a catastrophe it is pro- 
 bable the great body of them, in the temper of mind 
 prevailing among them at this hour, would choose to 
 incur by preference, we do not say to a serious patient 
 consideration of the true religion, but even to the 
 admission among them of a system merely favouring 
 knowledge in general, an order of measures which 
 should urge upon the adults, and peremptorily enforce 
 for the children, a discipline of intellectual improve- 
 ment. There would be little national hesitation of 
 choice, (at least in the central regions of the dominion 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 4J 
 
 of this hateful imposture,) between the introduction of 
 any general system of expedients for driving them from 
 their stupefaction into something like thinking and 
 learning, and a general plague, to rage as long as any 
 remained for victims.* 
 
 But let US now look, for a moment, at the intellectual 
 state of the people denominated Christian, during the 
 ages preceding the Reformation. The best of all the 
 acquisitions by earth from heaven, Christianity, might 
 have seemed to bring with it an inevitable necessity of 
 a great and permanent difference soon to be effected, in 
 regard to the competence of men's knowledge to pre- 
 vent their destruction. It was as if, in the physical 
 system, some one production, far more salutary to life 
 than all the other things furnished from the elements, 
 had been reserved by the Creator to spring up in a 
 later age, after many generations of men had been 
 languishing through life, and prematurely dying, from 
 the deficient virtue of their sustenance and remedies. 
 The image of the inestimable plant had been shown to 
 the prophets in their visions, but the reality was now 
 given to the world; it was of "wholly a right seed," 
 " had the seed in itself," and claimed to be cultivated 
 by the people, who in every land were suffering the 
 maladies which it had the properties to heal. But, 
 while by the greater part of mankind it v/as not ac- 
 counted worth admission to a place on their blasted 
 desolated soil, the manner in which its virtue was frus- 
 
 * In the interval since this was written, some change has taken 
 place in favour of the admission of the elements of knowledge, in 
 the capital, and in the second city of the Mohammedan regions ; 
 but with very slight alterative influence on the mass ; and with re- 
 spect to the faith, probably none at all. Within this interval, also, 
 the central power has been hastening rapidly to its catastrophe. 
 
44 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 trated among those who pretended to esteem it, as it 
 was, the best gift of the divine beneficence, is recorded 
 in eternal reproach of the Christian nations. 
 
 As the hostility of heathenism, in the direct en- 
 deavours to extirpate the Christian religion, became 
 evidently hopeless, in the nations within the Roman 
 empire, there was a grand change of the policy of evil ; 
 and all manner of reprobate things, heathenism itself 
 among them, rushed as by general conspiracy into 
 treacherous conjunction with Christianity, retaining 
 their own quality under the sanction of its name, and 
 by a rapid process reducing it to surrender almost every 
 thing distinctive of it but that dishonoured name: and 
 all this under protection of the " gross darkness cover- 
 ing the people." There were indeed in existence the 
 inspired oracles, and these could not be essentially fal- 
 sified. But there was no lack of expedients and pre- 
 texts for keeping them in a great measure secreted. 
 It might be done under a pretence that reverence for 
 their sanctity required they should be secluded as within 
 the recesses of a temple, nor be there consulted but 
 by consecrated personages ; a pretence excellently con- 
 trived, since it was its own security against exposure, 
 the people being thus kept unaware that the sacred 
 writings themselves expressly invited popular inspec- 
 tion, by declaring themselves addressed to mankind at 
 large. The deceivers were not worse off for the other 
 facilities. In the progress of translation, the holy 
 Scriptures could be intercepted and stopped short in a 
 language but little less unintelligible than the original 
 ones to the bulk of the people, in order that this " pro- 
 fane vulgar " might never hear the very words of God, 
 but only such report as it should please certain men, at 
 their discretion, to give of what he had said; men, 
 however, of whom the majority were themselves too 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 45 
 
 ignorant to cite it in even a falsified import. But 
 though the people had understood the language, in the 
 usage of social converse, there was a grand security 
 against them in keeping them so destitute of the know- 
 ledge of letters, that the Bible, if such a rare thing 
 ever could happen to fall into any of their hands, would 
 be no more to them than a scroll of hieroglyphics. 
 When to this was added, the great cost of a copy of so 
 large a book before the invention of printing, it remained 
 perhaps just worth while, (and it would be a matter of 
 no difficulty or daring,) to make it, in the maturity of 
 the system, an offence, and sacrilegious invasion of 
 sacerdotal privilege, to look into a Bible. If it might 
 seem hard thus to constitute a new sin, in addition to 
 the long list already denounced by the divine law, 
 amends were made by indulgently rescinding some 
 articles in that list, and qualifying the principles of 
 obligation with respect to them all. 
 
 In this latency of the sacred authorities, withdrawn 
 from all communication with the human understanding, 
 there were retained still many of the terms and names 
 belonging to religion. They remained, but they re- 
 mained only such as they could be when the departing 
 spirit of that religion was leaving them void of their 
 import and solemnity, and so rendered applicable to 
 purposes of deception and mischief. They were as holy 
 vessels, in which the original contents might, as they 
 were escaping, be clandestinely replaced by the most 
 malignant preparations. And as crafty and wicked 
 men had a direct interest in this substitution, the per- 
 nicious operation went on incessantly; and with an 
 ability, and to an extent to evince that the utmost bar- 
 barism of the times cannot extinguish genius, when it is 
 iniquity that sets it on fire. How prolific was the in- 
 vention of the falsehoods and absurdities of notion, and 
 
46 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 of the vanities and corruptions of practice, which it 
 was devised to make the terms and names of religion 
 designate and sanction ! while it was also managed, 
 with no less sedulity and success, that the inventors 
 and propagators should be held in submissive reverence 
 by the community, as the oracular depositaries of truth. 
 That community had not knowledge enough of any 
 other kind, to create a resisting and defensive power 
 against this imposition in the concern of religion. A 
 sound exercise of reason on subjects out of that pro- 
 vince, a moderate degree of instruction in literature 
 and science rightly so called, might have produced, in 
 the persons of superior native capacity, somewhat of a 
 competency and a disposition to question, to examine, 
 to call for evidence, and to detect some of the fallacies 
 imposed for Christian faith. But in such completeness 
 of ignorance, the general mind was on all sides pressed 
 and borne down to its fate. All reaction ceased ; and 
 the people were reduced to exist in one huge, unintel- 
 ligent, monotonous substance, united by the interfusion 
 of a vile superstition, which permitted just enough 
 mental life in the mass to leave it capable of being 
 actuated to all the purposes of cheats, and tyrants, — a 
 proper subject for the dominion of " our Lord God the 
 Pope," as he was sometimes denominated ; and might 
 have been denominated without exciting indignation, 
 in the hearing of millions of beings bearing the form of 
 men and the name of Christians. 
 
 Reflect that all this took place under the nominal 
 ascendency of the best and brightest economy of in- 
 struction from heaven. Reflect that it w^as in nations 
 Avhere even the sovereign authority professed homage 
 to the religion of Christ, and adopted and enforced it as 
 a grand national institution, that the popular mass was 
 thus reduced to a material fit for all the bad uses to 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 4/ 
 
 wliicli priestcraft could wish to put the souls and 
 bodies of its slaves. And then consider what should 
 have been the condition of this great aggregate, 
 wherever Christianity was acknowledged by all as the 
 true religion. The people should have consisted of so 
 many beings having each, in some degree, the inde- 
 pendent beneficial use of his mind; all of them trained 
 with a reference to the necessity of their being ap- 
 prised of their responsibility to their Creator, for the 
 exercise of their reason on the matters of belief and 
 choice ; all of them capacitated for improvement by 
 being furnished with the rudiments and instrumental 
 means of knowledge; and all having within their reach, 
 in their own language, the Scriptures of divine truth, 
 some by immediate possession, the rest by means of 
 faithful readers, while the book existed only in manu- 
 script ; all of them after it came to be printed. 
 
 Can any doubt arise, whether there were in the 
 Christian states resources competent, if so applied, to 
 secure to all the people an elementary instruction, and 
 the possession of the printed Bible ? Resources com- 
 petent ! All nations, sufficiently raised above bar- 
 barism to exist as states, have consumed, in uses the 
 most foreign and pernicious to their w^elfare, an in- 
 finitely greater amount of means than would have 
 sufficed, after due provision for comfortable physical 
 subsistence, to affi^rd a moderate share of instruction 
 to all the people. And in those popish ages, that ex- 
 penditure alone which went to ecclesiastical use would 
 have been far more than adequate to this beneficent 
 purpose. Think of the boundless cost for supporting 
 the magnificence and satiating the rapacity of the hier- 
 archy, from its triple-crowned head, down through all 
 the orders branded with a consecration under that 
 head to maintain the delusion and share the spoil. 
 
48 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 Hecollect the immense system of policy for jurisdiction 
 and intrigue, every agent of which was a devourer. 
 Recollect the pomps and pageants, for which the 
 general resources were to be taxed : while the general 
 industry was injured by the interruption of useful em- 
 ployment, and the diversion of the people to such dissi- 
 pation as their condition qualified and permitted them 
 to indulge in. Think also of the incalculable cost of 
 ecclesiastical structures, the temples of idolatry as in 
 truth they were. One of the most striking situations 
 for a religious and reflective Protestant is, that of pass- 
 ing some solitary hour under the lofty vault, among 
 the superb arches and columns, of any one of the most 
 splendid of these edifices remaining at this day in our 
 own country. If he has sensibility and taste, the mag- 
 nificence, the graceful union of so many diverse inven- 
 tions of art, the whole mighty creation of genius that 
 quitted the world without leaving even a name, will 
 come with magical impression on his mind, while it is 
 contemplatively darkening into the awe of antiquity. 
 But he will be recalled, — the sculptures, the inscrip- 
 tions, the sanctuaries enclosed off for the special benefit, 
 after death, of persons who had very different concerns 
 during life from that of the care of their salvation, and 
 various other insignia of the original character of the 
 place, will help to recall him, — to the thought, that 
 these proud piles were in fact raised to celebrate the 
 conquest, and prolong the dominion, of the Power of 
 Darkness over the souls of the people. They were as 
 triumphal arches, erected in memorial of the extermi- 
 nation of that truth which was given to be the life of 
 men. 
 
 As he looks round, and looks upward, on the pro- 
 digy of design, and skill, and perseverance, and tribu- 
 tary wealth, he may image to himself the multitudes 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 49 
 
 that, during successive ages, frequented this fane in 
 the assured belief, that the idle ceremonies and im- 
 pious superstitions, which they there performed or 
 witnessed, were a service acceptable to heaven, and to 
 be repaid in blessings to the oiFerers. He may say to 
 himself. Here, on this very floor, under that elevated 
 and decorated vault, in a " dim religious light" like 
 this, but with the darkness of the shadow of death in 
 their souls, they prostrated themselves to their saints, 
 or their " queen of heaven ;" nay, to painted images 
 and toys of wood or wax, to some ounce or two of 
 bread and wine, to fragments of old bones, and rags 
 of cast-off vestments. Hither they came, when con- 
 science, in looking back or pointing forward, dismayed 
 them, to purchase remission with money or atoning 
 penances, or to acquire the privilege of sinning with 
 impunity in a certain manner, or for a certain time ; 
 and they went out at yonder door in the perfect confi- 
 dence that the priest had secured, in the one case the 
 suspension, in the other the satisfaction, of the divine 
 law. Here they solemnly believed, as they were taught, 
 that, by donatives to the church, they delivered the 
 souls of their departed sinful relations from their state 
 of punishment ; and they w^ent out at that door re- 
 solved, such as had possessions, to bequeath some 
 portion of them, to operate in the same manner for 
 themselves another day, in the highly probable case of 
 similar need. Here they were convened to listen in 
 reverence to some representative emissary from the 
 Man of Sin, with new dictates of blasphemy or ini- 
 quity promulgated in the name of the Almighty ; or to 
 witness the trickery of some farce, devised to cheat or 
 fright them out of whatever remainder the former im- 
 positions might have left them of sense, conscience, or 
 property. Here, in fine, there was never presented to 
 
 £ 
 
60 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 their understanding, from their childhood to their death, 
 a comprehensive honest declaration of the laws of duty, 
 and the pure doctrines of salvation. To think ! that 
 they should have mistaken for the house of God, and 
 the very gate of heaven, a place where the Eegent of 
 the nether world had so short a way to come from his 
 dominions, and his agents and purchased slaves so short 
 a way to go thither. If we could imagine a momentary 
 visit from Him who once entered a fabric of sacred 
 denomination with a scourge, because it was made the 
 resort of a common traffic, with what aspect and voice, 
 with what infliction but the " rebuke with flames of 
 fire," would he have entered this mart of iniquity, 
 assuming the name of his sanctuary, where the traffic 
 was in delusions, crimes, and the souls of men ? It 
 was even as if, to use the prophet's language, the very 
 " stone cried out of the wall, and the beam out of the 
 timber answered it," in denunciation ; for a portion of 
 the means of building, in the case of some of these 
 edifices, was obtained as the price of dispensations and 
 pardons.* 
 
 In such a hideous light would the earlier history of 
 one of these mighty structures, pretendedly consecrated 
 to Christianity, be presented to the reflecting Protestant; 
 and then would recur the idea of its cost, as relative to 
 what that expenditure might really have done for Chris- 
 tianity and the people. It absorbed in the construction, 
 sums sufficient to have supplied, costly as they would 
 have been, even manuscript Bibles, in the people's own 
 language, (as a priesthood of truly apostolic character 
 would have taken care the Scriptures should speak,) to 
 all the families of a province; and in the revenues ap- 
 propriated to its ministration of superstition, enough to 
 
 * That most superb Salisliury Cathedral, for example. 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 51 
 
 Lave provided men to teach all those families to read 
 those Bibles. 
 
 In all this, and in the whole constitution of the 
 Grand Apostasy, involving innumerable forms of abuse 
 and abomination, to which our object does not require 
 any allusion, how sad a spectacle is held forth of the 
 people destroyed for lack of knowledge. If, as one of 
 their plagues, an inferior one in itself, they were plun- 
 dered as we have seen, of their worldly goods, it was 
 that the spoil might subserve to a still greater wrong. 
 What was lost to the accommodation of the body, was 
 to be made to contribute to the depravation of the 
 spirit. It supplied means for multiplying the powers 
 of the grand ecclesiastical machinery, and confirming 
 the intellectual despotism of the usurpers of spiritual 
 authority. Those authorities enforced on the people, 
 on pain of perdition, an acquiescence in notions and 
 ordinances which, in effect, precluded their direct access 
 to the Almighty, and the Saviour of the world; inter- 
 posing between them and the Divine Majesty a very 
 extensive, complicated, and heathenish mediation, which 
 in a great measure substituted itself for the real and 
 exclusive mediation of Christ, obscured by its vast 
 creation of intercepting vanities the glory of the Eter- 
 nal Being, and thus almost extinguished the true wor- 
 ship. But how calamitous was such a condition! — to 
 be thus intercepted from direct intercourse with the 
 Supreme Spirit, and to have the solemn and elevating 
 sentiment of devotion flung downward, on objects to 
 some of which even the most superstitious could hardly 
 pay homage without a sense of degradation. 
 
 It was, again, a disastrous thing to be under a direc- 
 tory of practical life framed for the convenience of a 
 corrupt system; a rule which enjoined many things 
 wrong, allowed a dispensation from nearly every thing 
 
52 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 that was right, and abrogated the essential principle 
 and ground-work of true morality. Still again, it was 
 an unhappy thing, that the consolations in sorrow and 
 the view of death should either be too feeble to animate, 
 or should animate only by deluding. And it was the 
 consummation of evil in the state of the people of those 
 dark ages, it was, emphatically to be " destroyed," that 
 the great doctrines of redemption should have been essen- 
 tially vitiated or formally supplanted, so that multitudes 
 of people were betrayed to rest their final hopes on a 
 ground unauthorized by the Judge of the world. In this 
 most important matter, the spiritual authorities might 
 themselves be subjects of the fatal delusion in which 
 they held the community; and well they deserved to be 
 so, in judicial retribution of their wickedness in im- 
 posing on the people, deliberately and on system, in- 
 numerable things which they knew to be false. 
 
 We have often mused, and felt a gloom and dreari- 
 ness spreading over the mind while musing, on descrip- 
 tions of the aspect of a country after a pestilence has 
 left it in desolation, or of a region where the people are 
 perishing by famine. It has seemed a mournful thing 
 to behold, in contemplation, the multitude of lifeless 
 forms, occupying in silence the same abodes in which 
 they had lived, or scattered upon the gardens, fields, 
 and roads; and then to see the countenances of the 
 beings yet languishing in life, looking despair, and im- 
 pressed with the signs of approaching death. We have 
 even sometimes had the vivid and horrid picture offered 
 to our imagination, of a number of human creatures 
 shut up by their fellow -mortals in some strong hold, 
 under an entire privation of sustenance; and presenting 
 each day their imploring, or infuriated, or grimly sullen, 
 or more calmly woful countenances, at the iron and 
 impregnable grates; each succeeding day more haggard, 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 53 
 
 more perfect in the image of despair ; and after awhile 
 appearing each day one fewer, till at last all have sunk. 
 Now shall we feel it as a relief to turn in thought, as 
 to a sight of less portentous evil, from the inhabitants 
 of a country, or from those of such an accursed prison- 
 house, thus pining away, to behold the different spec- 
 tacle of national tribes, or any more limited por- 
 tion of mankind, on whose minds are displayed the 
 full effects of knowledge denied ; who are under the 
 process of whatever destruction it is, that spirits can 
 suffer from want of the vital aliment to the intelligent 
 nature, especially from " a famine of the words of the 
 Lord?" 
 
 To bring the two to a close comparison, suppose the 
 case, that some of the persons thus doomed to perish in 
 the tower were in the possession of the genuine light 
 and consolations of Christianity, perhaps even had ac- 
 tually been adjudged to this fate, (no extravagant sup- 
 position) for zealously and persistingly endeavouring 
 the restoration of the purity of that religion to the 
 deluded community. Let it be supposed that numbers 
 of that community, having conspired to obtain this 
 adjudgment, frequented the precincts of the fortress to 
 see their victims gradually perishing. It would be 
 quite in the spirit of the popish superstition, that they 
 should believe themselves to have done God service, 
 and be accordingly pleased at the sight of the more and 
 more deathlike aspect of the emaciated countenances. 
 The while, they might be themselves in the enjoyment 
 of " fulness of bread." We can imagine them making 
 convivial appointments within sight of the prison gates, 
 and going from the spectacle to meet at the banquet. 
 Or they might delay the festivity, in order to have the 
 additional luxury of knowing that the tragedy was con- 
 summated ; as Bishop Gardiner would not dine till the 
 
54 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 martyrs were burnt. — Look at these two contemporary 
 situations, that of the persons with truth and immortal 
 hope in their spirits, enduring this slow and painful 
 reduction of their bodies to dissolution, — and that of 
 those who, while their bodies fared sumptuously, were 
 thus miserably perishing in soul, through its being sur- 
 rendered to the curse of a delusion which envenomed it 
 with such a deadly malignity : and say which was the 
 more calamitous predicament. 
 
 If we have no hesitation in pronouncing, let us con- 
 sider whether we have ever been grateful enough to 
 God for the dashing in pieces so long since, in this land, 
 of a system which maintains, to this hour, much of its 
 stability over the greater part of Christendom. If we 
 regret that certain fragments of it are still held in vene- 
 ration here, and that so tedious a length of ages should 
 be required, to work out a complete mental rescue from 
 the infatuation which possessed our ancestors, let us at 
 the same time look at the various states of Europe, 
 small and great, where this superstition continues to 
 hold the minds of the people in its odious grasp ; and 
 verify to ourselves what we have to be thankful for, by 
 thinking what reception our minds would give to an 
 offer of subsistence on their mummeries, masses, abso- 
 lutions, legends, relics, mediation of saints, and cor- 
 ruptions, even to complete reversal, of the evangelic 
 doctrines. 
 
 It was, however, but very slowly that the people of 
 our land realized the benefits of the Keformation, glori- 
 ous as that event was, regarded as to its progressive 
 and its ultimate consequences. Indeed, the thickness 
 of the preceding darkness was strikingly manifested by 
 the deep shade which still continued stretched over the 
 nation, in spite of the newly risen luminary, whose 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 55 
 
 beams lost their brightness in pervading it to reach the 
 popular mind, and came with the faintness of an ob- 
 scured and tedious dawn. 
 
 A long time there lingered enough of night for the 
 evil spirit of popery to be at large and in power, not 
 abashed, as Milton represents the Evil Angel on his 
 being surprised by the guardians of paradise. Rather 
 the case was that the vindicator itself of truth and holi- 
 ness, the true Lucifer, shrunk at the rencounter and 
 defiance of the old possessor of the gloomy dominion. 
 The Reformation was not empowered to speak with a 
 voice like that which said, "Let there be light — and 
 there was light." Consider what, on its avowed national 
 adoption in our land, were its provisions for acting on 
 the community, and how slow and partial must have 
 been their efficacy, for either the dissipation of igno- 
 rance in general, or the riddance of that worst part of 
 it Avhich had thickened round the Romish delusion, as 
 malignant a pestilence as ever walked in darkness. 
 There was an alteration of formularies, a curtailment 
 of rites, a declaration of renouncing, in the name of the 
 church and state, the most palpable of the absurdities ; 
 and a change, in some instances of the persons, but in 
 very many others of the professions merely, of the 
 hierarchy. Such were the appointments and instru- 
 mentality, for carrying an innovation of opinions and 
 practices through a nation in which the profoundest 
 ignorance and the most inveterate superstition fortified 
 each other. And we may well imagine how fast and 
 liow far they would be effective, to convey information 
 and conviction among a people whose reason had been 
 just so much the worse, with respect to religion at least, 
 as it had not been totally dormant ; and who were too 
 illiterate to be ever the wiser lor the volume of inspi- 
 ration itself, had it been, in their native language, in 
 
56 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 every house, instead of being scarcely in one house in 
 five thousand. 
 
 Doubtless some advantage was gained through this 
 change of institutions, by the abolition of so much of 
 the authority of the spiritual despotism as it possessed 
 in virtue of being the imperative national establishment. 
 And if, under this relaxation of its grasp, a number of 
 persons declined and escaped into the new fiiith they 
 hardly knew how or why, it was happy to make the 
 transition on any terms, with however little of the ex- 
 ercise of reason, with however little competence to 
 exercise it. Well was it to be on the right ground, 
 though a man had come thither like one conveyed while 
 paM'tly asleep. To have grown to a state of mind in 
 which he ceased and refused to worship relics and 
 wafers, to rest his confidence on penance and priestly 
 absolution, and to regard the Virgin and saints as in 
 effect the supreme regency of heaven, was a valuable 
 alteration though he could not read, and though he could 
 not assign, and had not clearly apprehended, the argu- 
 ments which justified the change. Yes, this would be 
 an important thing gained ; but not even thus much 
 was gained to the passive slaves of popery but in an 
 exceedingly limited extent, during a long course of time 
 after it was supplanted as a national institution. It 
 continued to maintain in the faith, feelings, and more 
 private habits of the people, a dominion little enfeebled 
 by the necessity of dissimulation in public observances. 
 As far as to secure this exterior show of submission and 
 conformity, it was an excellent argument that the state 
 had decreed, and would resolutely enforce, a change in 
 religion, — that is to say, till it should be the sovereign 
 pleasure of the next monarch, readily seconded by a 
 majority of the ecclesiastics, just to turn the whole 
 affair round to its former position. But the argument 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 57 
 
 would expend nearly its whole strength on this policy 
 of saving appearances. For what was there conveyed 
 in it that could strike inward to act upon the fixed 
 tenets of the mind, to destroy there the effect of the 
 earliest and ten thousand subsequent impressions, of in- 
 veterate habit and of ancient establishment? Was it to 
 convince and persuade by authority of the maxim, that 
 the government in church and state is wiser than the 
 people, and therefore the best judge in every matter? 
 This, as asserted generally, was what the people firmly 
 believed : it has always, till lately, been the popular 
 faith. But then, was the benefit of this obsequious 
 faith to go exclusively to the government of just that 
 particular time, — a government which, by its innova- 
 tions and demolitions, was exhibiting a contemptuous 
 dissent from all past government remembered in the 
 land? Were the people not to hesitate a moment to 
 take this innovating government's word for it that all 
 their forefathers, up through a long series of ages, had 
 been fools and dupes in reverencing, in their time, the 
 wisdom and authority of their governors? The most 
 unthinking and submissive would feel that this was too 
 much: especially after they had proof that the govern- 
 ment demanding so prodigious a concession might, on 
 the substitution of just one individual for another at its 
 head, revoke its own ordinances, and punish those who 
 should contumaciously continue to be ruled by them. 
 You summon us, they might have said to their governors, 
 at your arbitrary dictate to renounce, as what you are 
 pleased to call idolatries and abominations, the faith and 
 rites held sacred by twenty generations of our ances- 
 tors and yours. We are to do this on peril of your 
 highest displeasure, and that of God, by whose will you 
 are professing to act; now who will ensure us that there 
 may not be, some time hence, a vindictive inquisition, 
 
58 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 to find who among us have been the most ready of obe- 
 dience to offer wicked insult to the Holy Catholic Apo- 
 stolic Church? 
 
 This deficiency of the moral power of the govern- 
 ment, to promote the progress of conviction in the 
 mind of the nation, would be slenderly supplied by the 
 authority of the class next to the government in the 
 claim to deference, and even holding the precedence in 
 actual influence, — that is, the families of rank and con- 
 sequence throughout the country. For the people well 
 knew, in their respective neighbourhoods, that many 
 of these had never in reality forsaken the ancient reli- 
 gion, consulting only the policy of a time-serving con- 
 formity ; and that some of them hardly attempted or 
 wished to conceal from their inferiors that they pre- 
 served their fidelity. And then the substituted religion, 
 while it came with a great diminution ot the pomp 
 which is always the delight of the ignorant, acknow- 
 ledged, — proclaimed as one of its chief merits, — a still 
 more fatal defect for attracting converts from among 
 beings whose ignorance had never been suffered to 
 doubt, till then, that men in ecclesiastical garb could 
 modify, or suspend, or defeat for them the justice of 
 God ; it proclaimed itself unable to give any exemp- 
 tions or commutations in matters of conscience. 
 
 When such were the recommendations which the 
 new mode of religion had not, and when the recom- 
 mendation which it had was simply, (the royal autho- 
 rity set out of the question,) an offer of evidence to the 
 understanding that it was true, no wonder that many 
 of a generation so insensate through ignorance should 
 never become its proselytes. But even as to those 
 who did, while it was a happy deliverance, as we have 
 said, to escape almost any way from the utter gross- 
 ness of popery, still they would carry into their better 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 59 
 
 faith mucli of the unhappy effect of that previous men- 
 tal debasement. How should a man in the rudeness <3f 
 an intellect left completely ignorant of truth in general, 
 have a luminous apprehension of its most important 
 division ? There could not be in men's minds a phe- 
 nomenon similar to what we image to ourselves of 
 Goshen in the preternatural night of Egypt, a space of 
 perfect light, defined out by a precise limit amidst the 
 general darkness. 
 
 Only consider, that the new ideas admitted into the 
 proselyte's understanding as the true faith, were to take 
 their situation there in nearly those very same encom- 
 passing circumstances of internal barbarism which had 
 been so perfectly commodious to the superstition re- 
 cently dwelling there ; and that which had been favour- 
 able and adapted in the utmost degree, that which had 
 afforded much of the sustenance of life, to the false 
 notions, could not but be most adverse to the develop- 
 ment of the true ones. These latter, so environed, 
 would be in a condition too like that of a candle in the 
 raephitic air of a vault. The newly adopted religion, 
 therefore, of the uncultivated converts from popery, 
 would be far from exhibiting, as compared with the 
 renounced superstition, a magnitude of change, and 
 force of contrast, duly corresponding to the difference 
 between the lying vanities of priestcraft and a commu- 
 nication from the living God. The reign of ignorance 
 combined with imposture had fixed upon the common 
 people of the age of the Reformation, and of several 
 generations downward, the doom of being incapable of 
 admitting genuine Christianity but with an excessively 
 inadequate apprehension of its attributes ; — as in the 
 patriarchal ages a man might have received with only 
 the honours appropriate to a saint or prophet, the visi- 
 tant in whom he was entertaining an angel unawares. 
 
60 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 Happy for botli that ancient entertainer of sucli a visi- 
 tant, and the ignorant but honest adopter of the reformed 
 religion, when that which they entertained rewarded 
 them according to its own celestial quality, rather than 
 in proportion to their inadequate reception. We may 
 believe that the Divine Being, in special compassion to 
 that ignorance to which barbarism and superstition had 
 condemned inevitably the greater number of the early 
 converts to the reformed religion, did render that faith 
 beneficial to them beyond the proportion of their nar- 
 row and still half superstitious conception of it. And 
 this is, in truth, the consideration the most consolatory 
 in looking back to that tenebrious period in which 
 popery was slowly retiring, with a protracted exertion 
 of all the craft and strength of an able and veteran tyrant 
 contending to the last for prolonged dominion. 
 
 It is, however, no consideration of a portion of the 
 people sincere, inquiring, and emerging, though dimly 
 enlightened, from the gloom of so dreary a scene, that 
 is most apt to occur to our thoughts in extenuation of 
 that gloom. Our unreflecting attention allows itself 
 to be so engrossed by far different circumstances of that 
 period of our history, that we are imposed upon by a 
 spectacle the very opposite of mournful. For what is 
 it but a splendid and animating exhibition that we be- 
 hold in looking back to the age of Elizabeth ? 
 
 And was not that, it may be asked, an age of the 
 highest glory to our nation ? Why repress our delight 
 in contemplating it ? How can we refuse to indulge 
 an inspiring sympathy with the energy of those times, 
 an elation of spirit at beholding the unparalleled allot- 
 ment to her reign, of statesmen, heroes, and literary 
 geniuses, but for whom, indeed, " that bright occidental 
 star" would have left no such brilliant track of fame 
 behind her ? 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE* 61 
 
 Permit us to answer by inquiring, "What should the 
 intellectual condition of the people, properly so deno- 
 minated, have been in order to correspond in a due 
 proportion to the magnificence of these their repre- 
 sentative chiefs, and complete the grand spectacle as 
 that of a nation ? Determine that ; and then inquire 
 what actually was the state of the people all this while. 
 There is evidence that it was, what the fatal blight and 
 blast of popery might be expected to have left it, gene- 
 rally and most wretchedly degraded. "What it was is 
 shown by the facts, that it was found impossible, even 
 under the inspiring auspices of the learned Elizabeth, 
 with her constellation of geniuses, orators, scholars, to 
 supply the churches generally with officiating persons 
 capable of going with decency through the task of the 
 public service, made ready, as every part of it was, to 
 their hands ; and that to be able to read, was the very 
 marked distinction of here and there an individual. It 
 requires little effort but that of going low enough, to 
 complete the general estimate in conformity to these 
 and similar facts. 
 
 And here we cannot help remarking what a decep- 
 tion we suffer to pass on us from history. It celebrates 
 some period in a nation's career as pre-eminently illus- 
 trious, for magnanimity, lofty enterprise, literature, 
 and original genius. There was, perhaps, a learned 
 and vigorous monarch, and there were Cecils and Wal- 
 singhams, and Shakspeares and Spensers, and Sidneys 
 and Raleighs, with many other powerful thinkers and 
 actors, to render it the proudest age of our national 
 glory. And we thoughtlessly admit on our imagina- 
 tion this splendid exhibition as in some manner in- 
 volving or implying the collective state of the people 
 in that age I The ethereal summits of a tract of the 
 moral world are conspicuous and fair in the lustre of 
 
62 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 heaven, 'and we take no thought of the immensely 
 greater proportion of it which is sunk in gloom and 
 covered with fogs. The general mass of the population, 
 whose physical vigour, indeed, and courage, and fide- 
 lity to the interests of the country, were of such admi- 
 rable avail to the purposes, and under the direction, of 
 the mighty spirits that wielded their rough agency, — 
 this great assemblage was sunk in such mental bar- 
 barism, as to be placed at about the same distance 
 from their illustrious intellectual chiefs, as the hordes 
 of Scythia from the finest spirits of Athens. It was 
 nothing to this debased countless multitude spread over 
 the country, existing in the coarsest habits, destitute, 
 in the proportion of thousands to one, of cultivation, 
 and still in a great degree enslaved by the popish super- 
 stition, — it was nothing to them, in the way of direct 
 influence to draw forth their minds into free exercise 
 and acquirement, that there were, within the circuit of 
 the island, a profound scholarship, a most disciplined 
 and vigorous reason, a masculine eloquence, and genius 
 breathing enchantment. Both the actual possessors of 
 this mental opulence, and the part of society forming, 
 around them, the sphere immediately pervaded by the 
 delight and instruction imparted by them, might as 
 well, for any thing they difi*ased of this luxury and 
 benefit among the general multitude, have been a 
 Brahminical caste, dissociated by an imagined essential 
 distinction of nature. While they were exulting in 
 this elevation and free excursiveness of mental ex- 
 istence, the prostrate crowd were grovelling through a 
 life on a level with the soil where they were at last to 
 find their graves. But this crowd it was that consti- 
 tuted the substance of the nation; to which nation, in 
 the mass, the historian applies the superb epithets, which 
 a small proportion of the men of that age claimed by a 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 63 
 
 striking exception to the general state of the commu- 
 nity. History too much consults our love of effect and 
 pomp, to let us see in a close and distinct manner 
 any thing 
 
 " On the low level of th' inglorious throng ; " 
 
 and our attention is borne away to the intellectual 
 splendour exhibited among the most favoured aspirants 
 of the seats of learning, or in councils, courts, and 
 camps, in heroic and romantic enterprises, and in some 
 immortal works of genius. And thus we are gazing 
 with delight at a fine public bonfire, while, in all the 
 cottages round, the people are shivering for want of 
 fuel. 
 
 Our history becomes very bright again with the 
 intellectual and literary riches of a much later period, 
 often denominated a golden age, — that which was illus- 
 trated by the talents of Addison, Pope, Swift, and their 
 numerous secondaries in fame ; and could also boast its 
 philosophers, statesmen, and heroes. And in the lapse 
 of four or five ages, according to the average term of 
 human life, since the earlier grand display of mind, 
 what had been effected toward such an advancement of 
 intelligence in the community, that when this next 
 tribe of highly endowed spirits should appear, they 
 would stand in much less opprobrious contrast to the 
 main body of the nation, and find a much larger portion 
 of it qualified to receive their intellectual effusions. 
 By this time, the class of persons who sought know- 
 ledge on a wider scale than what sufficed for the 
 ordinary affairs of life, who took an interest in litera- 
 ture, and constituted the Authors' PuUic, had indeed 
 extended a little, extremely little, beyond the people of 
 condition, the persons educated in learned institutions, 
 
64 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 and those whose professions involved some necessity, 
 and might create some taste, for reading. Still they 
 were a class, and that with a limitation marked and 
 palpable, to a degree very difficult for us now to con- 
 ceive. They were in contact, on the one side, with 
 the great thinkers, moralists, poets, and wits, but very 
 slightly in communication with the generality of the 
 people on the other. They received the emanations 
 from the assemblage of talent and knowledge, but did 
 not serve as conductors to convey them down inde- 
 finitely into the community. The national body, 
 regarded in its intellectual character, had an inspirited 
 and vigorous superior part, as constituted of these men 
 of eminent talents and attainments, and this small class 
 of persons in a measure assimilated to them in thinking 
 and taste ; but it was in a condition resembling that of 
 a human frame in which, (through an injury in the 
 spinal marrow,) some of the most important functions 
 of vitality have terminated at some precise limit down- 
 ward, leaving the inferior extremities devoid of sensa- 
 tion and the power of action. 
 
 It is on record, that works admirably adapted to find 
 readers and to make them, had but an extremely con- 
 fined and slowly widening circulation, according to our 
 standard of the popular success of the productions of 
 distinguished talents. Nor did the writers reckon on 
 any such popular success. In the calculations of their 
 literary ambition, it was a thing of course that the 
 people went for nothing. It is apparent in allusions to 
 the people occurring in these very works, that " the 
 lower sort," " the vulgar herd," " the canaille," "the 
 mob," " the many-headed beast," " the million," (and 
 even these designations generally meant something 
 short of the lowest classes of all,) were no more thought 
 of in any relation to a state of cultivated intelligence 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 65 
 
 than Turks or Tartars. The readers are habitually 
 recognised as a kind of select community, conversed 
 with on topics and in a language with which the vulgar 
 have nothing at all to do, — a converse the more grati- 
 fying on that account. And any casual allusions to 
 tlie bulk of the people are expressed in phrases unaf- 
 fectedly implying, that they are a herd of beings exist- 
 ing on quite other terras and for essentially other ends, 
 than we, fine writers, and you, our admiring readers. 
 It is evident in our literature of that age, (a feature 
 still more prominent in that of France, at the same and 
 down to a much later period,) that the main national 
 population, accounted as creatures to which souls and 
 senses were given just to render their limbs mechani- 
 cally serviceable, were regarded by the intellectual 
 aristocracy with hardly so active a sentiment as con- 
 tempt ; they were not worth that ; it was the easy indif- 
 ference toward what was seldom thought of as in 
 existence. 
 
 Wickedly wrong as such a feeling was, there is no 
 doubt that the actual state of the people was quite such 
 as would naturally cause it, in men whose large and 
 richly cultivated minds did not contain philanthropy or 
 christian charity enough to regret and pity the popular 
 debasement as a calamity. For while they were in- 
 dulging their pride in the elevation, and their taste in 
 all the luxuries and varieties, of that ampler higher 
 range of existence enjoyed by such men, in what light 
 must they view the bulk of a nation, that knew nothing 
 of their wit, genius, or philosophy, could not even read 
 their writings, but as a coarse mass of living material, 
 the mere earthy substratum of humanity, not to be 
 accounted of in any comparison or even relation to 
 what man is in his higher style ? While they of that 
 higher style were revelling in their mental affluence, 
 F 
 
66 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 the vast majority of the inhabitants of the island were 
 subsisting, and had always subsisted, on the most beg- 
 garly pittance on which mind could be barely kept 
 alive. Probably they had at that time still fewer ideas 
 than the people of the former age which we have been 
 describing. For many of those with which popery had 
 occupied the faith and fancy of that earlier generation, 
 had now vanished from the popular mind, without being 
 replaced in equal number by better ideas, or by ideas 
 of any kind. And then their vices had the whole 
 grossness of vice, and their favourite amusements were 
 at best rude and boisterous, and a large proportion 
 of them savage and cruel. So that when we look at 
 the shining wits, poets, and philosophers, of that age, 
 they appear like gaudy flowers growing in a putrid 
 marsh. 
 
 And to a much later period this deplorable ignorance, 
 with all its appropriate consequences, continued to be 
 the dishonour and the plague of the intellectual and 
 moral condition of the inhabitants of England. Of 
 England ! which had through many centuries made so 
 great a figure in Christendom; which has been so 
 splendid in arms, liberty, legislation, science, and all 
 manner of literature ; which has boasted its univer- 
 sities, of ancient foundation and proudest fame, muni- 
 ficently endowed, and possessing, in their accumulations 
 of literary treasure, nearly the whole results of all 
 the strongest thinking there had been in the world ; 
 and which has had also, through the charity of indi- 
 viduals, such a number of minor institutions for educa- 
 tion, that the persons entrusted to see them administered 
 have, in very numerous instances, not scrupled to divert 
 their resources to totally different purposes, lest, per- 
 chance, the cause of damage to the people should change 
 from a lack of knowledge to a repletion of it. Of 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. '67 
 
 England ! so long after the Reformation, and all the 
 while under the superintendence and tuition of an 
 ecclesiastical establishment for both instruction and 
 jurisdiction, co-extended with the entire nation, and 
 furnished for its ministry with men from the discipline 
 of institutions where every thing the most important to 
 be known was professed to be taught. Thus endowed 
 had England been, thus was she endowed at the period 
 under our review, (the former part of the last century,) 
 with the facilities, the provisions, the great intellectual 
 apparatus, to be wielded in any mode her wisdom might 
 devise, and with whatever strength of hand she chose 
 to apply, for promoting her several millions of rational, 
 accountable, immortal beings, somewhat beyond a state 
 of mere physical existence. When therefore^ notwith- 
 standing all this, an awful proportion of them were 
 under the continual process of destruction for want of 
 knowledge, what a tremendous responsibility was borne 
 by whatever part of the community it was that stood, 
 either by office and express vocation, or by the general 
 obligation inseparable from ability, in the relation of 
 guardianship to the rest. 
 
 But here the voice of that sort of patriotism which is 
 in vogue as well in England as in China, may perhaps 
 interpose, to protest against malicious and exaggerated 
 invective. As if it were a question of what might 
 beforehand be reasonably expected, instead of an account 
 of what actually exists, it may be alleged that surely it 
 is a representation too much against antecedent proba- 
 bility to be true, that a civilized, christian, magnani- 
 mous, and wealthy state like that of England, can have 
 been so careless and wicked as to tolerate, during the 
 lapse of centuries, a hideously gross and degraded con- 
 dition of the people. 
 
68 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 But besides that the fact is plainly so, it were vain 
 to presume, in confidence on any supposed consistency 
 of character, that it must be otherwise. There is no 
 saying what a civilized and christian nation, (so called,) 
 may not tolerate. Recollect the Slave Trade, which, 
 with the magnitude of a national concern, continued its 
 abominations while one generation after another of 
 Englishmen passed away ; their intelligence, conscience, 
 humanity, and refinement, as quietly accommodated to 
 it, as if one portion of the race had possessed an express 
 warrant from Heaven to capture, buy, sell, and drive 
 another. This is but one of many mortifying illus- 
 trations how much the constitution of our moral senti- 
 ments resembles a Manichaian creation, how much of 
 them is formed in passive submission to the evil prin- 
 ciple, acting through prevailing custom ; which deter- 
 mines that it shall but very partially depend on the 
 real and most manifest qualities of things presented to 
 us, whether we shall have any right perception of their 
 characters of good and evil. The agency which works 
 this mal-formation in our sentiments needs no greater 
 triumph, than that the true nature of things should be 
 disguised to us by the very effect of their being con- 
 stantly kept in our sight. Could any malignant 
 enchanter wish for more than this, — to make us insen- 
 sible to the odious quality of things not only though 
 they stand constantly and directly in our view, but 
 because they do so ? And while they do so, there may 
 also stand as obviously in our view, and close by them, 
 the truths which expose their real nature, and might be 
 expected to make us instantly revolt from them ; and 
 these truths shall be no other than some of the plainest 
 principles of reason and religion. It shall be as if men 
 of wicked designs could be compelled to wear labels on 
 their breasts wherever they go, to announce their cha- 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 0\f 
 
 racter in conspicuous letters ; or nightly assassins could 
 be forced to carry torches before them, to reveal the 
 murderer in their visages; or, as if, according to a 
 vulgar superstition, evil spirits could not help betraying 
 their dangerous presence by a tinge of brimstone in 
 the flame of the lamps. Thus evident, by the light of 
 reason and religion, shall have been the true nature of 
 certain important facts in the policy of a christian 
 nation ; and nevertheless, even the cultivated part of 
 that nation, during a series of generations, having 
 directly before their sight an enormous nuisance and 
 iniquity, shall yet never be struck with its quality, 
 never be made restless by its annoyance, never seriously 
 think of it. And so its odiousness shall never be 
 decidedly apprehended till some individual or two, as 
 by the acquisition of a new moral sense, receive a 
 sudden intuition of its nature, a disclosure of its whole 
 essence and malignity, — the essence and malignity of 
 that very thing which has been exposing its quality, 
 without the least reserve, by the most flagrant signs, to 
 millions of observers. 
 
 Thus it has been with respect to the barbarous 
 ignorance under which nine tenths of the population of 
 our country have continued, through a number of ages 
 subsequent to the Reformation, surrendered to every 
 thing low, vicious, and wretched. This state of national 
 debasement and dishonour lay spread out, a wide scene 
 of moral desolation, in the sight of statesmen, of digni- 
 fied and subordinate ecclesiastics, of magistrates, of the 
 philosophic speculators on human nature, and of all 
 those whose rank and opulence brought them hourly 
 proofs what great influence they might have, in any 
 way in which they should choose to exert it, on the 
 people below them. And still it was all right that the 
 multitudes, constituting the grand living agency through 
 
7Q 
 
 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 the realm, should remain in such a condition that, when 
 they died, the country should lose nothing but so much 
 animated body, with the quantum of vice which helped 
 to keep it in action. When at length some were 
 beginning to apprehend and proclaim that all this was 
 wrong, these classes were exceedingly slow in their 
 assent to the reformed doctrine. A large proportion 
 of them even declared, on system, against the specula- 
 tions and projects for giving the people, at last, the use 
 and value of their souls as well as their hands. The 
 earnest and sanguine philanthropists might be par- 
 doned the simplicity of not foreseeing such an opposition, 
 though they ought, perhaps, to have known better than 
 to be surprised at the phenomenon. They were to be 
 made wiser by force, with respect to men's governing 
 prejudices and motives. And from credulity mortified 
 is a short transit to suspicion. So ungracious a manner 
 of having the insight into motives sharpened, does not 
 tend to make its subsequent exercise indulgent, when 
 it comes to inspect the altered appearances assumed by 
 persons and classes who have previously been in de- 
 cided opposition. What arguments have prevailed with 
 you, (the question might be,) since you have never 
 frankly retracted your former contempt of those which 
 convinced us ? May any sinister thought have occurred, 
 that you might defeat our ends by a certain way of 
 managing the means ? Or do you hope to determine 
 and limit to some subordinate purposes, w^hat we wish 
 to prosecute for the most general good ? Or would 
 you rather impose on yourselves the grievance of pro- 
 moting an object which you dislike, than that we 
 should have the chief credit of promoting it ? Do you 
 sometimes accompany your working in the vineyard 
 with maledictions on those who have reduced you to 
 such a necessity ? Would you have been glad to be 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 71 
 
 saved the unwelcome service by their letting it 
 alone ? 
 
 Those friends of man and their country who were 
 the earliest to combine in schemes for enlightening the 
 people and who continue to prosecute the object on 
 the most liberal and comprehensive principle, have to 
 acknowledge surmises like these. Nevertheless, they 
 are willing to forego any shrewd investigation into the 
 causes of the later silence and apparent acquiescence of 
 former opposers; and into the motives which have in- 
 duced some of them, though in no very amicable 
 mood, to take a part in measures tending in their 
 general effect to the same end. Whatever were their 
 suspicion of those motives, they would be reminded of 
 an example, not altogether foreign to the nature of 
 their business, and quite in point to their duty, — that 
 of the magnanimous principle through which the great 
 Apostle disappointed his adversaries, by finding his 
 own triumph in that of his cause, while he saw that 
 cause availing itself of these foes after the manner of 
 some consummate general, who has had the art to make 
 those who have come into the field as but treacherous 
 auxiliaries, cooperate effectually in the battle which 
 they never intended he should gain. Some preached 
 Christ of envy, and strife, and contention, supposing 
 to add affliction to his bonds; but, says he, What then ? 
 notwithstanding every way, whether in pretence or 
 truth, Christ is preached — the thing itself is done — and 
 I therein rejoice, yea, and will rejoice. When ani- 
 mated by this high principle, this ambition absolutely 
 for the cause itself, its servant is a gainer, because it is 
 a gainer, by all things convertible into tribute, what- 
 ever may be the temper or intention of the offerers, 
 either as towards the cause or towards himself. He may 
 gay to them, I am more pleased by what you are actually 
 
72 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 doing, be the motive what it will, in advancement 
 of the object to which I am devoted, than it is possible 
 for you to aggrieve me by letting me see that you 
 would not be sorry for the frustration of my schemes 
 and exertions for its service; or even by betraying, 
 though I should lament such a state of your minds, 
 that you would be content to sacrifice it if that might 
 be the way to defeat me. 
 
 We revert but for a moment to the review of past 
 
 times. We said that long after the brilliant show of 
 
 talent, and the creation ot literary supplies for the 
 national use, in the early part of the last century, the 
 deplorable mental condition of the people remained in 
 no very great degree altered. To pass from beholding 
 that bright and sumptuous display, in order to see what 
 there was corresponding to it in the subsequent state 
 of the popular cultivation, is like going out from some 
 magnificent apartment with its lustres, music, refec- 
 tions, and assemblage of elegant personages, to be beset 
 by beggars in the gloom and cold of a winter night. 
 
 Take a few hours' indulgence in the literary luxuries 
 of Addison, Pope, and their secondaries, and then turn 
 to some authentic plain representation of the attain- 
 ments and habits of the mass of the people, at the time 
 when Whitefield and Wesley commenced their invasion 
 of the barbarous community. But the benevolent reader, 
 (or let him be a patriotically proud one,) is quite re- 
 luctant to recognise his country, his celebrated chris- 
 tian nation, " the most enlightened in the world," (as 
 song and oratory have it,) in a populace for the far 
 greater part as perfectly estranged from the page of 
 knowledge, as if printing, or even letters, had never 
 been invented ; the younger part finding their supreme 
 delight in rough frolic and savage sports, the old 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 73 
 
 Sinking down into impenetrable stupefaction with the 
 decline of the vital principle. 
 
 If he would eagerly seek to fix on something as a 
 counterbalance to this, and endeavour to modify the 
 estimate and relieve the feeling, by citing perhaps the 
 courage, and a certain rudimental capacity of good sense, 
 in which the people are deemed to have surpassed the 
 neighbouring nations, he will be compelled to see how 
 these native endowments were overrun and befooled by 
 a farrago of contemptible superstitions; — contemptible 
 not only for their stupid absurdity, but also as having 
 in general nothing of that pensive, solemn, and poetical 
 character which superstition is capable of assuming. — 
 It is an exception to be made with respect to the 
 northernmost part of the island, that superstition did 
 there partake of this higher character. It seems to 
 have had somewhat of the tone imitated, but in a softer 
 mode, in the poetry, denominated of Ossian. 
 
 As to religion, there is no hazard in saying, that 
 several millions had little further notion of it than that 
 it was an occasional, or, in the opinion of perhaps one 
 in twenty, a regular appearance at church, hardly 
 taking into the account that they were to be taught any 
 thing there. And what were they taught — those of 
 them who gave their attendance and attention ? What 
 kind of notions it was that had settled in their minds 
 under such ministration, would be, so to speak, brought 
 out, it would be made apparent what they were or were 
 not taught, when so strong and general a sensation was 
 produced by the irruption among them of the two re- 
 formers just named; proclaiming, as they both did, 
 (notwithstanding very considerable differences of se- 
 condary order), the principles which had been authori- 
 tatively declared to be of the essence of Christianity, 
 in that model of doctrine which had been appointed to 
 
'J'4 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 prescribe and conserve the national faith. If such 
 doctrine had been imparted to a portion of the popular 
 mind, even though with somewhat less positive state- 
 ment, less copiousness of illustration, and less cogency 
 of enforcement, than it ought; if it had been but in 
 crude substance fixed in the people's understanding, by 
 the ministry of the many thousand authorized instruc- 
 tors, who were by their institute solemnly enjoined and 
 pledged not to teach a different sort of doctrine, and not 
 to fail of teaching this; if, we repeat, this faith, so con- 
 spicuously declared in the articles, liturgy, and homilies, 
 had been in any degree in possession of the people, 
 they W'Ould have recognised its main principles, or at 
 least a similarity of principles, in the addresses of these 
 two new preachers. They would have done so, not- 
 withstanding a peculiarity of phraseology which White- 
 field and Wesley carried to excess ; and notwithstanding 
 certain specialities which the latter did not, even sup- 
 posing them to be truths, keep duly subordinate in 
 exhibiting the prominent essentials of Christianity. 
 The preaching, therefore, of these men was a test of 
 what the people had been previously taught or allowed 
 to repose in as christian truth, under the tuition of their 
 great religious guardian, the national church. What 
 it was or was not would be found, in their having a 
 sense of something like what they had been taught 
 before, or something opposite to it, or something alto- 
 gether foreign and unknown, when they were hearing 
 these loud proclaimers of the old doctrines of the Ee- 
 formation. Now then, as carrying with them this 
 quality of a test, how were those men received in the 
 community ? Why, they were generally received, on 
 account of the import of what they said, still more than 
 from their zealous manner of saying it, with as strong 
 an impression of novelty, strangeness, and contrariety 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 75 
 
 to everything hitherto heard of, as any of our voyagers 
 and travellers of discovery have been by the barbarous 
 tribes who had never before seen civilized man, or as 
 the Spaniards on their arrival in Mexico or Peru. They 
 might, as the voyagers have done, experience every 
 local difference of moral temperament, from that which 
 hailed them with acclamations, to that which often ex- 
 ploded in a volley of mud and stones; but through all 
 these varieties of greetings, there was a strong sense 
 of something then brought before them for the first 
 time. " Thou bringest certain strange things to our 
 ears," was an expression not more unaffectedly uttered 
 by any hearer of an apostle, preaching in a heathen city. 
 And to many of the auditors, it was a matter of 
 nearly as much difficulty as it would to an inquisi^ 
 tive heathen, and required as new a posture of the 
 mind, to attain an understanding of the evangelical 
 doctrines, though they were the very same which had 
 been held forth by the fathers and martyrs of the 
 English Church. 
 
 "We have alluded to the violence, which sometimes 
 encountered the endeavour to restore these doctrines to 
 the knowledge and faith of the people. And if any one 
 should have thought that, in the descriptions we have 
 been giving, too frequent and willing use has been made 
 of the epithet " barbarous," or similar words, as if we 
 could have a perverse pleasure in degrading our nation, 
 we would request him to select for himself the appro- 
 priate terms for characterizing that state of the people, 
 in point of sense and civilization, to say nothing of 
 religion, which could admit such a fact as this to stand 
 in their history — namely, that, in a vast number of 
 instances and places, where some person unexception- 
 able in character as far as known, and sometimes well 
 known as a worthy man, has attempted to address a 
 
76 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 number of the inhabitants, under a roof or under the 
 sky, on what it imported them beyond all things in the 
 world to know and consider, a multitude have rushed 
 together, shouting and howling, raving and cursing, 
 and accompanying, in many of the instances, their 
 furious cries and yells with loathsome or dangerous 
 missiles; dragging or driving the preacher from his 
 humble stand, forcing him, and the few that wished to 
 encourage and hear him, to flee for their lives, some- 
 times not without serious injury before they could 
 escape. And that such a history of the people may 
 show how deservedly their superiors were denominated 
 their "betters," it has to add, that these savage tumults 
 were generally instigated or abetted, sometimes under 
 a little concealment, but often avowedly, by persons 
 of higher condition, and even by those consecrated to 
 the office of religious instruction; and this advantage 
 of their station was lent to defend the perpetrators 
 against shame, or remorse, or just punishment, for the 
 outrage. 
 
 There would be no hazard in affirming, that since 
 Wesley and Whitefield began the conflict with the 
 heathenism of the country, there have been in it hun- 
 dreds of occurrences answering in substance to this 
 description. From any one, therefore, who should be 
 inclined to accuse us of harsh language, we may well 
 repeat the demand in what terms he would think he 
 gave the true character of a mental and moral con- 
 dition, manifested in such uproars of savage violence 
 as the Christian missionaries among eastern idolaters 
 never had the slightest cause to apprehend. These 
 outrages were so far from uncommon, or confined to 
 any one part of the country, some time before, and for 
 a very long while after, the middle of the last century, 
 that they might be fairly taken as indicating the depth 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 77 
 
 at which the greatest part of the nation lay sunk in 
 ignorance and barbarism. Yet the good and zealous 
 men whose lot it was to be thus set upon by a depraved 
 infuriate rabble, the foremost of them active in direct 
 assault, and the rest venting their ferocious delight in 
 a hideous blending of ribaldry and execration, of joking 
 and cursing, were taxed with a canting hypocrisy, or a 
 fanatical madness, for speaking of the prevailing igno- 
 rance and barbarism in terms equivalent to our sentence 
 from the Prophet, "The people are destroyed for lack 
 of knowledge," and for deploring the hopelessness of 
 any revolution in this empire of darkness by means of 
 the existing institutions, which seemed indeed to have 
 become themselves its strong holds. 
 
 But they whom serious danger could not deter from 
 renewing and indefinitely repeating such attempts at 
 all hazards, were little likely to be appalled by these 
 contumelies of speech. To the persons so abusing 
 them they might coolly reply, "Now really you are 
 inconsiderately wasting your labour. Don't you know, 
 that on the account of this same business w^e have sus- 
 tained the battery of stones, brickbats, and the contents 
 of the ditch? And can you believe we can much care 
 for mere W07'ds of insult, after that? Albeit the oppro- 
 brious phrases have the fetid coarseness befitting the 
 bluster of property without education, or the more 
 highly inspirited tone of railing learnt in a college, they 
 are quite another kind of thing to be the mark for, than 
 such assailments as have come from the brawny arms 
 of some of your peasants, set on probably by broad 
 hints or plain expressions how much you would be 
 pleased with such exploits." — It is gratifying to see 
 thus exemplified, in the endurance of evil for a good 
 cause, that provision in our nature for economizing the 
 expense of feeling, through which the encountering of 
 
78 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 the greater creates a hardihood which can despise the 
 less. 
 
 That our descriptive observations do not exaggerate 
 the popular ignorance, with its natural concomitants, as 
 prevailing at the middle of the last century and far down- 
 ward, many of the elderly persons among us can readily 
 confirm, from what they remember of the testimony of 
 their immediate ancestors. It will be recollected what 
 pictures they gave of the moral scene spread over the 
 country when they were young. They could convey 
 lively images of the situations in which the vulgar 
 notions and manners had their free display, by repre- 
 senting the assemblages, and the fashion of discourse 
 and manners, at fairs, revels, and other rendezvous of 
 amusement; or in the field of rural employment, or on 
 the village green, or in front of the mechanic's work- 
 shop. They could recount various anecdotes character- 
 istic of the times; and repeat short dialogues, or single 
 sayings, which expressed the very essence of what was 
 to the population of the township or province instead 
 of law and prophets, or sages or apostles. They could 
 describe how free from all sense of shame whole families 
 would seem to be, from grandsires down to the third 
 rude reckless generation, for not being able to read; 
 and how well content, when there was some one in- 
 dividual in the neighbourhood who could read an ad- 
 vertisement, or ballad, or last dying speech of a male- 
 factor, for the benefit of the rest. They could describe 
 the desolation of the land, with respect to any en- 
 lightening and impressive religious instruction in the 
 places of worship; in the generality of which, indeed, 
 the whole spirit and manner of the service tended to 
 what we just now described as the fact — that religion, 
 in its proper sense, was absolutely a tiling not recognised 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 79 
 
 at alt To most of the persons there the forms attended 
 to were representative of literally nothing — they were 
 themselves the all.* And as to those who really did in 
 the course of their attendance acquire something as- 
 signable as their creed, our supposed reporters could 
 tell what wretched and delusive notions of religion, 
 or rather instead of religion, they were permitted and 
 authorized, by their appointed spiritual guides, to carry 
 with them to their last hour. At which hour, some 
 ceremonial form was to be a passport to heaven: a little 
 bread and wine, converted into a mysterious object of 
 superstition, by receiving an ecclesiastical name of un- 
 known import, accompanied with some sentences re- 
 garded much in the nature of an incantation — and all 
 was safe! The sinner expiring believed so, and the 
 sinners surviving were left to go on in their thought- 
 less way of life, on a calculation of the same final 
 resource. 
 
 * None of the anecdotes, that have come down in traditions now 
 fading away, are more illustrative of those times, than those which 
 show both people and priest satisfied with the observances at church 
 as constituting religion, never thinking of them as but the means to 
 teach and inspire it. Such anecdotes must have been heard by 
 every one who has conversed much with such aged persons as re- 
 member the most of former times. Some traditions of this kind 
 may be recalled to mind, through similarity of character, by 
 hearing such an instance as the following. A friend of the writer 
 mentions, that he heard his father, whose veracity was above all 
 question, relate as one of the recollections of the time when he 
 was a young man, that in the parish church where he attended, the 
 service was one Sunday morning performed with a somewhat 
 unusual despatch, and every abbreviation that depended on the 
 discretion of the minister; who at the conclusion explained the 
 circumstance publicly, by saying, that as neighbour such-a-one 
 (mentioning the name) was going to bait his bull in the afternoon, 
 he had been as short as possible that the congregation might have 
 good time for the sport. — It is on the same principle that the 
 Catholics on the continent, having attended mass in the morning, 
 never think of doubting their license for every frivolity the rest of 
 tne day. 
 
80 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 Thus tlie past age has left an image of its character 
 in the minds of the generation now themselves grown 
 old, received by immediate tradition from persons who 
 lived in it. Here and there, indeed, there still lingers, 
 so long after the departure of the great company to 
 which he belonged, an ancient who retains a trace of 
 this image immediately from the reality, as having be- 
 come of an age to look at the world, and take a share 
 in its activities, about the middle of the last century.* 
 And it might be an employment of considerable though 
 rather melancholy interest, for a person visiting many 
 parts of the land, to put in requisition, in each place, 
 for a day or two, the most faithful of the memories of 
 the most narrative of the oldest people, for materials 
 toward forming an estimate of the mental and moral 
 state of the main body of the inhabitants, of town or 
 country, in the period of which they themselves saw 
 the latter part, and remember it in combination with 
 what their progenitors related of the former. After 
 these few retainers of the original picture from the life 
 shall have left the world, it will be comparatively a faint 
 conception that can be formed of that age from written 
 memorials, which exist but in a very imperfect and 
 scattered state. 
 
 But supposing the scene could be brought back to 
 the mental eye, in full verity and distinctness, as in a 
 vision supernaturally imparted, are we sure we should 
 not have the mortification of perceiving that the change, 
 from the condition of the people then to their condition 
 now, has been in but poor proportion to the amount of 
 the advantages, which we are apt to be elated in re- 
 counting as the boast and happiness of later times? To 
 assume that we should not, is to impute to that former 
 
 * They are here supposed to be looking back from about the 
 year 1820. 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 81 
 
 age still more ignorance and debasement than appear in 
 the above description. For what could, what must that 
 condition have been, if it was worse than the present 
 by anything near the difference made by what would 
 be a tolerably fair improvement of the additional means 
 latterly afforded? An estimate being made of the 
 measure of intelligence and worth found among the 
 descendants, let so much be taken out as we would wish 
 to attribute to the effect of the additional means, and 
 what will that remainder be which is to represent the 
 state of the ancestors, formed under a system of means 
 wanting all those which we are allowing ourselves to 
 think important enough to warrant the frequent ex- 
 pression, " This new era?" 
 
 The means wanting to the former generation, and 
 that have sprung into existence for the latter, may be 
 briefly noted; and those of a religious nature may be 
 named first. It is the most obvious of public expedients, 
 that good men who wish to make others so should preach 
 to them. And there has been a wonderful extension 
 of this practice since the zealous exertions of White- 
 field, Wesley, and their co-operators awakened other 
 good men to a sense of their capacity and duty. The 
 spirit actuating the associated followers of the latter of 
 those two great agitators, has impelled forth their whole 
 disposable force (to use a military phrase) to this ser- 
 vice; and they have sent preachers into many parts of 
 the land where preaching itself, in any fair sense of the 
 term, was wholly a novelty; and where there was roused 
 as earnest a zeal to crush this alarming innovation, as 
 the people of Iceland are described to feel on the oc- 
 casion of the approach of a white bear to invade their 
 folds or poorly stocked pastures.* To a confederacy of 
 
 *The writer had just been reading that description. 
 G 
 
82 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 Christians so well aware of their own strength and 
 progress, it may seem a superfluous testimony that they 
 are doing incalculable good among our population, more 
 good probably than any other religious sect. This tribute 
 is paid not the less freely for a material difference in 
 theological opinion; nor for a wish, a quite friendly one, 
 that they may admit some little modification of a spirit 
 perhaps rather too sectarian in religion, and rather less 
 .than independent in politics. 
 
 An immense augmentation has been brought to the 
 sum of public instruction, by the continually enlarging 
 numbers of dissenters of other denomination's. "Whatever 
 may be thought of some of the consequences of the great 
 extension of dissent, it will hardly be considered as a cir- 
 cumstance tending to prolong the reign of ignorance that 
 thus, wdthin the last fifty years, there have been put in 
 activity to impart religious ideas to the people not fewer 
 (exclusively of the Wesley ans) than several thousand 
 minds that would, under a continuance of the former state 
 of the nation, have been doing 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 importance, in the preaching of far the greatest 
 number of them, were exactly those which the Esta- 
 blished Church avowed in its formularies and disowned 
 in its ministry, — one of the circumstances which con- 
 tributed the most to make dissenters of the more seriously 
 disposed among the people. — It is to be added, that so 
 much public activity in religious instruction could not 
 be unaccompanied by an increase of exertion in the 
 more private methods of imparting it. 
 
 It is another important accession to the enlarged 
 system of operations against religious ignorance, that 
 a proportion of the Established Church itself has been 
 recovered to the spirit of its venerable founders, by the 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 83 
 
 progressive formation in it of a zealous evangelical 
 ministry; dissenters within their own community, if 
 we may believe the constant loud declarations of the 
 bulk of that community, and especially of the most 
 dignified, learned, and powerful classes in it. But in 
 spite of whatever discredit they may suffer from being 
 thus disowned, these worthy and useful men have still, 
 in their character of clergymen, a material advantage 
 above other faithful teachers, for influence on many of 
 the people, by being invested with the credentials of 
 the ancient institution, from which the popular mind 
 has been slow and reluctant in withdrawing its venera- 
 tion; and for which that sentiment, when not quite 
 extinct, is ready to revive at any manifestation in it of 
 the quickening spirit of the Gospel. We say, if the 
 sentiment be not quite extinct; for we are aware what 
 a very large proportion of the people are gone beyond 
 the possibility of feeling it any more. But still the 
 number is great 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 them, but for 
 whom they could never cease to cherish a filial regard, 
 were beginning to be restored to them, with a renewal 
 of the benignant qualities and cares of the parental 
 character. 
 
 Thus far the account of the means which England 
 was not to furnish for its people till the latter part of 
 the eighteenth century, relates to their better instruc- 
 tion in religion. This will not be thought beside the 
 purpose of an enumeration of expedients for lessening 
 their ignorance, by any one who can allow that religion, 
 regarded as a subject of the understanding, is the most 
 
84 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 important part of knowledge, and who has observed the 
 fact that religion, when it begins to interest uncultivated 
 minds, works surprisingly in favour of the intellectual 
 faculties; an effect exactly the reverse of that of super- 
 stition, 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 man, must greatly 
 partake, by contractedness of apprehension, the ill for- 
 tune which has confined his mental growth, yet they 
 will often do more than any other thing within the 
 same space of time to avenge him of it. 
 
 In addition to the great extension of instruction in 
 a form specifically religious, there have been various 
 causes and means contributing to the increase of know- 
 ledge among the 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 might on that day be taught 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 attainment, that they 
 could not be indifferent to the opening of other schools 
 of a humble order to continue that instruction through 
 the week. It was within the same period that there 
 was a large circulation of tracts, by some of which many 
 who might be little desirous of instruction,were beguiled 
 into it by the amusing vehicle ingeniously contrived to 
 convey it; and the most popular of which will remain 
 a monument of the talent, knowledge, and benevolence, 
 of that distinguished benefactor of her country and 
 
OlSr POPULAR IGNORANCE. 85 
 
 age, Mrs. H. More, perhaps even pre-eminent above 
 her many excellent works in a higher 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 enormous flight of periodical miscellanies, and 
 of newspapers, must be taken as both the indication 
 and the cause that hundreds of thousands of persons 
 were giving some attention to the matters of general 
 information, where their grandfathers had been, during 
 the intervals of time allowed by their employments, 
 prating, brawling, sleeping, or drinking their hours 
 away.* 
 
 It is perhaps an item of some small value in the ac- 
 count, that a new class of ideas was furnished by the 
 many wonderful effects of science, in the application of 
 the elements and mechanical powers. The people saw 
 human intelligence so effectually inspiriting inanimate 
 matter, as to create a new and mighty order of agency, 
 appearing in a certain degree independent of man him- 
 self, and in its power immensely surpassing any simple 
 immediate exertion of his power. They saw wood and 
 iron, fire, water, and air, actuated to the production of 
 effects which might vie with what their rude ancestors 
 had been accustomed to believe, (those of them 
 who had heard of such beings,) of giants, magicians. 
 
 * Since this was written there has heen a prodigious augmentation 
 of all such means of general excitement; and happily a diversilied 
 multiplication of a class of them calculated to benefit the inferior 
 people, at once by giving them a new and enlarged range of ideas, 
 and by bringing them on some tracts of common ground with 
 the liberally educated; tlms abating the former almost total inca- 
 pacity, on the patt of those inferiors, for intelligent intercom- 
 munication. 
 
86 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 alchymists, and monsters ; effects, the dream of which, 
 if any one could so have dreamed, would have been 
 scoffed at by even the more intelligent of the former 
 race. 
 
 It is true, that very ignorant 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 them. All effects, however astonishing, are 
 apt, if they be but regular in their recurrence, to be- 
 come soon insignificant to those who have never learnt 
 to inquire into causes. But still, it would be some 
 little advantage to the people's understanding to see 
 what prodigious effects could be produced without any 
 preternatural interference. Though not comprehending 
 the science employed, they could comprehend that what 
 they saw rcas 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 re- 
 garded the very mechanics of an European as an ope- 
 ration of magic ; and were capable of expecting that a 
 machine constructed by a man from England, for raising 
 water from the Nile, should inundate the country in an 
 hour. These wonders of science and art must there- 
 fore have contributed somewhat to rid our people of 
 the impressions of being at every turn beset by occult 
 powers, under the name perhaps of witchcraft, and to 
 expel the notions of a vague and capricious agency 
 interfering and sporting with events throughout the 
 system around them. Their rationality thus obtained 
 an improvement, which may be set against the injury 
 undoubtedly done them through that diminished exercise 
 of the understanding which accompanied the progressive 
 division of labour ; an alteration rendered inevitable, 
 and in other respects so advantageous. 
 
ON POPULAB IGNORANCE. 87 
 
 When we come down to a comparatively recent time, 
 we see the Bible "going 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 when we consider how many more persons 
 in those houses can read, and that in some of them the 
 book may be more read for having come there as a 
 novelty, than it is in many others where it has been an 
 old article of the furniture, we may fairly presume that 
 the increased reading is in a greater proportion than 
 the increased number of Bibles. — This late period has 
 also brought into action, a new expedient, worthy to 
 stand, in the province of education, parallel and rival 
 to the most useful modern inventions in the mechanical 
 departments ; an organization for schools, by which, 
 instead of one or two overlaboured agents upon a mass 
 of reluctant subjects, that whole mass itself shall be 
 animated into a system of reciprocal agency. It has 
 all the merit of a contrivance which associates with 
 mental labour a pleasure never known to young learners 
 before. 
 
 One more distinction of our times has been, that 
 effect which missionary and other philanthropic socie- 
 ties have had, to render familiar to common knowledge, 
 by means of their meetings and publications, a great 
 number of such interesting 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 from the condition in which they had been 
 so many ages sunk and immovable, there has been of 
 late years the unpretending but important ministration 
 of an incessant multifarious inventiveness in making 
 
88 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 almost every sort of information offer itself in brief, 
 familiar, and attractive forms, adapted to youth or to 
 adult ignorance; so that knowledge, which was for- 
 merly a thing to be searched and dug for " as for hid 
 treasures," has seemed at last beginning to effloresce 
 through the surface of the ground on all sides of us. 
 
 The statement of what recent times have produced 
 for effecting an alteration among the people, must 
 include the prodigious commotion in the political world. 
 It were absurd, it is true, to name this in the simple 
 character of a cause, when we speak of the rousing of 
 the popular mind from a long stagnation ; it being itself 
 a proof and result of some preceding cause beginning 
 to pervade and disturb that stagnation. But whatever 
 may be assigned as the true and sufficient explanation 
 of its origin, we have to look on the mighty operation 
 of its progress, forcing a 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 mind of so 
 vast a portion of the race. And the power of this 
 great commotion has less consisted in what may be 
 termed its physical energy, evinced in grand exploits 
 and catastrophes, than in its being an intense activity 
 of principles. It was as different from other convul- 
 sions in the moral world, as would be a tempest 
 attributed to the direct intervention of a mighty 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 at a mere 
 show of wonderful events, but regarded these events as 
 the course of a great practical debate of questions 
 affecting their own interests. 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 89 
 
 And now, when we have put all these things together, 
 we may well pause to indulge again 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 so many means and influ- 
 ences for awaking them to something of an intelli- 
 gent existence. 
 
90 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 The review of the past may here be terminated. 
 And how welcome a change it would be if we might 
 here completely emerge from the gloom which has 
 overspread it. How happy were it if in proceeding to 
 an estimate of the people of the present times, we found 
 so rich a practical result of the means for forming a 
 more enlightened race, that we should have no further 
 recollection of that sentence from the Prophet, which 
 has hitherto suggested itself again at every step in pro- 
 secution of the survey. But we are compelled to see 
 how slow is the progress of mankind toward thus ren- 
 dering obsolete any of the darker lines of the sacred 
 record. So completely, so desperately, had the whole 
 popular body and being been pervaded by the stupifying 
 power of the long reign of ignorance, with such heavy 
 reluctance, at the best, does the human mind open its 
 eyes to admit light, — and so incommensurate as yet, 
 even on the supposition of its having much less of this 
 reluctance, has been in quantity the whole new supply 
 of means for a happy change, — that a most melancholy 
 spectacle still abides before us. Time, in sweeping 
 away 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 
 gerved to make a more obvious exposure of the unhap- 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 91 
 
 piness and ofFensiveness of what is still the condition of 
 the far greater part of our population ; as a dreary 
 Avaste is made to give 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 un- 
 wonted 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 most accomplished persons in higher life, 
 that we should think of placing in immediate comparison 
 the untutored rustics and workmen in stones and timber, 
 for the purpose of showing how much is wanting to 
 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 amused itself, as with a curious fact, in seeing 
 that the same material can be made into scholars, 
 legislators, sages, and models of elegance — and also into 
 helots ; and then went into a fanciful question of how 
 near they might possibly be brought together : it was 
 in a speculation which, instead of dwelling on the view 
 of what was impossible to the common people in a com- 
 parative reference to the highest classes of their fellow 
 men, considered w^hat was left practicable to them 
 within their own narrow allotment, that the schemes 
 originated which have actually imparted to a proportion 
 of them an invaluable share of the benefits of know- 
 ledge. There has thus been formed a small improved 
 order of people amidst the multitude; and it is the 
 contrast between these and the general state of that 
 
92 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 multitude that most directly exposes the popular de- 
 basement. It certainly were ridiculous enough to fix 
 on a labouring man and his family, and affect to deplore 
 that he is doomed not to behold the depths and heights 
 of science, not to expatiate over the wide field of his- 
 tory, not to luxuriate among the delights, refinements, 
 and infinite diversities of literature; and that his family 
 are not growing up in a training to every high accom- 
 plishment, after the pattern of some family in the 
 neighbourhood, favoured 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 employ the leisure hour in reading, (some- 
 times socially and with intermingled converse,) some 
 easy work of instruction or innocent entertainment ; 
 are detached, in the greatest degree that depends on 
 their choice, from society with the absolute vulgar ; 
 have learnt much decorum of manners ; can take an 
 intelligent interest in the great events of the world ; 
 and are prevented, by what they read and hear, from 
 forgetting that there is another world. It is, we re- 
 peat, after thus seeing what may, and in particular 
 instances does exist, in a humble condition, that we are 
 compelled to regard as really a dreadful spectacle the 
 still prevailing state of our national population. 
 
 We shall endeavour to exhibit, though on a small 
 scale, and perhaps not with a very strict regularity of 
 proportion and arrangement, a faithful representation of 
 the most serious of the evils conspicuous in an unedu- 
 cated state of the people. Much of the description and 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 99 
 
 reflections must be equally applicable to other countries ; 
 for spite of all their mutual antipathies and hostilities, 
 and numberless contrarieties of customs and fashions, 
 they have been wonderfully content to resemble one 
 another in the worst national feature, a deformed con- 
 dition 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 overwhelming 
 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 extreme of contrast with that susceptibility of 
 magnificent display, on account of which some of the 
 most cruel evils that have preyed on mankind have 
 ever been favourite themes with writers ambitious to 
 shine 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,) may stimulate 
 and beguile the imagination though we know we 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 
 imputation of neglect of duty, on the other classes who 
 are called upon to look at the spectacle. There is, be- 
 sides, but little power of arresting the attention in a 
 description of familiar matter of fact, plain to every 
 one's observation. Yet ought it not to be so much the 
 better, when we are pleading for a certain mode of 
 
^4 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 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 circum- 
 stances is the perfect non-existence in their minds of any 
 notion or question what their life is for, taken as a 
 whole. Among a crowd of trifling and corrupting ideas 
 that soon find a place in them, there is never the re- 
 flective thought, — For what purpose am I alive? What 
 is it that I should be, more than the animal that I am ? 
 Does it signify what I may be ? — But surely, it is with 
 ill omen that the human creature advances into life 
 without such a thought. He should in the opening of 
 his faculties receive intimations, that something more 
 belongs to his existence than what he is about to-day, 
 and what he may be about to-morrow. He should be 
 made aware that the course of activity he is beginning 
 ought to have a leading principle of direction, some pre- 
 dominant aim, a general and comprehensive purpose, 
 paramount to the divers particular objects he may pur- 
 sue. It is not more necessary for him to understand 
 that he must in some way be employed in order to live, 
 than to be apprised that life itself, that existence itself, 
 is of no value but as a mere capacity of something 
 w^hich he should realize, and of which he may fail. He 
 should be brought to apprehend that there is a some- 
 thing essential for him to he, which he will not become 
 merely by passing from one day into another, by eating 
 and sleeping, by growing taller and stronger, seizing 
 what share he can of noisy sport, and performing ap- 
 pointed portions of work ; and that if he do not become 
 that which he cannot become without a general and 
 leading purpose, he will be worthless and unhappy. 
 
 TVe are not entertaining the extravagant fancy that 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 95 
 
 it IS possible, except in some rare instances of premature 
 thoughtfulness, to turn inward into deep habitual re- 
 flection, the spirit that naturally goes outward, in these 
 vivacious, active, careless beings, when we assert that 
 it is possible to teach many of them with a degree of 
 success, in very juvenile years, to apprehend and admit 
 somewhat of such a consideration. We have many 
 times seen this exemplified in fact. We have found 
 some of them appearing apprised that life is for some 
 thing as a whole; and that, to answer this general pur- 
 pose, a mere succession of interests and activities, each 
 gone into for its own sake, will not suffice. They could 
 comprehend, that the multiplicity of interests and ac- 
 tivities in detail, instead of constituting of themselves 
 the purpose of life, were to be regarded as things sub- 
 ordinate and subservient to a general scope, and judged 
 of, selected, and regulated, in reference and amenable- 
 ness to it. — By the presiding comprehensive purpose, 
 we do not specifically and exclusively mean a direction 
 of the mind to the religious concern, viewed as a sepa- 
 rate 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 aim proceeding in 
 fulfilment of a scheme, that comprehends and combines 
 with the religious concern all the other concerns for 
 the sake of which it is worth while to dispose the ac- 
 tivities of life into a plan of conduct, instead of leaving 
 them to custom and casualty. The scheme will look and 
 guide toward ultimate felicity: but will at the same time 
 take large account of what must be thought of, and what 
 may be hoped for, in relation to the present life. 
 
 Now, we no more expect to find any such idea of a 
 presiding purpose of life, than we do the profoundest 
 philosophical reflection, in the minds of the uneducated 
 
96 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 children and youth. They think nothing at all about 
 their existence and life in any moral or abstracted or 
 generalizing reference whatever. They know not any 
 good that it is to have been endowed with a rational 
 rather than a brute nature, excepting that it affords 
 more diversity of action, and gives the privilege of 
 tyrannizing over brutes. They think nothing about 
 what they shall become, and very little about what shall 
 become of them. There is nothing that tells them of 
 the relations for good and evil, of present things with 
 future and remote ones. The whole energy of their 
 moral and intellectual nature goes out as in brute in- 
 stinct on present objects, to make the most they can of 
 them for the moment, taking the chance for whatever 
 may be next. They are lel't totally devoid even of the 
 thought, that what they are doing is the beginning of 
 a life as an important adventure for good or evil; their 
 w^hole 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 monition, that they 
 should live for the grand final object pointed to by re- 
 ligion, but also, for the most part, of all consideration 
 of the attainment of a reputable condition and character 
 in life. The creature endowed with faculties for "large 
 discourse, looking before and after," capable of so much 
 design, respectability, and happiness, even in its present 
 short stage, and entering on an endless career, is seen 
 in the abasement of snatching, as its utmost reach of 
 purpose, at the low amusements, blended with vices, of 
 each passing day ; and cursing its privations and tasks, 
 and often also the sharers of those privations, and the 
 exactors of those tasks. 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 97' 
 
 When these are grown up into the mass of mature 
 population, what will it be, as far as their quality shall 
 go toward constituting the quality of the whole ? Alas! 
 it will be, to that extent, just a continuation of the 
 ignorance, debasement, and misery, so conspicuous in 
 the bulk of the people now. And to what extent ? Cal- 
 culate that from the unquestionable fact, that hundreds 
 of thousands of the human beings in our land, between 
 the ages, say of six and sixteen, are at this hour thus 
 abandoned to go forward into life at random, as to the 
 use they shall make of it, — if, indeed, it can be said to 
 be at random, when there is strong tendency and temp- 
 tation to evil, and no discipline to good. Looking at 
 this proportion, does any one think there will be, on 
 the whole, wisdom and virtue enough in the community 
 to render this black infusion imperceptible or innoxious? 
 
 But are we accounting it absolutely inevitable that 
 the sequel must be in full proportion to this present 
 fact, — must be every thing that this fact threatens, and 
 can lead to, — as we should behold persons carried down 
 in a mighty torrent, where all interposition is impossi- 
 ble, or as the Turks look at the progress of a conflagra- 
 tion or an epidemic ? It is in order to " frustrate the 
 tokens" of such melancholy divination, to arrest some- 
 thing of what a destructive power is in the act of 
 carrying away, to make the evil spirit find, in the next 
 stages of his march, that all his enlisted host have 
 not followed him, and to quell somewhat of the triumph 
 of his boast, " My name is Legion, for we are many ;" 
 — it is for this that the friends of improvement, and of 
 mankind, are called upon for efforts greatly beyond those 
 which are requisite for maintaining in its present extent 
 of operation the system of expedients for intercepting, 
 before it be too late, the progress of so large a portion 
 of the youthful tribe toward destruction. 
 U 
 
98 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 Another obvious circumstance in the state of the un- 
 taught class is, that they ai^e abandoned, in a direct 
 unqualified manner^ to seize recklessly whatever they 
 can of sensual gratification. The very narrow scope 
 to which their condition limits them in the pursuit of 
 this, will not prevent its being to them the most desir- 
 able thing in existence, when there are so few other 
 modes of gratification which they either are in a capa- 
 city to enjoy, or have the means to obtain. By the 
 very constitution of the human nature, the mind seems 
 half to belong to the senses, it is so shut within them, 
 aflfected by them, dependent on them for pleasure, as 
 well as for activity, and impotent but through their 
 medium. And while, by this necessary hold which 
 they have on what would call itself a spiritual being, 
 they absolutely will engross to themselves, as of clear 
 right, a large share of its interest and exercise, they 
 will strive to possess themselves of the other half too. 
 And they will have it, if it has not been carefully other- 
 wise claimed and pre-occupied. And when the senses 
 have thus usurped the whole mind for their service, 
 how will you get any of it back? Try, if you will, 
 whether this be a thing so easy to be done. Present 
 to the minds so engrossed with the desires of the senses, 
 that their main action is but in these desires and the 
 <^ntrivances how to fulfil them, — offer to their view 
 nobler objects, which are appropriate to the spiritual 
 being, and observe whether that being promptly shows 
 a sensibility to the worthier objects, as congenial to its 
 nature, and, obsequious to the new attraction, disen- 
 gages itself from what has wholly absorbed it. 
 
 Nor would we require that the experiment be made 
 by presenting something of a precisely religious nature, 
 to which there is an innate aversion on account of its 
 divine character, separately from its being an intellec- 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 99 
 
 tnal thing, — an aversion even though the mental facul- 
 ties he cultivated. It may be made with something 
 that ought to have power to please the mind as simply 
 a being of intelligence, imagination, and sentiment, — a 
 pleasure which, in some of its modes, the senses them- 
 selves may intimately partake ; as when, for instance, 
 it is to be imparted by something beautiful or grand in 
 the natural world, or in the works of art. Let this re- 
 fined solicitation be addressed to the grossly unculti- 
 vated, in competition with some low indulgence — with 
 the means, for example, of gluttony and inebriation. 
 See how the subjects of your experiment, (intellectua] 
 and moral natures though they, are,) answer to these 
 respective offered gratifications. Observe how these 
 more dignified attractives encounter and overpower the 
 meaner, and reclaim the usurped, debased spirit. Or 
 rather, observe whether they can avail for more than 
 an instant, so much as to divide its attention. But in- 
 deed you can foresee the result so well, that you may 
 spare the labour. Still less could you deem it to be of 
 the nature of an experiment, (which implies uncer- 
 tainty,) to make the attempt with ideal forms of noble- 
 ness or beauty, with intellectual, poetical, or moral 
 captivations. 
 
 Yet this addiction to sensuality, beyond all competi- 
 tion of worthier modes and means of interest, does not 
 altogether refuse to admit of some division and diversion 
 of the vulgar feelings, in favour of some things of a 
 more mental character, provided they be vicious. A 
 man so neglected in his youth that he cannot spell the 
 names of Alexander, Cassar, or Napoleon, or read them 
 if he see them spelt, may feel the strong incitement of 
 ambition. This, instead of raising him, may only pro- 
 pel him forward on the level of his debased condition 
 and society ; and it is a favourable supposition that 
 
100 ON POPULAR IGNORANCK. 
 
 makes him " the best wrestler on the green," or a man- 
 ful pugilist ; for it is probable his grand delight may be, 
 to indulge himself in an oppressive insolent arrogance 
 toward such as are unable to maintain a strife with him 
 on terms of fair rivalry, making his will the law to all 
 whom he can force or frighten into submission. 
 
 Coarse sensuality admits, again, an occasional com- 
 petition of the gratifications of cruelty; a flagrant 
 characteristic, generally, of uncultivated degraded hu- 
 man creatures, both where the whole community consists 
 of such, as in barbarian and savage tribes, and where 
 they form a large portion of it, as in this country. — It 
 is hardly worth while to put in words the acknowledg- 
 ment of the obvious and odious fact, that a considerable 
 share of mental attainment is sometimes inefficient to 
 extinguish, or even repress, this infernal principle of 
 human nature, by which it is gratifying to witness and 
 inflict suffering, even separately from any prompting of 
 revenge. But why do we regard such examples as 
 peculiarly hateful, and brand them with the most in- 
 tense reprobation, but because it is judged the fair and 
 natural tendency of mental cultivation to repress that 
 principle, insomuch that its failure to do so is considered 
 as evincing a surpassing virulence of depravity? Every 
 one is ready with the saying of the ancient poet, that 
 liberal acquirements suppress ferocious propensities. 
 But if the whole virtue of such discipline may prove 
 insufficient, think what must be the consequence of its 
 being almost wholly withheld, so that the execrable 
 propensity may go into action with its malignity un- 
 mitigated, unchecked, by any remonstrance of feeling 
 or taste, or reason or conscience. 
 
 And such a consequence is manifest in the lower 
 ranks of our self-extolled community; notwithstand- 
 ing a diminution, which the progress of education and 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE* 101 
 
 religion has slowly effected, in certain of the once most 
 i'avourite and customary practices of cruelty ; what we 
 might denominate the classic games of the rude popu- 
 lace. These very practices, nevertheless, still keep 
 their ground in some of the more heathenish parts of 
 the country; and if it were possible, that the more im- 
 proved notions and taste of the more respectable classes 
 could admit of any countenance being given to their 
 revival in the more civilized parts, it would be found 
 that, even there, a large portion of the people is to this 
 hour left in a disposition which would welcome the re- 
 turn of savage exhibitions. It may be, that some of 
 the most atrocious forms and degrees of cruelty would 
 not please the greater number of them; there have been 
 instances in which an English populace has shown in- 
 dignation at extreme and unaccustomed perpetrations, 
 sometimes to the extent of cruelly revenging them ; 
 very rarely, however, when only brute creatures have 
 been the sufferers. Not many would be delighted with 
 such scenes as those which, in the Place de GrevCy used 
 to be a gratification to a multitude of all ranks of the 
 Parisians. But how many odious facts, characteristic 
 of our people, have come under every one's observation. « 
 
 Who has not seen numerous instances of the delight 
 with which advantage is taken of weakness or sim- 
 plicity, to practise upon them some sly mischief, or inflict 
 some open mortification; and of the unrepressed glee 
 with which the rude spectators can witness or abet the 
 malice? And if, in such a case, an indignant observer has 
 hazarded a remark or expostulation, the full stare, and 
 the quickly succeeding laugh and retort of brutal scorn, 
 have thrown open to his revolting sight the state of the 
 recess within, where the moral sentiments are; and 
 shown how much the perceptions and notions had been 
 indebted to the cares of the instructor. Could he help 
 
102 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 thinking what was deserved somewhere, by individuals 
 or by the local community collectively, for suffering a 
 being to grow up to quite or nearly the complete dimen- 
 sions and features of manhood, with so vile a thing 
 within it in substitution for what a soul should be? We 
 need not remark, what every one has noticed, how much 
 the vulgar are amused by seeing vexatious or injurious 
 incidents, (if only not quite disastrous or tragical,) be- 
 falling persons against whom they can have no resent- 
 ment; how ferocious often their temper and means of 
 revenge when they have causes of resentment ; or how 
 intensely delighted, (in company, it is true, with many 
 that are called their betters,) in beholding several of 
 their fellow -mortals, whether in anger or athletic com- 
 petition, covering each other with bruises, deformity, 
 and blood. 
 
 Our institutions, however, protect, in some consider- 
 able degree, man against man, as being framed in a 
 knowledge of what would else become of the community. 
 But observe a moment what are the dispositions of the 
 vulgar as indulged, and with no preventive interference 
 of those institutions, on the inferior animals. To a 
 large proportion of this class it is, in their youth, one 
 of the most vivid exhilarations to witness the terrors 
 and anguish of living beings. In many parts of the 
 country it would be no improbable conjecture in expla- 
 nation of a savage yell heard at a distance, that a com- 
 pany of rationals may be witnessing the writhings, 
 agonies, and cries, of some animal struggling for escape 
 or for life, while it is suffering the infliction, perhaps, 
 of stones, and kicks, or wounds by more directly fatal 
 means of violence. If you hear in the clamour a sud- 
 den burst of fiercer exultation, you may surmise that 
 just then a deadly blow has been given. There is 
 hardly an animal on the whole face of the country, of 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 103 
 
 size enough, and enough within reach to be a marked 
 object of attention, that would not be persecuted to 
 death if no consideration of ownership interposed. The 
 children of the uncultivated families are allowed, with- 
 out a check, to exercise and improve the hateful dispo- 
 sition, on flies, young birds, and other feeble and 
 harmless creatures ; and they are actually encouraged 
 to do it on what, under the denomination of vermin, 
 are represented in the formal character of enemies, 
 almost in such a sense as if a moral responsibility be- 
 longed to them, and they were therefore not only to be 
 destroyed as a nuisance, but deserving to be punished 
 as offenders. 
 
 The hardening against sympathy, with the consequent 
 carelessness of inflicting pain, combined as this will 
 probably be, with the love of inflicting it, must be con- 
 firmed by the horrid spectacle of slaughter; a spectacle 
 sought for gratification by the children and youth of the 
 lower order; and in many places so publicly exhibited 
 that they cannot well avoid seeing it, and its often 
 savage preliminary circumstances, sometimes directly 
 wanton aggravations; perhaps in revenge of a struggle 
 to resist or escape, perhaps in a rage at the awkward 
 manner in which the victim adjusts itself to a conve- 
 nient position for suffering. Horrid, we call the pre- 
 vailing practice, because it is the infliction, on millions 
 of sentient and innocent creatures every year, in what 
 calls itself a humane and christian nation, of anguish 
 unnecessary to the purpose. Unnecessary — ^what proof 
 is there to the contrary? — To what is the present prac- 
 tice necessary? — Some readers will remember the bene- 
 volent (we were going to say humane, but that is an 
 equivocal epithet,) attempt made a number of years 
 since by Lord Somerville to introduce, but he failed, a 
 mode of slaughter, without suffering; a mode in use in 
 
104 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 a foreign nation with which we should deem it very far 
 from a compliment to be placed on a level in point of 
 civilization. And it is a flagrant dishonour to such a 
 country, and to the class that virtually, by rank, and 
 formally, by official station, have presided over its 
 economy, one generation after another, that so hideous 
 a fact should never, as far as we know, have been 
 deemed by the highest state authorities worth even a 
 question whether a mitigation might not be practicable. 
 An inconceivable daily amount of suffering, inflicted on 
 unknown thousands of creatures, dying in slow anguish, 
 when their death might be without pain as being in- 
 stantaneous, is accounted no deformity in the social 
 system, no incongruity with the national profession of 
 religion of which the essence is charity and mercy, 
 nothing to sully the polish, or offend the refinement, of 
 what demands to be accounted, in its higher portions, a 
 preeminently civilized and humanized community. Pre- 
 cious and well protected polish and refinement, and 
 humanity, and christian civilization! to which it is a 
 matter of easy indifference to know that, in the neigh- 
 bourhood of their abode, those tortures of butchery are 
 unnecessarily inflicted, which could not be actually 
 witnessed by persons in whom the pretension to these 
 fine qualities is any thing better than affectation, with- 
 out sensations of horror ; which it would ruin the 
 character of a fine gentleman or lady to have voluntarily 
 witnessed in a single instance. 
 
 They are known to be inflicted, and yet this is a 
 trifle not worth an effort toward innovation on invete- 
 rate custom, on the part of the influential classes ; who 
 may be far more worthily intent on a change in the 
 fashion of a dress, or possibly some new refinement in 
 the cookery of the dead bodies of the victims. Or the 
 living bodies; as we are told that the most delicious 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 105 
 
 preparation of an eel for exquisite palates is to thrust 
 the fish alive into the fire: while lobsters are put into 
 water gradually heated to boiling. The latter, indeed, 
 is an old practice, like that of crimping another fish* 
 Such things are allowed or required to be done by per* 
 sons pretending to the highest refinement. It is a 
 matter far below legislative attention; while the powers 
 of definition are exhausted under the stupendous accu- 
 mulation of regulations and interdictions for the good 
 order of society. So hardened may the moral sense of 
 a community be by universal and continual custom, that 
 we are perfectly aware these very remarks will provoke 
 the ridicule of many persons, including, it is possible 
 enough, some who may think it quite consistent to be 
 ostentatiously talking at the very same time of christian 
 charity and benevolent zeal.* Nor will that ridicule be 
 repressed by the notoriety of the fact, that the manner 
 of the practice referred to steels and depraves, to a 
 dreadful degree, a vast number of human beings imme- 
 diately employed about it ; and, as a spectacle, power- 
 fully contributes to confirm, in a greater number, exactly 
 that which it is, by eminence, the object of moral tuition 
 to counteract — men's disposition to make light of all 
 suffering but their own. This one thing, this not caring 
 for what may be endured by other beings made liable 
 to suffering, is the very essence of the depravity which 
 is so fatal to our race in their social constitution. This 
 selfish hardness is moral plague enough even in an in- 
 active state, as a mere carelessness what other beings 
 may suffer; but there lurks in it a malignity which is 
 easily stimulated to delight in seeing or causing their 
 suffering. And yet, we repeat it, a civilized and chris- 
 tian nation feels not the slightest self-displacency for its 
 allowing a certain unhappy but necessary part in the 
 * This was actually done in a religious periodical publication. 
 
106 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE, 
 
 economy of the world to be executed, (by preference to 
 a harmless method,) in a manner which probably does 
 as much to corroborate in the vulgar class this essential 
 principle of depravity, as all the expedients of meliora- 
 tion yet applied are doing to expel it. 
 
 Were it not vain and absurd to muse on supposable 
 new principles in the constitution of the moral system, 
 there is one that we might have been tempted to wish 
 for, namely, that, of all suffering unnecessarily and wil- 
 fully inflicted by man on any class of sentient existence, 
 a bitter intimation and participation might be conveyed 
 to him through a mysterious law of nature, enforcing 
 an avenging sympathy in severe proportion to that 
 suffering, on all the men who were really accountable 
 for its being inflicted. 
 
 After children and youth are trained to behold with 
 something worse than hardened indifference, with a 
 gratifying excitement, the sufferings of creatures dying 
 for the service of man, it is no wonder if they are 
 barbarous in their treatment of those that serve him 
 by their life. And in fact nothing is more obvious as 
 a prevailing disgrace to our nation, than the cruel 
 habits of the lower class toward the labouring animals 
 committed to their power. These animals have no 
 security in their best condition and most efiicient ser- 
 vices; but generally the hateful disposition is the most 
 fully exercised on those that have been already the 
 greatest sufferers. Meeting, wherever we go, with 
 some of these starved, abused, exhausted figures, we 
 shall not unfrequently meet with also another figure 
 accompanying them — that of a ruffian, young or old, 
 who with a visage of rage, and accents of hell, is 
 wreaking his utmost malevolence on a wretched victim 
 for being slow in performing, or quite failing to perform, 
 what the excess of loading, and perhaps the feebleness 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 107 
 
 of old age, have rendered diffieult or absolutely im- 
 practicable; or for shrinking from an effort to be made 
 by a pressure on bleeding sores, or for losing the right 
 direction through blindness, and that itself perhaps oc- 
 casioned by hardship or savage violence. Many of the 
 exacters of animal labour really seem to resent it as a 
 kind of presumption and insult in the slave, that it 
 would be anything else than a machine, that the living 
 being should betray under its toils that it suffers, that 
 it is pained, weary, or reluctant. And if, by outrageous 
 abuse, it should be excited to some manifestation of 
 resentment, that is a crime for which the sufferer would 
 be likely to incur such a fury and repetition of blows 
 and lacerations as to die on the spot, but for an inter- 
 fering admonition of interest against destroying such 
 a piece of property, and losing so much service. When 
 that service has utterly exhausted, often before the term 
 of old age, the strength of those wretched animals, 
 there awaits many of them a last short stage of still 
 more remorseless cruelty ; that in which it is become a 
 doubtful thing whether the utmost efforts to which the 
 emaciated diseased sinking frame can be forced by 
 violence, be worth the trouble of that violence, the 
 delays and accidents, and the expense of the scanty 
 supply of subsistence. As they must at all events very 
 soon perish, it has ceased to be of any material conse- 
 quence, on the score of interest, how grossly they may 
 be abused; and their tormentors seem delighted with 
 this release from all restraint on their dispositions. 
 Those dispositions, as indulged in some instances, when 
 the miserable creatures are formally consigned to be 
 destroyed, cannot be much exceeded by any thing we 
 can attribute to fiends. Some horrid exemplifications 
 were adduced, not as single casual circumstances, but 
 as usual practices, by a patriotic senator some years 
 
108 
 
 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 since, in endeavouring to obtain a legislative enactment 
 in mitigation of the sufferings of the brute tribes. The 
 design vanished to nothing in the House of Commons, 
 under the effect of argument and ridicule from a person 
 distinguished for intellectual cultivation ; whose re- 
 sistance was not only against that specific measure, but 
 avowedly against the principle itself on which any 
 measure of the same tendency could ever be founded.* 
 Nor could any victory have pleased him better, pro- 
 bably, than one which contributed to prolong the 
 barbarism of the people, as the best security, he deemed, 
 for their continuing fit to labour at home and fight 
 abroad. It might have added to his gratification to 
 hear (as was the fact) his name pronounced with delight 
 by ruffians of all classes, who regarded him as their 
 patron saint. 
 
 If^ any one should be inclined to interpose here w^ith 
 a remark, that after such a reference, we have little 
 right to ascribe to those classes, as if it were peculiarly 
 one of their characteristics, the insensibility to the 
 sufferings of the brute creation, and to number it for- 
 mally among the results of the " lack of knowledge," 
 we can only reply, that however those of higher order 
 may explode any attempt to make the most efficient 
 authority of the nation bear repressively upon the evil, 
 and however it may in other ways be abetted by them, 
 it is, at any rate, in those inferior classes chiefly that 
 the actual perpetrators of it are found. It is something 
 to say in favour of cultivation, that it does, generally 
 speaking, render those who have the benefit of it 
 
 * Lord Erskine's memorable Bill, triumphantly scouted by the 
 late Mr. Windham. — Undoubtedly there are considerable difficulties 
 in the way of legislation on the subj ect ; but an equal share of diffi - 
 culty attending some other subjects — an affair of revenue, for in- 
 stance, or a measure for the suppression (at that time) of political 
 opinion — would soon have been overcome. 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 109 
 
 incapable of practising, theimelves, the most pal- 
 pably flagrant of those cruelties which they may be 
 virtually countenancing, by some things which they 
 do, and some things which they omit or refuse to do. 
 Mr. Windham would not himself have practised a 
 wanton barbarity on a poor horse or ass, though he 
 scouted any legislative attempt to prevent it among his 
 inferiors. 
 
 The proper place would perhaps have been nearer 
 the beginning of this description of the characteristics 
 of our uneducated people, for one so notorious, and one 
 entering so much into the essence of the evils already 
 named, as that we mention next ; a rude, co7itracted, 
 unsteady y and often perverted, seiise of right and wrong 
 in general. 
 
 It is curious to look into a large volume of religious 
 casuistry, the work of some divine of a former age, 
 (for instance Bishop Taylor's Ductor Duhitantium,) 
 with the reflection what a conscience disciplined in the 
 highest degree might be; and then to observe what this 
 regulator of the soul actually is where there has been 
 no sound discipline of the reason, and where there is 
 no deep religious sentiment to rectify the perceptions 
 in the absence of an accurate intellectual discrimination 
 of things. This sentiment being wanting, dispositions 
 and conduct cannot be taken account of according to 
 the distinction between holiness and sin; and in the 
 absence of a cultivated understanding, they cannot be 
 brought to the test of the distinguishing law between 
 propriety and turpitude; nor estimated upon any com- 
 prehensive notion of utility. The evidence of all this 
 is thick and close around us; so that every serix)us 
 observer has been struck and almost shocked to observe, 
 in what a very small degree conscience is a necessary 
 
110 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 attribute of the human creature ; and how nearly a 
 nonentity the whole system of moral principles may be, 
 as to any recognition of it by an unadapted spirit. 
 While that system is of a substance veritable and 
 eternal, and stands forth in its exceeding breadth, 
 marked with the strongest characters and prominences, 
 it has to these persons hardly the reality or definiteness 
 of a shadow, except in a few matters, if we may so 
 express it, of the grossest bulk. There must be glaring 
 evidence of something bad in what is done, or ques- 
 tioned whether to be done, before conscience will come 
 to its duty, or give proof of its existence. There must 
 be a violent alarm of mischief or danger before this 
 drowsy and ignorant magistrate will interfere. And 
 since occasions thus involving flagrant evil cannot be 
 of very frequent occurrence in the life of the generality 
 of the people, it is probable that many of them have 
 considerably protracted exemptions from any inter- 
 ference of conscience at all ; it is certain that they ex- 
 perience no such pertinacious attendance of it, as to 
 feel habitually a monitory intimation, that without 
 great thought and care they will inevitably do some- 
 thing wrong. But what may we judge and presage of 
 the moral fortunes of a sojourner, of naturally corrupt 
 propensity, in this bad world, who is not haunted, 
 sometimes to a degree of alarm, by this monitory sense, 
 through the whole course of his life? What is likely 
 to become of him, if he shall go hither and thither on 
 the scene exempt from all sensible obstruction of the 
 many interdictions, of a nature too refined for any 
 sense but the vital tenderness of conscience to perceive? 
 Obstructions of a more gross and tangible nature he 
 is continually meeting. A large portion of what he is 
 accustomed to see presents itself to him in the character 
 of boundary and prohibition; on every hand there is 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. Ill 
 
 something to warn him what he must not do. There 
 are high walls, and gates, and fences, and brinks of 
 torrents and precipices; in short, an order of things on 
 all sides signifying to him, with more or less of menace, 
 — Thus far and no further. And he is in a general way 
 obsequious to this arrangement. We do not ordinarily 
 expect to see him carelessly transgressing the most 
 decided of the artificial boundaries, or daring across 
 those dreadful ones of nature. But, nearly destitute of 
 the faculty to perceive, (as in coming in contact with 
 something charged with the element of lightning,) the 
 awful interceptive lines of that other arrangement 
 which he is in the midst of as a subject of the laws of 
 God, we see with what insensibility he can pass through 
 those prohibitory significations of the Almighty will, 
 which are to devout men as lines streaming with an 
 infinitely more formidable than material fire. And if 
 we look on to his future course, proceeding under so 
 fatal a deficiency, the consequence foreseen is, that those 
 lines of divine interdiction which he has not conscience 
 to perceive as meant to deter him, he will seem as if 
 he had acquired, through a perverted will, a recog- 
 nition of in another quality — as temptations to attract 
 him. 
 
 But to leave these terms of generality, and advert 
 to a few particulars of illustration : — Recollect how 
 commonly persons of the class described are found 
 utterly violating truth, not in hard emergencies only, 
 but as a habitual practice, and apparently without the 
 slightest reluctance or compunction, their moral sense 
 quite at rest under the accumulation of a thousand 
 deliberate falsehoods. It is seen that by far the greater 
 number of them think it no harm to take little unjust 
 advantages in their dealings, by deceptive management; 
 and very many would take the greatest but for fear of 
 
112 
 
 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 temporal consequences; would do it, that is to say, 
 without inquietude of conscience, in the proper sense. 
 It is the testimony of experience, from persons who 
 liave had the most to transact with them, that the in- 
 dispensable rule of proceeding is to assume generally 
 their want of principle, and leave it to time and pro- 
 longed trial to establish, rather slowly, the individual 
 exceptions. Those unknowing admirers of human 
 nature, or of English character, who are disposed to 
 exclaim against this as an illiberal rule, may be recom- 
 mended to act on what they will therefore deem a liberal 
 one — at their cost. 
 
 That power of established custom, which is so great, 
 as we had occasion to show, on the moral sense of 
 even better instructed persons, has its dominion com- 
 plete over that of the vulgar; insomuch that the most 
 unequivocal iniquity of a practice long suffered to exist, 
 shall hardly bring to their mere recollection the com- 
 mon acknowledged rule not to do as we would wish not 
 done to us. From recent accounts it appears, that the 
 entire coast of our island is not yet clear of those 
 people called wreckers, who felt not a scruple to appro- 
 priate whatever they could seize of the lading of vessels 
 cast ashore, and even whatever was worth tearing from 
 the personal possession of the unfortunate beings who 
 might be escaping but just alive from the most dreadful 
 peril. The cruelty we have so largely attributed to our 
 English vulgar, never recoils on them in self-reproach. 
 The habitual indulgence of the irascible, vexatious, and 
 malicious tempers, to the plague or terror of all within 
 reach, scarcely ever becomes a subject of judicial esti- 
 mate, as a character hateful in the abstract, with them 
 a reflection of that estimate on the man's own self. 
 He reflects but just enough to say to himself that it is 
 all right and deserved, and unavoidable too, for he is 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 113 
 
 unpardonably crossed and provoked; nor will he be 
 driven from this self-approval, when it may be evident 
 to every one else that the provocations are compara- 
 tively slight, and are only taken as offences by a dis- 
 position habitually seeking occasions to vent its spite. 
 The inconvenience and vexation incident to low vice, 
 may make the offenders fret at themselves for having 
 been so foolish, but it is in general with an extremely 
 trifling degree of the sense of guilt. Suggestions of 
 reprehension, in even the discreetest terms, and from 
 persons confessedly the best authorized to make them, 
 would not seldom be answered by a grinning defying 
 carelessness, in some instances by abusive retort; instead 
 of any betrayed signs of an internal acknowledgment 
 of deserving reproof. 
 
 And w^hile thus the censure of a fellow-mortal meets 
 no internal testimony to own its justice, this insensate 
 self-complacency is undisturbed also on the side toward 
 heaven. A mere philosopher, that should make little 
 account of religion, otherwise than as capable of being 
 applied to enforce and aggravate the sense of obligation 
 with respect to rules of conduct, and would not, pro- 
 vided it may have this effect, care much about its truth 
 or falsehood, — might be disposed to assert, that the 
 ignorant and debased part of the population, of this 
 Christian and Protestant country, are but so much the 
 worse for the riddance of some parts of the superstitions 
 of former ages. He might allege, with plausibility, 
 that the system which imposed so many falsehoods, vain 
 observances, and perversions of moral principles, ac- 
 knowledging nevertheless sonie correct rules of morality, 
 as an external practical concern, had the advantage of 
 enjoining them, as far as it chose to do so, with the 
 force of superstition, a stronger authority with a rude 
 conscience than that of plain simple religion. That 
 1 
 
114 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 system exercised a mighty complexity and accumulation 
 of authority, all avowedly divine; by which it could 
 artificially augment, or rather supersede, the mere 
 divine prescription of such rules, making itself the au- 
 thority and prescriber; and thus could infix them in the 
 moral sense of the people with something more, or some- 
 thing else, than the simply divine sanction. Whereas, 
 now, when those superstitions which held the people so 
 powerfully in awe, are gone, and have taken away with 
 them that spurious sanction, there remains nothing to 
 exert the same power of moral enforcement; since the 
 people have not, in their exemption from the supersti- 
 tions of their ancestors, come under any solemn and 
 commanding effect of the true idea of the Divine 
 Majesty. And it is undeniable that this is the state of 
 conscience among them. The vague faint notion, as 
 they conceive it, of a being who is said to be the creator, 
 governor, lawgiver, and judge, and who dwells perhaps 
 somewhere in the sky, has not, to many of them, the 
 smallest force of intimidation from evil, at least when 
 they are in health and daylight. One of the large 
 sting-armed insects of the air does not alarm them less. 
 A certain transitory fearfulness that occasionally comes 
 upon them, points more to the Devil, and perhaps (in 
 times now nearly gone by) to the ghosts of the dead, 
 than to the Almighty. It may be, indeed, that this 
 feeling is in its ultimate principle, if it were ever fol- 
 lowed up so far, an acknowledgment of justice and 
 power in God, reaching to wicked men through these 
 mysterious agents; who though intending no service to 
 him, but actuated by dispositions of their own, malig- 
 nant in the greatest of them, and supposed inauspicious 
 in the others, are yet carrying into effect his hostility. 
 But it is little beyond such proximate objects of appre- 
 hension that many minds extend their awe of invisible 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 115 
 
 spiritual existence. Even the notion really entertained 
 by them of the greatness of God, may be entertained in 
 such a manner as to have but slight power to restrain 
 the inclinations to sin, or to impress the sense of guilt 
 after it is committed. He is too great, they readily say, 
 to mind the little matters that such creatures as v;re may 
 do amiss; they can do him no harm. The idea, too, of 
 his bounty, is of such unworthy consistence as to be a 
 protection against all conscious reproach of ingratitude 
 and neglect of service toward him; — he has made us to 
 need all this that it is said he does for us; and it costs 
 him nothing, it is no labour, and he is not the less rich; 
 and besides, we have toil, and want, and plague enough, 
 notwithstanding any thing that he gives. 
 
 It is probable this unhappiness of their condition, 
 oftener than any other cause, brings God into their 
 thoughts, and that as a being against whom they have 
 a complaint approaching to a quarrel on account of it. 
 And this strongly assists the reaction against whatever 
 would enforce the sense of guilt on the conscience; 
 When he has done so little for us, (something like this 
 is the sentiment), he cannot think it any such great 
 matter if we do sometimes come a little short of his 
 commands. There is no doubt that their recollections 
 of him as a being to murmur against for their allotment, 
 are more frequent, more dwelt upon, and with more of 
 an excited feeling, than their recollections of him as a 
 being whom they ought to have loved and served, but 
 liave offended against. The very idea of such offence, 
 as the chief and essential constituent of wickedness, is 
 so slightly conceived, (because he is invisible, and has 
 his own felicity, and is secure against all injury,) that 
 if the thoughts of one of these persons should^ by some 
 rare .occasion, be forced into the direction of unwillingly 
 seeing his own faults, it is probable his impiety would 
 
116 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 appear the most inconsiderable thing in the account; 
 that he would easily forgive himself the negation of all 
 acts and feelings of devotion towards the Supreme 
 Being, and the countless multiplications of insults to 
 him by profane language. 
 
 To conclude this part of the melancholy statement ; 
 it may be observed of the class in question, that they 
 have but very little notion of guilt, or possible guilt, in 
 any thing but external practice. That busy interior 
 existence, which is the moral person, genuine and com- 
 plete; the thoughts, imaginations, volitions; the motives, 
 projects, deliberations, devices, the indulgence of the 
 ideas of what they cannot or dare not practically 
 realize, — all this, we have reason to believe, passes 
 nearly exempted from jurisdiction, even of that feeble 
 and undecisive kind which may occasionally attempt an 
 interference with their actions. They do indeed take 
 such notice of the quality of these things within, as to 
 be aware that some of them are not to be disclosed in 
 their communications ; which prudential caution has of 
 course little to do with conscience, when the things so 
 withheld are internally cherished in perfect disregard of 
 the Omniscient Observer, and with hardly the faintest 
 monition that the essence of the guilt is the same, with 
 only a difference in degree, in intending or deliberately 
 desiring an evil, and in acting it. 
 
 It is not natural obtuseness of mental faculty that 
 we are attributing, all this while, to the uneducated 
 class of our people, in thus exposing the defectiveness 
 of their discernment between right and wrong. If it 
 were, there might arise somewhat of the consolation 
 afforded in contemplating some of the very lowest of 
 the savage tribes of mankind, by the idea that such 
 outcasts of the rational nature must stand very nearly 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 117 
 
 exempt from accountableness, through absolute natural 
 want of mind. But in the barbarians of our country 
 we shall often observe a very competent, and now and 
 then an abundant, share of native sense. We may see 
 it evinced in respect to the very questions of morality, 
 in cases where they are quite compelled, as will occa- 
 sionally happen, to feel themselves brought within the 
 cognizance of one or other of its plainest rules. In 
 such cases we have witnessed a sharpness and activity 
 of intellect claiming almost our admiration. What con- 
 trivance of deception and artful evasion. What dex- 
 terity of quibble, and captious objection, and petty 
 sophistry. What vigilance to observe how the plea in 
 justification or excuse takes effect, and, if they perceive 
 it does not succeed, what address in sliding into a dif- 
 ferent one. What quickness to avail themselves of any 
 mistake, or apparent concession, in the examiner or re- 
 prover. What copious rhetoric in exaggeration of the 
 cause which tempted to do wrong, or of the great good 
 hoped to be effected by the little deviation from the 
 right, — a good surely enough to excuse so trifling an 
 impropriety. What facility of placing between them- 
 selves and the censure, the recollected example of some 
 good man who has been " overtaken in a fault." 
 
 Here is mind, after all, we have been prompted to 
 exclaim; mind educating itself to evil, in default of that 
 discipline which should have educated it to good. How 
 much of the wisdom of evil, (if we may be allowed the 
 expression,) there is faculty enough in the neglected 
 corrupt popular mass of this nation to attain, by the 
 exercise into which the individual's mind is carried by 
 its own impulse, and in which he may every where and 
 every hour find ample cooperation. Each of these 
 self-improvers in depraved sense has the advantage of 
 finding himself among a great tribe of similar improvers. 
 
118 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 forming an immense school, as if for the promotion of 
 this very purpose; where they all teach by a competi- 
 tion in learning ; where the rude faculty which is not 
 expanded into intelligence is, however, sharpened into 
 cunning ; where the spirit which cannot grow into an 
 eagle, may take the form and action of a snake. This 
 advantage, — that there should not be a diminution of 
 the superabundant plenty of associates always at hand, 
 to assist each man in making the most of his native in-^ 
 tellect for its least worthy use, — has been from age to 
 age secured to our populace, as if it had been the most 
 valuable birthright of Englishmen. Whatever else the 
 person born to the inheritance of low life was destined 
 to find in it, the national state had made as sure to him 
 as it had before made the same privilege to his ancestors, 
 that the generality of his equals should be found fit and 
 ready to work with him in the acquirement of a depraved 
 shrewdness. 
 
 But while the bulk of the people have been, in every 
 period, abandoned to such a process of educating them- 
 selves and one another, where has been that character 
 of parental guardianship, which seems to be ascribed 
 when poets, orators, and patriots, are inspired with 
 tropes, and talk of England and her children ? This 
 imperial matron of their rhetoric seems to have little 
 cared how much she might be disgraced in the larger 
 portion of her progeny, or how little cause they might 
 have to all eternity to remember her with gratitude. 
 She has had far other concern about them, and employ- 
 ment for them, than that of their being taught the value 
 of their spiritual nature, and carefully trained to be en- 
 lightened, good, and happy. Laws against crime, it is 
 true, she has enacted for them in liberal quantity; ap- 
 pointed her quorums of magistrates ; and not been 
 sparing of punishments. She has also maintained 
 
ON rOPULAR IGNORANCE. HP 
 
 public sabbath observances to remind them of religion, 
 of which observances she cared not that they little un- 
 derstood the very terms; except when the reading of a 
 Book of Sports was appointed an indispensable part at 
 one time long after her adoption of the Reformation. 
 But she might plainly see what such provisions did not 
 accomplish. It was a glaring fact before her eyes, that 
 the majority of her children had far more of the mental 
 character of a colony from some barbarian nation, than 
 of that which an enlightened and Christian state might 
 have been expected to impart. She had most ample 
 resources indeed for supplying the remedy ; but, pro- 
 vided that the productions of the soil and the workshop 
 were duly forthcoming, she thought it of no conse- 
 quence, it should seem, that the operative hands be- 
 longed to degraded minds. And then, too, as at all 
 times her lofty ambition destined a good proportion of 
 them to the consumption of martial service, she perhaps 
 judged that the less they were trained to think, the 
 more fit they might be to be actuated mechanically, as 
 an instrument of blind impetuous force. Or perhaps 
 she thought it would be rather an inconsistency, to be 
 making much of the inner existence of a thing which 
 was to be, in frequent wholesale lots, sent off to be cut 
 or dashed to pieces.* And besides, a certain measure 
 of instruction to think, especially if consisting, in a con- 
 siderable part, of the inculcation of religion, might have 
 done something to disturb that notion, (so worthy to 
 have been transferred from the Mohammedan creed,) 
 which she was by no means desirous to expel from her 
 fleets and armies, that death for "king and country" 
 clears off all accounts for sin. 
 
 * " Killed off," was the sentimental phrase emitted in parliament, 
 in easy unconsciousness of offence, by the accomplished senator 
 named in a former page. He probably was really unaware that the 
 creatures were made for any thing better. 
 
120 
 
 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 Let our attention be directed a little while to the 
 effects of the privation of knowledge, as they may be 
 seen conspicuous in the several parts of the economy 
 of life, in the uneducated part of the community. Ob- 
 serve those people in their daily occupations. None of 
 us need be told that, of the prodigious diversity of 
 manual employments, some consist of, or include, 
 operations of such minuteness or complexity, and so 
 much demanding nicety, arrangement, or combination, 
 as to necessitate the constant and almost entire attention 
 of the mind; nor that all of them must require its full 
 attention at times, at particular stages, changes, and 
 adjustments, of the work. We allow this its full weight, 
 to forbid any extravagant notion of how much it is 
 possible to think of other things during the working 
 time. It is however to be recollected, that persons of 
 a class superior to the numerous one we have in view, 
 take the chief share of those portions of the arts and 
 manufactures which require the most of mental effort, 
 — those which demand extreme precision, or inventive 
 contrivance, or taste, or scientific skill. We may also 
 take into the account of the allotment of employments 
 to the uncultivated multitude, how much facility is 
 acquired by habit, how much use there is of instru- 
 mental mechanism, (a grand exempter from the respon- 
 sibility that would lie on the mind,) and how merely 
 general and very slight an attention is exacted in the 
 ordinary course of some of the occupations. These 
 things considered, we may venture perhaps to assume, 
 on an average of those employments, that the persons 
 engaged in them might be, as much at least as one third 
 part of the time, without detriment to the manual per- 
 formance, giving the thoughts to other things with 
 attention enough for such interest as would involve 
 improvement. This is particularly true of the more 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 121 
 
 ordinary parts of the labours of agriculture, when not 
 under any critical circumstances, or special pressure 
 owing to the season. 
 
 But as the case at present is, what does become, 
 during such portion of the time, of the ethereal essence 
 which inhabits the corporeal labourer, this spirit created, 
 it is commonly said and without contradiction, for 
 thought, knowledge, religion, and immortality? If we 
 be really to believe this doctrine of its nature and 
 destiny, (for we are not sure that politicians think so,) 
 can we know without regret, that in very many of the 
 persons in the situations supposed, it suffers a dull ab- 
 sorption, subsides into the mere physical nature, is sunk 
 and sleeping in the animal warmth and functions, and 
 lulled and rocked, as it were, in its lethargy, by the 
 bodily movements, in the works which it is not neces- 
 sary for it to keep habitually awake to direct? And 
 its obligation to keep just enough awake to see to the 
 right performance of the work, seems to give a licensed 
 exemption from any other stirring of its faculties. The 
 employment is something to be minded, in a general 
 way, though but now and then requiring a pointed 
 attention ; and therefore this said intellectual being, if 
 uninformed and unexercised, will feel no call to mind 
 anything else: as a person retained for some service 
 which demands but occasionally an active exercise, will 
 justify the indolence which declines taking in hand any 
 other business in the intervals, under the pretext that 
 he has his appointment; and so, when not under the 
 immediate calls of that appointment, he will trifle or go 
 to sleep, even in the full light of day, with an easy 
 conscience. 
 
 But here we are to beware of falling into the inad- 
 vertency of appearing to say, that the labouring classes, 
 in this country and age, have actually this full exempt 
 
122 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 tion, during their employments, from all exercise of 
 thought beyond that which is immediately requisite for 
 the right performance of their work. It is true that 
 there is little enough of any such mental activity 
 directed to the instructive uses we were supposing. 
 But while such partial occupation of the thoughts (of 
 course it is admitted, in an irregular and discontinuous, 
 but still a beneficial manner) with topics and facts of 
 what may be called intellectual and moral interest as 
 we are assuming to be compatible with divers of the 
 manual operations, is a thing to which most among the 
 labouring classes are strangers, many of them are equally 
 strangers to an easy vacancy of mind; experiencing 
 amidst their employments a severe arrest of those 
 thoughts which the mere employment itself may leave 
 free. During the little more than mechanical action 
 of their hands and eyes, the circumstances of their 
 condition press hard into their minds. The lot of many 
 of those classes is placed in a melancholy disproportion 
 between what must be given to the cares and toils for 
 a bare subsistence, and what caUy at most, be given to 
 the interests of the nobler part of their nature, either 
 during their work or in its intervals. It is a sad spec- 
 tacle to behold so many myriads of spiritual beings, 
 (proviso, again, that we may call them so without 
 being suspected to forget that their proper calling is to 
 work with their hands,) doomed to consume a propor- 
 tion so little short of the whole of their vigour and 
 time, in just merely supporting so many bodies in the 
 struggle to live. 
 
 When it is in special relation to the present times 
 that we speak of this struggle to live, we of course 
 mean by it something more than that circumstance of 
 the general lot of humanity which is expressed in the 
 sentence, "In the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 123 
 
 thy bread." "We put tlie emphasis on the peculiar ag- 
 gravation of that circumstance in this part of the world 
 in this and recent times, by the adventitious effect of 
 some dreadful disorder of the social economy, in conse- 
 quence of which the utmost exertions of the body and 
 mind together but barely suffice in so many cases, in 
 some hardly do suffice, for the mere protraction of life; 
 comfortable life being altogether out of the question. 
 The course of the administration of the civilized states, 
 and the recent dire combustion into which they have 
 almost unanimously rushed, as in emulation which of 
 them should with the least reserve, and with the most 
 desperate rapidity, annihilate the resources that should 
 have been for the subsistence and competence of their 
 people, have resulted in such destitution and misery in 
 this country as were never known before, except as 
 immediately inflicted by the local visitation of some 
 awful calamity. The state of very many of our people, 
 at this hour, is nearly what might be conceived as the 
 consequence of a failure of the accustomed produce of 
 the earth.* 
 
 There is no wish to deny or underrate the additions 
 made to the evil by the intervention of causes, whose 
 operation admits of being traced in some measure dis- 
 tinctly from the effect of this grand one. They may 
 be traced in an operation which is distinguishable; and 
 referable to each respectively ; but it were most absurd 
 to represent them as working out of connexion, or 
 otherwise than subordinately concurring, with that 
 cause which has invaded with its pernicious effects 
 everything that has an existence or a name in the 
 
 * No exaggeration at the time when it was written. The con- 
 dition of the working classes during the subsequent years does 
 not admit of any comprehensive uniform d^eription. It has suf- 
 fered successive harassing fluctuations, ariid been probably at all 
 times severely distressing in one part of the country or another. 
 
 
124 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 social system. And it were simply monstrous to at- 
 tribute the main substance of so wide and oppressive 
 an evil to causes of any debateable quality, while there 
 is glaring in sight a cause of stupendous magnitude, 
 which could not possibly do otherwise than produce 
 immense and calamitous effects. It would be as if a 
 man were prying about for this and the other cause of 
 damage, to account for the aspect of a region which has 
 recently been devastated by inundations or earthquakes. 
 It has become much a fashion to explain the distresses 
 of a country on any principles rather than those that 
 are taught by all history, and prominently manifest in 
 the nature of things. And airs of superior intelligence 
 shall be assumed on hearing a plain man fix the main 
 charge of national exhaustion and distress on the 
 nation's consuming its own strength in an unquench- 
 able fury to destroy that of others; just as if such 
 madness had never been known to result in poverty 
 and distress, and it were perfectly inexplicable how it 
 should. This is partly an affectation of science, ac- 
 companied, it is likely, by somewhat of that sincere 
 extravagance with which some newly developed prin- 
 ciple is apt to be accounted the comprehension of all 
 wisdom, a nostrum that will explain everything. But 
 we suspect that in many instances this substitution of 
 subordinate causes for a great substantial one, proceeds 
 from something much worse than such affectation or 
 self-duped extravagance. It is from a resolute deter- 
 mination that ambition shall be the noblest virtue of a 
 state ; that martial glory shall maintain its ground in 
 human idolatry ; and that wars and their promoters 
 shall be justified at all hazards. 
 
 We were wishing to show how the labouring people's 
 thoughts might be partly employed, during their daily 
 task, and consistently with industry and good work- 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE, 125 
 
 manship. But what a state of things is exhibited where 
 the very name of industry, the virtue universally 
 honoured, the topic of so many human and divine 
 inculcations, cannot be spoken without offering a bitter 
 insult ; where the heavy toil, denounced on man for his 
 transgression, in the same sentence as death, is in vain 
 implored as the greatest privilege; or thought of in 
 despair, as a blessing too great to be attainable ; and 
 when the reply of the artisan to an unwitting admo- 
 nition, that even amidst his work he might have some 
 freedom for useful thinking, may be, " Thinking ! I 
 have no work to confine my thinking ; I may, for that, 
 employ it all on other subjects ; but those subjects are, 
 whether I please or not, the plenty and luxury in 
 which many creatures of the same kind as myself are 
 rioting, and the starvation which I and my family are 
 suffering." 
 
 We hope in Providence, more than in any wisdom 
 or disposition shown by men, that this melancholy state 
 of things will be alleviated, otherwise than by a reduc- 
 tion of number through the diseases generated by utter 
 penury.* We trust the time will come when the 
 christian monitor shall no longer be silenced by the 
 apprehension of such a reply to the suggestion he wishes 
 to make to the humble class, that they should strive 
 against being reduced to mere machines amidst their 
 manual employments ; that it is miserable to have the 
 whole mental existence shrunk and shrivelled as it 
 were to the breadth of the material they are working 
 upon ; that the noble interior agent, which lends itself 
 to maintain the external activity, and direct the ope- 
 rations required of the bodily powers for the body's 
 welfare, has eminently a right and claim to have 
 
 * It has been alleviated ; but not till after a considerable dura- 
 tion. In England it has; but look at Ireland! 
 
126 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 employments on its own account, during such parts of 
 those operations as do not of necessity monopolize its 
 attention. It may claim, in the superintendence of 
 these, a privilege analogous to that possessed in the 
 general direction of subordinate agents by a man of 
 science, who w411 interfere as often as it is necessary, 
 but will not give up all other thought and employment 
 to be a constant mere looker on, during such parts of 
 the operations as are of so ordinary a nature that he 
 could not really fix his attention on them. 
 
 But how is the mind of the labourer or artisan to be 
 delivered from the blank and stupified state, during the 
 parts of his employment that do not necessarily engross 
 his thoughts ? How, but by its having within some 
 store of subjects for thought ; something for memory, 
 imagination, reflection ; in a word, by the possession of 
 knowledge ? How can it be sensibly alive and active, 
 when it is placed fully and decidedly out of communi- 
 cation with all things that are friendly to intellectual 
 life, all things that apply a beneficial stimulus to the 
 faculties, all things, of this world or another, that are 
 the most inviting or commanding to thought and 
 emotion ? We can imagine this ill-fated spirit, espe- 
 cially if by nature of the somewhat finer temperament, 
 thus detached from all vital connexion, secluded from 
 the w^hole universe, and inclosed as by a prison w^all, — 
 we can imagine it sometimes moved with an indistinct 
 longing for its appropriate interests ; and going round 
 and round by this dark dead wall, to seek for any spot 
 where there might be a chance of escape, or any crevice 
 where a living element for the soul transpires; and 
 then, as feeling it all in vain, dejectedly resigning itself 
 again to its doom. Some ignorant minds have instinc- 
 tive impulses of this kind ; though far more of them are 
 so deeply stupified as to be habitually safe from any 
 
ON populah ignorance* 127 
 
 such inquietude. But let them have received, in their 
 youth and progressively afterwards, a considerable 
 measure of interesting information, respecting, for 
 instance, the many striking objects on the globe they 
 inhabit, the memorable events of past ages, the origin 
 and uses of remarkable works within their view, re- 
 maining from ancient times ; the causes of effects and 
 phenomena familiar to their observation as now unin- 
 telligible tacts ; the prospects of man, from the relation 
 he stands in to time, and eternity, and God, explained 
 by the great principles and facts of religion. Let 
 there be fixed in their knowledge so many ideas of 
 these kinds, as might be imparted by a comparatively 
 humble education, (one quite compatible with the 
 destination to a life of ordinary employment,) and even 
 involuntarily the thoughts would often recur to these 
 subjects, in those moments and hours when the manual 
 occupation can, and actually will, be prosecuted with 
 but little of exclusive attention. Slight incidents, 
 casual expressions, would sometimes suggest these 
 subjects; by association they would suggest one an- 
 other. The mere re-action of a somewhat cultivated 
 spirit against invading dulness, might recall some of 
 the more amusing and elating ones ; and they would 
 fall like a gleam of sunshine on the imagination. An 
 emotion of conscience, a self- reflection, an occurring 
 question of duty, a monitory sensation of defective 
 health, would sometimes point to the serious and solemn 
 ones. The mind might thus go a considerable way, to 
 recreate or profit itself, and, on coming back again, 
 find all safe in the processes of the field or the loom. 
 The man would thus come from these processes with 
 more than the bare earnings to set against the fatigue. 
 There would thus be scattered some appearances to 
 entertain, and some sources and productions to refresh. 
 
128 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 over what were else a dead and barren flat of 
 existence. 
 
 There is no romancing in all this ; we have known 
 instances of its verification to a very pleasing and 
 exemplary extent. We have heard persons of the 
 class in question tell of the exhilarating imaginations, 
 or solemn reflections, which, through the reminiscences 
 of what they had read in youth or more advanced years, 
 had visited their minds ; and put them, as it were, in 
 communication for a while with diversified, remote, 
 and elevated objects, while in their humble employ- 
 ments under the open sky or the domestic roof. And 
 is not this, (if it be true, after all, that the intellectual 
 immortal nature is by emphasis the man,) is not this 
 vastly better than that this mind should lie nearly as 
 dormant, during the labourer's hours of business, as 
 his attendant of the canine species shall be sometimes 
 seen to do in the corner of the field where he is at 
 work? 
 
 But perhaps it will be said, that the minds of the 
 uncultivated order are not generally in this state of 
 utter inanity during their common employments ; but 
 are often awake and busy enough in recollections, 
 fancies, projects, and the tempers appropriate; and 
 that they abundantly show this when they stop some- 
 times in their work to talk, or talk as they are pro- 
 ceeding in it. So much the stronger, we answer, the 
 argument for supplying them with useful knowledge ; 
 for it were better their mental being were sunk in 
 lethargy, than busy among the reported, recollected or 
 imagined transactions, the wishes, and the schemings, 
 which will be the most likely to occupy the minds of 
 persons abandoned to ignorance, vulgarity, and there- 
 fore probably to low vice. 
 
 We may add to the representation, the manner in 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 129 
 
 which they spend the part of their time not demanded 
 for the regular, or the occasional, exercise of their 
 industry. It is not to be denied that many of them 
 have too much truth in their pleading that, with the 
 exception of Sunday, they have little remission of their 
 toils till they are so weary that the remainder of the 
 time is needed for complete repose. This is parti- 
 cularly the case of the females, especially those who 
 have the chief cares and the actual work of a family 
 Nevertheless, it is within our constant observation that 
 a considerable proportion of the men, a large one of the 
 younger men, in the less heavily oppressed divisions of 
 our population, do in fact include, for substance, their 
 manual employments within such limits of time, as 
 often to leave several hours in the day to be spent 
 nearly as they please. And in what manner, for the 
 most part, is this precious time expended by those of 
 no mental cultivation*? It is true, again, that in many 
 departments of labour, a diligent exertion during even 
 this limited space of the day, occasions such a degree 
 of lassitude and heaviness as to render it almost in- 
 evitable, especially in certain seasons of the year, to 
 surrender some moments of the spare time, beyond 
 what is necessary for the humble repast, to a kind of 
 listless subsidence of all the powers of both body and 
 mind. But after all these allowances fully conceded, a 
 great number in the class under consideration have in 
 some days several hours, and in the whole six days of 
 the week, on an average of the year, very many hours, 
 to be given, as they choose, to useful purposes or to 
 waste ; and again we ask, where the mind itself Las 
 been left waste how is that time mostly expended ? 
 
 If the persons are of a phlegmatic temperament, we 
 shall often see them just simply annihilating those 
 portions of time. They will for an hour, or for lioiirs 
 K 
 
132 ox POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 expense of persons going by; shouting with laughter at 
 the success of the annoyance, or to make it successful ; 
 and all this blended with language of profaneness and 
 imprecation, as the very life of the hilarity? Or why 
 should not the boldest spirits among them form a little 
 conventicle for cursing, blaspheming, and blackguard 
 obstreperousness in the street, about the entrance of 
 one of the haunts of intoxication ; where they are per- 
 fectly safe from that worse mischief of a gloomy fana- 
 ticism, with which they might have been smitten if 
 seduced to frequent the meeting-house twenty paces 
 off? Or why should not the children, growing into the 
 stage called youth, be turned loose through the lanes, 
 roads, and fields, to form a brawling impudent rabble, 
 trained by their association to every low vice, and am- 
 bitiously emulating, in voice, visage, and manners, the 
 ruffians and drabs of maturer growth ? Or why should 
 not the young men and women collect in clusters, or 
 range about or beyond the neighbourhood in bands, for 
 revel, frolic, and all kinds of coarse mirth; to come 
 back late at night to quarrel with their wretched elders, 
 who perhaps envy them their capacity for such wild 
 gaieties and stroUings, while rating them for their dis- 
 orderly habits ? We say, where can be the harm of all 
 this? What reasonable and benevolent man would 
 think of making any objection to it? Keasonable and 
 benevolent, — for these have been among the qualities 
 boasted for the occasion by the opposers of any mate- 
 rially improved education of the people ; while in such 
 opposition they virtually avowed their willing tolerance 
 of all that is here described. 
 
 We have allowed most fully the plea of how little 
 time, comparatively, could be afforded to the con- 
 cern o mental improvement by the lower classes from 
 their indispensable employments ; and also that of the 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 133 
 
 consequent fatigue, causing a temporary incapacity of 
 effort in any other way. But tliis latter plea cannot 
 be admitted without great abatement in the case of our 
 neglected young people of the working classes; for when 
 we advert to their actual habits, we see that, neverthe- 
 less, time, strength, and wakefulness, and spring and 
 spirit for exertion, are found for a vast deal of busy 
 diversion, much of it blended with such folly as tends 
 to vice. 
 
 If such is the manner in which the spare time of the 
 week-days goes to waste and worse, the Sunday is 
 welcomed as giving scope for the same things on a 
 larger scale. It is very striking to consider, that several 
 millions, we may safely assert, of our English people, 
 arrived at what should be years of discretion, are almost 
 completely destitute of any manner of conscience re- 
 specting this seventh part of time ; not merely as to 
 any required consecration of it to religion, but as to its 
 being under any claim or of any worth at all, otherwise 
 than for amusement. It is actually regarded by them 
 as a section of time far less under obligation than any 
 other. They take it as so absolutely at their free dis- 
 posal, by a right so exclusively vested in their taste and 
 will, that a demand made even in behalf of their own 
 most important interests, is contemptuously repelled 
 as a sanctimonious impertinence. If the idea occurs 
 at all (with multitudes it never does) of claims which 
 they have heard that God should make on the hours, 
 it is dismissed with the thought that it really cannot 
 signify to him how creatures, condemned by his ap- 
 pointment to toil all the rest of the week, may wish to 
 spend this one day, on which the secular taskmaster 
 manumits them, and He, the spiritual one, might surely 
 do as much. An immense number pay no attention 
 whatever to any sort of religious worship ; and many 
 
134 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 of those that do give an hour or two to such an observ- 
 ance, do so, some of them as merely a diversification of 
 amusement, and the others by way of taking a license 
 of exemption from any further accountableness for the 
 manner in which they may spend the day. It is the 
 natural consequence of all this, that there is more folly, 
 if not more crime, committed on this than on all the 
 other six days together. 
 
 Thus man, at least ignorant man, is unfit to be trusted 
 with anything under heaven ; since a remarkable ap- 
 pointment for raising the general tenour of moral ex- 
 istence, has with these persons the effect of sinking it. 
 There is interposed, at frequent regular intervals 
 throughout the series of their days, a richer vein, as it 
 were, of time. The improvement of this, in a manner 
 by no means strained to the austerity of exercise pre- 
 scribed in the Puritan rules, might diffuse a worth and 
 a grace over all the time between, and assist them 
 against the tendency there may be in its necessary 
 habits and employments, to depress the intelligent 
 nature into meanness or debasement. The space which 
 they are passing over is marked, at near intervals, with 
 broad lines of a benignant light, which might spread 
 an appearance of mild lustre over the whole extent as 
 contemplated in retrospect ; but how many, in looking 
 back when near the end of their progress, have to per- 
 ceive its general shade rendered darker by the very 
 spaces where that light had been shed from heaven. 
 
 The Sundays of those who do not improve them to 
 a good purpose, will infallibly be perverted to a bad 
 one. But it were still a melancholy account if we could 
 regard them as merely standing for nothing, as a blank 
 in the life of this class of the people. It is a deeply 
 unhappy spectacle and reflection, to see a man of per- 
 haps more than seventy, sunk in the grossness and 
 
ON rorULAll IGNORANCE. 135 
 
 apathy of an almost total ignorance of all the most 
 momentous subjects, and then to consider, that, since 
 he came to an age of some natural capacity for the 
 exercise of his mind, there have been more than three 
 thousand Sundays. In their long succession they were 
 his time. That is to say, he had the property in them 
 which every man has in duration ; they were present 
 to him, he had them, he spent them. Perhaps some 
 compassionate friend may have been pleading in his 
 behalf, — Alas ! what opportunity, what time, has tlie 
 poor mortal ever had ? His lot has been to labour hard 
 through the week throughout almost his whole life. 
 Yes, we answer, but he has had three thousand Sun- 
 days; what would not even the most moderate improve- 
 ment of so vast a sum of hours have done for him ? 
 But the ill-fated man, (perhaps rejoins the commiser- 
 ating pleader,) grew up from his childhood in utter 
 ignorance of any use he ought to make of time which 
 his necessary employment would allow him to waste. 
 There, we reply, you strike the mark. Sundays are of 
 no value, nor Bibles, nor the enlarged knowledge of 
 the age, nor heaven nor earth, to beings brought up in 
 estrangement from all right discipline. And therefore 
 we are pleading for the schemes and institutions which 
 will not let human beings be thus brought up. 
 
 In so pleading, we happily can appeal to one fact in 
 evidence that the intellectual and religious culture, in 
 the introductory stages of life, tends to secure that the 
 persons so trained shall be, when they are come to 
 maturity, marked off from the neglected barbarous mass, 
 by at least an external respect, but accompanied, we 
 trust, in many of them, by a still better sentiment, to 
 the means for keeping truth and duty constantly in their 
 view. Observe the numbers now attending, with a 
 becoming deportment, public worship and instruction, 
 
136 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 as compared with what the proportion is remembered 
 or recorded to have been half a century since, or any 
 time previous to the great exertions of benevolence to 
 save the children of the inferior classes from preserving 
 the w^hole mental likeness of their forefathers. 
 
 It can be testified also, by persons whose observation 
 has been the longest in the habit of following children 
 and youth from the instruction of the school institutions 
 into mature life, that, in a gratifying number of in- 
 stances, they have been seen permanently retaining too 
 much love of improvement, and too much of the habit 
 of an useful employment of their minds, to sink, in 
 their ordinary daily occupations, into that wretched 
 inanity we were representing; or to consume the free 
 intervals of time in the listlessness, or worthless gabble, 
 or vain sports, of which their neighbours furnished 
 plenty of example and temptation. 
 
 These representations have partly included, what we 
 may yet specify distinctly as one of the unhappy effects 
 of gross ignorance — a degraded state of domestic society. 
 
 Whatever is of a nature to render individuals unin- 
 teresting or offensive to one another, has a specially 
 bad effect among them as members of a family; because 
 there is in that form of community itself a peculiar 
 tendency to fall below the level of dignified and com- 
 placent social life. — A number of persons cannot be 
 placed in a state of social communication, without hav- 
 ing a certain sense of claiming from one another a con- 
 duct meant and adapted to please. It is expected that 
 a succession of efforts should be made for this purpose, 
 with a willingness of each individual to forego, in little 
 things, his own inclination or convenience. This is 
 all very well when the society is voluntary, and the 
 parties can separate when the cost is felt to be greater 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 137 
 
 than the pleasure. Under this advantage of being able 
 soon to separate, even a company of strangers casually 
 assembled will often recognise the claim and conform 
 to the law ; with a certain indistinct sentiment par- 
 taking of reciprocal gratitude for the disposition which 
 is so accommodating. But the members of the domestic 
 community also have each this same feeling which de- 
 mands a mutual effort and self-denial to please, while 
 the condition of their association is adverse to their 
 yielding what they thus respectively claim. Theirs, 
 when once it is formed, is not exactly a voluntary com- 
 panionship, and it is one of undefinable continuance. 
 The claim therefore seems as if it were to be of a pro- 
 longation interminable, while the grateful feeling for 
 the concession is the less for the more compulsory bond 
 of the association. And to be thus required, in a com- 
 munity which must not be dissolved, and in a series 
 that reaches away beyond calculation, to exercise a self- 
 restraint on their wills and humours in order to please 
 one another, goes so hard against the great principle of 
 human feeling — namely, each one's preference of pleas- 
 ing himself — that there is an habitual impulse of reaction 
 against the claim. This shows itself in their deport- 
 ment, which has the appearance of a practical expression 
 of so many individuals that they will maintain each his 
 own freedom. Plence the absence, very commonly, in 
 domestic society, of the attentiveness, the tone of civility, 
 the promptitude of compliance, the habit of little ac- 
 commodations, voluntary and supernumerary, which 
 are so observable in the intercourse of friends, acquaint- 
 ance, and often, as we have said, even of strangers. 
 
 And then consider, in so close a kind of community, 
 what near and intimate witnesses they are of all one 
 another's faults, weaknesses, tempers, perversities ; of 
 whatever is offensive in manner, or unseemly in habit; 
 
138 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 of all the irksome, humiliating, or sometimes ludicrous 
 circumstances and situations. And also, in this close 
 association, the bad moods, the strifes, and resentments, 
 are pressed into immediate lasting corrosive contact 
 with whatever should be the most vital to social happi- 
 ness. If there be, into the account, the wants, anxieties, 
 and vexations of severe poverty, they will generally 
 aggravate all that is destructive to domestic complacency 
 and decorum. 
 
 Now add gross ignorance to all this, and see what 
 the picture will be. How many families have been 
 seen where the parents were only the older and stronger 
 animals than their children, whom they could teach 
 nothing but the methods and tasks of labour. They 
 naturally could not be the mere companions, for alter- 
 nate play and quarrel, of their children, and were dis- 
 qualified by mental rudeness to be their respected 
 guardians. There were about them these young and 
 rising forms, containing the inextinguishable principle, 
 which was capable of entering on an endless progression 
 of wisdom, goodness, and happiness! needing number- 
 less suggestions, explanations, admonitions, brief rea- 
 sonings, and a training to attend to the lessons of 
 written instruction. But nothing of all this from the 
 parent. Their case was as hopeless for receiving these 
 necessaries of mental life, as the condition, for physical 
 nutriment, of infants attempting to draw it, (we have 
 heard of so affecting and mournful a fact,) from the 
 breast of a dead parent. These unhappy heads of 
 families possessed no resources for engaging youthful 
 attention by mingled instruction and amusements ; no 
 descriptions of the most wonderful objects, or narratives 
 of the most memorable events, to set, for superior at- 
 traction, against the idle stories of the neighbourhood; 
 no assemblage of admirable examples, from the sacred 
 
ON POPULAll IGNORANCB. 139 
 
 or Other records of human character, to give a beauti« 
 ful real form to virtue and religion, and promote an 
 aversion to base companionship. 
 
 Requirement and prohibition must be a part of the 
 domestic economy habitually in operation of course; 
 and in such families you will have seen the government 
 exercised, or attempted to be exercised, in the roughest, 
 barest shape of will and menace, with no aptitude or 
 means of imparting to injunction and censure a con- 
 vincing and persuasive quality. Not that the seniors 
 should allow their government to be placed on such a 
 ground that, in every thing they enforce or forbid, they 
 may be liable to have their reasons demanded by the 
 children, as an understood condition of their compliance. 
 Far from it ; they will sometimes have to require a pre- 
 scribed conduct for reasons not intelligible, or which it 
 may not be discreet to explain, to those who are to obey. 
 But their authority becomes odious, and as a moral force 
 worse than inefficient, when the natural shrewdness of 
 the children can descry that they really have no reasons 
 better than an obstinate or capricious will; and infallibly 
 makes the inference, that there is no obligation to submit, 
 but that necessity which dependence imposes. But this 
 must often be the unfortunate condition of such families. 
 
 Now imagine a w^eek, month, or year, of the inter- 
 course in such a domestic society, the course of talk, 
 the mutual manners, and the progress of mind and 
 character; where there is a sense of drudgery approach- 
 ing to that of slavery, in the unremitting necessity of 
 labour; where there is none of the interest of impart- 
 ing knowledge or receiving it, or of reciprocating 
 knowledge that has been imparted and received; where 
 there is not an acre, if we might express it so, of in- 
 tellectual space around them, clear of the thick universal 
 fog of ignorance; where, especially, the luminaries of 
 
140 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 the spiritual heaven, the attributes of the Almighty, 
 the grand phenomenon of redeeming mediation, the 
 solemn realities of a future state and another world, 
 are totally obscured in that shade; where the con- 
 science and the discriminations of duty are dull and 
 indistinct, from the youngest to the oldest; where 
 there is no genuine respect on the one side, nor affec- 
 tion unmixed with vulgar petulance and harshness, 
 expressed perhaps in language of imprecation, on the 
 other; where a mutual coarseness of manners and words 
 has the effect, without their being aware of it as a 
 cause, of debasing their worth in one another's esteem, 
 all round ; and where, notwithstanding all, they abso- 
 lutely must pass a great deal of time together, to con- 
 verse, to display their dispositions toward one another, 
 and exemplify the poverty of the mere primary relations 
 of life, as divested of the accessories which give them 
 dignity, endearment, and conduciveness to the highest 
 advantage of existence. 
 
 Home has but little to please the young members of 
 such a family, and a great deal to make them eager to 
 escape out of the house; which is also a welcome rid- 
 dance to the elder persons, when it is not in neglect or 
 refusal to perform allotted tasks. So little is the feeling 
 of a peaceful cordiality created among them by their 
 seeing one another all within the habitation, that, not 
 unfrequently, the passer-by may learn the fact of their 
 collective number being there, from the sound of a low 
 strife of mingled voices, some of them betraying youth 
 replying in anger or contempt to maturity or age. It 
 is wretched to see how early this liberty is boldly taken. 
 As the children perceive nothing in the minds of their 
 parents that should awe them into deference, the most 
 important difference left between them is that of phy- 
 sical strength. The children, if of hardy disposition, 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 141 
 
 to which they are perhaps trained in battles with their 
 juvenile rivals, soon show a certain degree of daring 
 against this superior strength. And as the difference 
 lessens, and by the time it has nearly ceased, what is so 
 natural as that they should assume equality, in manners 
 and in following their own will? But equality assumed 
 where there should be subordination, inevitably involves 
 contempt toward the party in defiance of whom it is 
 asserted. 
 
 The relative condition of such parents as they sink 
 in old age, is most deplorable. And all that has pre- 
 ceded, leads by a natural course to that consequence 
 which we have sometimes beheld, with feelings empha- 
 tically gloomy, — the almost perfect indifference with 
 which the descendants, and a few other relations, of a 
 poor old man of this class, could consign him to the 
 grave. A human being was gone out of the world, a 
 being they had been with or near all their lives, some 
 of them sustained in their childhood by his labours, and 
 yet perhaps not one heart, at any moment, felt the sen- 
 timent — I have lost . They never could regard 
 
 him with respect, and their miserable education had not 
 taught them humanity enough to regard him in his 
 declining days as an object of pity. Some decency of 
 attention was perhaps shown him, or perhaps hardly 
 that, in his last hours. His being now a dead, instead 
 of a living man, was a burden taken off*; and the insen- 
 sibility and levity, somewhat disturbed and repressed 
 at the sight of his expiring struggle, and of his being 
 lowered into the grave, recovered by the day after his 
 interment, if not on the very same evening, their ac- 
 customed tone, never more to be interrupted by the 
 effect of any remembrance of him. Such a closing 
 scene one day to be repeated is foreshown to us, when 
 we look at an ignorant and thoughtless father sur- 
 
142 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 rounded by his untaught children. In the silence of 
 thought we thus accost him, — The event which will 
 take you finally from among them, perhaps after forty 
 or fifty years of intercourse with them, will leave no 
 more impression on their affections, than the cutting 
 down of a decayed old tree in the neighbourhood of 
 your habitation. 
 
 There are instances, of rare occurrence, when such a 
 man becomes, late in life, far too late for his family to 
 Lave the benefit of the change, a subject of the only 
 influence which could awake him to earnest thought- 
 fulness and. the full sensibility of conscience. When 
 the sun thus breaks out toward the close of his gloomy 
 day, and when, in the energy of his new life, he puts 
 forth the best efforts of his untaught spirit for a little 
 divine knowledge, to be a lamp to him in entering ere 
 long the shades of death, with what bitter regrets 
 he looks back to the period when a number of human 
 beings, some perhaps still with him, some now scattered 
 from him, and here and there pursuing their separate 
 courses in careless ignorance, were growing up under 
 his roof, within his charge, but in utter estrangement 
 from all discipline adapted to ensure a happier sequel. 
 His distressing reflection is often representing to him 
 what they might now have been if they had grown up 
 under such discipline. And gladly would he lay down 
 his life to redeem for them but some inferior share of 
 what the season for imparting to them is gone for ever. 
 
 Another thing is to be added, to this representation 
 of the evils attendant on an uncultivated state of the 
 people, namely — that this mental rudeness puts them 
 decidedly out of beneficial communication with the su- 
 perior and cultivated classes. 
 
 We are assuming (with permission) that a national 
 community should be coiistituted for the good of all its 
 
ON POrULAR IGNORANCE. 143 
 
 parts, not to be obtained by them as detached indepen- 
 dent portions, but adjusted and compacted into one 
 social body ; an economy in which all the parts shall 
 feel they have the benelit of an amicable combination; 
 in other words, that they are the better for one another. 
 But it can be no such constitution when the most pal- 
 pable relations between the two main divisions of society 
 consist of such direct opposites as refinement and bar- 
 barism, dignity and gross debasement, intelligence and 
 ignorance; which are the distinctions asserted by the 
 higher classes as putting a vast distance between them 
 and the lower. If so little of the correct understanding, 
 the information, the liberalized feeling, and the pro- 
 priety of deportment, which we are to ascribe to the 
 higher and cultivated portion, goes downward into the 
 lower, it should seem impossible but there must be 
 more of repulsion than of amicable disposition and com- 
 munication between them. We may suspect, perhaps, 
 that those more privileged classes are not generally 
 desirous that the interval were much less wide, pro- 
 vided that without cultivation of the lower orders the 
 nuisance of their annoying and formidable temper could 
 be abated. But however that may be, it is exceedingly 
 desirable, for the good of both, that the upper and in- 
 ferior orders should be on terms of communication and 
 mutual good will, and therefore that there should be a 
 diminution of that rudeness of mind and habits which 
 must contribute to keep them alienated and hostile. 
 
 If it were asked what communication, at all of a 
 nature to be described by epithets of social and friendly 
 import, we can be supposing by possibility to subsist 
 between classes so different and distant, we may exem- 
 plify it by such an instance as we have now and then the 
 pleasure of seeing. Each reader also, of any moderate 
 compass of observation, may probably recollect an 
 
144 
 
 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 example, in the case of some man in humble station, but 
 who has had (for his condition) a good education ; 
 having been well instructed in his youth in the elements 
 of useful knowledge ; having had good principles dili- 
 gently inculcated upon him ; having subsequently in- 
 structed himself, to the best of his very confined means 
 and opportunity, through a habit of reading; and being 
 in his manners unaffectedly observant of all the deco- 
 rums of a respectable human being. It has been seen, 
 that such a man has not found in some of his superiors 
 in station and attainment any disposition to shun him ; 
 and has not felt in himself or his situation any reason 
 why he should seek to shun them. He would occa- 
 sionally fall into conversation with the wealthy and 
 accomplished proprietor, or the professional man of 
 learning, in the neighbourhood. His intelligent man- 
 ner of attending to what they said, his perfect under- 
 standing of the language naturally used by cultivated 
 persons, the considerateness and pertinence of his re- 
 plies, and the modest deference, combined with an 
 honest freedom in making his observations on the mat- 
 ters brought in question, pleased those persons of supe- 
 rior rank, and induced various friendly and useful 
 attentions, on their part to him and his family. He 
 and his family thus experienced a direct benefit of 
 superior sense, civility, and good principle, in a humble 
 condition ; and were put under a new responsibility to 
 preserve a character for those distinctions. — Now think 
 of the incalculable advantage to society, if any thing 
 approaching to this were the general state of social re- 
 lation between the lower and the higher orders. 
 
 On the contrary, there is no medium of complacent 
 communication between the classes of higher condition 
 and endowment, and an ignorant coarse populace. Ex- 
 cept on occasion of giving orders or magisterial rebukes, 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 145 
 
 the gentleman will never think of such a thing as con- 
 verse with the clowns in his vicinity. They, on their 
 part, are desirous to avoid him; excepting when any 
 of them may have a purpose to gain, by arresting his 
 attention, with an ungainly cringe ; or when some of 
 those who have no sort of present dependence on him, 
 are disposed to cross his way with a look and strut of 
 ► rudeness, to show how little they care for him. The 
 servility, and the impudence, almost equally repress in 
 him all friendly disposition toward a voluntary inter- 
 course with the class. There is thus as complete a dis- 
 sociation between the two orders, as mutual dislike, 
 added to every imaginable dissimilarity, can create. 
 And this broad ungracious separation intercepts all 
 modifying influence that might otherwise have passed, 
 from the intelligence and refinement of the one, upon 
 the barbarism of the other. 
 
 But there is in human nature a pertinacious disposi- 
 tion to work disadvantages, in one way or other, into 
 privileges. The people, in being thus consigned to a 
 low and alien ground, in relation to the cultivated part 
 of society, are put in possession, as it were, of a terri- 
 tory of their own ; where they can give their disposition 
 freer play, and act out their characters in their own 
 manner ; exempt equally from the voluntary and the 
 involuntary influence of the cultivated superiors; that 
 is to say, neither insensibly modified by the attraction 
 of what is the most laudable in them as a pattern, nor 
 swayed through policy to a studied accommodation to 
 their understood opinion and will. This is a great 
 emancipation enjoyed by the inferiors. And however 
 injurious it may be, it is one of which they will not fail 
 to take the full license. For in all things and situa- 
 tions, it is one of the first objects with human beings, 
 to verify experimentally the presumed extent of their 
 
146 ON POPULAB IGNORANCE. 
 
 liberty and privilege. In this dissociation, the people 
 are rid of the many salutary restraints and incitements 
 which they would have been made to feel, if on terms 
 of friendly recognition with the respectable part of the 
 community; they have neither honour nor disgrace, 
 from that quarter, to take into their account ; and this 
 contributes to extinguish all sense and care of respect- 
 ability of character, — a care to which there will be no 
 motive in any consideration of what they may, as among 
 themselves, think of one another; for, with the low 
 estimate which they mutually and justly entertain, there 
 is a conventional feeling among them that, for the ease 
 and privilege of them all, they are systematically to 
 set aside all high notions and nice responsibilities of 
 character and conduct. There is a sort of recognised 
 mutual right to be no better than they are. And an 
 individual among them affecting a high conscientious 
 principle would be apt to incur ridicule, as a man fool- 
 ishly divesting himself of a privilege ; — -unless, indeed, 
 he let them understand that hypocrisy was his way of 
 maintaining that privilege, and turning it to account. 
 
 The people are thus, by their ignorance, and what 
 inseparably attends it, far removed and estranged from 
 the more cultivated part of their fellow-countrymen ; 
 and consequently from every beneficial influence under 
 which a state of friendly contiguity, if we may so ex- 
 press it, would have placed them. Let us now see 
 what, in this abandonment to themselves, are their 
 growing dispositions toward the superior orders and 
 the existing arrangements of the community ; disposi- 
 tions which are promoted by causes more definite than 
 this estrangement considered merely as the negation of 
 benevolent intercourse, but to which it mightily con- 
 tributes. 
 
 Times may have been when the great mass, while 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 147 
 
 placed in such decided separation from the upper orders, 
 combined such a quietude with their ignorance, that 
 they had little other than submissive feelings toward 
 these superiors, whose property, almost, for all service 
 and obsequiousness, they were accustomed to consider 
 themselves; when no question would occur to them 
 why there should be so vast a difference of condition 
 between beings of the same race ; when no other proof 
 was required of the right appointment of their lot, how- 
 ever humble it might be, than their being, and their 
 forefathers having been, actually in it ; and when they 
 did not presume, hardly in thought, to make any infer- 
 ences from the fact of the immense disproportion of 
 numbers and consequent physical strength between 
 them and their superiors.* But the times of this per- 
 fect, unquestioning, unmurmuring succumbency under 
 the actual allotment, have passed away ; except in such 
 regions as the Russian empire, where they have yet 
 long to continue. In other states of Europe, but espe- 
 cially in our own, the ignorance of the people has no- 
 where prevented them from acquiring a sense of tlieir 
 strength and importance ; with a certain ill-conceived, 
 but stimulant notion, of some change which they think 
 ought to take place in their condition. How, indeed, 
 should it have been possible for them to remain una- 
 ware of this strength and importance, while the whole 
 civilized world was shaken with a practical and tre- 
 mendous controversy between the two grand opposed 
 orders of society, concerning their respective rights; or 
 
 * Here, however, it should he observed that in the former age, 
 when there was far less of jealous invidious feeling between the up- 
 per and lower classes than has latterly intervened, there was a more 
 amicable manner of intercommunication. The settled and per- 
 fectly recognised state of subordination precluded on the one side, 
 all apprehension of encroachment, and on the other the disposition 
 to it. 
 
148 CN POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 that they should not have taken a strong, and from the 
 rudeness of their mental condition, a fierce interest, in the 
 principle and progress of the strife ? And how should 
 they have failed to know that, during this controversy, 
 innumerable persons raised from the lower rank by 
 talent and spirit, had left no place on earth except in 
 courts (and hardly even there) for the dotage of fancy- 
 ing some innate difference between the classes distin- 
 guished in the artificial order of society ? 
 
 The effect of all this is gone deep into the minds of 
 great numbers who are not excited, in consequence, to 
 any w^orthy exertion for raising themselves, indivi- 
 dually, from their degraded condition, by the earnest 
 application and improvement of their means and facul- 
 ties. The feeling of many of them seems to be, that 
 they must and will sullenly abide by the ill-starred fate 
 of their order, till some great comprehensive alteration 
 in their favour shall absolve them from that bond of 
 hostile sentiment, in which they make common cause 
 against the superior classes ; and shall create a state of 
 things in which it shall be worth while for the indivi- 
 dual to make an effort to raise himself. We can at 
 best, (they seem to say,) barely maintain, with the ut- 
 most difficulty, a miserable life ; and you talk to us of 
 cultivation, of discipline, of mora] respectability, of 
 efforts to come out from our degraded rank ! No, we 
 shall even stay where we are; till it is seen how the 
 question is to be settled between the people of our sort, 
 and those who will have it that they are of a far wor- 
 thier kind. There may then, perhaps, be some chance 
 for such as we ; and if not, the less we are disturbed 
 about improvement, knowledge, and all those things, 
 the better, while we are bearing the heavy load a few 
 ^ears, to die like those before us. 
 
 We said they are banded in a hostile sentiment. It 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 149 
 
 IS true, that among such a degraded populace tliere is 
 very little kindness, or care for one another's interests. 
 They all know too well what they all are not, to feel 
 mutual esteem or benevolence. But it is infinitely 
 easier for any set of human beings to maintain a com- 
 munity of feeling in hostility to something else, than in 
 benevolence toward one another; for here no sacrifice is 
 required of any one's self-interest. And it is certain, 
 that the subordinate portions of society have come to 
 regard the occupants of the tracts of fertility and sun- 
 shine, the possessors of opulence, splendour, and luxury, 
 with a deep, settled, systematic aversion; with a dispo- 
 sition to contemplate in any other light than that of a 
 calamity an extensive downfal of the favourites of for- 
 tune, when a brooding imagination figures such a thing 
 as possible ; and with but very slight monitions from 
 conscience of the iniquity of the most tumultuary ac- 
 complishment of such a catastrophe. In a word, so far 
 from considering their own welfare as identified with 
 the stability of the existing social order, they consider 
 it as something that would spring from the ruin of that 
 order. The greater number of them have lost that vene- 
 ration by habit, partaking of the nature of a superstition, 
 which had been protracted downward, though progres- 
 sively attenuated with the lapse of time, from the feudal 
 ages into the last century. They have quite lost, too, in 
 this disastrous age, that sense of competence and pos- 
 sible well-being, which might have harmonized their 
 feelings with a social economy that would have allowed 
 them the enjoyment of such a state, even as the purchase 
 of great industry and care. Whatever the actual eco- 
 nomy may have of wisdom in its institutions, and of 
 splendour, and fulness of all good things, in some parts 
 of its apportionment, they feel that what is allotted to 
 most of them in its arrangements is pressing hardship. 
 
150 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 unremitting poverty, growing still more hopeless with 
 the progress of time, and of what they hear trumpeted 
 as national glory, nay, even " national prosperity and 
 happiness unrivalled." This bitter experience, which 
 inevitably becomes associated in their thoughts with 
 that frame of society under which they suffer it, will 
 naturally have a far stronger effect on their opinion 
 of that system than all that had ever rendered them 
 acquiescent or reverential toward it. That it brings 
 no relief, or promise of relief, is a circumstance prepon- 
 derating in the estimate, against all that can be said of 
 its ancient establishment, its theoretical excellences, or 
 the blessings in which it may be pretended to have once 
 abounded, or still to abound. What were become of 
 the most essential laws of human feeling, if such ex- 
 perience could leave those who are undergoing its 
 discipline still faithfully attached to the social order on 
 the strength of its consecration by time, and of the 
 former settled opinions in its favour, — however tena- 
 cious the impressions so wrought into habit are admitted 
 to be ? And the minds of the people thus thrown loose 
 from the former ties, are not arrested and recovered by 
 any substitutional ones formed while those were decay- 
 ing. They are not retained in a temper of patient 
 endurance and adherence, by the bond of principles 
 which a sedulous and deep instruction alone could have 
 enforced on them. The growth of sound judgment 
 under such instruction, might have made them capable 
 of understanding how a proportion of the evil may have 
 been inevitable, from uncontrollable causes ; of per- 
 ceiving that it could not fail to be aggravated by a 
 disregard of prudence in the proceedings in early life 
 among their own class, and that so far it were unjust to 
 impute it to their superiors or to the order of society ; 
 of admitting that national calamities are visitations of 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 151 
 
 divine judgment, of which they were to reflect whether 
 they had not deserved a heavy share ; of feeling it to 
 be therefore no impertinent or fanatical admonition that 
 should exhort them to repentance and reformation, as 
 an expedient for the amendment of even their temporal 
 condition ; and of clearly comprehending that, at all 
 events, rancour, violence, and disorder, cannot be the 
 way to alleviate any of the evils, but to aggravate them 
 all. But, we repeat it, there are millions in this land, 
 and if we include the neighbouring island politically 
 united to it, very many millions, who have received no 
 instruction adequate, in the smallest degree, to counter- 
 act the natural effect of the distresses of their condition; 
 or to create a class of moral restraints and mitigations 
 in prevention of a total hostility of feeling against the 
 established order, after the ancient attachments to it 
 have been worn down by the innovations of opinion, 
 and the pressure of continued distress. 
 
 Thus uninstructed to apprehend the considerations 
 adapted to impose a moral restraint, thus unmodified 
 by principles of mitigation, there is a large proportion 
 of human strength and feeling not in vital combination 
 with the social system, but aloof from it, looking at it 
 with "gloomy and malign regard;" in a state pro- 
 gressive toward a fitness to be impelled against it with 
 a dreadful shock, in the event of any great convulsion, 
 that should set loose the legion of daring, desperate, 
 and powerful spirits, to fire and lead the masses to its 
 demolition. There have not been wanting examples 
 to show with what fearful effect this hostility may come 
 into action, in the crisis of the fate of a nation's ancient 
 system; where this alienated portion of its own people, 
 rushing in, have revenged upon it the neglect of their 
 tuition ; that neglect which had abandoned them to so 
 utter a " lack of knowledge," that they really understood 
 
152 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 no better than to expect their own solid advantage 
 in general havoc and disorder. But how bereft of sense 
 the State too must be, that would thus let a multitude 
 of its people grow up in a condition of mind to believe, 
 that the sovereign expedient for their welfare is to be 
 found in spoliation and destruction ! It might easily 
 have comprehended what it was reasonable to expect 
 from the matured dispositions and strength of such of 
 its children as it abandoned to be nursed by the wolf. 
 
 While this principle of ruin was working on by a 
 steady and natural process, this supposed infatuated 
 State was, it is extremely possible, directing its chief 
 care to maintain the splendour of a court, or to extort 
 the means for prosecuting some object of vain and 
 wicked ambition, some project of conquest and military 
 glory. And probably nothing could have appeared to 
 many of its privileged persons more idle and ridiculous, 
 or to others of them more offensive and ill-intentioned, 
 than a remonstrance founded on a warning of such a 
 consequence. The despisers would have been incom- 
 parably the greater number ; and, " Go (they would 
 have said) with your mock-tragical fortune-telling, to 
 whoever can believe, too, that one day or other the 
 quadrupeds of our stalls and meadows may be suddenly 
 inspirited by some supernatural possession to turn their 
 strength on us in a mass, or those of our kennels to 
 imitate the dogs of Actieon," 
 
153 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 There may be persons ready to make a question here, 
 whether it be so certain that giving the people of the 
 lower order more knowledge, and sharpening their 
 faculties, will really tend to the preservation of good 
 order. Would not such improvement elate them, to a 
 most extravagant estimate of their own worth and 
 importance ; and therefore result in insufferable arro- 
 gance, both in the individuals and the class ? Would 
 they not, on the strength of it, be continually assuming 
 to sit in judgment on the proceedings and claims of 
 their betters, even in the most lofty stations ; and de- 
 manding their own pretended rights, with a trouble- 
 some and turbulent pertinacity ? Would they not, 
 since their improvement cannot, from their condition in 
 life, be large and deep, be in just such a half taught 
 state, as would make them exactly fit to be wrought 
 upon by all sorts of crafty schemers, fierce declaimers, 
 empirics, and innovators? Is it not, in short, too 
 probable that, since an increase of mental power is 
 available to bad uses as well as good, the results would 
 greatly preponderate on the side of evil ? 
 
 It would be curious to observe how objections so 
 plausible, so decisive in the esteem of those who ad- 
 vance them, would sound if expressed in other terms. 
 Let them be put in the form of such sentences and 
 propositions as the following : — Though understanding 
 
154? ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 is to be men's guide to right conduct, the less of it they 
 possess the more safe are we against their going wrong. 
 The duty of a human being has many branches ; there 
 are connected with all of them various general and 
 special considerations, to induce and regulate the per- 
 formance ; it must be well for these to be defined with 
 all possible clearness ; and it is also well for the great 
 majority of men to be utterly incapable of apprehending 
 them with any such definiteness. It is desirable that 
 the rule, or set of rules, by which the demeanour of 
 the lower orders toward those above them is to be 
 directed, should appear to them reasonable as well as 
 distinctly defined ; but let us take the greatest care that 
 their reason shall be in no state of fitness to perceive 
 this rectitude of the rules. It would be a noble thing 
 to have a competent understanding of all that belongs 
 to human interest and duty; and therefore the next 
 best thing is to be retained very nearly in ignorance of 
 all. It would be a vast advantage to proceed a hun- 
 dred degrees on the scale of knowledge ; but the ad- 
 vantage is no where in the progress ; each of the degrees 
 is in itself worth nothing ; nay, less than nothing ; for 
 unless a man could attain all, he had better stop at two 
 or one, than advance to four, six, or ten. Truths sup- 
 port one another; by the conjunction of several each 
 is kept the clearer in the understanding, the more effi- 
 cient for its proper use, and the more adequate to resist 
 the pressure of the surrounding ignorance and delusion ; 
 therefore let there be the greatest caution that we do 
 not give to three truths in a man's understanding the 
 aid of a fourth, or four the aid of a fifth ; let the 
 garrison be so diminutive that its successful resistance 
 
 to the siege must be a miracle. The reader will be 
 
 in little danger of excess in shaping into as many 
 forms of absurdity as he pleases a notion which goes 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 155 
 
 to the depreciation of the desire and use of truth, of 
 all that has been venerated as wisdom, of the divine 
 revelation of knowledge, and of our rational nature 
 itself. 
 
 If it be a rational nature that the lower ranks possess 
 as well as the superior, one should have imagined it 
 must be in the highest degree important that they, as 
 well as their superiors, should habitually make their 
 duty and conduct a matter' of thought, of intelligent 
 consideration, instead of going through it mechanically, 
 or with little more than a brute accommodation of what 
 they do to a customary and imposed manner of doing 
 it ; but this thoughtful way of acting will never prevail 
 among them, while they are unexercised in that thinking 
 which (generally speaking) men will never acquire but 
 in the exercise of gaining knowledge. It were, again, 
 better, one would think, that they should be capable of 
 seeing some reason and use in gradations and unequal 
 distributions in the community, than be left to regard 
 it as all a matter of capricious or iniquitous fortune, to 
 their allotment under which there is no reason for sub- 
 mission but a bare necessity. The improvement of 
 understanding by which we are wishing to raise them 
 in this humble allotment, without carrying them from 
 the ground where it is placed, will explain to them the 
 best compensations of their condition, will show them 
 it is no essential degradation, and point them to the 
 true respectability which may be obtained in it. And 
 even if they should be a little too much elated with the 
 supposed attainments, (while the flattering possession 
 is yet new, and far from general in their class,) what 
 taste would it be in their superiors not to deem this 
 itself a far better thing than the contented, or more 
 probably insolent and malignant, grossness of a stupid 
 vulgarity? — as some little excess of self-complacency 
 
156 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 in appearing in a handsome dress is accounted much 
 less disgusting than a careless self-exposure in filth and 
 rags. 
 
 As to their being rendered liable by more knowledge 
 to be caught by declaimers, projectors, and agitators, 
 we may confidently ask, whether it be the natural effect 
 of more knowledge and understanding to be less sus- 
 picious of cajoling professions, less discerning of what 
 is practicable and impracticable, and more credulous to 
 extravagant doctrines, and wild theories and schemes. 
 Is it the well-instructed and intelligent poor man that 
 believes the demagogue who may assert or insinuate that, 
 if things were ordered right, all men might live in the 
 greatest plenty ? Or if we advert to those of the 
 lower order whom a diminutive freehold or other qua- 
 lification may entitle to vote for a member of parlia- 
 ment, is it the well-instructed and intelligent man 
 among them that is duped by the candidate's professions 
 of kind solicitude for him and his family, accompanied 
 with smiling equivocal hints that it may be of more 
 advantage than he is aware for a man who has sons to 
 provide for, to have a friend who has access and 
 interest in a certain high quarter ? Nor is it among 
 the best instructed and most thinking part of the 
 subordinate class, that we shall find persons capable of 
 believing that a community might, if those who govern 
 it so pleased, be rich and prosperous by other means 
 than a general industry in ordinary employments. 
 
 If, again, it is apprehended that a great increase of 
 intelligence among the people would destroy their 
 deference and respectful deportment toward their 
 superiors, the ground of this apprehension should be 
 honestly assigned. If the claim to this respect be 
 definable, and capable of being enforced upon good 
 reasons, it is obvious that improved sense in the people 
 
ON rOrULATl IGNOTIANCE. 157 
 
 will better appreciate them. Especially, if the claim is 
 to owe any part of its validity to higher mental quali- 
 fications in the claimants, it will so far be incomparably 
 better understood, and if it he valid, far more respected 
 than it is now. By having a measure of knowledge, 
 and of the power and practice of thinking, the people 
 would be enabled to form some notion of what it must 
 be, and whpt it is worth, to have a great deal more of 
 these endowments. They would observe and under- 
 stand the indications of this ampler possession in the 
 minds of those above them, and so would be aware of 
 the great disparity between themselves and these supe- 
 riors. And since they would value themselves on their 
 comparatively small share of these mental advantages, 
 (for this is the very point of the objection against their 
 attaining them,) they would be compelled to estimate 
 by the same scale the persons dignified by so far 
 surpassing a share of this admired wealth. Whereas 
 an ignorant populace can understand nothing at all 
 about the matter ; they have no guess at the great dis- 
 parity, nor impression of its importance ; so that with 
 them the cultivated superiors quite lose the weight of 
 this grand difference, and can obtain none of the 
 respect which they may deserve on account of it. The 
 objection against enlightening the lower classes appears 
 so remarkably absurd as viewed in this direction, that 
 it might tempt us to suspect a motive not avowed. It 
 is just the sort of caveat to be uttered by persons aware 
 that themselves, or many of their class, might happen 
 to betray to the sharpened inspection of a more intel- 
 ligent people, that a higher ground in the allotments of 
 fortune is no certain pledge for a superior rank of mind. 
 It were strange, very strange indeed, if persons com- 
 bining with superior station a great mental superiority, 
 should be content, while claiming the deference of the 
 
158 
 
 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 subordinate part of the community around them, that 
 this high distinction should go for nothing in that 
 claim, and that the required respect should be paid only 
 in reverence of the number of their acres, the size of 
 their houses, the elegance of their equipage and domestic 
 arrangements, and perhaps some official capacity, in 
 which many a notorious blockhead has strutted and 
 blustered. 
 
 We think such considerations as the above, opposed 
 to the objection that any very material cultivation of 
 the minds of the common people would destroy their 
 industry in ordinary employments, their contentment 
 with their station, and their respectful demeanour to 
 their superiors ; and would render them arrogant, dis- 
 orderly, factious, liable to be caught by wild notions, 
 misled by declaimers and impostors, and, in short, all 
 the worse for being able to understand their duty and 
 interest the better, ought to go far toward convicting 
 that objection of great folly, — not to apply terms of 
 stronger imputation. 
 
 But we need not have dwelt so long on such argu- 
 ments, since fortunately there is matter of fact in 
 answer to the objection. To the extent of the yet very 
 limited experiment, it is proved that giving the people 
 more knowledge and more sense does not tend to dis- 
 order and insubordination ; does not excite them to 
 impatience and extravagant claims; does not spoil 
 them for the ordinary business of life, the tasks of 
 duty and necessity ; does not make them the dupes of 
 knaves ; nor teach them the most profitable use of their 
 improved faculties is to turn knaves themselves. Em- 
 ployers can testify, from all sides, that there is a 
 striking general difference between those bred up in 
 ignorance and rude vulgarity, and those who have been 
 trained throuo^h the well-ordered schools for the humble 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 159 
 
 classes, especially when the habits at home have been 
 subsidiary ; a difference exceedingly in favour of the 
 latter, who are found not only more apt at understand- 
 ing and executing, but more decorous, more respectful, 
 more attentive to orders, more ready to see and acknow- 
 ledge the propriety of good regulations, and more dis- 
 posed to a practical acquiescence in them; far les3 
 inclined to ebriety and low company ; and more to be 
 depended on in point of honesty. In almost any part 
 of the country, where the experiment has been zealously 
 prosecuted for a moderate number of years, a long 
 resident observer can discern a modification in the 
 character of the neighbourhood ; a mitigation of the 
 former brutality of manners, a less frequency of brawls 
 and quarrels, and less tendency to draw together into 
 ''ude riotous assemblages. There is especially a marked 
 difference on the Sabbath, on which great numbers 
 attend public worship, whose forefathers used on that 
 day to congregate for boisterous sport on the common, 
 or even within the inclosure vainly consecrated round 
 the church;* and who would themselves in all proba- 
 bility have followed the same course, but for the tuition 
 which has led them into a better. In not a few 
 instances, the children have carried from the schools 
 inestimable benefits home to their unhappy families ; 
 winning even their depraved thoughtless parents into 
 consideration and concern about their most important 
 interests, — a precious repayment of all the long toils 
 and cares, endured to support them through the period 
 of childhood, and an example of that rare class of 
 phenomena, in which (as in the instance of the Grecian 
 
 * We know a church where, within the remembrance of an 
 immediate ancestor, it was not unusual, or thought any thing 
 amiss, for the foot-ball to be struck up within the " consecrated 
 ground" at the close of the afternoon service of the Sunday. 
 
16G ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 Daughter) a superlative beauty arises from an inversion 
 of the order of nature. 
 
 Even the frightful statements of the increase, in 
 recent years, of active juvenile depravity, especially in 
 the metropolis, include a gratifying testimony in favour 
 of education — at least did so some years since. The 
 result of special inquiries, of extensive compass, into 
 the wretched history of juvenile reprobates, has fortified 
 the promoters of schools with evidence that it was not 
 from these seminaries that such noxious creatures were 
 to go out, to exemplify that the improvement of intel- 
 ligence may be but the greater aptitude for fraud and 
 mischief. No, it was found to have been in very 
 different places of resort, that these wretches had been, 
 almost from their infancy, accomplished for crime ; and 
 that their training had not taken or needed any assist- 
 ance from an exercise on literary rudiments, from 
 Bibles, catechisms, or religious and moral poetry, or 
 from an attendance on public worship. Indeed, as if 
 Providence had designed that the substantial utility 
 should be accompanied with a special circumstance to 
 confound the cavillers, the children and youth of the 
 schools were found to have been more generally pre- 
 served from falling into the class of premature delin- 
 quents, than a moral calculator, keeping in sight the 
 quality of human nature and the immediate pressure 
 of so much temptation, would have ventured to anti- 
 cipate, upon the moderate estimate of the efiicacy of 
 instruction. 
 
 Experience equally falsifies the notion that know- 
 ledge, imparted to the lower orders, beyond what is 
 necessary to the handling of their tools, tends to factious 
 turbulence ; to an impatience (from the instigation of 
 certain wild theories,) under law and regular govern- 
 ment in society. The maintainers of which notion 
 
ON POPUIAR IGNOBAKCE. IGl 
 
 should also affirm, that the people of Scotland have 
 been to this day about the most disaffected, tumultuary, 
 revolutionary rabble in Europe ; and that the Cornish 
 miners, now so worthily distinguished at once by ex- 
 ercised intellect and religion, are incessantly on the point 
 of insurrection, against their employers or the state. 
 And we shall be just as ready to believe them, if they 
 also assert, that, in those popular irregularities which 
 have too often disturbed, in particular places, the peace 
 of our country, the clamorous bands or crowds, collected 
 for purposes of intimidation or demolition, have con- 
 sisted chiefly of the better instructed part of the poorer 
 inhabitants ; — yes, or that this class furnished one in 
 twenty or fifty of the numbers forming such lawless 
 bands ; even though many of these more instructed of 
 the people might be suffering, with their families, the 
 extremity of want, the craving of hunger, which, no 
 less than " oppression," may " make a wise man mad." 
 Many of these, in their desolate abodes, with tears of 
 parents and children mingled together, have been com- 
 mitting themselves to their Father in heaven, at the 
 time that the ruder part of the population have been 
 carrying alarm, and sometimes mischief, through the 
 district, and so confirming the faith, we may suppose, 
 of sundry magnates of the neighbourhood, who had 
 vehemently asserted, a few years before, the pernicious 
 tendency of educating the people.* 
 
 * What proportion were found to have "been educated, in the 
 very lowest sense of the term, of the burners of ricks and barns in 
 the souih-easteru counties, a few years since ? "What proportion 
 of the ferocious, fanatical, and sanguinary rout who, the other dny^ 
 near the centre of the metropolitan see of Canterbury, were brought 
 into action by the madman Thom, alias Sir W. Courtenay ; stout, 
 well fed, proud Englishmen — Englishmen " the glory of all lands,'"* 
 who were capable of believing that madman a divine personag'^, 
 Christ himself, invulnerable, till the fact happened otherwise, and 
 llieu -were coufidt-nt he would come to life again 2 When will ibe 
 
162 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 It would be less than what is due to suffering huma* 
 nity, to leave this topic without observing, that if a 
 numerous division of the community should be sinking 
 under severe, protracted, unmitigated distress, distress 
 on which there appears to them no dawn of hope from 
 ordinary causes, it is not to be held a disparagement to 
 the value of education, if some of those who have en- 
 joyed a measure of that advantage, in common with a 
 greater number who have not, should become feverishly 
 agitated with imaginations of great sudden changes in 
 the social system ; and be led to entertain suggestions 
 of irregular violent expedients for the removal of in- 
 supportable evils. It must, in all reason, be acknow- 
 ledged the last lesson which education could be expected 
 to teach with practical effect, that one part of the com- 
 munity should be willing to resign themselves to a 
 premature mortality, that the others may live in suf- 
 ficiency and tranquillity. Such heroic devotement 
 might not be difficult in the sublime elation of Ther- 
 mopylce ; but it is a very different matter in a melan- 
 choly cottage, and in the midst of famishing children.* 
 
 After thus referring to matter of fact, for contra- 
 diction of the notion, that the mental cultivation of the 
 lower classes might render them less subject to the rules 
 of good order, we have to say, in further reply, that we 
 are not heard insisting on the advantages of increased 
 knowledge and mental in vigor ation among the people, 
 unconnected with the Inculcation of religion. 
 
 Undoubtedly, the zealous friends of popular education 
 
 Government adopt some effectual means to avert from the nation 
 the infamy of having such a populace in any part of the country, 
 and especially such a part of it ? 
 
 *■ This was almost the desperate condition of numberless families 
 in this country at a period of which they, or the survivors of them, 
 retain in memory an indelible record; and we think it right to 
 retain here also that record. While thankful for all subsequent 
 amendment, we say again, Look at Ireland. 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 163 
 
 account knowledge valuable absolutely, as being the 
 apprehension of things as they are; a prevention of 
 delusion ; and so far a fitness for right volitions. But 
 they consider religion, (besides being itself the primary 
 and infinitely the most important part of knowledge,) 
 as a principle indispensable for securing the full benefit 
 of all the rest. It is desired, and endeavoured, that 
 the understandings of these opening minds may be 
 taken possession of by just and solemn ideas of their 
 relation to the Eternal Almighty Being ; that they may 
 be taught to apprehend it as an awful reality, that they 
 are perpetually under his inspection ; and as a certainty, 
 that they must at length appear before him in judgment, 
 and find, in another life, the consequences of what they 
 are in spirit and conduct here. It is to be impressed 
 on them, that his will is the supreme law; that his de- 
 clarations are the most momentous truth known on 
 earth ; and his favour and condemnation the greatest 
 good and evil. Under an ascendency of this divine 
 wisdom it is, that their discipline in any other know- 
 ledge is designed to be conducted ; so that nothing in 
 the mode of their instruction may have a tendency 
 contrary to it, and everything be taught in a manner 
 recognising the relation with it, as far as shall consist 
 with a natural unforced way of keeping this relation 
 in view. Thus it is sought to be secured that, as the 
 pupil's mind grows stronger and multiplies its resources, 
 and he therefore has necessarily more power and means 
 for what is wrong, there may be luminously presented 
 to him, as if celestial eyes visibly beamed upon him, 
 the most solemn ideas that can enforce what is right. 
 
 Such is the discipline meditated, for preparing the 
 subordinate classes to pursue their individual welfare, 
 and act their part as members of the community.— i 
 
164 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 They are to be trained in early life to diligent employ- 
 ment of their faculties, tending to strengthen them, 
 regulate them, and give their possessors the power of 
 leifectually using them. They are to be exercised to 
 form clear, correct notions, instead of crude, vague, 
 delusive ones. The subjects of these ideas will be, a 
 very considerable number of the most important facts 
 tmd principles ; which are to be presented to their 
 understandings with a patient repetition of efforts to 
 fix them there as knowledge that cannot be forgotten. 
 By this measure of actual acquirement, and by the 
 habit formed in so acquiring, they -will be qualified for 
 making further attainment in future time, if disposed 
 to improve their opportunities. During this progress, 
 and in connexion with many of its exercises, their duty 
 is to be inculcated on them in the various forms in 
 which they will have to make a choice between right 
 and wrong, in their conduct toward society. There wiJl 
 be reiteration of lessons on justice, prudence, inoffen- 
 siveness, love of peace, estrangement from the counsels 
 and leagues of vain and bad men; hatred of disorder and 
 violence, a -sense of the necessity of authoritative public 
 institutions to prevent these evils, and respect for them 
 while honestly administered to this end. All this is 
 to be taught, in many instances directly, in others by 
 reference for confirmation, from the Holy Scriptures, 
 from which authority Avill also be impressed, all the 
 while, the principles of religion. And religion, while 
 its grand concern is with the state of the soul towards 
 God and eternal interests, yet takes every principle and 
 rule of morals under its peremptory sanction ; making 
 the primary obligation and responsibility be towards 
 Ood, of everything that is a duty with respect to men. 
 So that, with the subjects of this education, the sense 
 ^^ropriet^ -shall be conscience; the ^consideration of 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE* 165 
 
 how they ought to be regulated in their conduct as a part 
 of* the community, shall be the recollection that their 
 Master in heaven dictates the laws of that conduct, and 
 will judicially hold them amenable for every part of it. 
 
 And is not a discipline thus addressed to the purpose 
 of fixing religious principles in ascendency, as far as 
 that difficult object is within the power of discipline, and 
 of infusing a salutary tincture of them into whatever 
 else is taught, the right way to bring up citizens faith- 
 ful to all that deserves fidelity in the social compact ? 
 
 But perhaps far less of sacred knowledge than all 
 this pleading admits and assumes to be indispensable 
 to them, will answer the end. For it is but a slender 
 quantity of it that is, in effect, proposed to be imparted 
 to them by those who would give them very little other 
 knowledge. They will talk of giving the people an 
 education specifically religious ; a training to conduct 
 them on through a close avenue, looking straight before 
 them to descry distant spiritual objects, while shut out 
 from all the scene right and left, by fences that tell them 
 there is nothing that concerns them there. There may 
 be rich and beautiful fields of knowledge, but they are 
 not to be trampled by vulgar feet. 
 
 Now, may we presume that by knowledge, or infor- 
 mation, is meant a clear understanding of a subject? 
 If so, it is but little religious information that can be 
 imparted while that of a more general nature is with- 
 held. The case is so, partly because, in order to a clear 
 conception of the principal things in the doctrine of 
 religion, the mind wants facts, principles, associations 
 of ideas, and modes of applying its thoughts, which are 
 to be acquired from the consideration of various other 
 subjects ; and partly because, even though it did not^ 
 and though it wei'e practicable to understand religious 
 truths clearly without the subsidiary ideas, and the 
 
166 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE 
 
 disciplined mental habit acquired in attention to otb^r 
 subjects, it is flatly coyitrary to the radical disposition 
 of hum an, nature that youthful spirits should yield 
 themselves to a bare exclusively religious discipline. 
 It were supposing a reversal of the natural taste and 
 tendency, to expect them to apply their attention so 
 patiently, so willingly, so long, and with such interest, 
 to this one subject, as to be brought to an intelligent 
 apprehension through the almost sole exercise of 
 thinking on this. By thinking on this I — which is the 
 subject on which they are by their very nature the least 
 of all inclined to think ; the subject on which it is the 
 most difficult as well as the most important point in edu- 
 cation to induce them to think ; the subject which, while 
 it is essential to give it the ascendency in the instruction 
 of both the lower classes and all others, it requires so 
 much care and address to present in an attractive light ; 
 and which it is so desirable to combine with other sub- 
 jects naturally more engaging, in order to bring it 
 oftener by such associations into the thoughts, in that 
 secondary manner which causes somewhat less of recoil. 
 It is curious to see what some persons can believe, or 
 affect to believe, when reduced to a dilemma. On the 
 one hand, they cannot endure the idea of any consider- 
 able raising of the common people by mental improve- 
 ment, in the general sense : that were ruin to social 
 order. But then on the other, if it must not be plainly 
 denied, that the said common people are of the very 
 same rational nature as the most elevated divisions of 
 the race ; and that their essential worth must be in this 
 spiritual thinking being, which worth is lost to them, 
 if that being is sunk and degraded in gross ignorance, 
 it follows that some kind of cultivation is required. 
 Well then ; we must give them some religious know- 
 ledge, unaccompanied by such other knowledge as would 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 167 
 
 much more attractively invite them to exercise tlieir 
 minds, and it will he practicable and easy enourjh to 
 engage their habitual attention to that very subject, 
 ahnost exclusively, to which the natural taste of the 
 species is peculiarly averse. 
 
 In exposing the absurdity of any scheme of education 
 for the inferior classes, which should propose to make 
 them intelligent about religion while intelligent about 
 notliing else except their ordinary employments, we do 
 not forget the instances now and then met with of pious 
 poor men who, while very uncultivated in the general 
 sense, evince a remarkable clearness of conception on 
 religious topics, and in the application of these topics 
 to their duties as men and citizens. But "remarkable" 
 we involuntarily call these phenomena whenever advert- 
 ing to them. We naturally use some expression im- 
 porting a degree of wonder at such a fact. We think 
 it a striking illustration of the power of religion itself, 
 and not of the power of religious instruction. The 
 extreme force with which the vital spirit has seized and 
 actuated his faculties, has in a measure remedied the 
 incapacity he had otherwise been under of forming 
 clear ideas of the subject. Even, however, while 
 acknowledging and admiring this effect of a special 
 influence from heaven, we still find ourselves involun- 
 tarily surmising, in such an instance, that the man must 
 also have been superior in natural capacity to the 
 generality of ignorant persons ; so much out of the 
 common course of things we account it for a man who 
 knows so few things to know this one thing so well. 
 We account it so from the settled conviction received 
 through experience, that it is very unlikely a man 
 ignorant of almost all other things should well under- 
 stand one subject, of a nature quite foreign to that of 
 his ordinary occupations. 
 
168 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 It is superfluous to observe, that &uch instances of a 
 very considerable comprehension, of religious truth, 
 obtained in spite of what naturally makes so much 
 against its being attainable, cannot affect the calculation 
 when we are devising schemes which can only work 
 according to natural kws and with ordinary powers. 
 They who devise and apply them will rejoice at these 
 evidences that there is an Agent who can open men's 
 minds to the light of religion independently and in the 
 absence of other intellectual advantages. But the 
 question being how to bring the people, by the ordinary 
 means of education, to a competent knowledge of reli- 
 gious truth, we have to consider what way of attempting 
 to impart that knowledge may be the best fitted, at 
 once to obviate the natural indisposition to the subject, 
 and to provide that when it does obtain a place in their 
 understanding, it shall not be a meagre, diminutive^ 
 insulated occupant there, but in its proper dimensions 
 and relations. And if, in attentively studying this^ 
 there be any who come to ascertain,, that the right 
 expedient is a bare inculcation of religious instruction, 
 disconnected, on system, from the illustrative aid of 
 other knowledge, divested of the modification and 
 attraction of associated ideas derived from subjects less 
 uncongenial with the natural feelings, — they really may 
 take the satisfaction of having ascertained one thing 
 more, namely, that human nature has become at last so 
 mightily changed, that it may be left to work itself 
 right very soon, as to the affair of religion, with little 
 further trouble of theirs. 
 
 • The special view in which we were pleading, on behalf 
 of popular education, that religious instruction would 
 form a material part of it, was, that this essential 
 ingredient would be a security against its being injurious 
 
JO'S POPULAR IGXOnANCE. ICl 
 
 to the good order and subordination in society. It 
 is the more necessary to be particular on this, as some 
 of those who have professed to lay much stress on the 
 religious instruction of the people have seemed to have 
 little further notion of the necessity or use of religion 
 to the lower classes, than as merely a preserver of good 
 order. In this character it has been insisted on by 
 persons who avowed their aversion to every idea 
 of an education in a more enlarged sense. We have 
 heard it so insisted on, no such long while past, by 
 members of the most learned institutions, at the same 
 moment that they expressed more than a doubt of the 
 prudence of enabling the common people to read, 
 literally to read, the Bible. But assuredly the good 
 order of a populace left in the stupid general ignorance 
 to which some of these good friends of theirs would 
 have doomed them, cannot be preserved by any such 
 feeble infusion of religious knowledge as these same 
 good friends would instil into their mental grossness. 
 As long as they are in this condition, there must be 
 some far stronger power acting on them to preserve 
 that good order. And if there actually has been such 
 a power, hitherto competent to preserve it, with only 
 such an impotent scantling of religious knowledge in 
 the majority of the mass, and competent still to preserve 
 it, a great deal of hypocritical canting might have been 
 spared, on the part of those whose chief or only argu- 
 ment for teaching the people religion is the maintenance 
 of that good order. 
 
 But all this while we are forgetting to inquire how- 
 much is to be understood as included in that good 
 order, that deference and subordination, which the 
 possession of more mind and knowledge by the people 
 might disturb or destroy. May not the notion of it, as 
 entertained by some persons, be rather an image of the 
 
168 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 It is superfluous to observe, that &uch instances of a 
 very considerable comprehension, of religious truth, 
 obtained in spite of what naturally makes so much 
 against its being attainable, cannot affect the calculation 
 when we are devising schemes which can only work 
 according to natural laws and with ordinary powers. 
 They who devise and apply them will rejoice at these 
 evidences that there is an Agent who can open men's 
 minds to the light of religion independently and in the 
 absence of other intellectual advantages. But the 
 question being how to bring the people, by the ordinary 
 means of education, to a competent knowledge of reli- 
 gious truth, we have to consider what way of attempting 
 to impart that knowledge may be the best fitted, at 
 once to obviate the natural indisposition to the subject, 
 and to provide that when it does obtain a place in their 
 understanding, it shall not be a meagre, diminutive, 
 insulated occupant there, but in its proper dimensions 
 and relations. And if, in attentively studying this> 
 there be any who come to ascertain,, that the right 
 expedient is a bare inculcation of religious instruction, 
 disconnected, on system, from the illustrative aid of 
 other knowledge, divested of the modification and 
 attraction of associated ideas derived from subjects less 
 uncongenial with the natural feelings, — they really may 
 take the satisfaction of having ascertained one thing 
 more, namely, that human nature has become at last so 
 mightily changed, that it may be left to work itself 
 right very soon, as to the affair of religion, with little 
 further trouble of theirs. 
 
 • The special view in which we were pleading, on behalf 
 of popular education, that religious instruction would 
 form a material part of it, was, that this essential 
 ingredient would be a security against its being injurious 
 
JO'S POPULAR iG>:onA:>'CK. tGD 
 
 to the good order nnd subordination in society. It 
 is the more necessary to be particular on this, as some 
 of those who have professed to lay much stress on the 
 religious instruction of the people have seemed to have 
 little further notion of the necessity or use of religion 
 to the lower classes, than as merely a preserver of good 
 order. In this character it has been insisted on by 
 persons who avowed their aversion to every idea 
 of an education in a more enlarged sense. We have 
 heard it so insisted on, no such long while past, by 
 members of the most learned institutions, at the same 
 moment that they expressed more than a doubt of the 
 prudence of enabling the common people to read, 
 literally to read, the Bible. But assuredly the good 
 order of a populace left in the stupid general ignorance 
 to which some of these good friends of theirs would 
 have doomed them, cannot be preserved by any such 
 feeble infusion of religious knowledge as these same 
 good friends would instil into their mental grossness^. 
 As long as they are in this condition, there must be 
 some far stronger power acting on them to preserve 
 that good order. And if there actually has been such 
 a power, hitherto competent to preserve it, with only 
 such an impotent scantling of religious knowledge in 
 the majority of the mass, and competent still to preserve 
 it, a great deal of hypocritical canting might have been 
 spared, on the part of those whose chief or only argu- 
 ment for teaching the people religion is the maintenance 
 of that good order. 
 
 But all this while we are forgetting to inquire how 
 much is to be understood as included in that good 
 order, that deference and subordination, which the 
 possession of more mind and knowledge by the people 
 might disturb or destroy. May not the notion of it, as 
 entertained by some persons, be rather an image of the 
 
wo ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 polity of an age long past, or of that which remains 
 unaltered as if it were a part of eternal nature in the 
 dominions of the East, than a model for the confor- 
 mation of society here in the present times? Is it 
 required, that there should be a sentiment of obse- 
 quiousness in the people affecting them in a manner 
 like the instinct by which a lower order of animals is in 
 awe of a higher, by which the common tribe of beasts 
 would cower at the sight of lions ? Or, is the defer- 
 ence expected to be paid, not on any understanding of 
 reciprocal advantage, but absolutely and uncondition- 
 ally, as to a claim founded in abstract or divine right ? 
 Is it to be held a criminal presumption in the people, 
 to think of examining their relations tc the community 
 any further than the obligation of being industrious in 
 the employments to which it assigns them, and dutiful 
 to its higher orders? Are they to entertain no question 
 respecting the right adjustment of their condition in 
 the arrangements of the great social body ? Are they 
 forbidden ever to admit a single doubt of its being 
 quite a matter of course, that every thing which could 
 be done for the interests of their class, consistently 
 with the welfare of the whole, is done ; or, therefore, 
 to pretend to any such right as that of examining, re- 
 presenting, complaining, remonstrating, or an ultimate 
 recourse, perhaps, in a severe necessity, to stronger 
 expedients ? 
 
 A subordination founded in such principles, and 
 required to such a degree, it is true enough that the 
 communication of knowledge is not the way to perpe- 
 tuate. For the first use which men will infallibly 
 make of an enlargement of their faculties and ideas, 
 will be, to take a larger view of their interests; and 
 they may happen, as soon as they do so, to think they 
 discover that it was quite time ; and the longer they do 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 171 
 
 SO, to retain still less and less of implicit faitli that 
 those interests will be done justice to, without their 
 own vigilance and intervention. An educated people 
 must be very slow indeed in the application of what 
 they learn, if they do not soon grow out of all belief in 
 the necessary wisdom and rectitude of any order of 
 human creatures whatever. They will see how un- 
 reasonable it were to expect, that any sort of men will 
 fail in fidelity to the great natural principle, of making 
 their own advantage the first object; and therefore 
 they will not be apt to listen, with the gravity which in 
 other times and regions may have been shown in listen- 
 ing, to injunctions of gratitude for the willingness 
 evinced by the higher orders to take on them the trouble 
 of watching and guarding the people's welfare, by keep- 
 ing them in due submission. 
 
 But neither will it necessarily be in the spirit of 
 hostility, in the worst sense of the word, that a more 
 instructed people will thus show a diminished credulity 
 of reverence toward the predominant ranks in the 
 social economy ; and will keep in habitual exercise 
 upon them a somewhat suspicious observation, and a 
 j udicial estimate ; with an honest freedom in sometimes 
 avowing disapprobation, and strongly asserting any 
 right which is believed to be endangered or withheld. . 
 This will only be expressing that, since all classes 
 naturally consult by preference their own interests, it 
 is plainly unfit, that one portion of the community 
 should be trusted with an unlimited discretion in order- 
 ing what affects the welfare of the others ; and that, in 
 all prudence, the people must refuse an entire affiance, 
 and unconditional, unexamining acquiescence; "except 
 the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh," would come 
 to harmonize, and then administer, interests which are 
 so placed unappeasably at strife : — at strife ; for, what 
 
172 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 is SO often asserted of those interests being in reality 
 the same, is true only on that comprehensive theory 
 which neither party is prompt to understand, or willing 
 to make sacrifices of a more immediate self-interest to 
 realize ; and it is evidently impossible for either, even 
 if believing it true, to concede to the other the exclu- 
 clusive adjustment of the practical mode of identifi- 
 cation* 
 
 But only let the utmost that is possible be done, to 
 train the people, from their early years, to a sound use 
 of their reason, under a discipline for imparting a valu- 
 able portion of knowledge, and assiduously inculcating 
 the principles of social duty and of religion ; and then 
 something may be said, to good purpose, to their un- 
 derstanding and conscience, while they are maintaining 
 the competition of claims with their superiors. They 
 will then be capable of seeing put in a fair balance, 
 many things which headlong ignorance would have 
 taken all one way. They will be able to appreciate 
 many explanations, alleged causes of delay, statements 
 of difficulty between opposing reasons, which would 
 be thrown away on an ignorant populace. And it 
 would be an inducement to their making a real exertion 
 of the understanding, that they thus found themselves 
 60 formally put upon their i-esponsibility for its exer- 
 cise; that they were summoned to a rational discussion, 
 instead of being addressed in the style of Pharaoh U> 
 the Israelites. The strife of interests would thus come 
 to be carried on with less fierceness and malice, in the 
 spirit and manner, on the part of the people. And the 
 ground itself of the contention, the substance of the 
 matters in contest, would be gradually diminished, by 
 the concessions of the higher classes to the claims of 
 the lower : for there is no affecting to dissemble, that a 
 great mental and moml improvement of the people 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 173 
 
 would necessitate, though there were not a single 
 movement of rude force in the case, important con- 
 cessions to them, on the part of the superior orders. 
 A people advanced to such a state, would make its 
 moral power felt in a thousand ways, and every mo- 
 ment. This general augmentation of sense and right 
 principle would send forth, against all arrangements 
 and inveterate or more modern usages, of the nature 
 of invidious exclusion, arbitrary repression, and the 
 debasement of great public interests into a detestable 
 private traffic, an energy, which could no more be 
 resisted than the power of the sun, when he advances 
 in the spring to annihilate the relics and vestiges of 
 the winter. This plastic influence would modify the 
 institutions of the national community, to a state better 
 adapted to secure all the popular rights; and to convey 
 the genuine, collective opinion, to bear directly on the 
 counsel and transaction of national concerns^ That 
 opinion would be so unequivocally manifested, as to 
 leave no pretence for a doubtful interpretation of its 
 signs ; and with such authority as to preclude any 
 question whether to set it at defiance. 
 
 That such effects would be inseparable from a great 
 general advancement of the people in knowledge and 
 corrected character, must be freely acknowledged to its 
 disapprovers. And is it because these would be the 
 consequences, that they disapprove it ? Then let them 
 say, what it is that they would expect from an opposite 
 system. What is it, that they could seriously promise 
 themselves, from the conservative virtue of all the 
 ignorance, that can henceforward be retained among 
 the people of this part of the world ? It is true, the 
 remaining ignorance is so great that they cannot well 
 overrate its general amount ; but how can they fail to 
 |>erceive the importamM3 of those particulars m wliicli 
 
174 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 its dominion has been broken up ? There is indeed a 
 hemisphere of "gross darkness over the people;" it 
 may be possible to withhold from it long the illumina- 
 tion of the sun ; but in the mean time it has been rent 
 by portentous lights and flashes, which have excited a 
 thought and agitation not to be stilled by the continu- 
 ance of the gloom. There have come in on the popular 
 mind some ideas, which the wisest of those who dread 
 or hate their effect there, look around in vain for the 
 means of expelling. And these glimpses of partial 
 intelligence, these lights of dubious and possibly de- 
 structive direction amidst the night, will continue to 
 prompt and lead that mind, with a hazard which can 
 cease only with the opening upon it of the true daylighi, 
 of knowledge. That knowledge should have been 
 antecedent to the falling of these inflammatory ideas 
 among the people ; and if they have come before the 
 proper time, that is to say, before the people were 
 prepared to judge rationally of their rights, and to 
 apprehend clearly the duties inseparable from them 
 as a condition of their enjoyment, the calamitous 
 consequences to the higher classes, as seen in the 
 recent history of Europe, may be regarded as a right- 
 eous judgment of heaven upon them, for having suf- 
 fered it to be possible for these new ideas of liberty 
 and rights to come on the people in a state so unpre- 
 pared. What were all their commanding authorities 
 of government, their splendid ecclesiastical establish- 
 ments, their great personal wealth and influence, — 
 all their lofty powers and distinctions which even their 
 basest sycophants, sacerdotal or poetical, told them, as 
 one topic of adulation, that they were not entrusted with 
 for their own sole gratification, — what were all these 
 for, if the great body of the communities over which 
 they presided were to be retained in a state in which 
 
OK POPULAR IGNORANCE. 175 
 
 they could not be touched by a few bold speculations 
 in favour of popular rights, without exploding as with 
 infernal fire ? How appropriate a retribution of Sove- 
 reign Justice, that those who were wickedly the cause 
 should be the victims of the effect. 
 
 Where such a consequence has not followed, but 
 where, nevertheless, these notions of popular rights 
 have come into the minds of the people very much in 
 precedence and disproportion to the general cultivation 
 of their intelligence and moral sense, it is most impor- 
 tant that all diligence should be given to bring up these 
 neglected improvements to stand in rank with those too 
 forward speculations. 
 
 Whether this shall be done or not, these notions and 
 feelings are not things come into life without an instinct 
 of what they have to do. The disapprovcrs of schemes 
 for throwing the greatest practicable measure of sound 
 corrective knowledge into the minds of the multitude, 
 may take instruction or may decline it from seeing that, 
 both in this country and other states of Europe, there 
 has gone forth among the mass of the people a spirit of 
 revolt from the obligation, which would retain their 
 reverence to institutions on the strength simply of their 
 being established or being ancient; a spirit that re-acts, 
 with deep and settled antipathy, against some of the 
 arrangements and claims of the order into which the 
 national community has been disposed by institutions 
 and the course of events; a spirit which regards some 
 of the appointments and requirements of that order, as 
 little better than adaptations of the system to the will 
 and gratification of the more fortunate divisions of the 
 species. And it has shown itself in a very different 
 character from that of a mere pining despondency, or 
 the impotent resentment excited sometimes in timidity 
 itself by severe grievance, but quelled by alarm at its 
 
176 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 own rashness. The element and the temperament of 
 its nature, and the force of its action, have been dis- 
 played in the tremendous concussions attending its con- 
 flict with the power arrayed in behalf of the old order 
 of things to crush it. And is this spirit crushed? Is 
 it subdued? Is it in the least degree reduced? — reduced, 
 we mean, in its internal power, as a combination of the 
 most absolute opinion with the impulse of some of the 
 strongest passions. 
 
 Is it, w^e repeat, repressed ? There may have been 
 persons who could not, " good easy men," conceive a 
 possibility of its surviving the fiery storm of the whole 
 resources of the world converted into the materials of 
 war, to be poured on it, and followed by the mightiest 
 leagues and the most systematic legislation, all aimed 
 at its destruction; surviving to come forth with un- 
 abated vigour at the opportune junctures in the future 
 progress of events; like some great serpent, coming out 
 again to glare on the sight, with his appalling glance 
 and length of volume, after a volley of missiles had sent 
 him to his retreat. The old approved expedients against 
 unreasonable discontents, and refractory tempers, and 
 local movements of hostility excited by some worthless 
 competitor for power, had been combined and applied on 
 the grand scale; and henceforward all was to be still. It 
 was not giv^n to these spell-bound understandings to 
 apprehend that the spirit to be repressed might be of a 
 nature impassive to these expedients, possibly to be con- 
 firmed by their application. Repressed! What is it that 
 is manifesting itself in the most remarkable events in the 
 old, and what has been called the new world, at the present 
 time? And what are the measures of several of the great 
 state authorities of Europe, whether adopted in delibe- 
 rate policy, or in a fitful mood between rashness and dis- 
 may.; what are, especially, the meetings^ conferences, and 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 177 
 
 military preparations, of the mightiest despots ol' the 
 globe, assembled at this very hour against a small and 
 unoffending nation,* — what are these but a confession 
 or proclamation, that the spirit which the most enor- 
 mous exertions had been made to overwhelm, has pre- 
 served its life and energy; like those warring immortal 
 powers whom Milton describes as having mountains 
 thrown on them in vain? The progress of time renders 
 it but more evident, that the principle in action is some- 
 thing far different from a superficial transient irritation; 
 that it has gone the whole depth of the mind; has pos- 
 sessed itself of the very judgment and conscience of 
 an innumerable legion, augmented by a continual and 
 endless accession. No doubt is permitted to remain of 
 the direction which has been taken by the current of 
 the popular feeling, — to be recovered to its ancient ob- 
 sequious course when some great river which has forced 
 a new channel shall resume that which it has abandoned. 
 For when once the great mass, of the lower and im- 
 mensely larger division of the community, shall have 
 become filled with an absolute, and almost unanimous 
 conviction, that they, the grand physical agency of that 
 community ; that they, the operators, the producers, the 
 preparers, of almost all it most essentially wants; that 
 they, the part, therefore, of the social assemblage so 
 obviously the most essential to its existence, and on 
 which all the rest must depend; that they have their 
 condition in the great social arrangement so disposed as 
 not to acknowledge this their importance, as not to 
 secure an adequate reward of these their services; — we 
 say, when this shall have become the pervading intense 
 conviction of the millions of Europe, we put it as a 
 
 * The meeting of imperial and royal personages at Troppau and 
 Laybach, for the detestahle purpose of crushing the newly acquired 
 liberty of the kingdom of Naples. — January, 1821. 
 
178 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 question to any rational thinker, whether and how this 
 state of feeling can be reversed or neutralized, if the 
 economy which has provoked it shall yield to no modi- 
 fication. But it is no question, he will confess. Then 
 will he pretend not to foresee any material change in 
 an order of things obnoxious to so vast a combination 
 of wills and agents ? This may indeed be seriously 
 avowed by some, who are so walled up in old prejudice 
 and presumption that they really have no look out; who, 
 because a thing has been long established, mistake its 
 artificial substruction of crumbling materials for the 
 natural rock ; and it will be pretended by others, who 
 think the bravado of asserting the impossibility of the 
 overthrow may be a good policy for deterring the at- 
 tempt. There has not been one of the great alterations 
 effected by the popular spirit within the last half cen- 
 tury, that was not preceded by professions of contemp- 
 tuous incredulity, on the part of the applauders of 
 things as they were, toward those who calculated on the 
 effects of that spirit. There were occasionally betrayed, 
 under these shows of confidence and contempt, some 
 signs of horror at the undeniable excitement and pro- 
 gress of popular feeling; but the scorn of all serious 
 and monitory predictions of its ultimate result was at 
 all events to be kept up, — in whatever proportions a 
 time-serving interest and an honest fatuity might share 
 in dictating this elated and contemptuous style. Should 
 the latter of these ingredients at present predominate 
 in the temper which throws off the fume of this high 
 style, it will not leave much faculty in the defiers of all 
 revolution, for explaining what it is they have to trust 
 to as security against such consequences as we should 
 anticipate from the progress of disapprobation and 
 ^version in the people; unless indeed the security mainly 
 relied on is just that plain simple expedient — force, for 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 179 
 
 all nations on earth downright force. It is plainly this 
 that is meant, when persons disinclined to speak out 
 give us a circumlocution of delicate phrases, " the con- 
 servative energies of the public institutions," " the 
 majesty of the Law,'* perhaps, and others of similar 
 cast ; — which fine phrases suggest to one*s imagination 
 the ornamented fashion of the handle and sheath of the 
 scimitar, which is not the less keen, nor the less ready 
 to be drawn, for all this finery that hides and garnishes 
 so menacing a symbol of power. 
 
 The economy of states shall not be modified in favour 
 of the great body of those who constitute them. — And 
 are, then, the higher and privileged portions of the 
 national communities to have, henceforward, just this 
 one grand object of their existence, this chief employ- 
 ment for their knowledge, means, and power, namely, 
 to keep down the lower orders of their fellow-citizens 
 by stress of coercion? Are they resolved and prepared 
 for a rancorous, interminable, hostility in prosecution 
 of such a benign purpose; with a continual exhaustion 
 upon it of the resources which might be applied to 
 diminish that wretchedness of the people, which is the 
 grand inflamer of those principles that have caused an 
 earthquake under the foundations of the old social sys- 
 tems? But, " interminable" is no proper epithet to be 
 applied to such a course. This policy of a bare un- 
 compromising rigour, exerted to keep the people just 
 where they are, in preference to adjustments formed on 
 a calculation of a material change, and adapted to pre- 
 pare them for it how long could it be successful, — 
 
 not to ask what would be the value or the glory of that 
 success? With the light of recent history to aid the 
 prognostication, by what superstitious mode of estima- 
 ting the self-preserving, and self-avenging competence 
 of any artificial form of social order, can we believe in 
 
180 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 its power to throw back the general opinions, determi^ 
 nations, and efforts, of the mass of mankind in endless re- 
 coil on themselves? That must be a very firm structure, 
 must be of gigantic mass or most excellent basis and 
 conformation, against which the ocean shall unremit- 
 tingly wear and foam in vain. And it does not appear 
 what there can be of such impregnable consistence in 
 any particular construction of the social economy which 
 is, by the supposition, resolved to be maintained in 
 sovereign immutability, in permanent frustration of the 
 persevering, ever-growing, aim and impulse of the great 
 majority, pressing on to achieve important innovations 
 in their favour; innovations in those systems of institu- 
 tion and usage, under which they will never cease to 
 think they have had far less happiness, or means of 
 happiness, than they ought to have had. We cannot 
 see how this impulse can be so repelled or diverted that 
 it shall not prevail at length, to the effect of either 
 bearing down, or wearing away, a portion of the order 
 of things which the ascendant classes in every part of 
 Europe would have fondly wished to maintain in per- 
 petuity, without one particle of surrender. 
 
 But though they cannot preserve its entireness, the 
 manner in which it shall yield to modification is in a 
 great measure at their command. And here is the im- 
 portant point on which all these observations are meant 
 to bear. If a movement has really begun in the general 
 popular mind of the nations, and if the principle of it is 
 growing and insuppressible, so that it must in one 
 manner or another ultimately prevail, what will the 
 state be of any national community where it shall be an 
 unenlightened, half-barbarous people that so prevails? — 
 a people no better informed, perhaps, than to believe 
 that all the hard.>hip and distress endured by themselves 
 and their forefathers were wrongs, which they sufiered 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 181 
 
 from the higlier orders; than to ascribt^ to bad govern- 
 ment, and the rapacity and selfishness of the rich, the 
 very evils caused by inclement seasons ; and than to 
 assume it as beyond question, that the whole accumu- 
 lation of their resentments, brought out into action at 
 last, is only justice demanding and inflicting a retri- 
 bution. 
 
 In such an event, what would not the superior orders 
 be glad to give and forego, in compromise with princi- 
 ples, tempers, and demands, which they will know they 
 should never have had to encounter, to the end of time, 
 if, instead of spending their vast advantages on merely 
 their own state and indulgence, they had applied them 
 in a mode of operation and influence tending to improve, 
 in every way, the situation and character of the people? 
 It is true, that such a wild triumph of overpowering 
 violence would necessarily be short. A blind turbulent 
 monster of popular power never can for a long time 
 maintain the domination of a political community. It 
 would rage and riot itself out of breath and strength, 
 succumb under some strong coercion of its own creating, 
 and lie subject and stupified, till its spirit should be 
 recovered and incensed for new commotion. But this 
 impossibility of a very prolonged reign of confusion, 
 would be little consolation for the classes against whose 
 privileged condition the first tremendous eruption should 
 have driven. It would not much cheer a man who 
 should see his abode carried away, and his fields and 
 plantations devastated, to tell him that the agent of this 
 ruin was only a transient mountain torrent. A short 
 prevalence of the overturning force would have sufficed 
 for the subversion of the proudest, longest established 
 state of privilege; and most improbable would it be, 
 that those who lost it in llie tumult, would find the new 
 authority, of whatever shape x)r name it were, that would 
 
182 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 arise as that tumult subsided, either able or disposed to 
 restore it. They might perhaps, (on a favourable sup- 
 position,) survive in personal safety, but in humiliated 
 fortunes, to ruminate on their manner of occupying, 
 their former elevated situation, and of employing its 
 ample means of power, a due share of which, exerted 
 for the improvement of the general condition, both 
 intellectual and civil, with an accompanying liberal yet 
 gradual concession of privileges to the people, would 
 have prevented the catastrophe. 
 
 Let us urge then, that a zealous endeavour to render 
 it absolutely impossible that, in any change whatever, 
 the destinies of a nation should fall under the power of 
 an ignorant infuriated multitude, may take place of the 
 presumption that there is no great change to be ever 
 effected by the progressive and conscious importance 
 of the people; a presumption than which nothing can 
 appear more like infatuation, when we look at the recent 
 scenes and present temperament of the moral world. 
 Lay hold on the myriads of juvenile spirits, before they 
 have time to grow up through ignorance into a reckless 
 hostility to social order ; train them to sense and good 
 morals; inculcate the principles of religion, simply and 
 solemnly as religion, as a thing directly of divine dicta- 
 tion, and not as if its authority were chiefly in virtue of 
 human institutions ; let the higher orders generally 
 make it evident to the multitude that they are desirous 
 to raise them in value, and promote their happiness ; 
 and then whatever the demands of the people as a body, 
 thus improving in understanding and the sense of jus- 
 tice, shall come to be, and whatever modification their 
 preponderance may ultimately enforce on the great 
 social arrangements, it will be infallibly certain that 
 there never can be a love of disorder, an insolent 
 anarchy, a prevailing spirit of revenge and devastation. 
 
. ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 183 
 
 Such a conduct of the ascendant ranks would, in this 
 nation at least, secure that, as long as the world lasts, 
 there never would be any formidable commotion, or 
 violent sudden changes. All those modifications of the 
 national economy to which an improving people would 
 aspire and would deserve to obtain, would be gradually 
 accomplished, in a manner by which no party would be 
 wronged, and all would be the happier.* 
 
 *The considerations in the latter part of this section (so plainly 
 on the surface of the subject that they would occur to any thought- 
 ful and observant man) have been verified in part by the course of 
 events in our country, since the time they were written. At that 
 time the superior, and till then irresistibly and invariably predomi- 
 nant, portion of the community, felt themselves in perfect security 
 against any comprehensive and radical change within the ensuing 
 twelve or fourteen years. There might indeed be one or two sub- 
 ordinate matters in the established national system in which they 
 might deem it not unlikely that the advocates and labourers for 
 innovation would be successful ; but such an amount of innovation 
 did not come within the view of even a feverish dream. Any man 
 who should have predicted, especially, the recent greatest achieve- 
 ment against the inveterate system,* would have been laughed at 
 as an incorrigible visionary ; so proudly confident were they that 
 the structure would be kept compact and impregnable in all its 
 essential parts, by the cement of ancient institution, national vene- 
 ration, opulence, and the inherence of actual power, possessed from 
 generation to generation. 
 
 In the next place, they were obstinately resolute against all ma- 
 terial concessions. When at intervals the complaints, claims, and 
 remonstrances of the people sought to be heard, they treated them 
 as unreasonable, absurd, factious ; and asserted that none of the 
 good sense and right feeling of the nation went that way. They 
 declared that the existing order of things was on the whole so su- 
 perlatively excellent that, if there were, perhaps, any trifling defects, 
 it were far better to let them alone than to presume to touch with 
 an innovating hand the integrity of so noble a system, the admira- 
 tion and envy of all the world. As it was, it had " worked well " 
 for our happiness and glory ; and who could say, if a tampering of 
 alteration were once suffered to begin, where it might end? Order 
 the people to be quiet; let their factious demands and seditious 
 movements be promptly and firmly repressed by authority; and 
 they would sink into insignificance and silence. To think of such 
 ft thing as condescending to conciliate by moderate concessions 
 
 • The Reform BUU 
 
184 ON POPULAR lONORANCB. 
 
 would be weakness, and mi^ht eventually bring a hazard which 
 otherwise could have no existence. 
 
 And now for the consequence: the popular spirit, thus set at 
 nought in present account and in calculation for the future, was 
 discouraged from active outward manifestation, by the inveterate, 
 perfectly organized, and, for the present, resistless domination. 
 But under the pressure of wide- spread and unabating grievance, 
 which quickened and envenomed every sentiment previously enter- 
 tained regarding the rights and wrongs of the people, it was gradu- 
 ally acquiring, throughout the country, a more determinate sense 
 ol being absolved from all submissive respect toward the ascendant 
 party, a more entire conviction of its right to vindicate its claims 
 in any manner that should become practicable, and a hostility, but 
 the more deep and intense for its being kept under by despondency 
 of present success, against those who were rejecting and contemp- 
 tuously defying those claims. It wanted, then, only some occur- 
 rence that should present a possibility and a hope of success to 
 burst out in sudden ardour. It was thus in collective power and 
 readiness for action, when several events of prodigious excitement 
 came close together; and then, like a stream in one of the Swiss 
 valleys, dammed up by a mound of earth or ice fallen across, to a 
 lake, deepening without noise till its vast weight breaks away the 
 obstruction with a tremendous tumult, the popular will bore down 
 the aristocratic embankment, consolidated through so many years 
 or ages. The overpowered party found the consequence of their 
 obstinate and entire resistance ; and had to reflect with unmixed 
 mortification how much less than they had lost, and without miti- 
 gating by the loss the hostile feeling of those who had taken it from 
 them, would have been received with gratitude if yielded in the way 
 of gradual voluntary concession. Happily the change was not left 
 to be accomplished by physical force, as all such changes must be 
 in purely despotic states ; but the people fully believe that they 
 chiefly owe the forced surrender to the alarm which their demon- 
 strations excited lest they should bring the question ere long to 
 that arbitreu.ent. 
 
 But in the last place, there is a deplorable circumstance, attend- 
 ing this sudden rising of the popular spirit into power, and which 
 throws a strong light on the criminal infatuation of a State that 
 suffers the commonalty of its citizens to remain grossly unculti- 
 vated and uncivilized — perhaps even fancies it sees in that ignorance 
 a main security for its own stability. The fact is, that the people 
 have acquired their power and privileges, before they are (speaking 
 as to many of them) qualified for a wise and useful exercise of them. 
 A large proportion of those who are now brought into what may be 
 called political existence have grown up so destitute of all means 
 and habits for a right use of their minds, that their notions, wishes, 
 expectations, and determinations, respecting public interests, will 
 exemplify any thing rather than a competent judgment. And the 
 proportion so raised is but perhaps a minor part of the multitude 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE, 185 
 
 in which the popular spirit is embodied and vehemently excited. 
 Great nunibeis on a lower level, and having no formal political 
 capacity to act in, are nevertheless pervaded by a spirit which will 
 bring the rude impulse of mass and combination into the movement 
 . of the popular will. 
 
 If alarmed at such a view, will not they who have so long held 
 the sovereign control over the national economy feel the bitterest 
 regret that it had not been given them to obviate the possible dan- 
 gers 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 from their ignorance and 
 barbarism, instead of trusting 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 named in the dialect of some of them,) after lying prone, and 
 inert, and submissive, from time immemorial, should at last become 
 instinct with spirit, and rise up roaring in defiance of their power. 
 
 It is now for them to consider whether, by maintaining a temper 
 and attitude of sullen, vindictive, pugnacious alienation from the 
 people, they shall wilfully aggravate whatever injurious consequences 
 may be threatened by so sudden a revolution; or endeavour to in- 
 tercept them by giving their best assistance to every plan and ex- 
 pedient for rescuing the lower orders from the curse and calamity 
 of ignorance 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 mortal chagrin at the acquisition by the people of a new 
 political rank, an event by which they, (the ascendant class) had 
 for a while appeared amazed and stunned, has soon recovered to a 
 prodigious 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 power ; with the utmost recklessness of 
 equity, honour, and even humanity ; deluding the ignorant, cor- 
 rupting the venal, and intimidating and punishing the conscientious: 
 insomuch that the nominally conceded right or privilege is practi- 
 cally reduced to an inconsiderable proportion of its pre-estimated 
 worth ; while aristocratic tyranny has rendered it to many of the 
 most deserving to 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 ihe anti-popular party saw 
 it advantageous also to their own interests. But for the general 
 course of their policy, we have witnessed a systematic determination 
 
186 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 to frustrate measures framed in recognition 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 some useless, 
 ^audy, barbaric pageant of one day. — It is evident the predominant 
 portion of the higher 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 comprehensive legislation on the 
 subject is found or apprehended in the repugnance of those classes 
 to any liberal scheme : any scheme that, aiming simply at the 
 general good, should boldly set aside invidious restrictions and a 
 jealous parsimonious limitation ; a scheme that should not work in 
 subjection to the mean self-interest of this party or that, but for the 
 one grand purpose of raising millions from degradation into rational 
 • existence. 
 
187 
 
 SECTION Y. 
 
 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 most important 
 concern of all, Religion. This has been briefly adverted 
 to in a former part of these descriptive observations. 
 But the subject seems to merit a more amplified illus- 
 tration, and may be of sufficient interest to excuse 
 some appearance of repetition. The special view in 
 which we wish to place it, is that of the inaptitude of 
 uncultivated minds for receiving religious instruction. 
 — But first, a slight estimate may be attempted of the 
 actual state of religious notions among our uneducated 
 population. 
 
 Some notion of such a concern, something different 
 in their consciousness from the absolute negation 
 of the idea, something that faintly responds to the 
 terms which would be used by a person conversing 
 with them, in the way of questioning them on the sub- 
 ject, may be presumed to exist in the minds of all who 
 are advanced a considerable way into youth, or come to 
 mature age, in a country where all are familiar with 
 several of the principal terms of theology, and have 
 the monitory spectacle of edifices for religious use, on 
 spots appointed also for the interment of the dead. If 
 this sort of measured caution in the assumption seem 
 bordering on the ridiculous, we would recommend those 
 
188 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 who would smile at it to make some little experiments. 
 Let them insinuate themselves into the company of 
 some of the innumerable rustics who have grown up 
 destitute of every thing worth calling education ; or of 
 the equally ill-fated beings in the alleys, precincts, and 
 lower employments of towns. With due management 
 to avoid the abruptness and judicial formality, which 
 would preclude a communicative disposition, they might 
 take occasion to introduce remarks tending, without 
 the express form of questions in the first instance, to 
 draw out the thoughts of some of these persons respect- 
 ing God, Jesus Christ, the human soul, the invisible 
 world. And the answers would often put them to a 
 stand to conceive, under what suspension of the laws 
 of rational existence the utterers could have been pass- 
 ing so many years in the world. These answers might 
 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 become decently apprised of a few first principles 
 of religion; that this could not have failed to be the 
 case in what was expressly constituted a great christian 
 community, with an obligation upon it, that none of its 
 members should be left destitute of the most essential 
 requisite to their well-being. This agreeable 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 
 community, as if they had been the aboriginal rovers 
 of the American forests, or natives of unvisited coral- 
 built spots in the ocean. 
 
 If these examiners were to prosecute the investigation 
 widely, and with an effect on their sentiments corre- 
 spondent to the enlarging disclosure of facts, they 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 189 
 
 would find themselves fallen into a very altered esti- 
 mate of this our christian tract of the earth. A fancied 
 sunshine, spread over it before, would have faded away. 
 From appearing to them, according to an accustomed 
 notion, peculiarly auspicious, as if almost by some 
 virtue of its climate, to the growth of religious intel- 
 ligence in the minds of the people, it might come to be 
 regarded as favourable to the development of all things 
 rather than that. Plants and trees, the diversity of 
 animal forms and powers, the human frame, the features 
 enlarging or enlarged to manhood in the younger 
 persons looked at by the supposed examiner while 
 answering his questions, with their passions also, and 
 prevailing dispositions, — see how all things can unfold 
 themselves in our territory, and grow and enlarge to 
 their completeness, — except the ideas of the human 
 soul relating to the Almighty, and to the grand pur- 
 pose of its own existence ! 
 
 The supposed answers would in many instances 
 betray, that any thought of God at all was of very rare 
 occurrence, the idea having never become strongly 
 associated with any thing beheld in the whole creation. 
 We should think it probable, as we have said before, 
 that with many, while in health, weeks or months often 
 pass away without this idea being once so presented as 
 to fix the mind in attention to it for one moment of 
 time. If they could be set to any such task as that of 
 retracing, at the end of the days or the weeks, the 
 course of their thoughts, to recollect what particulars 
 in the series had struck the most forcibly and staid the 
 longest, it may be suspected that this idea, thus impres- 
 sively apprehended, would be as rare a recollection as 
 that of having seen a splendid meteor. Yet during 
 that space of time, their thoughts, such as they were, 
 shall have run through thousands of changes; and even 
 
190 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 the name of God may have been pronounced by them 
 a muhitude of times, in jocularity or imprecation. 
 Thus there is a broad easy way to atheism through 
 thoughtless ignorance, as well as a narrow and difficult 
 one through subtle speculation. 
 
 But that idea of God which has, by some means, 
 found its way into their understandings, to abide there 
 so nearly in silence and oblivion, — what is it, when 
 some direct call does really evoke it ? It is generally a 
 gross approximation of the conception of the Infinite 
 Being to the likeness of man. If what they have 
 heard of his being a Spirit, has indeed some little 
 effect in prevention of the total debasement of the idea, 
 it prevents it rather by confusion than by magnificence. 
 It may somewhat restrain and baffle the tendency of the 
 imagination 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 draw- 
 ing in, and shaping itself toward an image, vast per- 
 haps, and spectral, portentous across the firmament, but 
 in some near analogy to the human mode of personality. 
 
 The divine attribute which is apprehended by them 
 with most of an impression of reality, is a certain vast- 
 ness of power. But, through the grossness of their 
 intellectual atmosphere, this appears to them in the 
 character of something prodigiously huge, rather than 
 sublimely glorious. — As considered in his quality of 
 moral judicial Governor, God is regarded by some of 
 them as more disposed, than there is any reasonable 
 cause, to be displeased with what is done in this world. 
 But the far greater number have no prevailing senti* 
 ment that he takes any very vigilant account or 
 concern.* And even those who entertain the more 
 
 * Some have no very distinct impression the one way or the 
 other. Not very long since, a triend of the writer, in one of the 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 191 
 
 ungracious 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 some crude idea of a 
 divine superintendence, with stronger fancies and 
 impressions of luck and chance ; a confusion of them 
 not unaptly exemplified in a grave and well-meaning 
 sentiment heard from a man in a temporal condition to 
 be envied by many of his neighbours, " 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 from its 
 philosophy to its dregs. 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 duU 
 
 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 animadverted on this, adding, 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 simplicity, exactly thus : "That's according 
 as how a takes it." 
 
 Numerous anecdotes of the same cast have been more recently 
 heard; and among them that of a conversation with a thoughtless 
 man, of worthless character, not in the lowest condition in society, 
 a«d then consciously near death. The religious visitor represented 
 to him the serious and alarming situation of a man on the point of 
 going from a sinful life into the presence of God as a Judge. The 
 man, with a sort of general acknowledgment that it was so, yet hoped 
 that God would not be severe with him. But the visitor anxiously 
 pressed upon him the consideration that God is a just Being, and 
 judges by a holy law: to which at last the answer was, with little 
 emotion, " Then God and I must fight it out as well as we can." - 
 The phrase, in his use of it, did not mean any thing of the nature ; 
 of a hostile contest, but simply the settling of an aff.iiry which he 
 thought might be done without any great danger or trouble. 
 
192 ON POPULAR IGNORA^XE. 
 
 acquiescence to something obscurely imagined like 
 fate,) is there any serious admission, at least during 
 the enjoyment of health, of the duty or advantage of 
 prayer. 
 
 The supposed examiner may endeavour to possess 
 himself of the notions concerning the Redeemer of the 
 world. They would be found, in numerous instances, 
 amounting 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 
 impression of its repetition having some kind of virtue, 
 perhaps rather in the nature of a spell. — The names of 
 the four evangelists are by some held literally and 
 technically available for such an use. 
 
 A few steps withdrawn from this thickest of the 
 mental fog, there are many who are not entirely unin- 
 formed of something having been usually affirmed, by 
 religious formularies and teachers, of Jesus Christ's 
 being more than a man, and of his having done some- 
 thing of great importance toward preventing our being 
 punished for our sins. This combination of a majestic 
 superiority to the human nature, wdth a subsistence yet 
 confessedly human, just passes their minds like a shape 
 formed of a shadow, as one of the unaccountable things 
 that may be as it is said, for what they know, but 
 which they need not trouble themselves to think about. 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCfi. iSS 
 
 As to the great things said to be done by him, to save 
 men from being 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 circumstance in our 
 favour, and God's being too good, after all that is said 
 of his holiness and wrath, to be severe on such poor 
 creatures, we must have a good chance of coming off 
 safely at last. But multitudes of the miserably poor, 
 however wicked, have a settled assurance of this coming 
 off well at last, independently of anything effected for 
 men by the Mediator : they shall be exempted, they 
 believe, from any future suffering in consideration of 
 their having suffered so much here. There is nothing, 
 in the scanty creed of great numbers, more firmly held 
 than this. 
 
 It is true, they believe that the most atrociously 
 wicked must go to a state of punishment after death. 
 They consider murderers, especially, as under this doom. 
 But the offences so adjudged, according to any settled 
 estimate they have of the demerit of bad actions, are 
 comprised in a very short catalogue. 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 committed against 
 him. We can recollect the exultation of sincere faith, 
 seen mingling with the anger, of an offended man, while 
 jjredicting, as well as imprecating, 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 punishment, the ideas of these 
 neglected minds go scarcely at all beyond the images 
 of corporal anguish, conveyed by the well-know a 
 o 
 
194 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 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 
 favour. 
 
 It is most striking to observe how almost wholly 
 negative are their conceptions of that future happiness 
 which must be something — but what ? — as the necessary 
 alternative of the evil they so easily assure themselves 
 of escaping. The abstracted, contemplative, and ele- 
 vated ideas of the celestial happiness are far above 
 their apprehension ; and indeed, though they were not, 
 would be little attractive. And the more ordinary 
 modes of representing it in religious discourse, (if they 
 should ever have heard enough of such discourse to be 
 acquainted with them,) are too uncongenial with their 
 notions of pleasure to have a welcome, or abiding place, in 
 their imagination 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 mind 
 there is, when the people have no longer a mythology, 
 and yet have not obtained in its place any knowledge 
 of the true religion. The martial vagrants of Scan- 
 dinavia glowed with the vivid anticipations of Valhalla ; 
 the savages of the western continent had their animating 
 visions of the " land of souls ; " the modern Christian 
 barbarians of England, who also expect to live after 
 death, do not know what they mean by their phrase of 
 *' going to heaven." 
 
 Most of this class of persons think very little in any 
 way whatever of the invisible spiritual economy. And 
 some of them would be pleased with a still more com- 
 plete exemption from such thought. For there are 
 among them those who are liable to be occasionally 
 affected with certain ghostly recognitions of something 
 out of the common world. But it is remarkable how 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 195 
 
 little these may contribute to enforce the salutary im- 
 pressions of religion. For instance, a man subject to 
 the terror of apparitions shall not therefore be in the 
 smallest degree the less profane, except just at the time 
 that this terror is upon him. A number of persons, 
 not one of whom durst walk, alone, at midnight, round 
 a lonely church, encompassed with graves, to which has 
 perhaps lately been added that of a notoriously wicked 
 man, will nevertheless, on a fine Sunday morning, form 
 a row of rude idlers, standing 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 performers 
 of those offices. 
 
 Such, as regarding religion, 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 
 multitude from being consigned to it. For consider, in 
 the next place, (what we wished especially to point at, 
 in this most important article in the enumeration of 
 the evils of ignorance,) consider what a fatal inaptitude 
 for receiving the truths of religion is created by the 
 neglect of training minds to the exercise of their facul- 
 ties, and the possession of the elements of knowledge. 
 
 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, from nothing, at his creating 
 will. There is an universal government, omnipotent, 
 all- wise, and righteous, of that Supreme Being over 
 the creation. There is the immense tribe of human 
 spirits, in a most peculiar and alarming predicament, 
 held under eternal obligation of conformity to a law 
 proceeding from the holiness of that Being, but per- 
 verted to a state of disconformity to it, and opposition 
 
196 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 to him. Next, there is a signal anomaly of moral 
 government, the constitution of a new state of relation 
 between the Supreme Governor and this alienated race, 
 through a Mediator, who makes an atonement for human 
 iniquity, and stands representative before Almighty 
 Justice, for those who in grateful accordance to the 
 mysterious appointment consign themselves to this 
 charge. 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 doc- 
 trine 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 sublimest reality, 
 and most important intelligence, is extending infinitely 
 away beyond the sensible horizon of our present state 
 to an invisible world, to which the spirits of men pro- 
 ceed at death for judgment and retribution, and with 
 the prospect of living for ever. 
 
 Look at this scene of faith, so distinct, and stretching 
 to such remoteness, from the field of ordinary things ; 
 of a subsistence which it is for intellect alone to appre- 
 hend; presenting objects with which intellect alone can 
 hold converse. Look at this scene ; and then consider, 
 what manner of beings you are calling upon to enter 
 into it by contemplation. Beings who have never 
 learned to think at all. Beings 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 common business, the low amusements 
 and gratifications, the idle talk, the local occurrences, 
 which formed the whole compass of the occupation, 
 and practically acknowledged interests, of their pro- 
 genitors. Beings who have never been made in the 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE* 1S7 
 
 least familiar with even the matters of fact, those espe- 
 cially of the scripture history, by which reh'gious truths 
 liave been expressed and illustrated in the substantial 
 form of events, and personal characters. Beings who, 
 in natural consequence of this unexercised and unfur- 
 nished condition of their understandings, will combine 
 the utmost aversion to any effort of purely intellectual 
 labour, with the especial dislike which it is in the 
 human disposition to feel toward this class of subjects. 
 AYhat kind of ideas should you imagine to be raised in 
 their minds, by all the words you might employ, to place 
 within their intellectual vision some portion of this 
 spiritual order of things, — even should you be able, 
 w^hich 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 mental culture, made 
 very light of by men whose pretensions to judgment 
 had no less a foundation than an academical course and 
 a consecrated profession. They would maintain, with 
 every appearance of thinking so, that a very little, that 
 the barest trifle, of regulated exercise of the mind in 
 youth, would be enough for the common people as a 
 preparation for gaining as much knowledge of religion 
 as they could ever want; that any such thing as a 
 practice of reading, (a practice of hazardous tendency), 
 w^ould be needless for the purpose, since they might 
 gain a competence of that knowledge by attendance on 
 the public ministration in the church. And there must 
 have been a very recent acquiescence in a new fashion 
 of opinion, if numbers of the same class of men would 
 not, in honestly avowing their thoughts, say something 
 not far different at this hour. 
 
 But the pretended facility of gaining a competence 
 of religious knowledge by such persons on such terms. 
 
198 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 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, some numerous family, or Sunday 
 assemblage of several related families ; to which you 
 had access without awkward intrusion, in consequence 
 of the acquaintance arising from near neighbourhood, 
 or of little services you had rendered, or of the cir- 
 cumstance of any of their younger children coming to 
 your charity schools. It was to you soon made sensible 
 what a sterile blighted spot of rational nature you were 
 in, by indications unequivocal to your perception, 
 though, it may be, not easily reducible to exact descrip- 
 tion. And those indications were perhaps almost 
 equally apparent in the young persons, in those ad- 
 vanced to the middle of life, and in those who were 
 evidently destined not long to remain in it, the patriarch, 
 perhaps, and the eldest matron, of the kindred company. 
 You attempted by degrees, with all managements of 
 art, as if you had been seeking to gain a favour for 
 yourselves, to train into the talk some topic bearing 
 toward religion ; and which could be followed up into 
 a more explicit reference to that great subject, without 
 the abruptness which causes instant silence and recoil. 
 We will suppose that the gloom of such a moral scene 
 was not augmented to you, by the mortification of ob- 
 serving impatience of this suspension of their usual 
 and favourite tenour of discourse, betrayed in marks 
 of suppressed irritation, or rather by the withdrawing 
 of one, and another, from the company. But it was 
 quite enough to render the moments and feelings some 
 of the most disconsolate you had ever experienced, to 
 have thus immediately before you a number of rational 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 199 
 
 beings as in a dark prison-house, and to feel the impO'^ 
 tence of your friendly efforts to bring them out. Their 
 darkness of ignorance infused into your spirit the 
 darkness of melancholy, when you perceived that the 
 fittest words you could think of, in every change and 
 combination in which you could dispose them, failed to 
 impart to their understanding, in the meaning you 
 wanted to convey, the most elementary and essential 
 ideas of the most momentous subject. 
 
 You thought again, perhaps, and again. Surely this 
 mode of expression, or thhy as it is in words not out of 
 common usage, will define the thing to their apprehen- 
 sion. But you were forced to perceive that the common 
 phraseology of the language, those words which make 
 the substance of ordinary discourse on ordinary sub- 
 jects, had not, for the understandings of these persons, 
 a general applicableness. It seemed as if the mere 
 elemental vehicle, (if we may so name it,) available 
 indifferently for conveying all sorts of sense, except 
 science, had become in its meaning special and exclusive 
 for their own sort of topics. Their narrow associations 
 had rendered it incapable of conveying sense to them 
 on matters foreign to their habits. When used on a 
 subject to which they were quite unaccustomed, it be- 
 came like a stream which, though one and the same 
 current, flows clear on the one side, and muddy (as we 
 sometimes see for a space) on the other ; and to them 
 it was clear only at their own edge. And if thus even 
 the plain popular language turned dark on their under- 
 standings when employed in explanation of religion, it 
 is easy to imagine what had been the success of a 
 more peculiarly theological phraseology, though it 
 Avere limited to such terms as are of frequent use in the 
 Bible. 
 
 You continued, however, the effort for a while. A3 
 
200 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 desirous to show you due civility, some of the persons, 
 perhaps the oldest, would give assent to what you said, 
 with some sign of acknowledgment of the importance 
 of the concern. The assent would perhaps be expressed 
 in a form meant and believed to be equivalent to what 
 you had said. And when it gave an intelligible idea, it 
 might probably betray the grossest possible misconcep- 
 tion of the first principles of Christianity. It might be 
 a crude formation from the very same substance of 
 which some of the worst errors of popery are consti- 
 tuted ; and might strongly suggest to you, in a glance 
 of thought, how easily popery might have become the 
 religion of ignorance ; how naturally ignorance and 
 corrupt feeling mixing with a slight vague notion of 
 Christianity, would turn it into just such a thing as 
 popery. You tried, perhaps, with repeated modifications 
 of your expression, and attempts at illustration, to 
 loosen the false notion, and to place the true one con- 
 trasted with it in such a near obviousness to the appre- 
 hension, that at least the difference should be seen, and 
 (perhaps you hoped) a little movement excited to think 
 on the subject, and make a serious question of it. But 
 all in vain. The hoary subject of your too late in- 
 struction, (a spectacle reminding you painfully of the 
 words which denominate the sign of old age " a crown 
 of glory,") either would still take it that it came all to 
 the same thing, or, if compelled to perceive that you 
 really were trying to make him unthink his poor old 
 notions, and learn something new and contrary, would 
 probably retreat, in a little while, into a half sullen, 
 half despondent silence, after observing, that he was too 
 old, "the worse was the luck," to be able to learn 
 about such things, which he never had, like you, the 
 " scholarship" and the time for. 
 
 In several of the party you perceived the signs of 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 201 
 
 almost a total blank. They seemed but to be waiting 
 for any trifling incident to take their attention, and 
 keep their minds alive. Some one with a little more 
 of listening curiosity, but without caring about the 
 subject, might have to observe, that it seemed to 
 him the same kind of thing that the methodist par- 
 son, (the term most likely to be used if any very serious 
 and earnest christian instructor had appeared in 
 the neighbourhood,) was lately saying in such a one's 
 funeral sermon. It is too possible that one or two of 
 the visages of the company, of the younger people 
 especially, might wear, during a good part of the time, 
 somewhat of a derisive smile, meaning, "What odd 
 kind of stuff all this is ;" as if they could not help 
 thinking it ludicrously strange that any one should be 
 talking of God, of the Saviour of mankind, the facts of 
 the Bible, the welfare of the soul, the shortness and 
 value of life, and a future account, when he might be 
 talking of the neighbouring fair, past or expected, or 
 the local quarrels, or the last laughable incident or ad- 
 venture of the hamlet. It is particularly observable, 
 that grossly ignorant persons are very apt to take a 
 ludicrous impression from high and solemn subjects; at 
 least when introduced in any other time or way than in 
 the ceremonial of public religious service; when brought 
 forward as a personal concern, demanding consideration 
 every where, and which may be urged by individual on 
 individual. You have commonly enough seen this 
 provoke the grin of stupidity and folly. And if you 
 asked yourselves, (for it were in vain to ask them,) 
 why it produced this so perverse effect, you had only 
 to consider that, to minds abandoned through ignorance 
 to be totally engrossed by the immediate objects of 
 sense, the grave assumption, and emphatic enforce- 
 ment, of the transcendent importance of a wholly 
 
202 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 unseen and spiritual economy, has much the appearance 
 and effect of a great lie attempted to be passed on them. 
 You might indeed recollect also, that the most which 
 some of them are likely to have learnt about religion, 
 is the circumstance, that the persons professing to make 
 it an earnest concern are actually regarded as fit 
 objects of derision by multitudes, not of the vulgar 
 order only, but including many of the wealthy, the gen- 
 teel, the magisterial, and the dignified in point of rank. 
 Individuals of the most ignorant class may stroll 
 into a place of worship, bearing their character so 
 conspicuously in their appearance and manner as to 
 draw the particular notice of the preacher, while ad- 
 dressing the congregation. It may be, that having 
 taken their stare round the place, they go out, just, it 
 may happen, when he is in the midst of a marked, pro- 
 minent, and even picturesque illustration, perhaps from 
 some of the striking facts or characters of the scripture 
 history, which had not made the slightest ingress on 
 their thoughts or imagination. Or they are pleased to stay 
 through the service; during which his eye is frequently 
 led to where several of them may be seated together. 
 Without an appearance of addressing them personally, 
 he shall be excited to direct a special effort toward 
 what he surmises to be the state of their minds. He 
 may in this effort acquire an additional force, emphasis, 
 and pointedness of delivery ; but especially his utmost 
 mental force shall be brought into action to strike upon 
 their faculties with vivid rousing ideas, plainly and 
 briefly expressed. And he fancies, perhaps, that he 
 has at least arrested their attention ; that what is going 
 from his mind is in some manner or other taking a 
 place in theirs ; when some inexpressibly trivial occur- 
 ring circumstance shows him, that the hold he has on 
 them is not of the strength of a spider's web. Those 
 
ON POPULAU IGNORANCE. 203 
 
 thoughts, those intellects, those souls, are instantly and 
 wholly gone — from a representation of one of the awful 
 visitations of divine judgment in the ancient world— a 
 description of sublime angelic agency, as in some re- 
 corded fact in the Bible — an illustration of the discourse, 
 miracles, or expiatory sorrows of the Redeemer of the 
 world — a strong appeal to conscience on past sin — a 
 statement, perhaps in the form of example, of an im- 
 portant duty in given circumstances — a cogent enforce- 
 ment of some specific point as of most essential moment 
 in respect to eternal safety; — from the attempted 
 grasp, or supposed seizure, of any such subject, these 
 rational spirits started away, with infinite facility, to 
 the movements occasioned by the falling of a hat from 
 a peg. 
 
 By the time that any semblance of attention returns, 
 the preacher's address may have taken the form of 
 pointed interrogation, with very defined supposed facts, 
 or even real ones, to give the question and its principle 
 as it were a tangible substance. Well; just at the 
 moment when his questions converged to a point, which 
 was to have been a dart of conviction striking the 
 understanding, and compelling the common sense and 
 conscience of the auditors to answer for themselves, — 
 at that moment, he perceives two or three of the 
 persons he had particularly in view begin an active 
 whispering, prolonged with the accompaniment of the 
 appropriate vulgar smiles. They may possibly relapse 
 at length, through sheer dulness, into tolerable decorum ; 
 and the instructor not quite losing sight of them, tries 
 yet again to impel some serious ideas through the 
 obtuseness of their mental being. But he can clearly 
 perceive, after the animal spirits have thus been a little 
 quieted by the necessity of sitting still awhile, the 
 signs of a stupid vacancy, which is hardly sensible 
 
204 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 that any thing is actually saying, and probably makes, 
 in the case of some of the individuals, what is mentally 
 but a slight transition to yawning and sleep. 
 
 Utter ignorance is a most effectual fortification to a 
 bad state of the mind. Prejudice may perhaps be re- 
 moved; unbelief may be reasoned with; even demoniacs 
 have been compelled to bear witness to the truth ; but 
 the stupidity of confirmed ignorance not only defeats 
 the ultimate efficacy of the means for making men 
 wiser and better, but stands in preliminary defiance to 
 the very act of their application. It reminds us of an 
 account, in one of the relations of the French Egyptian 
 campaigns, of the attempt to reduce a garrison posted in 
 a bulky fort of mud. Had the defences been of timber, 
 the besiegers might have set fire to and burnt them; had 
 they been of stone, they might have shaken and ulti- 
 mately breached them by the battery of their cannon ; or 
 they might have undermined and blown them up. But 
 the huge mound of mud had nothing susceptible of fire 
 or any other force; the missiles from the artillery were 
 discharged but to be buried in the dull mass; and all 
 the means of demolition were bafSed. 
 
 The most melancholy of the exemplifications of the 
 effect of ignorance, as constituting an incapacity for 
 receiving religious instruction, have been presented to 
 those who have visiied persons thus devoid of know- 
 ledge in sickness and the approach to death. Supposing 
 .hem to manifest alarm and solicitude, it is deplorable 
 to see how powerless their understandings are, for any 
 distinct conception of what, or why, it is that they fear, 
 or regret, or desire. . The objects of their apprehension 
 come round them as vague forms of darkness, instead 
 of distinctly exhibited dangers and foes, which they 
 might steadily contemplate, and think how to escape or 
 
ON rorULAR IGNORANCE. 205 
 
 encounter. And how little does the benevolent in- 
 structor find it possible for him to do, when he applies 
 his mind to the painful task of reducing this gloomy 
 confused vision to the plain defined truth of their un- 
 happy situation, set in order before their eyes. 
 
 He deems it necessary to speak of the most elemen- 
 tary principles — the perfect holiness and justice of God 
 — the corresponding holiness and ihe all-comprehending 
 extent of his law, appointed to his creatures — the ab- 
 solute duty of conformity to it in every act, word, and 
 thought — the necessary condemnation consequent on 
 failure — the dreadful evil, therefore, of sin, both in its 
 principle and consequences. God — perfect holiness — 
 justice — law — universal conformity — sin — condemna- 
 tion ! Alas ! the hapless auditor has no such sense of 
 the force of terms, and no such analogical ideas, as to 
 furnish the medium for conveying these representations 
 to his understanding. He never had, at any time ; and 
 now there may be in his mind all the additional con- 
 fusion, and incapacity of fixed attention, arising from 
 pain, debility, and sleeplessness. All this therefore 
 passes before him with a tenebrious glimmer ; like 
 lightning faintly penetrating to a man behind a thick 
 black curtain. 
 
 The instructor attempts a personal application, en- 
 deavouring to give the disturbed conscience a rational 
 direction, and a distinct cognizance. But he finds, as 
 he might expect to find, that a conscience without 
 knowledge has never taken but a very small portion of 
 the man's habits of life under its jurisdiction ; and that 
 it is a most hopeless thing to attempt to send it back 
 reinforced, to reclaim and conquer, through all the past, 
 the whole extent of its rightful but never assumed 
 dominion. So feeble and confined in the function of 
 judgment through which it must see and act, it is 
 
206 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 especially incapable of admitting the monitor's estimate 
 of the measure of guilt involved in omission, and in an 
 irreligious state of the mind, as an exceedingly grave 
 addition to the account of criminal action. The man 
 is totally and honestly unable to conceive of the sub- 
 stantial guilt of any thing of which he can ask, what 
 injury it has done to any body. This single point — ^ 
 whether positive harm has been done to any one — com- 
 prehends the whole essence and sum of the conscious 
 accountableness of very ignorant people. Material 
 wrong, very material wrong, to their fellow mortals, 
 they have a conscience that they should not do ; a con- 
 science, however, which they would deem it hard to be 
 obliged to maintain entire even to this confined extent ; 
 and which therefore admits some compromise and gives 
 some license, with respect especially to any kind of 
 wrong which has the extenuation, as they deem it, of 
 being commonly practised in their class ; and against 
 which there is a sort of understanding that each one 
 must take the best care he can of himself. At this 
 confine, so undecidedly marked, of practical tangible 
 wrong, these very ignorant persons lose the sense of 
 obligation, and feel absolved from any further jurisdic- 
 tion. So coarse and narrow a conscience as to what 
 they fZo, is not likely to be refined and extended into a 
 cognizance of what they are. As for a duty absolute 
 in the nature of things, or as owing to themselves, in 
 respect to their own nature, or as imposed by the Al- 
 mighty — that their minds should he in a certain j)re' 
 scribed state — there does really require a perfectly new 
 manner of the action of intellect to enable them to ap- 
 prehend its existence. And this habitual insensibility 
 to any jurisdiction over their internal state, now meets, 
 in its consequences, the supposed instructor. In con- 
 sideration of the vast importance of this part of u 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 207 
 
 rational creature's accountableness, and partly, too, from 
 a desire to avoid the invidiousness of appearing as a 
 judicial censor of the sick man's practical conduct, he 
 insists in an especial manner on this subject of the state 
 within, endeavouring to expose that dark world by the 
 light of religion to the sick man's conscience. But to 
 give in an hour the undei^standing which it requires the 
 discipline of many years to render competent ! How 
 vain the attempt ! The man's sense of guilt fixes almost 
 exclusively on something that has been improper in his 
 practical courses. He professes to acknowledge the 
 evil of this ; and perhaps with a certain stress of ex- 
 pression ; intended, by an apparent respondence to the 
 serious emphasis which the monitor is laying on another 
 part of the accountableness and guilt, to take him off 
 from thus endeavouring, as it appears to the ignorant 
 sufferer, to make him more of a sinner than there is 
 any reason, so little can he conceive that it should much 
 signify what his thoughts, tempers, affections, motives, 
 and so forth, may have been. By continuing to press 
 the subject, the instructor may find himself in danger 
 of being regarded as having taken upon him the unkind 
 office of inquisitor and accuser in his own name, and of 
 his own will and authority. 
 
 When inculcating the necessity of repentance, he 
 will perceive the indistinctness of apprehension of the 
 difference between the horror of sin merely from dread 
 of impending consequences, and an antipathy to its 
 essential nature. And even if this distinction, which 
 admits of easy forms of exemplification, should thus be 
 rendered in a degree intelligible, the man cannot make 
 the application. The instructor observes, as one of the 
 most striking results of a want of disciplined mental 
 exercise, an utter inability for self-inspection. There 
 is before his eyes, looking at him, but a stranger to 
 
208 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 himself, a man on whose mind no other mind, except 
 One, can shed a light of self-manifestation, to save him 
 from the most fatal mistakes. 
 
 If the monitor would turn, (rather from an impulse 
 to relieve the gloom of the scene, than from anything 
 he sees of a hopeful approach toward a right appre- 
 hension of the austerer truths of religion), if he would 
 turn his efforts, to the effect of directing on this dark 
 spirit the benign rays of the Christian redemption, what 
 is he to do for terms, — jes, for very terms ? Mediator, 
 sacrifice, atonement, satisfaction, faith ; even the ex- 
 pression believing in Christ ; merit of the death of 
 Christ, acquittal, acceptance, j ustification : — he knows, 
 or soon will find, that he is talking the language of an 
 occult science. And he is forced down to such expe- 
 dients of grovelling paraphrase, and humiliating analogy, 
 that he becomes conscious that his method of endeavour- 
 ing to make a divine subject comprehensible, is to divest 
 it of its dignity, and reduce it, in order that it may not 
 confound, to the rank of things which have not majesty 
 enough to impress with awe. And after this has been 
 done, to the utmost of his ability, and to the unavoida- 
 ble weariness of his suffering auditor, he is distressed 
 to think of the proportion between the insignificance 
 of any ideas which this man's mind now possesses of 
 the economy of redemption, and the magnitude of the 
 interest in which he stands dependent on it. A symptom 
 or assurance which should impart to the sick man a 
 confidence of his recovery, would appear to him a far 
 greater good than all that he can comprehend as offered 
 to him from the Physician of the soul. Some crude 
 sentiment, as, that he, " hopes Jesus Christ will stand 
 his friend ;" that it was very good of the Saviour to 
 think of us; that he wishes he knew what to do to get 
 Lis help ; that Jesus Christ has done him good in other 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 209 
 
 things, and he hopes he will now again at the last j* 
 — such expressions will afford little to alleviate the 
 gloomy feelings, with which the serious visiter descends 
 from the chamber in which, perhaps, he may hear, a 
 few days after, that the man he conversed with lies a 
 dead body. 
 
 But such benevolent visiters have to tell of still more 
 melancholy exemplifications of the effects of ignorance 
 in the close of life. They have seen the neglect of 
 early cultivation, and the subsequent estrangement from 
 all knowledge and thinking, except about business and 
 folly, result in such a stupefaction of mind, that irre- 
 ligious and immoral persons, expecting no more than a 
 few days of life, and not in a state of physical lethargy, 
 were absolutely incapable of being alarmed at the near 
 approach of death. They might not deny, nor in the 
 infidel sense disbelieve, what was said to them of the 
 awfulness of that event and its consequences ; but they 
 had actually never thought enough of death to have 
 any solemn associations with the idea. And their 
 faculties were become so rigidly shrunk up, that they 
 could not now admit them; no, not while the portentous 
 spectre was unveiling his visage to them, in near and 
 still nearer approach ; not when the element of another 
 world was beginning to penetrate through the rents of 
 their mortal tabernacle. It appeared that literally their 
 thoughts could not go out from what they had been 
 through life immersed in, to contemplate, with any 
 realizing feeling, a grand change of being, expected so 
 soon to come on them. They could not go to the fearful 
 
 * Such an expression as this would hardly have occurred but from 
 recollection of fact, in the instance of an aged farmer, (the owner 
 of the farm,) in his last illness. In the way of reassuring his some- 
 what doubtlul hope that Christ would not fail him when now had 
 recourse to, at his extreme need, he said, (to the writer,) "Jesus 
 Christ has sent me a deal of good crops,'* 
 
 r 
 
210 ON POPULAR IGNORAKCE. 
 
 brink to look off. It was a stupor of the soul not to be 
 awaked but by the actual plunge into the realities of 
 eternity. In such a case the instinctive repugnance to 
 death might be visible and acknowledged. But the 
 feeling was, If it must be so, there is no help for it ; 
 and as to what may come after, we must take our 
 chance. In this temper and manner, we recollect a 
 sick man, of this untaught class, answering the inquiry 
 how he felt himself, " Getting worse ; I suppose I shall 
 make a die of it." And some pious neighbours, earnestly 
 exhorting him to solemn concern and preparation, could 
 not make him understand, we repeat with emphasis, 
 understand why there was occasion for any extra- 
 ordinary disturbance of mind. Yet this man was not 
 inferior to those around him in sense for the common 
 business of life. 
 
 After a tedious length of suffering, and when death 
 is plainly inevitable, it is not very uncommon for per- 
 sons under this infatuation to express a wish for its 
 arrival, simply as a deliverance from what they are en- 
 during, without disturbing themselves with a thought 
 of what may follow. " I know it will please God soon 
 to release me," was the expression to his religious 
 medical attendant, of such an ignorant and insensible 
 mortal, within an hour of his death, which was evidently 
 and directly brought on by his vices. And he uttered 
 it without a word, or the smallest indicated emotion, of 
 penitence or solicitude ; though he had passed his life 
 in a neighbourhood abounding with the public means 
 of religious instruction and warning. 
 
 When earnest, persisting, and seriously menacing 
 admonitions, of pious visiters or friends, almost literally 
 compel such unhappy persons to some precise recog- 
 nition of the subject, their answers will often be faith- 
 fully representative, and a consistent completion, ot their 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. '211 
 
 course through mental darkness, from childhood to the 
 mortal hour. We recollect the instance of a wicked 
 old man, who, within that very hour replied to the 
 urgent admonitions by which a religious neighbour felt 
 it a painful duty to make a last effort to alarm him, 
 " What ! do you believe that God can think of damning 
 me because I may have been as bad as other folk ; I am 
 sure he will do no such thing : he is far too good for 
 that." 
 
 We cannot close this detailed illustration of so gloomy 
 a subject, without again adverting to a phenomenon as 
 admirable as, unhappily, it is rare; and for which the 
 observers who cannot endure mystery in religion, or 
 religion itself, may go, if they choose, round the whole 
 circle of their philosophy, and begin again, to find any 
 adequate cause, other than the most immediate agency 
 of the Almighty Spirit. Here and there an instance 
 occurs, to the delight of the christian philanthropist, of 
 a person brought up in utter ignorance and barbarian 
 rudeness, and so continuing till late in life ; and then 
 at last, after such a length of time and habit has com- 
 pleted its petrifying effect, suddenly seized upon by a 
 mysterious power, and taken, with an alarming and 
 irresistible force, out of the dark hold in which the 
 spirit has lain imprisoned and torpid, into the sphere 
 of thought and feeling. 
 
 Occasion is taken this once more of adverting to such 
 facts, not so much for the purpose of magnifying the 
 nature, as of simply exhibiting the effect, of an influence 
 that can breathe with such power on the obtuse intel- 
 lectual faculties; which it appears, in the most signal 
 of these instances, almost to create anew. It is ex- 
 ceedingly striking to observe how the contracted rigid 
 soul seems to soften, and grow warm^ and expand, and 
 quiver wath life. With the new energy infused, it 
 
212 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 painfully struggles to work itself into freedom, from 
 the wretched contortion in which it has so long been 
 fixed as by the impressed spell of some infernal magic. 
 It is seen filled with a distressed and indignant emotion 
 at its own ignorance; actuated with a restless earnest- 
 ness to be informed; acquiring an unwonted pliancy of 
 its faculties to thought; attaining a perception, com- 
 bined of intelligence and moral sensibility, to which 
 numerous things are becoming discernible and affecting, 
 that were as non-existent before. It is not in the very 
 extreme strength of their import that we employ such 
 terms of description; the malice of irreligion may easily 
 parody them into poetical excess; but we have known 
 instances in which the change, the intellectual change, 
 has been so conspicuous, within a brief space of time, 
 that even an infidel observer must have forfeited all 
 claim to be esteemed a man of sense, if he would not 
 acknowledge, — This that you call divine grace, what- 
 ever it may really be, is the strangest awakener of 
 faculties after all. And to a devout man, it is a spec- 
 tacle of most enchanting beauty, thus to see the im- 
 mortal plant, which has been under a malignant blast 
 while sixty or seventy years have passed over it, coming 
 out at length in the bloom of life. 
 
 We cannot hesitate to draw the inference, that if 
 religion is so auspicious to the intellectual faculties, the 
 cultivation and exercise of those faculties must be of 
 great advantage to religion. 
 
 These observations on ignorance, considered as an 
 incapacitation for receiving religious instruction, are 
 pointed chiefly at that portion of the people, unhappily 
 the largest, who are little disposed to attend to that 
 kind of instruction. But we should notice its preju- 
 dicial effect on those of them to whom religion has 
 become a matter of serious and inquisitive concern. 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 313 
 
 The preceding assertions of the efficacy of a strong 
 religious interest to excite and enlarge the intellectual 
 faculty will not be contradicted by observing, never- 
 theless, that in a dark and crude state of that faculty 
 those well-disposed persons, especially if of a warm 
 temperament withal, are unfortunately liable to receive 
 delusive impressions and absurd notions, blended with 
 religious doctrine and sentiment. It would be no less 
 than plain miracle or inspiration, a more entire and 
 specific superseding of ordinary laws than that which 
 we have just been denominating " an immediate agency 
 of the Almighty Spirit," if a mind left uncultivated all 
 up through the earlier age, and perhaps far on in life, 
 should not come to its new employment on a most im- 
 portant subject with a sadly defective capacity for judg- 
 ment and discrimination. The situation reminds us of 
 an old story of a tribe of Indians denominated " moon- 
 eyed," who, not being able to look at things by the light 
 of the sun, were reduced to look at them under the 
 glimmering of the moon, by which light it is an in- 
 evitable circumstance of human vision to receive the 
 images of things in perverted and deceptive forms. 
 
 Even in such an extremely rare instance as that 
 above described, an example of the superlative degree 
 of the animating and invigorating influence of religion 
 on the uncultivated faculties, there would be visible 
 some of the unfortunate consequences of the inveterate 
 rudeness; a tendency, perhaps, to magnify some one 
 thing beyond its proportionate importance ; to adopt 
 hasty conclusions ; to entertain some questionable or 
 erroneous principle because it appears to solve a diffi* 
 culty, or perhaps falls in with an old prepossession ; to 
 make too much account of variable and transitory feel- 
 ings; or to carry zeal beyond the limits of discretion. 
 In examples of a lower order of the correction or 
 
214 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 reversal of the effects of ignorance by the influence of 
 religion, the remains will be still more palpable. So 
 that, while it is an unquestionable and gratifying fact, 
 that among the uneducated subjects of genuine religion 
 many are remarkably improved in the power and ex- 
 ercise of their reason ; and while we may assume that 
 some share of this improvement reaches to all who are 
 really under this most beneficent influence in the crea- 
 tion,* it still is to be acknowledged of too many, who 
 are in a measure, we may candidly believe, under the 
 genuine efliicacy of religion, that they have attained, 
 through its influence, but so inferior a proportion of 
 the improvement of intellect, that they can be well 
 pleased with a great deal of absurdity of religious no- 
 tions and language. But while we confess and regret 
 that it is so, we should not overlook the causes and 
 excuses that may be found for it, in unfortunate super- 
 addition to their lack of education; partly in the natural 
 turn of the mind, partly in extraneous circumstances. 
 Many whose attention is in honest earnestness drawn 
 to religion, are endowed by nature with so scanty an 
 allotment of the thinking power, strictly so denominated, 
 that it would have required high cultivation to raise 
 them to the level of moderate understanding. There 
 are some who appear to have constitutionally an invin- 
 cible tendency to an uncouth fantastic mode of forming 
 their notions. It is in the nature of others, that what- 
 
 * Really under this influence, we repeat, pointedly ; for we justly 
 put all others out of the account. It is nothing (as against this 
 asserted influence on the intelligent faculty) that great numbers 
 who may contribute to swell a public bustle about religion ; who 
 may run together at the call of whim, imposture, or insanity, as- 
 suming that name ; who may acquire, instead of any other folly, a 
 turn for talking, disputing, or ranting, about that subject; it is 
 nothing, in short, that any who are not in real, conscientious seri- 
 ousness the disciples of religion, can be shown to be no better for 
 it, in point of improved understanding. - . • 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 21.3 
 
 ever cultivution tliey might have received, it would still 
 have been by their passions, rather than, in any duo 
 proportion, by their reason, that an important concern 
 would have taken and retained hold of them. It may 
 have happened to not a few, that circumstances unfa- 
 vourable to the understanding were connected with the 
 causes or occasions of their first effectual religious im- 
 pressions. Some quaint cast in the exposition of the 
 Christian faith, not essentially vitiating, but very much 
 distorting and cramping it, or some peculiarity or nar- 
 row-mindedness of the teachers, may have conveyed 
 their effect, to enter, as it were, at the door at the same 
 moment that it was opened by the force of a solemn 
 conviction, and to be retained and cherished ever after 
 on the strength of this association. This may have 
 tended to give an obliquity to the disciple's understand- 
 ing, or to arrest and dwarf its growth; to fix it in pre- 
 judices instead of training it to judgments; or to dispense 
 with its exercise by merging it in a kind of quietism ; 
 so that the proper tendency of religion to excite intel- 
 lectual activity was partly overruled and frustrated. It 
 is most unfortunate that thus there may be, from things 
 casually or constitutionally associated with a man's 
 piety, an influence operating to disable his understand- 
 ing; as if there had been mixed with the incense of a 
 devout service in the temple, a soporific ingredient 
 which had the effect of closing the worshipper's eyes in 
 slumber. 
 
 Now suppose all these worthy persons, with so many 
 things of a special kind against them, to be also under 
 the one great calamity of a neglected education, and is 
 it any wonder that they can admit religious truths in 
 shapes very strange and faintly enlightened; that they 
 have an uncertain and capricious test of what is genuine, 
 and not much vigilance to challenge plausible sera- 
 
216 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 blances; that they should be caught by some fanciful 
 exhibition of a truth which would be of too intellectual 
 a substance as presented in its pure simplicity; and 
 should be ready to receive with approbation not a 1 ttle 
 of what is a heavy disgrace to the name of religious 
 doctrine and ministration? Where is the wonder that 
 crudeness, incoherence, and inconsistency of notions, 
 should not disappoint and offend minds that have not, 
 ten times since they came into the world, been com- 
 pelled to form two ideas with precision and then com- 
 pare them discriminately or combine them strictly, on 
 any subject beyond the narrow scope of their ordinary 
 pursuits? Where is the wonder, if many such persons 
 take noise and fustian for a glow^ing zeal and a lofty 
 elevation ; if they mistake a wheedling cant for affec- 
 tionate solicitude ; if they defer to pompous egotism 
 and dogmatical assertion, when it is so convenient a 
 foundation for all their other faith to believe their 
 teacher is an oracle? No marvel if they are delighted 
 with whimsical conceits as strokes of discovery and sur- 
 prise, and yet at the same time are pleased with com- 
 mon-place, and endless repetition, as an exemption 
 from mental effort; and if they are gratified by vulgarity 
 of diction and illustration, as bringing religion to the 
 level where they are at home ? Nay, if an artful pre- 
 tender, or half-lunatic visionary, or some poor set of 
 dupes of their own inflated self-importance, should give 
 out that they are come into the world for the manifes- 
 tation, at last, of true Christianity, which the divine 
 revelation has failed, till their advent, to explain to any 
 of the numberless devout and sagacious examiners of 
 it, — what is there in the minds of the most ignorant 
 class of persons desirous to secure the benefits of reli- 
 gion, that can be securely relied on to certify them, 
 that they shall not forego the greatest blessing ever 
 
ON rUPULAR IGNORANCE. 217 
 
 offered to them by setting at nought these preten- 
 sions ? 
 
 It is grievous to think there should be an active 
 extensive currency of a language conveying crudities, 
 extravagances, arrogant dictates of ignorance, pompous 
 nothings, vulgarities, catches of idle fantasy, and im- 
 pertinences of the speaker's vanity, as religious instruc- 
 tion, to assemblages of ignorant people^ But then for 
 the means of depreciating that currency, so as to drive 
 it at last out of circulation ? The thing to be wished 
 is, that it were possible to put some strong coercion on 
 the minds (we deprecate all other restraint) of tlie 
 teachers ; a compulsion to feel the necessity of informa- 
 tion, sound sense, disciplined thinking, the correct use 
 of words, and an honest careful purpose to make the 
 people wiser. There are signs of amendment, certainly; 
 but while the passion of human beings for notoriety 
 lasts, (which will be yet some time,) there will not fail 
 to be men, in any number required, ready to exhibit in 
 religion, in any manner in which the people are willing 
 to be pleased with them. Let us, then, try the inverted 
 order, and endeavour to secure that those who assemble 
 to be taught, shall already have learnt so much, hy other 
 means, that no professed teacher shall feel at liberty to 
 treat them as an unknowing herd. But by what other 
 means, except the discipline of the best education pos- 
 sible to be given to them, and the subsequent voluntary 
 self-improvement to which it may be hoped that such 
 an education would often lead? 
 
 We cannot dismiss this topic, of the unhappy effect 
 of extreme ignorance on persons religiously disposed, 
 in rendering them both liable and inclined to receive 
 their ideas of the highest subject in a disorderly, per- 
 verted, and debased form, mixed largely with other 
 men's folly and their own, without noticing with pleasure 
 
218 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 an additional testimony to the connexion between 
 genuine religion and intelligence. It arises from the 
 fact, apparent to any discriminating observer, that as a 
 general rule the most truly pious of the illiterate dis- 
 ciples of religion, those who have the most of its 
 devotional feeling and its humility, do certainly mani- 
 fest more of the operation of judgment in their religion 
 than is evinced by those of less solemn and devout 
 sentiment. The former will unquestionably be found, 
 when on the same level as to the measure of natural 
 faculty and the want of previous cultivation, to show 
 more discernment, to be less captivated by noise and 
 extravagance, and more intent on obtaining a clear 
 comprehension of that faith, which they feel it is but 
 a reasonable obligation that they should endeavour to 
 understand, if they are to repose on it their most 
 important hopes. 
 
219 
 
 SECTION VI. 
 
 Thus it has been attempted, we fear with too much 
 prolixity and repetition, to describe the evils attendant 
 on a neglected state of the minds of the people. Tiie 
 representation does not comprehend all those even of 
 magnitude and prominence; but it displays that portion 
 of them which is the most serious and calamitous, as 
 being the effect which the people's ignorance has on 
 their moral and religious interests. And we think no 
 one who has attentively surveyed the state and cha- 
 racter of the lower orders of the community, in this 
 country, will impute exaggeration to the picture. It is 
 rather to be feared that the reality is of still darker 
 shade; and that a more strikingly gloomy exhibition 
 might be formed, by such a process as the following : — 
 That a certain number of the most observant of the 
 philanthropic persons, who have had most intercourse 
 with the classes in question, for the purposes of instruc- 
 tion, charitable aid, or perhaps of furnishing employ- 
 ment, should relate the most characteristic circumstances 
 and anecdotes within their own experience, illustrative 
 of this mental and moral condition; and that these 
 should be arranged, without any comment, under the 
 respective heads of the preceding sketch, or of a more 
 comprehensive enumeration. Each of them might 
 repeat, in so many words, the most notable things he 
 has heard uttered as disclosino^ the notions entertained 
 
220 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 of tlie Deity, or any part of religion; or those which 
 have been formed of the ground and extent of duty 
 and accountableness; or the imaginations respecting the 
 termination of life, and a future retribution. They 
 might relate the judgments they have heard pronounced 
 on characters and particular modes of conduct ; on im- 
 portant events in the world ; on any thing, in short, 
 which may afford a test of the quality and compass of 
 uncultivated thought. Let the recital include both the 
 expressions of individual conception, and those of the 
 most current maxims and common places; and let them 
 be the sayings of persons in health, and of those lan- 
 guishing and dying. Then let there be produced a 
 numerous assortment of characteristic samples of practical 
 conduct ; conduct not simply proceeding, in a general 
 way, from wrong disposition, but bearing the special 
 marks of the cast and direction which that disposition 
 takes through extreme ignorance: samples of action that 
 is wrong because the actor cannot think right, or does not 
 think at all. The assemblage of things thus recounted, 
 when the actual circumstances were also added of the 
 wretchedness corresponding and inseparable, would 
 constitute such an exhibition of fact, as any description 
 of those evils in general terms would incur the charge 
 of rhetorical excesses in attempting to rival. We can 
 well imagine that some of these persons, of large ex* 
 perience, may have accompanied us through the fore- 
 going series of illustrations, with a feeling that they 
 could have displayed the subject with a far more 
 striking prominence. 
 
 And now again the mortifying reflection comes on 
 us, that all this is the description of too probably the 
 major part of the people of our own nation. Of this 
 nation, the theme of so many lofty strains of panegyric; 
 of this nation, stretching forth its powers in ambitious 
 
ON POPULATl lONOHANCE. 221 
 
 enterprise, with infinite pride and cost, to all parts of 
 the globe ; — just as if a family were seen eagerly intent 
 on making some new appropriation, or going out to 
 maintain some competition or feud with its neighbours, 
 or mixing perhaps in the strife of athletic games, or 
 drunken frays, at the very time that several of its 
 members are lying dead in the house. So that the 
 fame of the nation resounded, and its power made 
 itself felt, in every clime, it was not worth a considera- 
 tion that a vast proportion of its people were system- 
 atically consigned, through ignorance and the irreligion 
 and depravity inseparable from it, to a wretchedness on 
 which that fame was the bitterest satire. It is matter 
 for never-ending amazement, that during one generation 
 after another, the presiding wisdom in this chief of 
 Christian and Protestant States, should have thrown 
 out the living strength of that state into almost every 
 mode of agency under heaven, rather than that of 
 promoting the state itself to the condition of a happy 
 community of cultivated beings. What stupendous 
 infatuation, what disastrous ascendency of the Power 
 of Darkness, that this energy should have been sent 
 forth to pervade all parts of the world in quest of ob- 
 jects, to inspirit and accomplish innumerable projects, 
 political and military, and to lavish itself, even to. 
 exhaustion and fainting at its vital source, on every 
 alien interest ; while here at home, so large a part of 
 the social body was in a moral and intellectual sense 
 dying and putrefying over the land. And it was thus 
 perishing for want of the vivifying principle of know- 
 ledge, which one-fifth part of this mighty amount of 
 exertion would have been sufficient to diffuse into every 
 corner and cottage in the island. Within its circuit, a 
 countless multitude were seen passing away their 
 mortal existence little better, in any view, than mere 
 
222 ON ropu.LAP- ignohaxce. 
 
 sentient shapes of matter, and by their depravity im- 
 measurably worse ; and yet this hideous fact had not 
 the weight of the very dust of the balance, in the 
 deliberation whether a grand exertion of the national 
 vigour and resource could have any object so worthy, 
 (with God for the Judge,) as some scheme of foreign 
 aggrandizement, some interference in remote quarrels, 
 an avengement by anticipation of wrongs pretended to 
 be foreseen, or the obstinate prosecution of some fatal 
 career, begun in the very levity of pride, by a decision 
 in which some perverse individual or party in ascend- 
 ency had the influence to obtain a corrupt, deluded, or 
 forced concurrence. 
 
 The national honour^ perhaps, would be alleged, in a 
 certain matter of punctilio, for the necessity of under- 
 takings of incalculable consumption, by men who could 
 see no national disgrace in the circumstance that 
 several millions of the persons composing the nation 
 could not read the ten commandments. Or the national 
 safety has been pleaded to a similar purpose, with a 
 rant or a gravity of patriotic phrases, upon the appear- 
 ance of some slight threatening symptoms ; and the 
 wise men so pleading, would have scouted as the very 
 madness of fanaticism any dissuasion that shoiild have 
 advised, — "Do you, instead, apply your best efforts, 
 and the nation's means, to raise the barbarous popula- 
 tion from their ignorance and debasement, and you 
 really may venture some little trust in Divine Provi- 
 dence for the nation's safety meanwhile." 
 
 If a contemplative and religious man, looking back 
 through little more than a century, were enabled to 
 take, with an adequate comprehension of intellect, the 
 sum and value of so much of the astonishing course of 
 the national exertions of this country, as the Supreme 
 Judge has put to the criminal account of pride and 
 
or: POPULAR IGNORANCE. 223 
 
 ambition ; and if he could then place in contrast to tlie 
 transactions on which that mighty amount has been 
 expended, a sober estimate of what so much exerted 
 vigour mifjht have accomplished for the intellectual 
 and moral exaltation of the people, it could not be without 
 an emotion of horror that he would say, Who is to be 
 accountable, who has been accountable, for this differ- 
 ence ? He would no longer wonder at any plagues and 
 judgments which may have been inflicted on such a 
 state. And he would solemnly adjure all those, espe- 
 cially, who profess in a peculiar manner to feel the 
 power of the Christian Religion, to beware how they 
 implicate themselves, by avowed or even implied appro- 
 bation, in what must be a matter of fearful account 
 before the highest tribunal. If some such persons, of 
 great merit and influence, honoured performers of 
 valuable public services in certain departments, have 
 habitually given, in a public capacity, this approbation, 
 he would urge it on their consciences, in the evening of 
 life, to consider whether, in the prospect of that tribu- 
 nal, they have not one duty yet to perform, — to throw 
 off from their minds the servility to party associations, 
 to estimate as Christians, about to retire from the scene, 
 the actual effects on this nation of a policy which might 
 have been nearly the same if Christianity had been 
 extinct ; and then to record a solemn, recanting, final 
 protest against a system to which they have concurred 
 in the profane policy of degrading that religion itself 
 into a party. 
 
 Any reference made to such a prospect implies, that 
 there is attributed to those who can feel its seriousness 
 a state of mind perfectly unknown to the generality of 
 what are called public men. For it is notorious that, 
 to the mere working politician, there is nothing on 
 earth that sounds so idly or so ludicrously as a reference 
 
224 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 to a judgment elsewhere and hereafter, to which the 
 policy and transactions of statesmen are to be carried. 
 If the Divine jurisdiction would yield to contract its 
 comprehension, and retire from all the ground over 
 which a practical infidelity heedlessly disregards or 
 deliberately rejects it, how large a province it would 
 leave free ! If it be assumed that the province of 
 national affairs is so left free, on the pretence that they 
 cannot be transacted in faithful conformity to the 
 christian standard, that plea is reserved to be tried in 
 the great account, when the responsibility for them 
 shall be charged. For assuredly there will be persons 
 found, to be summoned forth as accountable for that 
 conduct of states which we are contemplating. Such a 
 moral agency could not throw off its responsibility into 
 the air, to be dissipated and lost, like the black smoke 
 of forges or volcanoes. This one grand thing (the 
 improvement of the people) left undone, while a thou- 
 sand arduous things have been done or strenuously 
 endeavoured, cannot be less than an awful charge 
 somewhere. And where ? — but on all who have volun- 
 tarily concurred and cooperated in systems and 
 schemes, which could deliberately put such a thing 
 last ? Last ! nay, not even that ; for they have, till 
 recently, as we have seen, thrown it almost wholly out 
 of consideration. A long succession of men invested 
 with ample power are gone to this audit. How many 
 of those who come after them will choose to proceed on 
 the same principles, and meet the same award ? 
 
 We were supposing a thoughtful man to draw out to 
 his view a parallel and contrast, exhibiting, on the one 
 side, the series of objects on which, during several ages, 
 an enormous exertion of the national energy has been 
 directed ; and on the other, those improvements of the 
 people which might have been effected by so much of 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 225 
 
 tliat exertion as he deems to have been worse than 
 wasted. In this process, he might often be inclined to 
 jsingle out particular parts in the actual series, to be 
 put in special contrast over against the possibilities on 
 the opposite line. For example; there may occur to 
 his view some inconsiderable island, the haunt of fatal 
 diseases, and rendered productive by means involving 
 the most flagrant iniquity; an iniquity which it avenges 
 by opening a premature grave for many of his country- 
 men, and by being a moral corrupter of the rest. 
 Such an infested spot, nevertheless, may have been one 
 of the most material objects of a widely destructive 
 war, which has in effect sunk incalculable treasure 
 in the sea, and in the sands, ditches, and fields of 
 plague-infested shores; with a dreadful sacrifice of 
 blood, life, and all the best moral feelings and habits. 
 Its possession, perhaps, was the chief prize and triumph 
 of all the grand exertion, the equivalent for all the 
 cost, misery, and crime. 
 
 Or there may occur to him the name of some for- 
 tress, in a less remote region, where the Christian 
 nations seem to have vied with one another which of 
 them should deposit the greatest number of victims, 
 securely kept in the charge of death, to rise and testify 
 for them, at the last day, how much they have been 
 governed by the peaceful spirit of their professed 
 religion. He reads that his countrymen, conjoined 
 with others, have battled round this fortress, wasting 
 the vicinity, but richly manuring the soil with blood. 
 They have cooperated in hurling upon the abodes of 
 thousands of inhabitants within its walls, a thunder and 
 lightning incomparably more destructive than those of 
 nature ; and have put fire and earthquake under the 
 fortifications; shouting, **to make the welkin ring," at 
 sight of the consequent ruin and chasm, which bav^ 
 Q 
 
226 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 opened an entrance for hostile rage, or compelled an 
 immediate submission, if, indeed, it would then be 
 accepted to disappoint that rage of its horrible consum- 
 mation. They have taken the place, — and they have 
 surrendered it. The next year perhaps they have 
 taken it again ; to be again at last given up, on com- 
 pulsion or in compromise, to the very same party to 
 which it had belonged previously to all this destructive 
 commotion. The operations in this local and very 
 narrow portion of the grand affray of monarchies, he 
 may calculate to have cost his country as much as the 
 amount earned by the toils of half the life of all the 
 inhabitants of one of its populous towns ; setting aside 
 from his view the more portentous part of the account, 
 — the carnage, the crimes, and the devastation perpe- 
 trated on the foreign tract, the place of abode of people 
 who had little interest in the contest, and no power to 
 prevent it. And why was all this ? He may not be 
 able to divest himself of the principles that should 
 rule the judgment of a moralist and a Christian, in order 
 to think like a statesman ; and therefore may find no 
 better reason than that, when despots would quarrel, 
 Britain must fancy itself called upon to take the occa- 
 sion to prove itself a great power, by bearing a high 
 hand amidst their rivalries ; or must seize the oppor- 
 tunity of revenging some trivial offence of one of them ; 
 though this should be at the expense of having the 
 scene at home chequered between children learning 
 little more than how to curse, and old persons dying 
 without knowing how to put words together to pray. 
 
 The question may have been, in one part of the 
 world or another, which of two wicked individuals of 
 the same family, competitors for sovereign authority, 
 should be actually invested with it, they being equal in 
 the qualifications and dispositions to make the worst 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 227 
 
 use of it. And the decision of such a question was 
 worthy that England should expend what remained of 
 her depressed strength from previous exertions of it in 
 some equally meritorious cause. 
 
 Or the supposed reviewer of our national history may 
 find, somewhere in his retrospect, that a certain brook 
 or swamp in a wilderness, or a stripe of waste, or the 
 settlement of boundaries in respect to some insignificant 
 traffic, was difficult of adjustment between jealous, 
 irritated, and mutually incursive neighbours; and 
 therefore, national honour and interest equally required 
 that war should be lighted up by land and sea, through 
 several quarters of the globe. Or a dissension may 
 have arisen upon the matter of some petty tax on an 
 article of commerce : an absolute will had been rashly 
 signified on the claim ; pride had committed itself, and 
 was peremptory for persisting ; and the resolution was 
 to be prosecuted through a wide tempest of destruction, 
 protracted perhaps many years ; and only ending in the 
 forced abandonment by the leading power concerned, 
 of infinitely more than war had been made in the 
 determination not to forego ; and after an absolutely 
 fathomless amount of every kind of cost, financial and 
 moral, in this progress to final frustration. — But there 
 would be no end of recounting facts of this order. 
 
 Now the comparative estimator has to set against the 
 extended rank of such enormities the forms of imagined 
 good, which might, during the ages of this retrospect, 
 have been realized by an incomparably less exhausting 
 series of exertion, an exertion, indeed, continually 
 renovating its own resources. Imagined good, we 
 said ; — alas ! the evil stands in long and awful display 
 on the ground of history ; the hypothetical good pre- 
 sents itself as a dream ; with this circumstance only of 
 difference from a dream, that there is resting on the 
 
228 ox POPULAR IGNORANCE* 
 
 conscience of beings somewhere still existing, a fearful 
 accountableness for its not having been a reality. 
 
 For such an island^ as we have supposed our com- 
 parer to read of, he can look, in imagination, on a space 
 of proportional extent in any part of his native country, 
 taking a district as a detached section of a general 
 national picture. And he can figure to himself the 
 result, resplendent upon this tract, of so much energy, 
 there beneficently expended, as that island had cost: an 
 energy, we mean equivalent in measurey while put f or fh 
 in the infinitely different mode of an exertion, by all 
 appropriate means, to improve the reason, manners, 
 morals, and with them the physical condition of the 
 people. What a prevalence of intelligence, what a 
 delightful civility of deportment, what represssion of 
 the more gross and obtrusive forms of vice, what 
 domestic decorum, attentive education of the children, 
 appropriateness of manner and readiness of apprehen- 
 sion in attendance on public offices of religion, sense and 
 good order in assemblages for the assertion and exercise 
 of civil and political rights ! All this he can imagine 
 as the possible result. 
 
 We were supposing his attention fixed awhile on the 
 recorded operations against some strongly fortified 
 place, in a region marked through every part with the 
 traces and memorials of the often renewed conflicts of 
 the Christian states. And we suppose him to make a 
 collective estimate of all kinds of human ability exerted 
 around and against that particular devoted place ; an 
 estimate which divides this off as a portion of the 
 whole immense quantity of exertion, expended by his 
 country in all that region in the campaigns of a war, 
 or of a century's wars. He may then again endeavour, 
 by a rule of equivalence, to conceive the same amount 
 pf exertion \x\ quite another way ; to imagine human 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 229 
 
 forces equal in quantity to all that putting forth of 
 strength, physical, mental, and financial, for annoyance 
 and destruction, expended instead, in the operation of 
 effecting the utmost improvement which they could 
 effect, in the mental cultivation and the morals of the 
 inhabitants of one large town in his own country. 
 
 In figuring to himself the channels and instrumen- 
 tality, through which this great stream of energy might 
 have passed into this operation, on a detached spot of 
 his country, he will soon have many specific means 
 presented to his view : schools of the most perfect 
 appointment, in every section and corner of the town ; 
 a system of friendly but cogent dealing with all the 
 people of inferior condition, relatively to the necessity of 
 their practical accordance to the plans of education ;* 
 an exceedingly copious supply, for individual possession, 
 of the best books of elementary knowledge; accom- 
 panied, as we need not say, by the sacred volume ; 
 a number of assortments of useful and pleasing books 
 for circulation, established under strict order, and 
 with appointments of honorary and other rewards 
 to those wiio gave evidence of having made the best 
 use of them ; a number of places of resort where 
 various branches of the most generally useful and 
 attainable knowledge and arts should be explained and 
 applied, by every expedient of familiar, practical, and 
 entertaining illustration, admitting a degree of co- 
 operation by those who attended to see and hear ; and 
 an abundance of commodious places for religious 
 instruction on the sabbath, where there should be wise 
 
 * It is here confidently presumed, that any man who looks, in a 
 right state of his senses, at the manner in which the children are 
 still brought up, in many parts of the land, will hear with contempt 
 any hypocritical protest against so much interference with the dis- 
 cretion, the liberty of parents ; — the discretion, the liberty, forsooth, 
 of bringing up their children a nuisance on the face of the eartiu 
 
230 ON POPULAR IGNOBA^'CE. 
 
 and zealous men to impart it. Our speculator has a 
 right to suppose a high degree of these qualifications in 
 his public teachers of religion, when he is to imagine 
 a parallel in this department to the skill and ardour 
 displayed in the supposed military operations. Ee 
 may add as subsidiary to such an apparatus, every thing 
 of magistracy and municipal regulation; a police, 
 vigilant and peremptory against every cognizable neg- 
 lect and transgression of good order; a resolute break- 
 ing up of all haunts and rendezvous of intemperance, 
 dishonesty and other vice ; and the best devised and 
 administered institutions for correcting and reclaiming 
 those whom education had failed to preserve from such 
 depravity ; and besides all thfs, there would be a great 
 variety of undefinable and optional activity of benevo- 
 lent and intelligent men of local influence. 
 
 Under so auspicious a combination of discipline, he 
 will not indeed fancy, in his transient vision, that he 
 beholds Athens revived, with its bright intelligence all 
 converted to minister to morality, religion, and happi- 
 ness; but he will, in sober consistency, we think, with 
 what is known of the relation of cause and effect, 
 imagine a place far surpassing any actual town or city 
 on earth. And let it be distinctly kept in view, that 
 to reduce the ideal exhibition to reality, he is not 
 dreaming of means and resources out of all human 
 reach, of preternatural powers, discovered gold-mines, 
 grand feats of genius. He is just supposing to have 
 been expended, on the population of the town, a measure 
 of exertion and means equal, (as far as agencies in so 
 different a form and direction can be brought to any 
 rule of comparative estimate) to what has been expended 
 by his country in investing, battering, undermining, 
 burning, taking, and perhaps retaking, one particular 
 foreign town, in one or several campaigns. 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 231 
 
 If he should perchance be sarcastically questioned, 
 how he can allow himself in so strange a conceit as that 
 of supposing such a quantity of forces concentrated to 
 act in one exclusive spot, while the rest of the country 
 remained under the old course of things; or in such an 
 absurdity as that of fancying that any quantity of those 
 forces could effectually raise one local section of the 
 people eminently aloft, while continuing surrounded 
 and unavoidably in constant intercourse with the gene- 
 ral mass, remaining still sunk in degradation — he has 
 to reply, that he is fancying no such thing. For while 
 he is thus converting, in imagination, the military ex- 
 ertions against one foreign town, into intellectual and 
 moral operations on one town at home, why may he 
 not, in similar imagination, make a whole country cor- 
 respond to a whole country? He may conceive the 
 incalculable amount of exertion made by his country, 
 in martial operations over all that wide foreign territory 
 of which he has selected a particular spot, to have been, 
 on the contrary, expended in the supposed beneficent 
 process on the great scale of this whole nation. Then 
 would the hypothetical improvement in the one par- 
 ticular town, so far from being a strange insulated 
 phenomenon, absurd to be conceived as existing in ex- 
 ception and total contrast to the general state of the 
 people, be but a specimen of that state. 
 
 He may proceed along the series of such confronted 
 spectacles as far as bitter mortification will let him. 
 But he will soon be sick of this process of comparison. 
 And how sick will he thenceforward be, to perpetual 
 loathing, of the vain raptures with which an immoral 
 and anti-christian patriotism can review a long history 
 of what it will call national glory, acquired by national 
 energy ambitiously consuming itself in a continual suc- 
 cession and unlimited extent of extraneous operations, 
 
232 ON POPULAR IG>70RANCE. 
 
 of that kind which has been the grand curse of the 
 human race ever since the time of Cain; while the one 
 thing needful of national welfare, the very summum 
 honum of a state, has been regarded with contemptuous 
 indifference. 
 
 These observations are not made on an assumption, 
 that England could in all cases have kept clear of im- 
 plication in foreign interests, and remote and sanguinary- 
 contests. But they are made on the assumption of what 
 is admitted and deplored by every thoughtful religious 
 man, whose understanding and moral sense are not 
 wretchedly prostrated in homage to a prevailing system, 
 and chained down by a superstition that dares not 
 question the wisdom and probity of high national au- 
 thorities and counsels. What is so admitted and deplored 
 by the true and christian patriots is, that this nation 
 has gone to an awfully criminal extent beyond the line 
 of necessity; that it has been extremely prompt to find 
 or make occasions for appearing again, and still again, 
 in array for the old work of waste and death ; and that 
 the advantage possessed by the preponderating classes 
 in this protestant country, for being instructed (if they 
 had cared for such instruction) to look at these trans- 
 actions in the light of religion, has reflected a peculiar 
 aggravation on the guilt of a policy persevered in from 
 age to age, in disregard of the laws of Christianity, and 
 the w^arning of accountableness to the Sovereign Judge. 
 
 These observations assume, also, that there cannot 
 be such a thing as a nation so doomed to a necessity 
 and duty of expending its vigour and means in foreign 
 enterprise, as to be habitually absolved from the duty 
 of raising its people from brutish ignorance. This con- 
 cern is a duty at all events and to an entire certainty ; 
 is a duty imperative and absolute; and any pretended 
 necessity for such a direction of the national exertion 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 233 
 
 as would be, through a long succession of time, incom- 
 patible with a paramount attention to this, would be a 
 virtual denial of the superintendence of Providence. It 
 would be the same thing as to assert of an individual, 
 that his duties of other kinds are so many and great, as 
 to render it impossible for him to give a competent 
 attention to his highest interests, and that therefore he 
 stands exempted from the obligations of religion. 
 
 Such as we have described has been, for ages, the 
 degraded state of the multitude. And such has been 
 the indifference to it, manifested by the superior, the 
 refined, the ascendant portion of the community ; who, 
 generally speaking, could see these sharers with them 
 of the dishonoured human nature, in endless numbers 
 around them, in the city and the field, without its ever 
 flashing on conscience that on them was lying a solemn 
 responsibility, destined to press one day with all its 
 weight, for that ill arrangement of the social order 
 which abandoned these beings to an exclusion from the 
 sphere of rational existence. It never occurred to 
 many of them as a question of the smallest moment, in 
 what manner the mind might be living in all these 
 bodies, if only it were there in competence to make 
 them efficient as machines and implements. Contented 
 to be gazed at, to be envied, or to be regarded as too 
 high even for envy, and to have the rough business of 
 the world performed by these inhalers of the vital air, 
 they perhaps thought, if they reflected at all on the 
 subject, that the best and most privileged state of such 
 creatures was to be in the least possible degree morally 
 accountable: and that therefore it would be but doing 
 them an injury to enlarge their knowledge. And might 
 not the thought be suggested at some moment, (see how 
 many things may be envied in their turns!) how happy 
 
234 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 they should be, if, with the vast superiority of their 
 advantages, they could still be just as little accountable? 
 But if even in this way, of envy, they received an un- 
 welcome admonition of their own high responsibility, 
 not even then was it suggested to them, that they should 
 ever be arraigned on a charge to which they would 
 vainly wish to be permitted to plead, " Were we our 
 brothers' keepers ? " And if an office designated in 
 those terms had been named to them, as a part of their 
 duty, by some unearthly voice of imperious accent, 
 their thoughts might have traversed hither and thither, 
 in various conjectures and protracted perplexity, before 
 the objects of that office had been presented explicitly 
 to their apprehension as no other than the reason, prin- 
 ciples, consciences, and the whole moral condition of 
 the vulgar mass. They would understand that its 
 condition was, in some way or other, a concern lying at 
 their door, but probably not in this. — We speak gene- 
 rally, and not universally. 
 
 But we would believe there are signs of a revolution 
 beginning; a more important one, by its higher princi- 
 ple and its expansive impulse toward a wide and remote 
 beneficence, than the ordinary events of that name. 
 What have commonly been the matter and circumstance 
 of revolutions? The last deciding blow in a deadly 
 competition of equally selfish parties; actions and re- 
 actions of ambition and revenge ; the fiat of a con- 
 queror; a burst of blind fury, suddenly sweeping away 
 an old order of things, but overwhelming too all attempts 
 to substitute a better institution; plots, massacres, bat- 
 tles, dethronements, restorations: all actuated by a fer- 
 mentation of the ordinary or the basest elements of 
 humanity. How little of the sublime of moral agency 
 has there been, with one or two partial exceptions, in 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCS. 235 
 
 tliese mighty commotions; how little wisdom or virtue, 
 or reference to the Supreme Patron of national interests; 
 how little nobleness or even distinctness of purpose, or 
 consolidated advantage of success! But here is, as we 
 trust, the approach of a revolution with different phe- 
 nomena. It displays the nature of its principle and its 
 ambition in a conviction, far more serious and extensive 
 than heretofore, of the necessity of education to the 
 mass of the population, with earnest discussions of its 
 scope and methods by both speculative and practical 
 men; in schemes, more speedily animated into operation 
 than good designs were wont to be, for spreading use- 
 ful knowledge over tracts of the dead waste where there 
 was none; in exciting tens of thousands of young per- 
 sons to a benevolent and patient activity in the instruc- 
 tion of the children of the poor; in an extended and 
 extending system of means and exertions for the uni- 
 versal ditFusion of the sacred scriptures; in multiplying 
 endeavours, in all regular and all uncanonical ways, to 
 render it next to impossible for the people to avoid 
 hearing some sounds at least of the voice of religion; in 
 the formation of useful local institutions too various to 
 come under one denomination; in enterprises to attempt 
 an opening of the vast prison-houses of human spirits 
 in dark distant regions; in bringing to the test of prin- 
 ciples many notions and practices which have stood on 
 the authority of prejudice, custom, and prescription: 
 and all this taking advantage of the new and powerful 
 spirit which has come on the world to drive its aiFairs 
 into commotion and acceleration; as bold adventurers 
 have sometimes availed themselves of a formidable tor- 
 rent to be conveyed whither the stream in its ordinary 
 state would never have carried them; or as we have 
 heard of heroic assailants seizing the moment of a 
 tempest to break through the enemy's lines. — Such are 
 
23G ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 some of the insignia by which it stands distinguished 
 out and far off from the rank of ordinary revolutions. 
 
 We are not unaware that, with certain speculators 
 on this same subject of meliorating the state and cha- 
 racter of the people, some of the things here specified 
 will be of small account, either as signs of a great 
 change, or as means of promoting it. The widely 
 spreading activity of a humble class of labourers, who 
 seek no fame for their toils and sacrifices, is but a 
 creeping process, almost invisible in the survey. The 
 multiplied, voluntary, and extraordinary efforts to diffuse 
 some religious knowledge and sentiment among the 
 vulgar, appear to them, if not even of doubtful tendency, 
 at least of such impotence for corrective operation, that 
 any confidence founded on them is simple fanaticism ; 
 that the calculation is, to use a commercial term, mere 
 moonshine. We remember when a publication of great 
 note and influence flung contempt on the sanguine 
 expectations entertained from the rapid circulation of 
 Bibles among the inferior population. At the hopeful 
 mention of expedients of the religious kind especially, 
 the class of speculators in question might perhaps be 
 reminded of Glendower's grave and believing talk of 
 calling up spirits to perform his will ; or (should they 
 ever have happened to read the Bible), of the people 
 who seized, in honest credulous delight, the mockery of 
 a proposal of pulling a city, to the last stone, into the 
 river with ropes, as a prime stroke of generalship. 
 
 When we see such expedients rated so low in the 
 process for raising the populace from their degradation, 
 we ask what means these speculators themselves would 
 reckon on for the purpose. And it would appear that 
 their scheme would calculate mainly on some supposed 
 dispositions of a political and economical nature. Let 
 the people be put in possession of all their rights as 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 237 
 
 citizens, and thus advanced in the scale of society. 
 Let all invidious distinctions which are artificial, arbi- 
 trary, and not inevitable, be abolished; together with 
 all laws and regulations injuriously affecting their 
 temporal well-being. Give them thus a sense of being 
 something in the great social order, a direct palpable 
 interest in the honour and prosperity of the community. 
 There will then be a dignified sense of independence ; 
 the generous, liberalizing, ennobling, sentiments of 
 freedom ; the self-respect and conscious responsibility 
 of men in the full exercise of their rights ; the manly 
 disdain of what is base ; the innate perception of what 
 is worthy and honourable, developing itself spontane- 
 ously on the removal of the ungenial circumstances in 
 the constitution of society, which have been as a long 
 winter on the intellectual and moral nature of its in- 
 ferior portions. All this will conduce to the practica- 
 bility and efficacy of education. It will be an education 
 to fit them for an education to be introduced with the 
 progress of that fitness ; intellectual culture finding a 
 felicitous adaptation of the soil. We may then adopt 
 wath some confidence a public system, or stimulate and 
 assist all independent local exertions for the instruction 
 of the people in the rudiments of literature and general 
 knowledge ; and religion too, if you wull. 
 
 But, to say nothing of the vain fancies of the virtues 
 ready to disclose themselves in a corrupt mass, under 
 the auspices of improved political institutions, it is un- 
 fortunate for any such speculation that what it insists 
 on as the primary condition cannot as yet, but very 
 imperfectly, be had. The higher and commanding 
 portion of the community have, very naturally, the 
 utmost aversion to concede to the people what are 
 claimed as theoretically their rights. They have, indeed, 
 latterly been constrained to make considerable conces- 
 
238 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 sions in name and semblance. But their great and 
 various power will be strenuously exerted, for probably 
 a long while yet, to render the acquisitions made by the 
 people as nearly as possible profitless in their hands. 
 And unhappily these predominant classes have to allege 
 the mental and moral rudeness of the lower, in vindi- 
 cation of this determined policy of repression and 
 frustration; thus turning the consequences of their 
 own criminal neglect into a defence of their injustice. 
 They will say, If the subordinate millions had grown 
 np into a rational existence ; if they had been rendered 
 capable of thinking, judging, distinguishing; if they 
 were in possession of a moderate share of useful infor- 
 mation, and withal a strong sense of duty ; then might 
 this and the other privilege, or call it right, in the social 
 constitution be yielded to them. But as long as they 
 continue in their present mental grossness they are 
 unfit for the possession, because unqualified for the 
 exercise, of any such privileges as would take them 
 from under our authoritative control. 
 
 Since they can and will, for the present, maintain 
 this controlling power, to the extent of nearly invali- 
 dating any political advancement attained, or likely to 
 be soon attained, by the lower grades, a speculation that 
 should place on that advancement, as a pre-requisite, 
 our hope of a great change in the mental condition of 
 the people, would be, to adopt a humble figure, setting 
 us to climb to an upper platform without a ladder, or 
 rather telling us not to climb at all. And while this 
 supposed pre-requisite will be refused, on the allegation 
 that the uncultivated condition of the people renders 
 them unfit for a liberal political arrangement^ the parties 
 so refusing will be little desirous to have the obstacle 
 removed ; foreseeing, as the inevitable consequence of 
 a highly improved cultivation, s more resolute demand 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 239 
 
 of the advantages withheld, a constantly augmenting 
 force of popular opinion, and therefore a diminution of 
 their own predominant power. They will deem it much 
 more commodious for themselves, that the people should 
 not be so enlightened and raised as to come into any 
 such competition. And since they, with these dispo- 
 sitions, have the preponderance in what we denominate 
 the State, we fear we are not to look with much hope 
 to the State for a liberal and effective system of national 
 education. 
 
 What then is to be done? — We earnestly wish it 
 might please the Sovereign Ruler to do one more new 
 thing in the earth, compelling the dominant powers in 
 the nations to an order of institutions and administra- 
 tions that would apply the energy of the state to so 
 noble a purpose. Nor can we imagine any test of their 
 merits so fair as the question whether, and in what 
 degree, they do this ; nor any test by which they may 
 more naturally decline to have those merits tried. But 
 since, to the shame of our nature, there is no use to 
 which we are so prone to turn our condemnation of 
 evil in one form, as that of purchasing a license for it 
 in another, the persons who are justly arraigning the 
 powers at the head of nations should be warned that 
 they do not take from the guilty omissions of states a 
 sanction for individuals to do nothing. Let them not 
 suffer an imposition on their minds in the notion en- 
 tertained of a state, as a thing to be no otherwise 
 accounted of than in a collective capacity, acting by a 
 government ; as if the collective power and agency of a 
 nation became, in being exerted through that political 
 organ, an affair altogether foreign to the will, the action, 
 the duty, the responsibility, of the persons of whom 
 the nation is composed. Let them not put out of sight 
 
240 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 that whatever is the duty of the national body in that 
 collective capacity, acting through its government, is 
 such only because it is the duty of the individuals 
 composing that body, as far as it is in the power of 
 each ; and that it would be their duty individually not 
 the less, though the government, as the depositary of 
 the national power, neglect it. But more than this ; to 
 speak generally, and with certain degrees of possible 
 exception, we may affirm that a government cannot be 
 lastingly neglectful of a great duty but because the 
 individuals constituting the community are so. An 
 assertion, that a government has been utterly and 
 criminally neglectful of the moral condition of the 
 inferior population, age after age, and through every 
 change of its administrators ; but that, nevertheless, 
 the generality of the individuals of intelligence, wealth, 
 and influence, have all the while been of a quite oppo- 
 site spirit, zealously intent on remedying the flagrant 
 evil, would be instantly rejected as a contradiction. 
 Such an enlightened and philanthropic spirit prevailing 
 widely among the individuals of the nation would carry 
 its impulse into the government in one manner or 
 another. It would either constrain the administrators 
 of the state to act in conformitj", or ultimately displace 
 them in favour of better men. Even if, short of such 
 a general activity of the respectable and locally influ- 
 ential members of society, a large proportion of them 
 had vigorously prosecuted such a purpose, it would have 
 compelled the administrators of the state to consider, 
 even for their own sake, whether they should be content 
 to see so important a process going on independently 
 of them, and in contrast with their own disgraceful 
 neglect. 
 
 But at the worst, and on the supposition that they 
 were obstinately inaccessible to all moral and philan- 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 241 
 
 thropic considerations, still a grand improvement would 
 have been accomplished, if* many thousands of the 
 responsible members of the community had attempted 
 it with zealous and persevering exertion. The neglect, 
 therefore, of the improvement of the people, so glaring 
 in the review of our conduct as a nation, has been, to 
 a very great extent, the insensibility of individuals to 
 obligations lying on them as such, independently of the 
 institutions and administration of the state. 
 
 And are individuals now absolved from all such re- 
 sponsibility ; and the more so, that the conviction of 
 the importance of the object is come upon them with 
 such a new and cogent force ? When they say, re- 
 proachfully, that the nation, as a body politic, concen- 
 trating its powers in its government, disowns or neglects 
 a most important duty, is it to be understood that this 
 accusatory testimony is their share, or something equi- 
 valent in substitution for their share, of that very duty ? 
 Does a collective duty of such very solid substance, 
 vanish into nothing under any attempted process of re- 
 solving it into fractions and portions for individuals ? 
 And do they themselves, as some of the individuals to 
 whom this duty might thus be distributively assigned, — 
 do they themselves, in spite of self-love, self-estimation, 
 and all the sentiments which they will at other times 
 indulge in homage of their own importance, — do 
 they, when this assignment is attempted to be made 
 to them, instantly and willingly surrender to a feeling 
 of crumbling down from this proud individuality into 
 an undistinguishable existence in the mass ; and, pro- 
 faning the language of religion, say to the State, " In 
 thee we live, move, and have a being?" Or, will they, 
 (in assimilation to eastern pagans, who hold that a 
 divinity so pervades them as to be their wills and do 
 their actions, leaving the mere human vehicle without 
 
242 ON POPULAR IGNORANCH. 
 
 power, duty, or accountableness,) will tliey account 
 themselves but as passive matter, moved or fixed, and 
 in all things necessitated, by a sovereign mythological 
 something denominated the state ? 
 
 No, not in all things. It is not so that they feel with 
 respect to those other interests and projects, which they 
 are really in earnest to promote, though those concerns 
 may lie in no greater proportion than the one in ques- 
 tion does within the scope of their individual ability. 
 The incubus has then vanished; and they find them- 
 selves in possession of a free agency, and a degree of 
 power which they will not patiently hear estimated in 
 any such contemptuous terms. What is there then 
 that should reduce them, as individual agents, to such 
 utter and willing insignificance in the affair of which 
 we are speaking? Besides, they may form themselves, 
 in indefinite number, into combination. And is there 
 no power in any collective form in w^iich they can be 
 associated, save just that one in which the aggregation 
 is constituted under the political shape and authority 
 denominated a state? Or is it at last that some alarm 
 of superstitious loyalty comes over them ; that they 
 grow uneasy in conscience at the high-toned censure 
 they have been stimulated and betrayed to pronounce 
 on the state; that they relapse into the obsequiousness 
 of hesitating, whether they should presume to do good 
 of a kind which the " Power ordained of God" has not 
 seen fit to do; that they must wait for the sanction of 
 its great example; that till the " shout of kings is among 
 ^Jiem" it were better not to march against the vandalism 
 and the paganism which are, the while, quite at their 
 ease, destroying the people? 
 
 But if such had always been the way in which private 
 individuals, single or associated, had accounted of them- 
 selves and their possible exertions, in regard to great 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 243 
 
 general improvements, but very few would ever have 
 been accomplished. For the case has commonly been, 
 that the schemes of such improvements have originated 
 with persons not invested with political power; have 
 been urged on by the accession and cooperation of such 
 individuals; and at length slowly and reluctantly ac- 
 ceded to by the holders of dominion over the community, 
 always, through some malignant fatality, the last to 
 admit what had long appeared to the majority of think* 
 ing men no less than demonstrative evidence of the 
 propriety and advantage of the reformation. 
 
 In all probability, the improvement of mankind is 
 destined, under Providence, to advance nearly in pro- 
 portion as good men feel the responsibility for it resting 
 on themselves as individuals, and are actuated by a bold 
 sentiment of independence, (humble at the same time, 
 in reference to the necessity of Divine intervention,) 
 in the prosecution of it. Each person who is standing 
 still to look, with grief or indignation, at the evils which 
 are overrunning the world, would do well to recollect 
 what he may have read of some gallant partizan, who, 
 perceiving where a prompt movement, with the com- 
 paratively slender force at his own command, would 
 make an impression infallibly tending to the success of 
 the warfare, could not endure to lose the time till some 
 great sultan should find it convenient to come in slow 
 march, and the pomp of state, to take on him the direc- 
 tion of the campaign. 
 
 In laying this emphasis of incitement and hope on 
 the exertions of good men as individuals, we cannot be 
 understood to mean that the government of states, if 
 ever they did come to be intent on rendering the con- 
 dition of society better and happier, could not contribute 
 beyond all calculation to the force and efficacy of every 
 project and measure for that grand purpose. How far 
 
244 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 from it ! it is melancholy to consider what they might 
 do and do not. But it is because their history, thus 
 far, affords such feeble prognostics of their becoming, 
 till some better age, actuated by such a spirit, — it is 
 because the Divine Governor has hitherto put upon 
 them so little of the honour of being the instruments 
 of his beneficence, — that the anticipations of good, and 
 the exhortations to attempt it, are so peculiarly directed 
 to its promoters in an individual capacity. 
 
 Happily, the accusatory part of such exhortations is 
 becoming, we trust we may say fast becoming, less ex- 
 tensively applicable ; and we return with pleasure to 
 the animating idea of that revolution of which we were 
 noting the introductory signs. It is a revolution in 
 the manner of estimating the souls of the people, and 
 consequently in the judgment of what should be done 
 for both their present and future welfare. Through 
 many ages, that immense multitude had been but ob- 
 scurely presented to view in any such character as that 
 of rational improvable creatures. They were recog- 
 nised no otherwise than as one large mass of rude moral 
 substance, but faintly distinguishable into individuals; 
 existing, and to be left to exist, in their own manner ; 
 and that manner hardly worth concern or inquiry. 
 Little consideration could there be of how much spiri- 
 tual immortal essence must be going to waste, absorbed 
 in the very earth, all over the wide field where the 
 inferior portion of humanity was seen only through the 
 gross medium of an economical estimate, by the more 
 favoured part of the race. But now it is as if a mist 
 were rising and dispersing from that field, and leaving 
 the multitude of possessors of uncultivated and degraded 
 mind exhibited in a light in which they were never 
 seen before, except by the faithful promoters of Chris- 
 tianity, and a few philanthropists of a less special order. 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 245 
 
 It is true, this manifestation forms so tragic a vision, 
 that if we had only to behold it as a sjyectacle, we might 
 well desire that the misty obscurity should descend on 
 it again, to shroud it from sight ; while we should be 
 left to indulge and elate our imaginations by dwelling 
 on the pomps and splendours of the terrestrial scene, — 
 the mighty empires, the heroes, the victories, the 
 triumphs; the refinements and enjoyments of the most 
 highly cultivated of the race; the brilliant performances 
 of genius, and the astonishing reach of science. So the 
 tempter would have beguiled our Lord into a compla- 
 cent contemplation of the kingdoms and glories of the 
 world. But he was come to look on a different aspect 
 of it! Nor could he be withdrawn from the gloomy 
 view of its degradation and misery. And a good reason 
 why. For the sole object for which he had appeared 
 in the only world where temptation could even in form 
 approach him was to begin in operation, and finish in 
 virtue, a design for changing that state of degradation 
 and misery. In the prosecution of such a design, and 
 in the spirit of that divine benevolence in which it 
 sprung, he could endure to fix on the melancholy and 
 odious character of the scene, the contemplation which 
 was vainly attempted to be diverted to any other of its 
 aspects. What, indeed, could sublunary pomps and 
 glories be to him in any case; but emphatically what, 
 when his object was to redeem the people from dark- 
 ness and destruction? 
 
 Those who, actuated by a spirit in some humble re- 
 semblance to his, have entered deeply into the state of 
 the people, such as it is found in our own nation, have 
 often been appalled at the spectacle disclosed to them. 
 They have been astonished to think, what can have 
 been the direction, while successive ages have passed 
 away, of so many thousands of acute and vigilant mental 
 
246 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 eyes, that so dreadful a sight should scarcely have been 
 descried. They have been aware that in describing it 
 as they actually saw it, they would be regarded by some 
 as gloomy fanatics, tinctured with insanity by the influ- 
 ence of some austere creed; and that others, of kinder 
 nature, but whose sensibility has more of self-indulging 
 refinement than tendency to active benevolence, would 
 almost wish that so revolting an exhibition had never 
 been made, though the fact be actually so. There may 
 have been moments when they themselves have expe- 
 rienced a temporary recoil of their benevolent zeal, 
 under the impression at once of the immensity of the 
 evil, so defying the feebleness of their remedial means 
 and efforts, and of its noisome quality. At times, the 
 rudeness of the subjects, and perhaps the ungracious 
 reception and thankless requital of their disinterested 
 labours, aggravating the general feeling of the misera- 
 bleness, (so to express it) of seeing so much misery, 
 have lent seduction to the temptations to ease and self- 
 indulgence. Why should they, just they of all men, 
 condemn themselves to dwell so much in the most 
 dreary climate of the moral world, when they could 
 perhaps have taken their almost constant abode in a 
 little elysium of elegant knowledge, taste, and refined 
 society? Then was the time to revert to the example 
 of Him " who, though he was rich, for our sakes be- 
 came poor." 
 
 Or, again, they may have been betrayed to indulge 
 too long in the bitter mood of thinking, how entirely 
 the higher and more amply furnished powers leave such 
 generous designs to proceed as they can, in the mere 
 strength of private individual exertion. And they may 
 have yielded to depressive feelings after the fervour of 
 indignant ones ; for such indignation, unless qualified 
 by the purest principle — unless it be the " anger that 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 247 
 
 sins not'' — is very apt, when it cools, to settle into 
 misanthropic despondency. It is as if (they have said) 
 armies and giants would stand aloof to amuse them- 
 selves, while we are to be committed and abandoned in 
 the ceaseless unavailable toil of a conflict, which tliese 
 armies and giants have no business even to exist as such 
 but for the very purpose of waging. We are, if we will, 
 — and if we will we may let it alone — to try to effect 
 in diminutive pieces, and detached local efforts, a little 
 share of that, to the accomplishment of which the 
 greatest human force on earth might be applied on sys- 
 tem, and to the widest compass. So they have said, per- 
 haps, and been tempted to leave their object to its destiny. 
 But really it is now too late for this resentful and 
 desponding abandonment. They cannot now retire in 
 the tragic dignity of despair. It must be some more 
 forlorn predicament that would allow them any grace 
 of rhetoric in saying, as in parody of Cato, " Witness 
 heaven and earth, that we have done our duty, but the 
 stars and fate are against us; and here it becomes us 
 to terminate a strife, which would degenerate into the 
 ridiculous if prosecuted against impossibilities." On 
 the contrary, the zeal which could begin so onerous a 
 work, and prosecute it thus far, could not now remit 
 without convicting its past ardour of cowardice lurk- 
 ing under its temporary semblance of bravery. Is it 
 for the projectors of a noble edifice for public utility, 
 to abandon the undertaking when it has risen from 
 its foundation to be seen above the ground; or is just 
 come to be level with the surface of the w^aters, in 
 defiance of which it has been commenced, and the vio- 
 lence of which it was designed to control, or the unford- 
 able depths and streams of which it was to bear people 
 over? Let the promoters of education and Christian 
 knowledge among the inferior classes, reflect what has 
 
248 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 already been accomplished; though regarding it as quite 
 the incipient stage. It is most truly as yet " the day 
 of small things;" and shall they despise it, from an idea 
 of what it might have been if the great powers had 
 been directed to its advancement ? They have found 
 that in the good cause thus unaided they have not 
 wholly laboured in vain; that it can he brought in con- 
 tact with a considerable portion of what would other- 
 wise be so much human existence abandoned; and that 
 already, as from the garments of the Divine Healer of 
 diseases, a sanative virtue goes out of it. Let them 
 recount the individuals they have seen, and not despond 
 as to many more, rescued from what had all the signs 
 of a destination to the lowest debasement, and utter 
 ruin; some of whom are returning animated thanks, 
 and will do so in the hour of death, for what these, 
 their best human friends, have been the means of im- 
 parting to them. Let them recollect of how many 
 families they have seen the domestic condition pleas- 
 ingly, and in some instances eminently and delightfully 
 amended. And let them reflect how they have tram- 
 pled down prejudices, nearly silenced a heathenish 
 clamour, and provoked the imitative and rival efforts of 
 many who would, but for them, have been willing 
 enough for all such schemes to lie in abeyance to the 
 end of time. Let them think of all this, and faithfully 
 persist in the trial what it may please God that they 
 shall accomplish, whether the possessors of national 
 power will acknowledge his demand for such an appli- 
 cation of it or not; whether, when the infinite import- 
 ance of the concern is represented to them, they will 
 hear, or whether they will forbear. 
 
 But let them not doubt that the time will come, when 
 the rulers and the ascendant classes in states will com- 
 prehend it to be their best policy to promote all possible 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 249 
 
 improvement of the people. It will be given to them 
 to understand, that the highest glory of those at the 
 head of great communities, must consist in the emi- 
 nence attained by those communities generally, in what- 
 ever it is that constitutes the worth, the honour, the 
 happiness, of individuals ; a glory with which would be 
 combined the advantage that the office of presiding over 
 such a nation could be administered in a liberal spirit. 
 They will one day have learned to esteem it a far 
 nobler form of power to lead and direct an immense 
 society of intelhgent minds, than to delude, coerce, and 
 drive a vast semibarbarous herd. Providence surely 
 will one day, in the progress of society, confer on it 
 such wise and virtuous rulers as can feel, that it is 
 better for them to have a people who can understand 
 and rationally approve, when deserving of approbation, 
 their system and measures, than one bent in stupid 
 submission, even if ignorance could henceiprward suffice 
 (which it cannot) to retain the people in that posture ; 
 better, therefore, by a still stronger reason, than to have 
 a people fermenting in ignorant disaffection, constantly 
 believing the governors to be in the wrong, and without 
 the sense to comprehend any arguments in justification, 
 excepting such as might be addressed in the shape of 
 bribes to corruption. And a time will come when it 
 will not be left to the philanthropic or censorial specu- 
 latists alone, to make the comparative estimate between 
 what has been effected by the enormously expensive 
 apparatus of coercive and penal administration — the 
 prisons, prosecutions, transportations, and a large mili- 
 tary police, (things quite necessary in our past and 
 present national condition,) — and what might have been 
 effected by one half of that expenditure devoted to 
 popular reformation, to be accomplished by means of 
 schools, and every practicable variety of methods for 
 
*JgO on popular igxohance. 
 
 placing men's judgment and conscience as tlie ''lion in 
 the way," when they are inclined and tempted to go 
 wrong. — All this will come to pass at length. And if 
 the promoters of the best designs see cause to fear that 
 the time is remote, this should but enforce upon them 
 the more strongly the admonition that no time is theirs, 
 but the present. 
 
 It was not possible to pursue the long course of these 
 observations so nearly to the conclusion, without being 
 reminded still again of what we have adverted to before, 
 that there will be persons ready to impute sanguine ex- 
 travagance to our expectations of the result of such an 
 order of means and exertions, for the improvement of 
 the education and mental condition of the people, as we 
 see already beginning to work. When the means are 
 of so little splendid a quality, it will be said, by what 
 inflation of fancy is their power admeasured to such 
 elFects ? 
 
 And what is it, then, and how much, that is expected 
 as the result, by the zealous advocates of schools, and 
 the whole order of expedients, for the instruction of 
 that part of the rising generation till lately so neglected. 
 Are they heard maintaining that the communication of 
 knowledge, or true notions of things, to youthful minds, 
 will infallibly ensure their virtue and happiness ? They 
 are not quite so new to the world, to experimental 
 labour in the business of tuition, or to self- observation. 
 Their vigilance would hardly overlook such a circum- 
 stance as the very different degree of assurance with 
 which the effects may be predicted, of ignorance on the 
 one hand, and of knowledge on the other. There is 
 very nearly an absolute certainty of success in the 
 method for making clowns, sots, vagabonds, and ruffians. 
 You may safely leave it to themselves to carry on the 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 251 
 
 process for becoming complete. Let human creatures 
 irrow up without discipline, destitute therefore of salutary 
 information, sound judgment, or any conscience but 
 what will shape itself to whatever they like, serving in 
 the manner of some vile friar pander in the old plays, 
 — and no one takes any credit for foresight in saying 
 they will be a noxious burden on the earth ; except 
 indeed in those tracts of it where they seem to have 
 their appropriate place and business, in being matched 
 against the wolves and bears of the wilderness. When 
 they infest what should be a civilized and christianized 
 part of the world, the philanthropist is sometimes put 
 in doubt whether to repress, or indulge, the sentiment 
 which tempts him to complacency in the operation of 
 an epidemic which is thinning their numbers. 
 
 The consequences of ignorance are certain, unless 
 almost a miracle interpose ; but unhappily those of 
 knowledge are of diffident and restricted calculation ; 
 unless we could make a trifle of the testimony of all 
 ages, and suppress the evidence of present experience, 
 that men may see and approve the better, and yet follow 
 the worse. It is the hapless predicament of our nature, 
 that the noblest of its powers, the understanding, has 
 but most imperfectly and precariously that commanding 
 hold on the others, which is essential to the good order 
 of the soul. Our constitution is like a machine in which 
 there is a constant liability of the secondary wheels to 
 be thrown out of the catch and grapple of the master 
 one. And worse than so, these powers which ought to 
 be subordinate and obedient to the understanding, are 
 not left to stand still when detached from its control. 
 They have a strong activity of their own, from the 
 impulse of other principles : indeed, it is this impulse 
 that causes the detachment. It is frightful to look at 
 the evidence from facts, that these active powers ma?/ 
 
2o2 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 grow Strong in the perversity which will set the judg- 
 ment at defiance, during the very time that it is success- 
 fully training to a competence for dictating to them 
 what is right. The assertions of those who are de- 
 termined to find the chief or only cause of the wrong 
 direction of the passions and will in misapprehension 
 of the understanding, are a gross assumption, in a 
 question of fact, against an infinite crowd of facts 
 pressing round with their evidence. This evidence is 
 offered by men without number distinctly and delibe- 
 rately acknowledging their conviction of the evil qua- 
 lity and fatal consequences, of courses which they are 
 soon afterwards seen pursuing, and without the smallest 
 pretence of a change of opinion ; by the same men in 
 more advanced stages still owning the same conviction, 
 and sometimes in strong terms of self-reproach, in the 
 checks and pauses of their career ; and by men in the 
 near prospect of death and judgment expressing, in 
 bitter regret, the acknowledgment that they had per- 
 sisted in acting wrong when they knew better. And 
 this assumption, made against such evidence, is to be 
 maintained for no better reason, that appears, than a 
 wilful determination that human nature cannot, must 
 not, shall not, be so absurd and depraved as to be 
 capable of such madness : as if human nature were 
 taking the smallest trouble to put on any disguise be- 
 fore them, to beguile them into a good opinion ; as if 
 it could be cajoled by their flattery to assume even a 
 semblance of deserving it ; as if it had the complaisance 
 to check one bad propensity, to save them from standing 
 contradicted and exposed to ridicule for speaking of it 
 with indulgence or respect ; as if it staid or cared to 
 thank them for their pains in attempting to make out 
 a plausible extenuation. It has, and keeps, and shows 
 its character, in perfect indifference to the puzzled efforts 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 253 
 
 of its apologists to reduce its moral turpitude to just so 
 much error of the understanding. But, as for under- 
 standing — it should be time to look to their own, when 
 they find themselves asserting, in other words, that 
 there is actually as much virtue in the world as there is 
 knowledge of its principles and laws. We should rather 
 have surmised that, deplorably deficient as that know- 
 ledge is, the reduction of a fifth or tenth part of it to prac- 
 tice would make a glorious change in England and Europe. 
 The persons, therefore, whose zeal is combined with 
 knowledge in the prosecution of plans for the extension 
 of education, proceed on a calculation of an effect more 
 limited, in apparent proportion to the means, and with 
 less certainty of even that more limited measure in any 
 single instance, than they would have been justified in 
 anticipating in many other departments of operation. 
 They would, for example, predict more positively the 
 results of an undertaking to cultivate any tract of waste 
 land, to reclaim a bog, or to render mechanical forces 
 available in an untried mode of application ; or, in many 
 cases, the decided success of the healing art as applied 
 to a diseased body. They must needs be moderate in 
 their confidence of calculation for good, on a moral 
 nature whose corruption would yield an enemy of man- 
 kind a gratifying probability in calculating for evil. 
 In comparing these opposite calculations, they would 
 be glad if they might make an exchange of the respective 
 probabilities. That is to say, let a man, if such there 
 be, who could be pleased with the depravity and misery 
 of the race, a sagacious judge too, of their moral con- 
 stitution, and a veteran observer of their conduct, — 
 let him survey with the look of an evil spirit a hundred 
 children in one of the benevolent schools, and indulge 
 himself in prognosticating, on the strength of what he 
 knows of human nature, the proportion, in numbers 
 
2.54 
 
 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 and degree, in which these children will, in subsequent 
 life, exemplifying the failui^e of what is done for their 
 wisdom and well are ; — let him make his calculation, 
 and, we say, there may be times when the friends of 
 these institutions would be glad to transfer the quantity 
 of probability from his side to theirs ; would feel they 
 should be happy if the proportion in which they fear 
 he may be right in calculating on evil iVom the nature 
 of the beings under discipline, were, instead, the pro- 
 portion in which it is rational to reckon on good from 
 the efficacy of that discipline. '^ Evil, be thou my good," 
 might be their involuntary apostrophe, in the sense of 
 wishing to possess the stronger power, transmuted to 
 the better quality. 
 
 But we shall know where to stop in the course of 
 observations of this darkening colour ; and shall take 
 off the point of the derider's taunt, just forthcoming, 
 that we are here unsaying, in effect, all that we have 
 been so laboriously urging about the vast benefit of 
 knowledge to the people. It was proper to show, that the 
 prosecutors of these designs are not suffering themselves 
 to be duped out of a perception of what there is, in the 
 nature of the youthful subjects, to counteract the inten- 
 tion of the discipline, and with too certain a power to limit 
 its efficacy to a very partial measure of the effect desired. 
 These projectors might fairly be required to prove they 
 are not unknowing enthusiasts ; but then, in keeping 
 clear of the vain extravagances of expectation, they 
 are not to surrender their confidence that something 
 great and important can be done : it should be possible 
 for a man to be sober, short of being dead. They are 
 not to gravitate into a state of feeling as if they 
 thought the understanding and the moral powers are 
 but casually associated in the mind ; as if an important 
 communication to the one, might, so to speak, never be 
 
ON POPULAR IGNOriANCE. 255 
 
 heard of by the others ; as if these subordinates had 
 just one sole principle of action — that of disobeying 
 their chief, so that it could be of no use to appeal to 
 the master of the house respecting the conduct of his 
 inmates ; as if, therefore, all presumption of a relation 
 between means and ends, as a ground of confidence in 
 the efficacy of popular instruction, must be illusory. 
 It might not indeed be amiss for them to be told that 
 the case is so, by those who would desire, from what- 
 ever motive, to repress their eiforts and defeat their 
 designs. For so downright a blow at the vital principle 
 of their favourite object would but serve to provoke 
 them to ascertain more definitely what there really is 
 for them to found their schemes and hopes upon, and 
 therefore to verify to themselves the reasons they have 
 for persisting, in assurance that the labour will be far 
 from wholly lost. And for this assurance it is, at the 
 very lowest, self-evident, that there is at any rate such 
 an efficacy in cultivation, as to give a certainty that a 
 well-cultivated people cannot remain on the same de- 
 graded moral level as a neglected ignorant one — or any 
 where near it. None of those even that value such 
 designs the least, ever pretend to foresee, in the event 
 of their being carried into effect, an undiminished 
 prevalence of rudeness and brutality of manners, of 
 delight in spectacles and amusements of cruelty, of 
 noisy revelry, of sottish intemperance, or of disregard 
 of character. It is not pretended to be foreseen, that 
 the poorer classes will then continue to display so much 
 of that almost desperate improvidence respecting their 
 temporal means and prospects, which has aggravated 
 the calamities of the present times. It is not predicted 
 that an universal school- discipline will bring up several 
 millions to the neglect, and many of them in an 
 impudent contempt, of attendance on the ministrations of 
 
256 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 religion. The result will at all hazards, by every one's 
 acknowledgment, be ike contrary of this. 
 
 But more specifically: — The promoters of the plans 
 of popular education see a most important advantage 
 gained in the very outset, in the obvious fact, that in 
 their schools a very large portion of time is employed 
 well, that otherwise would infallibly be employed ill. 
 Let any one introduce himself into one of these places 
 of concourse, where there has been time to mature the 
 arrangements. He should not enter as an important 
 personage, in patronizing and judicial state, as if to 
 demand the respectful looks of the whole tribe from 
 their attention to their printed rudiments and their 
 slates; but glide in as a quiet observer, just to sur- 
 vey at his leisure the character and operations of the 
 scene. Undoubtedly he may descry here and there the 
 signs of inattention, weariness or vacancy, not to say 
 of perverseness. Even these individuals, however, are 
 out of the way of practical harm ; and at the same 
 time he will see a multitude of youthful spirits acknow- 
 ledging the duty of directing their best attention to 
 something altogether foreign to their wild amusements; 
 of making a rather protracted effort in one mode or 
 another of the strange business of thinking. He will 
 perceive in many the unequivocal indications of a 
 serious and earnest effort made to acquire, with the aid 
 of visible signs and implements, a command of what is 
 invisible and immaterial. They are thus rising from 
 the mere animal state to tread in the precincts of an 
 intellectual economy ; the economy of thought and 
 truth, in which they are to live for ever; and never, in 
 all futurity, will they have to regret, for itself,* this 
 
 * For itself ^a phrase of qualification inserted to meet the cap ■ 
 tious remark, that there have been instances of bad men, under the 
 reproach of conscience and the dread of consequences, expressing 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 257 
 
 period and part of their employments. He will be 
 delighted to think how many regulated actions of the 
 mind, how many just ideas distinctly admitted, that 
 were unknown or unimpressed at the beginning of the 
 day's exercise, (and among these ideas, some to remind 
 them of God and their highest interest,) there will have 
 been by the time the busy and well ordered company 
 breaks up in the evening, and leaves silence within 
 these walls. He will not indeed grow romantic in hope; 
 he knows the nature of which these beings partake ; 
 knows therefore that the desired results of this process 
 will but partially follow; but still rejoices to think those 
 partial results which will most certainly follow, will be 
 worth incomparably more than all they will have cost 
 to the learners, or the teachers, or the patrons. 
 
 Now let him, when he has contemplated this scene, 
 consider how the greatest part of this numerous com- 
 pany would have been employed during the same hours, 
 whether of the sabbath or other days, but for such a 
 provision of means for their instruction. And, for the 
 contrast, he has only to leave the school, and walk a 
 mile round the neighbourhood, in which it will be very 
 wonderful, (we may say this of most parts of England,) 
 if he shall not, in a populous district, especially near a 
 great town, and on a fine day, meet with a great num- 
 ber of wretched disgusting imps, straggling or in knots, 
 in the activity of mischief and nuisance, or at least the 
 full cry of vile and profane language ; with here and 
 there, as a lord among them, an elder larger one grow- 
 ing fast into an insolent adult blackguard. He may 
 make the comparison, quite sure that such as they are, 
 and so employed, would many now under the salutary 
 
 a regret that they had ever been well instructed, since this was an 
 aggravation of their guilt, and perhaps had subserved their evil 
 propensities with the more effectual means ar.d ability. 
 
258 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 discipline of yonder school liave been, but for its insti- 
 tution. But the two classes so beheld in contrast, 
 might they not seem to belong to two different nations? 
 Do they not seem growing into two extremely different 
 orders of character? Do they not even seem preparing 
 for different worlds in the final distribution ? 
 
 The friends of these designs for a general and highly 
 improved education, may proceed further in this course 
 of verifying to themselves the grounds of their assur- 
 ance of happy consequences. A number of ideas, the 
 most important that were ever formed in human 
 thought, or imparted to men from the Supreme Mind, 
 will be so communicated and impressed in these insti- 
 tutions, that it is absolutely certain they will be fixed 
 irrevocably in the minds of the pupils. And in the 
 case of many, if not the majority of these destined 
 adventurers into the temptations of life, these important 
 ideas, thus inserted deep in their souls, will distinctly 
 present themselves to judgment and conscience an in- 
 calculable number of times. What a number, if the 
 sum of all these reminiscences, in all the minds now 
 assembled in a numerous school, could be conjectured ! 
 But if one in a hundred of these recollections, if one 
 in a thousand, shall be efiicacious, who can compute 
 the amount of the good resulting from the instruc- 
 tion which shall have so enforced and fixed these 
 ideas that they shall inevitably be thus recollected? 
 And is it altogether out of reason to hope that the 
 desired efiicacy wdll, far oftener than once in a thou- 
 sand times, attend the luminous rising again of a 
 solemn idea to the view of the mind ! Is still less 
 than this to be predicted for our unhappy nature, while, 
 however fallen, it is not abandoned by the care of its 
 Creator ! 
 
 The institutions themselves will gradually improve, 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 2o9 
 
 in both the method and the compass of their discipline. 
 They will acquire a more vigorous mechanism, and a 
 more decidedly intellectual character. In this latter 
 respect, it is but comparatively of late years that 
 schools for the inferior classes have ventured any thing 
 beyond the humblest pretensions. Mental cultivation 
 —enlarged knowledge — elements of science — habit of 
 thinking — exercise of judgment — free and enlightened 
 opinion — higher grade in society — were terms which 
 they were to be reverently cautious of taking in vain. 
 There would have been an offensive sound in such 
 phrases, as seeming to betray somewhat of the imper- 
 tinence of Si disposition, (for the idea oith^ jpracticahility 
 of any such invasion would have been scorned,) to en- 
 croach on a ground exclusively appropriate to the 
 superior orders. Schools for the poor were to be as 
 little as possible scholastic. They w^ere to be kept 
 down to the lowest level of the workshop, excepting 
 perhaps in one particular — that of working hard : for 
 the scholars were to throw time away rather than be 
 occupied with any thing beyond the merest rudiments. 
 The advocates and the petitioners for aid of such 
 schools, w^ere to avow and plead how little it was that 
 they pretended or presumed to teach. The argument 
 in their behalf w^as either to begin or end with saying, 
 that they taught only reading and writing; or if it 
 could not be denied that there was to be some meddling 
 with arithmetic and grammar, — we may safely appeal 
 to some of the veterans of these pleaders, w^hether 
 they did not, thirty or forty years since, bring out this 
 addition with the management and hesitation of a con- 
 fession and apology. It is a prominent characteristic 
 of that happy revolution we have spoken of as in com- 
 mencement, that this aristocratic notion of education is 
 breaking up. The theory of the subject is loosening 
 
260 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 into enlargement, and will cease by degrees to impose a 
 niggardly restriction on the extent of the cultivation, 
 proper to be attempted in schools for the inferiors of 
 the community. 
 
 As these institutions go on, augmenting in number 
 and improving in organization, their pupils will bring 
 their quality and efficacy to the proof, as they grow to 
 maturity, and go forth to act their part in society. And 
 there can be no doubt, that while too many of them 
 may be mournful exemplifications of the power with 
 which the evil genius of the corrupt nature, combined 
 with the infection of a bad world, resists the better 
 influences of instruction, and may, after the advantage 
 of such an introductory stage, be carried down towards 
 the old debasement, a very considerable proportion will 
 take and permanently maintain a far higher ground. 
 They will have become imbued with an element, which 
 must put them in strong repulsion to that coarse vulgar 
 that will be sure to continue in existence, in this country, 
 long enough to be a trial of the moral taste of this 
 better cultivated race. It will be seen that they cannot 
 associate with it by choice, and in the spirit of com- 
 panionship. And while they are thus withheld on their 
 part, from approximating, it may be hoped that in cer- 
 tain better disposed parts of that vulgar, there may be 
 a conversion of the repelling principle into an impulse 
 to approach and join them on their own ground. There 
 will be numbers among it who cannot be so entirely 
 insensate or perverse, as to look with carelessness at the 
 advantages obtained through the sole medium of per- 
 sonal improvement, by those who had otherwise been 
 exactly on the same level of low resources and estimation 
 as themselves. The eifect of this view on pride, in some, 
 and on better propensities, it may be hoped, in others, 
 will be to excite them to make their way upward 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 261 
 
 to a community which, they will clearly see, could 
 commit no greater folly than to come downward to 
 them. And we will presume a friendly disposition in 
 most of those who shall have been raised to this higher 
 standing, to meet such aspirers and help them to ascend. 
 And while they will thus draw upward the less im- 
 movable and hopeless part of the mass below them, 
 they will themselves, on the other hand, be placed, by 
 the respectability of their understanding and manners, 
 within the influence of the higher cultivation of the 
 classes above them; a great advantage, as we have 
 taken a former occasion to notice : — a great advantage, 
 that is to say, if the cultivation among those classes he 
 generally of such a quality and measure, that the 
 people could not be brought a few degrees nearer to 
 them without becoming, through the effect of their 
 example, more in love with sense, knowledge, and pro- 
 priety of conduct. For it were somewhat too much of 
 simplicity, perhaps, to take it for quite a thing of course 
 that the people would always perceive such intellectual 
 accomplishments as would keep them modest or humble 
 in their estimate of their own, and such liberal spirit 
 and manners as would at once command their respect 
 and conduce to their refinement, when they made any 
 approach to a communication with the classes superior 
 in possessions and station. If this might have been 
 assumed as a thing of course, and if therefore it might 
 have been confidently reckoned on, that the more im- 
 proving of the people would receive from the ranks 
 above them a salutary influence, similar to that which 
 we have been supposing they will themselves exert on 
 a part of the vulgar mass below them, there had been a 
 happy omen for the community ; and if it may not be 
 so assumed, are we to have the disgraceful deficiencies 
 of the upper classes pleaded as an argument against 
 
262 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 raising the lower from their degradation ? Must the 
 multitude flounder along the mud at the bottom of the 
 upward slope, because their betters will not be at the 
 cost of making for themselves a higher terraced road 
 across it than that they are now walking on ? 
 
 But it would be an admirable turn to make the lower 
 orders act beneficially on the higher. And it is an im- 
 portant advantage likely to accrue from the better 
 education of the common people, that their rising 
 attainments would compel not a few of their supe- 
 riors to look to the state of their own mental preten- 
 sions, on perceiving that this, at last, was becoming 
 a ground on which, in no small part, their precedence 
 was to be measured. Surely it would be a most excel- 
 lent thing, that they should find themselves thus in- 
 commodiously pressed upon by the only circumstance, 
 perhaps, that could make them sensible there are more 
 kinds of poverty than that single one to which alone 
 they had hitherto attached ideas of disgrace ; and should 
 be forced to preserve that ascendency for which wealth 
 and station would formerly suffice, at the cost, now, of 
 a good deal more reading, thinking, and general self 
 discipline. And would it be a worthy sacrifice, that to 
 spare some substantial agriculturalists, idle gentlemen, 
 and sporting or promenading ecclesiastics, such an 
 afflictive necessity, the actual tillers of the ground, and 
 the workers in manufacture and mechanics, should con- 
 tinue to be kept in stupid ignorance ? 
 
 It is very possible this may excite a smile, as the 
 threatening of a necessity or a danger to these privileged 
 persons, which it is thought they may be comfortably 
 assured is very remote. This danger (namely, that a 
 good many of them, or rather of those who are coming 
 in the course of nature to succeed them in the same 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 263 
 
 rank, will find that its relative consequence cannot be 
 sustained but at a verj considerably higher pitch of 
 mental qualification) is threatened upon no stronger 
 presages than the following : — Allow us first to take it 
 for granted, that it is not a very protracted length of 
 time that is to pass away before the case comes to be, 
 that a large proportion of the children of the lower 
 classes are trained, through a course of assiduous in- 
 struction and exercise in the most valuable knowledge, 
 during a series of years, in schools which every thing 
 possible is done to render efficient. Then, if we include 
 in one computation all the time they will have spent in 
 real mental effort and acquirement there, and all those 
 pieces and intervals of time which w^e may reasonably 
 hope that many of them will improve to the same pur- 
 pose in the subsequent years, a very great number of 
 them will have employed, by the time they reach middle 
 age, many thousands of hours more than people in their 
 condition have heretofore done, in a way the most 
 directly tending to place them greatly further on in 
 whatever of importance for repute and authority intel- 
 ligence is to bear in society. And how must we be 
 estimating the natural capacities of these inferior classes, 
 or the perceptions of the higher, not to foresee as a 
 consequence, that these latter will find their relative 
 situation greatly altered, with respect to the measure 
 of knowledge and mental power requisite as one most 
 essential constituent of their superiority, in order to 
 command the unfeigned deference of their inferiors ? 
 
 Our strenuous promoters of the schemes for cultiva- 
 ting the minds of all the people, are not afraid of pro- 
 fessing to foresee, that when schools, of that completely 
 disciplinarian organization which they are, we hope, 
 gradually to attain, shall have become general, and 
 shall be vigorously seconded by all those auxiliary 
 
264 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 expedients for popular instruction which are also in 
 progress, a very pleasing modification will become ap- 
 parent in the character, the moral colour, if we might 
 so express it, of the people's ordinary employment. 
 The young persons so instructed, being appointed, for 
 the most part, to the same occupations to which they 
 would have been destined had they grown up in utter 
 ignorance and vulgarity, are expected to give evidence 
 that the meanness, the debasement almost, which had 
 characterised many of those occupations in the view of 
 the more refined classes, was in truth the debasement 
 of the men more than of the callings ; which will come 
 to be in more honourable estimation as associated with 
 the sense, decorum, and self-respect of the performers, 
 than they were while blended and polluted with all the 
 low habits, manners, and language, of ignorance and 
 vulgar grossness. And besides, there is the considera- 
 tion of the different degrees of merit in the performance 
 itself; and who will be the persons most likely to excel, 
 in the many branches of workmanship and business 
 which admit of being better done in proportion to the 
 degree of intelligence directed upon them ? And again, 
 who will be most in requisition for those offices of 
 management and superintendence, where something 
 must be confided to judgment and discretion, and where 
 the value is felt, (often vexatiously felt from the want,) 
 of some capacity of combination and foresight ? 
 
 Such as these are among the subordinate benefits 
 reasonably, we might say infallibly, calculated upon. 
 Our philanthropists are confident in foreseeing also, 
 that very many of these better educated young persons 
 will be valuable cooperators with all who may be more 
 formally employed in instruction, against that ignorance 
 from which themselves have been so happily saved ; 
 will exert an influence, by their example and the steady 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 265 
 
 avowal of their principles, against vice and folly in their 
 vicinity ; and will be useful advisers of their neighbours 
 in their perplexities, and sometimes moderators in their 
 discords. It is predicted, with a confidence so much 
 resting on general grounds of probability, as hardly to 
 need the instances already afforded in various parts 
 of the country to confirm it, that here and there one 
 of the well-instructed humbler class will become a 
 competent and useful public teacher of the most im- 
 portant truth. It is, in short, anticipated with delightful 
 assurance, that great numbers of those who shall go 
 forth from under the friendly guardianship which will 
 take the charge of their youthful minds, will be exam- 
 ples through life and at its conclusion, of the power 
 and felicity of religion. 
 
 Here we can suppose it not improbable that some one 
 may, in pointed terms, put the question, — Do you then, 
 at last, mean to affirm that you can, by the proposed 
 course, by any cause, of discipline, absolutely secure that 
 effectual operation and ascendency of religion in the 
 mind, which shall place it in the right condition toward 
 God, and in a state of fitness for passing, without fear or 
 danger, into the scenes of its future endless existence ? 
 
 We think the cautious limitation of language, hitherto 
 observed in setting forth our expectations, might pre- 
 clude such a question. But let it be asked, since there 
 can be no difficulty to reply. We do not affirm that 
 any form of discipline, the wisest and best in the power 
 of the wisest and best men to apply, is competent of 
 itself thus to subject the mind decidedly and permanently 
 to the power of religion. On the contrary, we believe 
 that grand effect can be accomplished only by a special 
 influence of the Divine Being, operating by the means 
 applied in a well-judged system of instruction, or, if he 
 
266 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 pleases, independently of them. But next, it is per- 
 fectly certain, notwithstanding, that the application of 
 these human means will, in a multitude of instances, be 
 efficacious to that most happy end. 
 
 This certainty arises from a few very plain general 
 considerations. The first is, that the whole system of 
 means appointed by the Almighty to be employed as a 
 human process for presenting religion solemnly in view 
 before men's minds, and enforcing it on them, is an 
 appointment expressly intended for working that great 
 efiect which secures their final felicity; though to what 
 extent in point of number is altogether unknown to the 
 subordinate agents. They are perfectly certain, in 
 employing the appointed expedients in prosecution of 
 the work, that they must be proceeding on the strength 
 of a positive relation subsisting between those means 
 and the results to be realized, in what instances, in what 
 measure, at what time, it shall please the sovereign 
 Power. The appointment cannot be one of mere ex- 
 ercise for the faculties and submissive obedience of 
 those who are summoned to be active in its execution. 
 
 Accordingly, there are in the divine revelation very 
 many explicit and animating assurances, .that their ex- 
 ertions shall certainly be in a measure effectual to the 
 proposed end. And if these assurances are made in 
 favour of the exertions for inculcating religion generally, 
 that is, on men of all conditions and ages, they may be 
 assumed as giving special encouragement to those for 
 impressing it on young minds, before they can be pre- 
 occupied and hardened by the depravities of the world. 
 There is plainly the more hope for the efiicacy of those 
 exertions the less there is to frustrate them. But be- 
 sides, the authority itself, which has assured a measure 
 of success to religious instruction as administered gene- 
 rally, has marked with peculiar strength the promise of 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 267 
 
 its success as applied to the young; thus affording rays 
 of hope which have in ten thousand instances animated 
 the diligence of pious parents, and the other benevolent 
 instructors of children. 
 
 There is also palpable matter of fact to the point, 
 that an education which combines the discipline of the 
 conscience and the intellectual faculty will be rendered, 
 in many instances, efficacious to the formation of a 
 religious character. This obvious fact is, that a much 
 greater proportion of the persons so educated do actually 
 become the subjects of religion, than of a similar num- 
 ber of those brought up in ignorance and profligacy. 
 Take collectively any number of families in which such 
 an education prevails, and the same number in which 
 it does not, and follow the young persons respectively 
 into subsequent life. But any one who hears the sug- 
 gestion, feels there is no need to wait the lapse of time 
 and follow their actual course. As instructed by what 
 he has already seen in society, he can go forward with 
 them prophetically, with perfect certainty that many 
 more of the one tribe than that of the other, will become 
 persons not only of moral respectability but decided 
 piety. Any one that should assert respecting them 
 that the probabilities are equal and indifferent, would 
 be considered as sporting a wilful absurdity, or betray- 
 ing that he is one of those who did not come into the 
 world for any thing they can learn in it. And the ex- 
 perience which thus authorizes a perfect confidence of 
 prediction, is evidence that, though discipline must 
 wholly disclaim an absolute power to effect the great 
 object in question, there is, nevertheless, such a con- 
 stitution of things that it most certainly will, as an 
 instrumental cause, in many instances effect it. 
 
 The state of the matter, then, is very simple. The 
 Supreme Cause of men's being " made wise to salva- 
 
268 
 
 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 tion," in appointing a system of means, to be put by 
 human activity in operation toward this effect, has also 
 appointed that in this operation they shall infallibly be 
 attended with a measure of success in accomplishing 
 that highest good, — a measure which was not to be ac- 
 complished otherwise than by such means. So much 
 he has signified to men as an absolute certainty: but 
 then, he has connected this certainty in an arbitrary, 
 and as to our knowledge, indefinite manner with the 
 system. It is a certainty connected with the system 
 as taken generally and comprehensively; and which it 
 is not given to us to affix to the particular instances in 
 which the success will take place. It is a Divine Voli- 
 tion suspended over the whole scene of cultivation; 
 like a cloud from which we cannot tell where precisely 
 the shower to fertilize it will fall, certain, however, that 
 there are spots whose verdure and flowers will tell after 
 awhile. The agents under the Sovereign Dispenser 
 are to proceed on this positive assurance that the success 
 shall he somewhere, though they cannot know that it 
 will be in this one instance, or in the other: " In the 
 morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not 
 thy hand; for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, 
 this, or that." If they rate the value of their agency 
 so high, as to hold it derogatory to their dignity that 
 any part of their labours should be performed under 
 the condition of possibly being unsuccessful, they may 
 be assured that such is not exactly the estimate of Him 
 to whom they look for the acceptance of their services, 
 and for the reward. 
 
 But it may be added, that the great majority of those 
 who are intent on the schemes for enlightening and 
 reforming mankind, are entertaining a confident hope 
 of the approach of a period, when the success will be 
 far greater in proportion to the measure of exertion 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE, 269 
 
 in every department of the system of instrumentality 
 i'or that grand object. We cherish this confidence, 
 not on the strength of any pretension to be able to 
 resolve prophetic emblems and numbers, into precise 
 dates and events of the present and approaching times. 
 It rests on a more general mode of apprehending a rela- 
 tion between the extraordinary indications of the period 
 Ave live in, and the substantial purport of the divine 
 predictions. There unquestionably gleams forth, through 
 the plainer lines, and through the mystical imagery of 
 prophecy, the vision of a better age, in which the appli- 
 cation of the truths of religion to men's minds will be 
 irresistible. And what should more naturally be inter- 
 preted as one of the dawning signs of its approach, than 
 a new spirit come into action with insuppressible im- 
 pulse, at once to dispel the fog from their intellects and 
 bring the heavenly light to shine close upon them ; 
 accompanied by a prodigious convulsion in the old sys- 
 tem of the world, which hardly recognised in the inferior 
 millions the very existence of souls to need or be worth 
 such an illumination ? It is true that an eruptive 
 activity of evil, beyond what was witnessed by our 
 forefathers, has attended and followed that convulsion; 
 as mephitic exhalations are emitted through the rents 
 of an earthquake. Viewed in itself, this outbreak of 
 the bad principles and passions might seem to portend 
 any thing rather than a grand improvement in the state 
 of a nation or of mankind. It appears like an actual 
 augmentation of the evil previously existing. But it 
 should rather be regarded as the setting loose of the 
 noxious elements accumulated and rankling under the 
 old system; a phenomenon inevitably attendant on its 
 breaking up, by a catastrophe absolutely necessary to 
 open and clear the field for operations on the great scale 
 against those evils themselves, and to give scope and 
 
270 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 means for the advancement toward a better condition 
 of humanity. 
 
 The labourers in the institutions for instructing the 
 young descendants of an ill-fated generation, may often 
 regret to perceive how little the process is as yet 
 informed with the energy which is ultimately to pervade 
 the world. But let them regard as one great undivided 
 economy and train of operation, these initiatory efforts 
 and all that is to follow, till that time " when all shall 
 know the Lord;" and take by anticipation, as in frater- 
 nity with the happier future labourers, their just share 
 of that ultimate triumph. Those active spirits, in the 
 happier periods, will look back with this sentiment of 
 kindred and complacency to those who sustained the 
 earlier toils of the good cause, and did not suffer their 
 zeal to languish under the comparative smallness of 
 their success. 
 
 We shall conclude with a few sentences in the way 
 of reply to another question, which we can surmise 
 there may be persons ready to ask, after this long itera- 
 tion of the assertion of the necessity of knowledge to 
 the common people. The question would be to this 
 effect: What do you, all this while, mean to assign as 
 the measure of knowledge proper for the people to be 
 put in possession of? — for you do not specify the kinds, 
 or limit the extent: you talk in vague general terms of 
 mental improvement; you leave the whole matter inde- 
 finite; and for all that appears, the people are never to 
 know when they know enough. 
 
 It is answered, that we do leave the extent undefined, 
 and should request to be informed where, and why, the 
 line of circumscription and exclusion should be drawn. 
 
 Is it, we could really wish to know, a point at all 
 yet decided, wherein consist the value and importance : 
 
ON POPULAR ignora::ce. 271 
 
 of the human nature? Any liberal scheme for its uni- 
 versal cultivation is met by such a jealous parsimony 
 toward the common people, such a ready imputation of 
 wild theory, such protesting declamations against the 
 mischief of practically applying abstract principles, 
 such an undisguised or betrayed precedence given to 
 mere interests of state, and those perhaps very sordid 
 ones, before all others, and such whimsical prescriptions 
 for making a salutary compound of a little knowledge 
 and much ignorance, — that it might seem to be doubt- 
 ful, after all, whether the human nature, in the mass of 
 mankind at least, be of any such consistence, or for any 
 such purpose, as is affirmed in our common-places on 
 the subject. It is uniformly assumed in the language 
 of divines, and of the philosophers in most repute, that 
 the worth, the dignity, the importance of man, are in 
 his rational immortal nature ; and that therefore the 
 best condition of that is his true felicity and glory, and 
 the object chiefly to be aimed at in all that is done by 
 him, and for him, on earth. But whether this should 
 be regarded as any thing more than the elated faith of 
 ascetics, a fine dogma of academics, or a theme for show 
 in the pomp of moral rhetoric? For we often see, and 
 it is very striking to see, how principles which are suf- 
 fered to pass for infallible truth while content to stay 
 within the province of speculation, and to be pronounced 
 as mere doctrine, may be disowned and repelled when 
 they come demanding to have their appropriate place 
 and influence in the practical sphere. Even many 
 pretended advocates of Christianity, who in naming 
 certain principles would seem to make them of the very 
 essence of the moral part of that religion, and, in dis- 
 coursing merely as religionists, will insist on their vital 
 importance, will yet shuffle and equivocate about these 
 principles, and in effect set them aside, when they are 
 
272 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 attempted to be applied to some of their most legitimate 
 uses. If, for example, these religionists are among the 
 servile adherents of corrupted institutions and iniquity- 
 invested with power, they will easily find accommeda- 
 ting interpretations, or pleas of exemption from the 
 direct authority, of some of the most sacred maxime of 
 their professed religion. Serve the true God when we 
 happen to be in the right place; but at all events we 
 must attend our master to pay homage in the temple of 
 Rimraon, or, should he please to require it, that of 
 Moloch, — with this signal difference from the ancient 
 instance of peccant servility, that whereas in that case 
 pardon for it was implored, in the present case a merit 
 is made of the sycophancy and the idolatry. Unless the 
 principles of Christianity will acknowledge the supre- 
 macy of something else than Christianity, in the mode 
 of their application to estimate the importance of the 
 popular mind, they may take their repose in bodies of 
 divinity, sermons, catechisms, systems of ethics, or 
 wherever they can find a place. 
 
 But is it really admitted, as a great principle for 
 practical application, that the mind, the intelligent 
 imperishable existence, is the supremely valuable thing 
 in man? It is then admitted, inevitably, that the disci- 
 pline, the correction, the improvement, the maturation 
 of this spiritual being to the highest attainable degree, 
 is the great object to be desired by men, for themselves 
 and one another. That is to say, that knowledge, culti- 
 vation, salutary exercise, wisdom, all that can conduce 
 to the perfection of the mind, form the state in which 
 it is due to man's nature that he should be endeavoured 
 to be placed. But then, this is due to his nature by an 
 absolutely ^e^^eraZ law. He cannot be so circumstanced 
 in the order of society that this shall not be due to it. 
 No situation in which the arrangements of the world. 
 
ON POrULAR IGNORANCE. 273 
 
 or say of Providence, may place him, can constitute 
 him a specific kind of creature, to which is no longer fit 
 and necessary that which is necessary to the well-being 
 of man considered generally, as a spiritual, immortal 
 nature. The essential law of this nature cannot be 
 abrogated by men's being placed in humble and narrow 
 circumstances, in which a very large portion of their 
 time and exertions are required for mere subsistence. 
 This accident of a confined situation is no more a 
 reason why their minds should not require the best 
 attainable cultivation, than would be the circumstance 
 that the body in which a man's mind is lodged happens 
 to be of smaller dimensions than those of other men. 
 
 That under the disadvantages of this humble situ- 
 ation they cannot acquire all the mental improvement 
 desirable for the perfection of their intelligent nature,, 
 that the situation renders it impracticable, is quite 
 another matter. So far as this inhibition is real and 
 absolute, that is, so far as it must remain after the best 
 exertion of human wisdom and means in their favour, 
 it must be submitted to as one of the infelicities of 
 their allotment by Providence. What we are insisting 
 on is, that since by the law of their nature there is to 
 them the same general necessity as to any other human 
 beings, of that which is essential to the well-being of 
 the mind, they should be advanced in this improvement 
 as far as they can; that is, as far as a wise and bene- 
 volent disposition of the community can make it 
 practicable for them to be advanced. 
 
 It is an odious hypocrisy to talk of the narrow limits 
 to this advancement as an ordination of Providence, 
 when a well-ordered constitution and management of 
 the community might enlarge those limits. At least it 
 is so in the justifiers of that social system : those who 
 deplore and condemn it may properly speak of the 
 X 
 
274 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 appointment of Providence, but in another sense ; as 
 they would speak of the dispensations of Providence 
 in consolation to a man iniquitously imprisoned or 
 impoverished. 
 
 Let the people then be advanced in the improvement 
 of their rational nature as far as they can. A greater 
 degree of this progress will be more for their welfare 
 than a less. This might be shown in forms of illus- 
 tration easily conceived, and as easily vindicated from 
 the imputation of extravagance, by instances which' 
 every observer may have met with in real life. A poor 
 man, cultivated in a small degree, has acquired a few 
 just ideas of an important subject, which lies out of 
 the scope of his daily employments for subsistence. 
 Be that subject what it may, if those ideas are of any 
 use to him, by what principle would one idea more, or 
 two, or twenty, be of no use to him ? Of no use ! — 
 when all the thinking world knows, that every ad- 
 ditional clear idea of a subject is valuable by a ratio of 
 progress greater than that of the mere numerical in- 
 crease, and that by a large addition of ideas a man 
 triples the value of those with which he began. He 
 has read a small meagre tract on the subject, or perhaps 
 only an article in a magazine, or an essay in the literary 
 column of a provincial newspaper. Where would be 
 the harm, on supposition he can fairly aiford the time, 
 in consequence of husbanding it for this very purpose, 
 of his reading a well-written concise book, which 
 would give him a clear comprehensive view of the 
 subject ? 
 
 But perhaps another branch of the tree of knowledge 
 Trends its fruit temptingly to his hand. And if he 
 should indulge, and gain a tolerably clear notion of one 
 more interesting subject, (^till punctually regardful of 
 the duties of his ordinary vocation) where, we say 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 275 
 
 ngain, is the harm ? Converse with liim ; observe his 
 conduct ; compare him with the wretched clown in a 
 neighbouring dwelling ; and say that he is the worse 
 for having thus much of the provision for a mental 
 subsistence. But if thus much has contributed greatly 
 to his advantage, why should he be interdicted still 
 further attainments ? Are you alarmed for him, if he 
 will needs go the length of acquiring some knowledge 
 of geography, the solar system, and the history of his 
 own country and of the ancient world?* Let him 
 proceed ; supply him gratuitously with some of the 
 best books on these subjects; and if you shall converse 
 with him again, after another year or two of his pro- 
 gress, and compare him once more with the ignorant, 
 stunted, cankered beings in his vicinity, you will see 
 whether there be any thing essentially at variance 
 between his narrow circumstances in life and his mental 
 enlargement. 
 
 You are willing, perhaps, that he should know a few 
 facts of ancient times, and can, though with hesitation, 
 trust him with some such slight stories as Goldsmith's 
 Histories of Greece and Rome, But if he should then 
 by some means find his way into such a work as that 
 of RoUin (of moral and instructive tendency, however 
 defective otherwise,) or betray that he covets an ac- 
 quaintance with those of Gillies, or even Thirlwall, — 
 it is all over witli him for being an useful member of 
 society in his humble situation. You would consent 
 (may we suppose?) to his reading a slender abridgment 
 
 * These denominations of knowledge, so strange as they will to 
 some persons appear, in such a connexion, we have ventured to 
 write from observing that they stand in the schemes of elementary 
 instruction in the Missionary schools for the children of the natives 
 of Bengal. But of course we are to acknowledge, that the vigor- 
 ous, high-toned spirits of those Asiatic idolaters are adapted to re- 
 ceive a much superior style of cultivation to any of which the 
 feeble progeny of England can be supposed to be capable. 
 
276 ON POPULAR lONORANCE. 
 
 of voyages and travels ; but what is to become of him 
 if nothing less will content him than the whole-length 
 story of Captain Cook ? He will direct, it is to be 
 hoped, some of his best attention to the supreme sub- 
 ject of religion. And you would quite approve of his 
 perusing some useful tracts, some manuals of piety, 
 some commentary on a catechism, some volume of 
 serious plain discourses ; but he is absolutely undone 
 if his ambition should rise at length to Barrow, or 
 Howe, or Jeremy Taylor.* He is by all means, you 
 say, to be kept out of all such pernicious company, in 
 which it is impossible he can learn any lesson but one, — 
 an aversion to good morals, just laws, virtuous kings, a 
 polished and benevolent gentry, and learned and pious 
 teachers. Well; let him be kept as far as possible 
 from the mischief of all such books and knowledge ; 
 let him hardly know that there was an ancient world, or 
 that there are on the globe such regions and wonders 
 as travellers have described ; or that a reason and 
 eloquence above the pitch of some plain homily ever 
 illustrated and enforced religion. Let kim keep clear 
 of all such evil communications ; and then, (since we 
 were expressly making it a condition, that he can fairly 
 
 * It should be unnecessary to observe, that the object in citing 
 any names in this paragraph was, to give a somewhat definite cast 
 to the description of the supposed progress of the plebeian self- 
 instructor. The principal of them are mentioned simply as being 
 of such note in their departments, that he would be likely to hear 
 of them among the first of the authors to be sought, if he were 
 aspiring to something beyond his previously humble and abridged 
 reading. The reader may substitute for these names any others, of 
 the superior order, that he may think more proper to stand in their 
 place. It would therefore be animadversion or ridicule mispent, 
 to make the charge of extravagance on this imagined course of a 
 plain man's reading, with a specific reference to the authors here 
 named, as if it had been meant that precisely these, by a peculiar 
 selection, were to be the authors he may be supposed to peruse, 
 and in perusing, to waste his time and destroy his sense of 
 duty. 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 277 
 
 spare the time for such reading from his common em- 
 ployment) and then, — he will have just so much the 
 more time for needless sleep, for discussing the trifles 
 and characters of the neighbourhood, or, (supposing 
 him still of a religious habit,) for tiring his friends and 
 family with the well-meant but very unattractive itera- 
 tion of a few serious phrases and remarks, of which 
 they will have long since learnt to anticipate the last 
 word from hearing the first. Advantages like these he 
 certainly may enjoy in consequence of his preclusion 
 from the higher and wider field of ideas. But however 
 valuable these may be in themselves, they will not en- 
 sure his being better qualified for the common business 
 and proprieties of his station, than another man in the 
 same sphere of life whose mind has acquired that larger 
 reach which we are describing. It is no more than what 
 we have repeatedly seen exemplified, when we represent 
 this transgressor into the prohibited field as probably 
 acquitting himself with exemplary regularity and in- 
 dustry in his allotted labours, and even in this very 
 capacity preferred by the men of business to the 
 illiterate tools in his neighbourhood ; nay, most likely 
 preferred, in the more technical sense of the word, to 
 the honourable, but often sufficiently vexatious office, 
 of directing and superintending the operations of those 
 tools. 
 
 And where, now, is the evil he is incurring or 
 causing, during this progress of violating, step after 
 step, the circumscription by which the aristocratic 
 compasses were again and again, with small reluctant 
 extensions to successive greater distances, defining the 
 scope of the knowledge proper for a man of his con- 
 dition ? It is a bad thing, is it, that he has a multipli- 
 city of ideas to relieve the taedium incident to the 
 sameness of his course of life ; that, with many things 
 
278 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 which had else been but mere insignificant facts, or plain 
 dry notions and principles, he has a variety of interest- 
 ing associations ; like woodbines and roses wreathing 
 round the otherwise bare ungraceful forms of erect 
 stones or withered trees ; that the world is an inter- 
 preted and intelligible volume before his eyes; that he 
 has a power of applying himself to tJdnk of what it be- 
 comes at any time necessary for him to understand? Is 
 it a judgment upon him for his temerity, in '* seeking 
 and intermeddling with wisdom" with which he had no 
 business, that he has so much to impart to his children 
 as they are growing up, and that if some of them are 
 already come to maturity, they know not where to find 
 a man to respect more than their father ? Or if he 
 takes a part in the converse and devotional exercises of 
 religious society, is no one there the better for the 
 clearness and the plenitude of his thoughts and the 
 propriety of his expression? — But there would be no 
 end of the preposterous suppositions fairly attachable 
 to the notion, that the mental improvement of the com- 
 mon people has some proper limit of arbitrary prescrip- 
 tion, on the ground simply of their heing the common 
 people, and quite distinct from the restriction which 
 their circumstances may invincibly impose on their 
 ability. 
 
 Taken in this latter view, we acknowledge that their 
 condition would be a subject for most melancholy con- 
 templation, — if we did not hope for better times. The 
 benevolent reflector, when sometimes led to survey in 
 thought the endless myriads of beings with minds 
 within the circuit of a country like this, will have a 
 momentary vision of them as they would be if all im- 
 proved to the highest mental condition to which it is 
 naturally possible for them to be exalted: a magnificent 
 spectacle; but it instantly fades and vanishes. And the 
 
ON POPULAR IGNOIUNCE, 279 
 
 sense is so powerfully upon him of the unchangeable 
 economy of the world, which, even if the fairest visions 
 of the millennium itself were realized, would still 
 render such a thing actually impossible, that he hardly 
 regrets the bright scene was but a beautiful mirage, 
 and melts away. His imagination then descends to 
 view this immense tribe of rational beings in another, 
 and comparatively moderate state of the cultivation of 
 their faculties, a state not one-third part so lofty as that 
 in which he had beheld all the individuals improved to 
 the utmost of their natural capacity; and he thinks, 
 that the condition of man's abode on earth might admit 
 of their being raised to this elevation. But he soon 
 sees that, till a mighty change shall come on the 
 management of the affairs of nations, this too is impos- 
 sible; and with regret he sees even this inferior ideal 
 spectacle pass away, to rest on an age in distant pro- 
 spect. At last he takes his imaginary stand on what he 
 feels to be a very low level of the supposed improve- 
 ment of the general popular mind; and he says. Thus 
 much, at the least, should be a possibility allowed by 
 the circumstances of the people under any tolerable 
 disposition of national interests; — and then he turns to 
 look down on an actual condition in which care, and 
 toil, and distress, render it impossible for a great pro- 
 portion of the people to reach, or even approach, this 
 his last and lowest conception of what the state of their 
 minds ought to be. 
 
 In spite of all the optimists, it is 2i grievous reflec- 
 tion, after the race has had on earth so many thousands 
 of years for attaining its most advantageous condition 
 there, that all the experience, the philosophy, the 
 science, the art, the power acquired by mind over mat- 
 ter, — that all the contributions of all departed and all 
 present spirits and bodies, yes, and all religion too, 
 
280 ON POPTJLAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 should have come but to this; — to this, that in what is 
 self-adulated as the most favoured and improved nation 
 of all terrestrial space and time, a vast proportion of 
 the people are found in a condition which confines 
 them, with all the rigour of necessity, to a mere child- 
 hood of intelligent existence, without its innocence. 
 
 But at the very same time, and while the compassion 
 rises, at such a view, there comes in on the other hand 
 the reflection, that even in the actual state of things, 
 there are a considerable number of the people who 
 might acquire a valuable share of improvement which 
 they do not. Great numbers of them, grown up, waste 
 by choice, and multitudes of children waste through 
 utter neglect, a large quantity of precious time which 
 their narrow circumstances still leave free from the 
 iron dominion of necessity. And they will waste it, 
 it is certain that they will, till education shall have 
 become general, and much more vigorous in discipline. 
 If through a miracle there were to come down on this 
 country, with a sudden delightful affluence of temporal 
 melioration, resembling the vernal transformation from 
 the dreariness of winter, an universal prosperity, so 
 that all should be placed in comparative ease and plenty, 
 it would require another miracle to prevent this benig- 
 nity of heaven from turning to a dreadful mischief. 
 What would the great tribe of the uneducated people 
 do with the half of their time, which we will suppose 
 that such a state would give to their voluntary disposal? 
 Every one can answer infallibly, that the far greater 
 number of them would consume it in idleness, vanity, 
 or every sort of intemperance. Educate them, then, 
 bring them under a grand process of intellectual and 
 moral reformation; — or, in all circumstances and events, 
 calamitous or prosperous, they are still a race made in 
 vain! 
 
ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 281 
 
 In taking leave of the subject, we wish to express, 
 in strong terms, the applause and felicitations due to 
 those excellent individuals, found here and there, who 
 in very humble circumstances, and perhaps with very 
 little advantage of education in their youth, have been 
 excited to a strenuous, continued exertion for the im- 
 provement of their minds ; and thus have made (the 
 unfavourable situation considered,) admirable attain- 
 ments, which are verifying to them that " knowledge is 
 power," over rich resources for their own enjoyment, 
 and are in many instances passing with inestimable 
 worth into the instruction of their families, and a variety 
 of usefulness within their sphere. They have nobly 
 struggled with their threatened destiny, and have over- 
 come it. When they think, with regret, how confined, 
 after all, is their portion of knowledge, as compared 
 with the possessions of those who have had from their 
 infancy all facilities and the amplest time for its acquire- 
 ment, let them be consoled by reflecting, that the value 
 of mental progress is not to be measured solely by the 
 quantity of knowledge possessed, but partly, and indeed 
 still more, by the corrective, invigorating effect pro- 
 duced on the mental powers by the resolute exertions 
 made in attaining it. And therefore, since under their 
 great disadvantages, it has required a much greater 
 degree of this resolute exertion in them to force their 
 way victoriously out of ignorance, than it has required 
 in those who have had every thing in their favour to 
 make a long free career over the field of knowledge, 
 they may be assured they possess one greater benefit in 
 proportion to the measure of their acquirements. This 
 persistence of a determined will to do what has been so 
 difficult to be done, has infused a peculiar energy into 
 the exercise of their powers ; a valuable compensation, 
 in part, for their more limited share of the advantage 
 
282 ON POPULAR IGNORANCE. 
 
 that one part of knowledge becomes more valuable in 
 itself by the accession of many others. Let them per- 
 severe in this worthy self-discipline, appropriate to the 
 introductory period of an endless mental life. Let them 
 go on to complete the proof how much a mind incited 
 to a high purpose may triumph over a depression of its 
 external condition; — but solemnly taking care, that all 
 their improvements may tend to such a result, that at 
 length the rigour of their lot and the confinement of 
 mortality itself bursting at once from around them, 
 may give them to those intellectual revelations, that 
 everlasting sunlight of the soul, in which the truly wise 
 will expand all their faculties in a happier economy. 
 
A DISCOURSE 
 
 ON TKB 
 
 PROPAGATION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 IN INDIA; 
 
 THE SUBSTANCE OP WHICU WAS DELIVERED 
 
 AT THE ANNUAL MEETING 
 
 OF 
 
 A MISSIONARY SOCIETY, 
 Uk 1818. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 It is very true, as several friends have suggested, that the 
 following Discourse might, on some accounts, have been more 
 properly denominated an Essay. But, as the series of thoughts 
 of which it consists was actually addressed, in the order in 
 which they here occur, though with much less amplification, to 
 a public assembly, and as somewhat of the manner of expres- 
 sion proper to such an address is retained in the composition, 
 the author thinks there might be an appearance of literary 
 affectation in giving it any other title than one describing it in 
 that character. 
 
ON THE 
 
 PKOPAGATION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 IN INDIA. 
 
 They came not to the kelp of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against 
 themighty." — Judges v. 23. 
 
 The practice may be too frequent, of accommodating 
 objects and effects in the world of nature, the relations 
 and transactions in that of human society, and the 
 merely secular facts of the Scripture history, to the 
 purpose of representing, in the way of formal and 
 protracted similitude, the truths and interests of re- 
 ligion. We may observe, however, that it seems to 
 the honour of religion that so many things can be 
 accommodated to its illustration, without any recourse 
 to that perverted ingenuity which fancifully descries 
 or invents resemblances. It is an evident and remark- 
 able fact, that there is a certain principle of correspond- 
 ence to religion throughout the economy of the world. 
 Things bearing an apparent analogy to its truths, 
 obviously or more remotely, present themselves on all 
 sides to a thoughtful mind. He that made all things 
 for Himself appears to have willed that they should be 
 a great system of emblems, reflecting or shadowing 
 that system of principles which is the true theory 
 concerning Him, and our relations to Him. So that 
 religion, standing up in grand parallel to an infinity of 
 things, receives their testimony and homage, and speaks 
 with a voice which is echoed by the creation. 
 
286 ON THE PROPAGATION OF 
 
 It may therefore be permitted us to fix upon a cir- 
 cumstance in the secular conduct of an ancient people, 
 as adapted to suggest more than it essentially contains, 
 and to carry our thoughts, by analogy, to a kind of 
 duty and of delinquency more directly related to 
 religion. Under this licence oar subject is introduced 
 by a sentence pronounced, we may presume at the 
 divine dictation, in reproach of a refusal to co-operate 
 in a different kind of service from that which we have 
 to recommend on the present occasion. 
 
 The negative form of the charge, — They came not 
 to the help of the Lord, — may remind us of the 
 grievous fact, that by far the greater number of the 
 judicial negative statements in the Bible, respecting 
 the conduct of men, are accusations. The mention 
 that they did not do the thing in question is very 
 generally the implied assertion that they ought to have 
 done it. And the consideration becomes still more 
 impressive, on recollection that we are told, that the 
 last negative statement to be uttered on earth, and 
 uttered by the greatest voice, will be with an emphasis 
 of condemnation ; " Inasmuch as ye did it not — ." 
 
 Observe how much guilt there may be in mere 
 omission, and that, even though we should suppose the 
 persons, who decline the one specific duty, to be occu- 
 pied, while neglecting it, in employments in themselves 
 innocent and laudable. It is very possible that the 
 people of whose absence from the appointed scene of 
 action we have just read the accusing record, might 
 have brought a plea on this ground, against the justice 
 of the consequent malediction. They might perhaps 
 have had to say, that they were diligently prosecuting 
 the labours of their rural economy, which there might 
 be, at the time, particular reasons why they should 
 not suspend ; or that they were intent on certain 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 287 
 
 plans for rectifying disorders in their society ; or that 
 they were employing the. time in some religious 
 solemnity, perhaps imploring the intervention of Heaven 
 in the alarming crisis, under a persuasion of the suffi- 
 ciency of the Divine Power independently of human 
 means. But no such pleas would have availed, to 
 avert the vindictive sentence which the prophetess 
 was instructed to pronounce on their refusal to do 
 that one thing which the summons of unquestionable 
 authority had signified to be, in that juncture, 
 their precise duty. Such allegations might indeed 
 have been dishonestly made, as an attempt to veil 
 selfishness and cowardice, the real causes probably for 
 withholding the required service ; and then the hypo- 
 crisy would have incurred a prompt exposure and 
 a severity of rebuke ; but even had they been made 
 sincerely, and proved to be true, they would not have 
 arrested or revoked the condemnation. The appeal of 
 the defaulters would have been silenced by the deci- 
 sion, that it is of the essence of disobedience and 
 rebellion to assume to make commutations and substi- 
 tutions of duty, to transfer obligation to where it 
 would be less inconvenient that it should be enforced, 
 and to affect to render, in the form of preferred and 
 easier services, an equivalent for the obedience which the 
 righteous and supreme authority has distinctly required 
 to be rendered in that harder service which is evaded. 
 Supposing these people to have really been of a 
 quiet and harmless disposition, and assiduous in the 
 useful vocations of ordinary life, there may appear, 
 notwithstanding the urgency of the occasion, some- 
 thing hard in the alternative they were placed in, of 
 suddenly abandoning their homes to rush into the 
 perils of battle, or suffering all that was denounced in 
 so heavy an execration. And, in the survey of the 
 
288 ON THE PROPAGATION OF 
 
 many forms into which human duty has been diversi- 
 fied by occasions, as displayed in the Bible and other 
 records, we see many situations of exceeding hardship 
 — no reflection implied on that Authority which pre- 
 scribed their arduous exercises. The great contest 
 against Evil, in all its modes of invasion of this world, 
 (but our reference is chiefly to those requiring men's 
 resistance in the religious capacity,) has been a service 
 assigned in every possible difference of circumstance 
 and proportion ; and some men's shares have involved 
 a vehemence of exertion, or weight of suffering, 
 which we look upon with wonder and almost with 
 terror. We shudder to think of mortals like ourselves 
 having been brought into such fearful dilemmas 
 between obedience and guilt. "We shrink from placing 
 ourselves but in imagination under such tests of 
 fidelity to God and a good cause. The painful retro- 
 spective sympathy with those agents and sufferers 
 terminates in self-congratulation, that their allotment of 
 duty has not been ours. The tacit sentiment is, I am 
 very glad I can be a good man on less severe conditions. 
 And the sentiment is justified by the laws of our 
 nature. It may become an emotion of piety, and rise 
 in gratitude to God for having appointed us to a less 
 formidable service. But it may also be indulged in 
 such a manner as to betray us into dangerous delusion. 
 In pleasing ourselves with the thought of our exemp- 
 tion from an order of duties involving the sacrifice of 
 everything gratifying in mortal existence but a good 
 conscience, — duties to be performed at the cost of 
 suffering oppressive and unmitigated toil, pain, want, 
 reproach, loss of liberty and even of life itself, — duties 
 imposing such a trial of fidelity as confessors and 
 martyrs have sustained, — we may be led into a wrong 
 estimate of the difference between their situation and 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDA'*^^ O^' 1281^* ^ 
 
 ours, as if our obligations were coiBtWuTC(r'under jin 
 essentially different economy. WitH 
 self-assurance that the satisfaction we 
 to God for a less rigorous appointment, we may 
 making exemptions for ourselves which he has never 
 made. Delighted tiiat, at the easy price of only being 
 thankful to him, we are allowed to take so much indul- 
 gence, we may with a deluded confidence widen out the 
 sphere of privilege beyond one point, and beyond another, 
 where he has marked the boundary ; with always the 
 strongest propensity to this enlargement on that side 
 where the hardest duties are placed ; till the mind at 
 length reposes in a scheme of duty adjusted, on its own 
 authority, to its own convenience, and far from coincident 
 with that which has been dictated by the divine will. 
 
 There is delusion in our self-congratulation at the 
 contrast between what is enjoined on us and the 
 severer duties imposed on some of our great Master's 
 subjects, if we do not perceive that, nevertheless, the 
 matter of our required service is of the very same 
 substance, (with only a favourable difference of mode 
 and proportion,) as that which appears to us of such 
 rigour in theirs. There is delusion, if we are permitted 
 to escape from the habitual sense of being placed, in 
 character of the servants of God, under the duty and 
 necessity of an intense moral warfare, against powers of 
 evil as real and palpable as ever were encountered in the 
 field of battle. Not to feel ourselves pressed upon by 
 resistless evidence and admonition of this, is an utter 
 ignorance or oblivion of our commission on earth. And 
 the natural consequence is a fate like that of strangers 
 thoughtlessly straying and surrendering themselves to 
 sleep, in a place where it is a law of the barbarian in- 
 habitants to sacrifice all strangers to their infernal gods. 
 
 Yet there is in general so faint an impression of the 
 u 
 
290 ON THE PROPAGATION OF 
 
 fact, of an urgent necessity of war till death, as the 
 grand business and obligation of life, that, to the greater 
 number of the persons to whom we offer illustrations of 
 christian topics, no language sounds so idly, no figures 
 appear so insignificant, no forms of common-place so 
 " stale, flat, and unprofitable," as those which represent 
 in a military character the exertions by which men are 
 to evince themselves the servants of God. An appeal 
 might safely be made to the consciousness of many 
 hearers and readers, whether at the recurrence of these 
 images in any religious reference, they have not a marked 
 sense of insipidity strongly tending to disgust, caused in 
 some degree, we may allow, by a too frequent iteration, 
 but still more by the impression of unmeaningness and 
 futility in employing such terms for such a subject. 
 
 It is striking to observe, at the same time, how some 
 of the persons who are thus tired to loathing of these 
 images in their moral and spiritual application, will 
 feel their latent energy beginning to stir and breathe at 
 similar language and figures coming before them in 
 literal representation of war. Most of the excitable 
 class of spirits, whether in youth or much later life, 
 can be kindled to enthusiasm by the grand imagery of 
 battles and heroic achievements. The terms of martial 
 metaphor which, perhaps in a religious discourse, are 
 inflicting dulness and disgust in a representation of the 
 " spiritual conflict," " the christian warfare,'* may re- 
 lieve them by suddenly turning to their literal sense, 
 and diverting the mind away to an imagined scene of 
 conflict ; and it shall feel a proud elation in passing 
 from the vapid story of a spiritual war, to the magni- 
 ficence of the combats which are displayed in fire and 
 blood to the eyes, and in thunder to the ears. The 
 attention being wholly withdrawn from the strain which 
 Is perhaps still proceeding, in words no longer sensibly 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 291 
 
 heard, to figure out the christian soldier, the imagina- 
 tion shall follow the track of some brilliant mortal, of 
 history or fiction, through scenes of tumult, and terror, 
 and noble daring ; and shall adore him as beheld ex- 
 ulting unhurt in victory, or as expiring in the manner 
 in which it is poetically graceful for a hero to fall. 
 The enthusiast, while sitting still and abstracted, may 
 be at moments enchanted into a kind of personation of 
 the character, and glow with emotion in the mimic 
 fancy of acting himself a part so splendid. And these 
 scenes of fury and destruction, thus fervidly imagined, 
 shall really be deemed the sublimest exhibitions of man, 
 in which human energy approaches nearest to a rivalry 
 with the " immortals," — for the epic diction of paganism 
 may naturally be the expression of sentiments fired by 
 its spirit. " Immortal," may be also the word which 
 he is silently pronouncing in his adoration of the per- 
 sonage whose career he is pursuing in reverie ; con- 
 formably to that caprice of human madness, which has 
 determined the special selection of such an epithet for 
 bedecking the most active dealers in death, and whose 
 exposure to be smitten by it is an inevitable condition 
 of their inflicting it. 
 
 If, in this inflamed state of the mind, the idea were 
 again presented of the christian warfare, of a contest 
 against principalities and powers, and spiritual wicked- 
 ness, it would be repelled with disdain of the impertinence 
 or arrogance which could assume for such matters any 
 of the lofty terms belonging, and, (it would be proudly 
 said,) deservedly applied, to the transactions of Trafal- 
 gar and Waterloo. This contempt may be felt by 
 persons to whom the glories of war are only a pageant 
 of the imagination ; but it would be a still stronger 
 sentiment in most of the men w^ho have actually wit- 
 nessed and shared the terrors and triumphs of martial 
 
292 ON THE PROPAGATION OP 
 
 exploit, if tliej by accident should hear the figurative 
 language in question, and lend for a moment attention 
 enough to understand what it should mean. In short, 
 between distaste for its insipidity, and almost resentful 
 scorn of its impertinence of pretension, the metaphor 
 would be, by most men of high-toned spirit, flung back 
 on the imbecile religionists, as an inane fancy, in which 
 they are seeking to make for themselves a compensation 
 for their incapacity of any thing truly great. Let 
 these wars, enemies, and heroes of vapour, they would 
 say, busy the feeble souls that can make a mock reality 
 of such matters. 
 
 But what shall we think of the sanity of the percep- 
 tions of minds thus capable of being enchanted away 
 into such imaginary scenes, proudly sympathetic with 
 the ardour of battles and triumphs, and bereft of all 
 cognisance of their own nearest, deadliest, mightiest 
 enemy, Moral P^vil ? And if our thoughts go from 
 those who are thus fired with the imagination of mar- 
 tial scenes, to those who are in the temper for the 
 reality, how deplorable it is to beliohl moral agents, 
 whom we are to call rational, prompt in hostile pride, 
 vigilantly quick to see or suspect an enemy, burning 
 with heroic spirit, inflated with notions of glory, but 
 who would turn away with slight or scorn at the repre- 
 sentations, by which divine or human admonition is 
 attempting to alarm them to a sense of their danger 
 from that foe compared with which all others are but 
 shapes of air ! That creatures should be thus mad- 
 dened with fancies of the glory of destructive combats 
 with one another, and insensible of the presence and 
 quality of that destroyer which is invading them all, 
 is truly a sight for the most malignant beings in the 
 creation to exult over ; a phenomenon of as dark a 
 character as the frightful spectacle sometimes exhibited 
 
CHiilSTIANlTY IN INDIA. 293 
 
 iti a shipwreck or a dungeon, where a company of men 
 liave fallen with demoniac fury to mutual, destruction, 
 when through the disaster of their situation they were 
 perishing by one common calamity ; or as that which 
 would have been presented by opposed aimed parties 
 or legions, gallantly maintaining battle on the yet un- 
 covered spaces of ground, while the universal flood 
 was rising. 
 
 Ahis for the stupified intelligence of those minds 
 which can regard as idle extravagance this language 
 which would arouse their attention to what is as certain 
 a reality as their own existence, and will infallibly 
 make the most fatal proof of its power on the spirits 
 the least aware that the destroyer is at hand ! What a 
 renovation of perceptive faculty is necessary to that 
 being who would ask, either in levity or ignorant sur- 
 prise. What and where is that foe, so malignant and 
 powerful? — while there is exposed in full view the 
 mighty mass, and force, and operation, of all that de- 
 ceives, and depraves, and ruins the souls of men ! This 
 spiritual obtuseness would itself betray the intervention 
 of the very enemy described. Let a thoughtful man 
 survey the world of mankind, and see what there is 
 universally among them to excite the sad exclamation, 
 " Wo to the inhabitants of the earth ! " Let him 
 deeply consider what it is that he is beholding, while 
 he observes this power of evil assailing, and commit- 
 ting grievous mischief upon, every human being, his 
 experience testifying that himself is not exempted. 
 He is to form his judgment of the gloomy fact under 
 his view, on an estimate of the injury done to each 
 one, and of tlie number so injured, including in the 
 account the generations of all past time. And let him 
 try whether an earnest and protracted attention to the 
 dire exhibition will detect a fallacy in its dreadful 
 
294 ON THE PROPAGATION OF 
 
 aspect, so that his last sober judgment shall be like the^ 
 relief of recovering by the aid of reason from a super- 
 stitious terror. No ; he will find, uniformly, that the 
 evil reveals itself to him in still more substantial and 
 deadly character, the longer he fixes an unshrinking 
 inspection on any of its innumerable forms. The im- 
 pression thus reinforced by stronger demonstration 
 might become too aggravated to be borne, if there were 
 to be suddenly imparted to him a gr^at addition of 
 religious light and sensibility, through which he should 
 receive, while contemplating this vision of evil, a 
 brighter manifestation of the holiness of God, and the 
 perfection of his law. And even such a view might 
 still be but a faint apprehension compared with the 
 perception of some superior pure intelligence looking 
 on this world ; and how much more so in comparison 
 with the thought and feeling with which the Redeemer 
 beheld the error and depravity of our race 1 No lan- 
 guage or images for communicating information in any 
 world, can ever represent his estimate of the scene. 
 But that was the only adequate apprehension of it» 
 In whatever degree, therefore, its portentous quality is 
 manifested to the view of a religious observer, he will 
 always be certain that there is in it a depth of evil still 
 beyond the capacity of his thought ; while in that 
 which he does apprehend he perceives a magnitude 
 and atrocity which can be but feebly expressed by 
 borrowing terms from circumstances the most odious 
 and dreadful in material existence, and saying, that the 
 multitude of human souls are invaded, robbed, polluted, 
 chained, tormented, or murdered. 
 
 Sometimes we contemplate, perhaps, the mighty pro- 
 gress of destruction, as carried over a large tract of the 
 earth by some of the memorable instruments of the 
 divine wrath, such as Attila, Jenghis Khan, or Timour. 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 295 
 
 We behold a wide spreading terror preceding, to be soon 
 followed by the realization of every alarming presage, 
 in resistless ravage and extermination. Numberless 
 crowds come tumultuously to our view, in all the varie- 
 ties of dismay, and vain effort, and suffering, and death ; 
 a world of ghastly countenances, desperate struggles, 
 lamentable cries, streaming blood, and expiring agonies ; 
 with the corresponding circumstances of fury and 
 triumph, and the appropriate scenery of habitations 
 burning and the land made a desert. And while one 
 general character of horror is spread over the im- 
 mensity of the scene, the imagined forms and aspects 
 of individual victims, frequently marked forth from 
 the confused aggregate, and presented to the mind 
 in momentary glimpses, as vivid points, standing out 
 to verify that dreadful character, give an effect of 
 reality to the visionary spectacle of misery and de- 
 struction. 
 
 When a man of ardent imagination has dwelt upon 
 such a scene till it almost glows into actual existence 
 in his view, let him be assured it is the language of 
 truth and soberness that affirms this spectacle to form 
 but a faint and inadequate image, to typify that other 
 invasion which is made on the spirits of all mankind ; 
 that invasion of which, indeed, all these horrors are 
 themselves but a few of the exterior signs and results. 
 And yet creatures assailed and in danger of destruc- 
 tion by this more awful calamity, surveying in fancy, 
 and shuddering while they survey, these furies and 
 miseries of remote times or regions, shall bless their 
 good fortune that they are not exposed to any persecu- 
 tion of evil a thousandth part so formidable ! 
 
 When following in thought those perpetrators of 
 devastation and carnage, we have the consolation of 
 foreseeing its end. The Caesars and Attilas were as 
 
296 ON THE PROPAGATION OF 
 
 mortal as the millions who expired to give them fame. 
 Of Timour, the language of the Historian, kindling 
 into poetry, relates that '* he pitched his last camp at 
 Otrar, where he was expected by the Angel of Death."* 
 But the power that wages war immediately on the souls 
 of men, the power of depravity and delusion combined, 
 has continued to live and destroy while all these re- 
 nowned exterminators have yielded to the decree that 
 sent them after their victims. It is perpetually invi- 
 gorated by the very destruction which it works ; as if 
 it fed upon the slain to strengthen itself for new slaugh- 
 ter, and absorbed into its own every life which it takes 
 away. For it is in the nature of moral evil, as acting 
 on human beings, to create to itself new facilities* 
 means, and force, for prolonging that action. From the 
 effects there is continually reflected back an augmenta- 
 tion of power to the cause ; a circumstance explained 
 by the fatal aptitude of the subject operated upon to 
 give its own strength to aid the pernicious agency. 
 The injured subject, — the corrupted nature, — still less 
 and less, at each return of the injurer, thinks of suspect- 
 ing or resisting ; still more and more effectively contri- 
 butes that the malignity may not be frustrated. So that 
 the power of sin acquires over those who are sur- 
 rendered to it a more decided predominance in each 
 stage of their progress, and makes confirmed assurance 
 .of what they will be in the next, unless prevented by 
 something foreign to their own moral nature. And 
 since the majority of human beings have always been 
 under this power, what a security it has possessed for 
 prolonging its empire of destruction ! What a security, 
 in the principle by which, in every period, the greater 
 number of all mankind were, as individuals, incessantly 
 growing worse ! And to what a dreadful perfection 
 * Gibbon. 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 297 
 
 of evil might such a race attain but for Death, that 
 cuts the term of individuals so short, and but for the 
 Spirit of God, that converts some, and puts a degree of 
 restraint on the rest. 
 
 And now, if there really is thus in action against the 
 souls of our race, such an enemy as all these epithets 
 and images can but inadequately figure, can a professed 
 servant of God look round, and felicitate himself on 
 having an extremely easy test of his fidelity ? Where 
 does he find his privileged ground of immunity and in- 
 dulgence, while this mighty force of evil drives and 
 sweeps and rages, against God, and truth, against good- 
 ness and happiness, his own spirit and all men's spirits, 
 as really as ever he that was named the Scourge of God 
 ravaged the countries of Asia and Europe ? In seeking 
 such exemption he must abandon all the objects and in- 
 terests against which this hostility is directed ; must 
 therefore compromise and in eiFect co-operate with the 
 enemy. Let him consider what scheme it is possible 
 to conceive of true service to the King of Heaven in 
 this bad world, which should not commit him in conflict 
 at every point of its execution. Against every good he 
 can think of, he will find an appropriate antagonist evil 
 already in full action, an action that will not remit and 
 sink into quiet when he approaches to effect the in- 
 tended good. Nay, indeed, in what way is it that the 
 servant of God the most readily apprehends the nature 
 of his vocation but in that of seeing what it is against ? 
 And when he puts the matter to experimental proof, 
 does he ever find that those apprehended adversaries 
 are nothing but menacing shadows ? Let him that 
 has made the most determined, protracted, and exten- 
 sive trial, tell whether it be idle common-place and 
 extravagance when we say that all Christian exhorta- 
 tion is in truth a summons to war. 
 
298 ON THE PROPAaATION OF 
 
 There are many modes of the action of this grand 
 enemy, moral evil, which press so immediately on a 
 man's own personal concern, that a habitual conflict 
 with them is an essential condition of the Christian 
 character : a practical question of hostility or acqui- 
 escence is implicated with the ordinary course of his 
 self-government. There are other forms, of great 
 magnitude and hatefulness, existing in the world, 
 which do not so directly force themselves into the ques- 
 tion of his being a Christian or not. In judgment and 
 feeling he must be, of course, their implacable enemy. 
 But since they throw no temptation in his way, have 
 the sphere of their malignant operation at a great 
 distance, leave a very wide space clear for Christian 
 exercise, and may seem also, by their vastness and 
 consolidated establishment, to be placed the very last 
 of all things that individuals can account themselves 
 competent to attack, — to be as enormous mountains 
 limiting their field, — it may be acknowledged a matter 
 of somewhat less definable obligation in what degree he 
 shall actively expend his animosity upon them. The 
 exhortation to supply a share of his efforts in that 
 direction, may be considered as partly an appeal to 
 those higher sentiments of the religious spirit which 
 aspire to the full magnanimity and zeal of the chris- 
 tian character. It is an admonition to the professed 
 adherents of Him who came on earth with a design 
 extending in hostility, without limit or exception, t6 
 every thing adverse to goodness and pernicious to the 
 human soul, that if all the moral evil in the world is 
 not acting immediately against them, it is against 
 Him ; and that it is most reasonable that one of the 
 laws of their devotion to him should be, to identify 
 themselves with him in the practical warfare to the 
 widest scope which is really open to their enterprise, ^t 
 
CHRISTIANITY JN INDIA. 299 
 
 is an incitement to their ambition, not to leave it to be 
 ever said again, with respect to any part of his opera- 
 tions against evil among men, that he trod the wine- 
 press alone, and that of the people there was none 
 with him. 
 
 When animated to this high and adventurous spirit, 
 a good man may wonder that the Heathenism prevail- 
 ing over large tracts of the world should so little 
 have been, in this country or other Protestant nations, 
 till a comparatively recent time, accounted as com- 
 prehended within the sphere of required Christian 
 exertion.* One most amiable fraternity, indeed, whose 
 gentleness at home involves a principle by which it 
 glows into energy and heroism in proportion to the 
 remoteness of the distance, and the barbarousness and 
 ruggedness of the field of action, to which it is volun- 
 tarily exiled, have made missions to the heathens an 
 essential part of their institution. But in general 
 the friends of religion seem to have regarded those 
 great maladies of the moral world, the delusions and 
 abominations of paganism, with a sort of submissive 
 awe, as if, almost, they had established a prescriptive 
 
 * The indifference of Protestants was not for want of examples, 
 such as they were, of activity in this department. It was very 
 well known that there had heen various missionary enterprises 
 under the appointment of the Eomish Church. And certain 
 individuals employed in those missions were held worthy of per- 
 petual remembrance for their invincible perseverance, and for a 
 share, it was fair to believe, of a truly Christian principle in the 
 motives which actuated them. But when these undertakings 
 were viewed in their general character, it was so notorious that 
 they were, as to the prevailing motive, projects of hierarchical 
 ambition, and that, in their mode of prosecution, they accom- 
 modated, with the corruptest policy, to the paganism they pro- 
 fessed to convert, and introduced a great deal of what was no 
 better than paganism of their own, that Protestants could 
 hardly regard them as Christian projects ; and therefore felt no 
 stimulus at the view of their activity, and derived nothing to 
 excite hope from the boasts, or the facts, of their success. 
 
300 ON THE rUOPAGATION OF 
 
 right to the place they had held so long ; or as if they 
 were part of an unchangeable, uncontrollable order of 
 nature, like the noxious climates of certain portions of 
 the globe. Or at least, when these religious men 
 have looked on these mighty forms of darkness and 
 iniquity, as destined to vanish at some time from the 
 scenes of which they have been so long the curse, and 
 have prayed for that time to be hastened on, they 
 have found themselves anticipating and invoking, with 
 undefined conception, some entirely unwonted and 
 even properly miraculous mode of Divine interposition, 
 and have felt as if it should be for men to stand 
 off and see what God can do ; in this very feeling 
 perhaps admitting on their minds the imposition, 
 through which a defect of faith and zeal may be 
 mistaken for humility and devotion. 
 
 Within a later period, however, (within that, chiefly, 
 which has shown on so vast a scale the availableness 
 of human agency, for overturning things of ancient, 
 and wide, and commanding establishment,) many good 
 men have begun to regard with much less prostration 
 of feeling those gigantic "dominations" which have 
 so many ages held so many nations in the debasement 
 of superstition. It came to be questioned why a 
 servant of Christ should shrink from looking any of 
 the powers of darkness in the face, from defying them 
 in his Master's name, or from making the experiment 
 of an application of heaven's own fire, to the munitions 
 of that realm of deceit and cruelty in which the souls 
 of men are destroyed. In proportion as the imaginary 
 defence around these tyrannies over the mind was in 
 any part seen ready to fall, in proportion as the reputed 
 guardianship of fate or infernal power which had 
 seemed to render them impregnable, was breaking up, 
 the idea of such an experiment on them assumed a less 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 301 
 
 visionary appearance. It took a character of evident 
 practicability; and then it grew to a conviction of 
 duty, in some of those to whom the cause of heaven 
 was the object of highest concern on earth. 
 
 This impression was strongly felt by the first movers 
 of the project of that Mission to India, which we 
 regard as one of the most worthy enterprises of the 
 enlarging Christian ambition to make war on the 
 greatest and most inveterate evils of the moral world. 
 When awaked, as it were, to behold an ampler view 
 of the world as a field of activity for the zealots for 
 the best cause, they were struck with surprise at seeing 
 so few adventuring into the distance against the most 
 ancient and vast dominion of paganism; and they 
 thought it high time that an end should be put to the 
 quietude of sentiment, the antichristian tolerance, 
 toward what was standing in defiance of that cause, 
 with such proud impunity. 
 
 The quality and the strength of this possessor of so 
 wide a region and so many slaves, were evident enough 
 under a very imperfect exposure, to place the meditated 
 experiment of hostility greatly out of the common 
 calculations of Christian daring. It could not but 
 appear so far beyond those ordinary presumptions, as 
 to provoke the contempt of those who have no notion 
 of the interference of the Divine power in aid of such 
 projects. Yet the information possessed at that time, 
 by even the intelligent part of the nation, had been 
 too superficial or deceptive to give anything approach- 
 ing to an adequate idea of the superstition and cor- 
 ruption of the people of Hindoostan. It has been 
 chiefly during the period since this Mission was com- 
 menced, and in a considerable degree in consequence 
 of the discussions and the exposition of evidence 
 occasioned by animosity against it, that a rapidly 
 
302 ON THE PROPAGATION OP 
 
 * 
 
 increasing knowledge has brought the general opinion 
 to that judgment of the character and condition of the 
 Hindoos, which the translations made from their sacred 
 books by the missionaries and other eastern scholars, 
 and the reports of travellers reduced at the last to the 
 necessity of keeping to the truth, — are fast contribut- 
 ing to place beyond all honest controversy. If there 
 was in so old and well examined a thing as human 
 nature no undetected perversity, for these disclosures 
 to bring to light as a new principle of evil, they have, 
 however, shown some of its known evil principles 
 inhering and operating in it with such an absoluteness 
 of possessive power, and displaying this despotism in 
 such wantonly versatile, extravagant, and monstrous 
 effects, as to surpass our previous imaginations and 
 measures of possibility. 
 
 There is much in the Hindoo system that is strik- 
 ingly peculiar ; but as it is the substantial greatness of 
 the evil, rather than its specific modifications, that 
 requires to be presented to the view of Christian zeal, 
 much of the stress of our brief observations will be 
 laid on properties which are common to this with the 
 other principal modes of paganism. The object is 
 rather to display the system in its strength of per- 
 nicious operation, than to attempt any explanatory 
 statement of its precise materials or construction. 
 There needs no great length of description, since the 
 communications of missionaries, and the depositions of 
 inquisitive observers less liable to the suspicion of 
 prejudice, have made, within the last few years, all 
 who take any interest in the subject familiarly ac- 
 quainted with the prominent features of the heathenism 
 of central Asia. As for the possible attainment of 
 anything like a complete knowledge, it may defy all 
 human faculty; which faculty besides, if it mis^ht 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 303 
 
 search the universe for choice of subjects, could find 
 nothing less worth its efforts for knowledge. The 
 system, if so it is to be called, appears, to a cursory 
 inquirer at least, an utter chaos, without top, bottom, 
 or centre, or any dimension or proportion belonging 
 either to matter or mind, and consisting of materials 
 which deserve no better order. It is a world of crude 
 vanities, endlessly sporting into monstrous conforma- 
 tions and dissolving them ; much resembling the bustle 
 of tragi-comical creations in a dream of delirium. It 
 is the most remarkable exemplification of the possi- 
 bility of degrading a grand idea by conjunction with 
 meanness ; that of immensity becoming here con- 
 temptible by combination with the very abstract of 
 worthlessness. 
 
 But, deserving of all contempt as the superstition is 
 in itself, regarded merely as a farrago of notions and 
 fantasies, it is a thing for detestation and earnest 
 hostility when viewed in its practical light, as the 
 governing scheme of principles (so to call them) and 
 rites to a large portion of our race. Consider that 
 there is thus acting upon them, as religion, a system 
 which is in nearly all its properties that which the 
 true religion is not, and in many of them the exact 
 reverse. Look at your religion, presented in its bright 
 attributes before you, reflecting those of its Author ; 
 and then realize to your minds, as far as you can, the 
 condition of so many millions of human spirits receiv- 
 ing, without intermission, from infancy to the hour of 
 death, the full influence of the direct opposites to these 
 divine principles, — a contrast of condition of which 
 we should have but a faint emblem in that between the 
 Israelites and the Egyptians, in beholding on the 
 different sides the pillar, in its appearance over the 
 Red Sea. It is as in passing on toward another 
 
304 ON THE PROPAGATION OF 
 
 woi-ld, that we have to make the comparison between 
 the respective systems of religion under the guidance 
 of which we and they are in the progress thither. 
 While ours has, as its solar lio^ht and glory, the doc- 
 trine of One Being in whom all perfections are united 
 and infinite, theirs scatters that which is the most 
 precious and vital sentiment of the human soul and of 
 any created intelligence, that is, the affection which 
 regards Deity, to an indefinite multitude and diversity 
 of adored objects ;* the one system carrying the spirit 
 downward to utter debasement through that very 
 element of feeling in which it should be exalted ; while 
 the other, when in full influence, bears it upward 
 through all things that combine to degrade it. The 
 relation subsisting between man and the Divinity, as 
 declared in the true religion, is of a simple and solemn 
 character ; a few plain important propositions define 
 it ; whereas the Brahminical theory exhibits this rela- 
 tion in an infinitely confounded, fantastic, vexatious, 
 and ludicrous complexity. While in the Christian 
 system the future state of man is declared with the 
 same dignified simplicity, the contrasted paganism, 
 between some dream of an aspiring mysticism on the 
 one hand, and the paltriest conceits of a reptile 
 invention on the other, presents, we might say sports, 
 this sublime doctrine and fact in the shapes of riddle 
 and whimsey. Ours is an economy according to wiiich 
 
 * It is acknowledged that the most accient authorities of 
 Hindoo faith retain a trace of primeval truth, in the doctrine of 
 a Supreme Spirit, distinguished from the infinity of personifica- 
 tions on which the religious sentiment is wasted, and from those 
 few transcendent demon figures which proudly stand out from 
 the insignificance of the swarm. But this idea reduced to 
 inanity by time, superstition, and ignorance, feebly apprehended 
 by the general mind, a mere nebula in the Hindoo heaven, is 
 inefiicacious for shedding one salutary ray on the spirits infatu- 
 ated with all that is trivial and gross in the puperdtition. 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 305 
 
 religion, considered as in its human sutgects, consists 
 in a state of the mind instead of exterior formalities ; 
 the institutes of the Hindoos make it chiefly consist 
 in a miraculously multiplied and ramiOed order or 
 disorder of ritual fooleries. It is almost superfluous to 
 notice in the comparison, that while the one enjoins 
 and promotes a perfect morality, the other essentially 
 favours, and formally sanctions, some of the worst 
 vices. It may suffice to add, that while the true reli- 
 gion knows nothing of any precedence in the Divine 
 estimate and regard, of one class of human creatures 
 before another, in virtue of nativity or any mere 
 natural distinction, the superstition we are describing 
 has rested very much of its power upon &. classification 
 according to which one considerable proportion of the 
 people are, by the very circumstance of their birth, 
 morally distinguished as holy and venerable, and 
 another more numerous proportion, as base and con- 
 temptible, sprung from the feet of the creating god, 
 that they might be slaves to the tribe which had the 
 luck and honour to spring from his head. 
 
 Such is this aggregate of perversions of all thought, 
 and feeling, and practice. And yet, the system, being 
 religion, acts on its subjects with that kind of power 
 which is appropriate and peculiar to religion. The 
 sense which man, by the very constitution of his nature, 
 has of the existence of some superhuman power, is one 
 of the strongest principles of that nature ; whatever, 
 therefore, takes a really effectual hold of this sense will 
 go far toward acquiring the regency of his moral being. 
 This conjunction of so many delusions does take pos- 
 session of this sense in the minds of the Hindoos, with 
 a mightier force than probably we see in any other ex- 
 hibition of the occupancy of religion, on a wide scale, 
 in the world. But to the power which the superstition 
 
306 ON THE PROPAGATION OF 
 
 has in thus taking hold of the religious sense, is to be 
 added that which it acquires by another adaptation ; for 
 it takes hold also, as with more numerous hands than 
 those given to some of the deities, of all the corrupt 
 principles of the heart. What an awful consideration, 
 that among a race of rational creatures a religion should 
 be mighty almost to omnipotence by means, in a great 
 measure, of alliance with the evil that is within them ! 
 What a melancholy display of man, that the two con- 
 trasted visitants to the world, the one from heaven, the 
 other deserving by its qualities to have its origin re- 
 ferred to the world below, — that these two coming to 
 make trial of their respective adaptations and affinities, 
 upon human spirits, the infernal one should find free 
 admission, through congeniality, to the possession of the 
 whole souls of immense multitudes ; while the one from 
 heaven should but obtain in individuals, here and there, 
 a possession which is partial at the best, and to be 
 maintained by a conflict to the end of life against im- 
 placably repugnant principles in the soul. Well may a 
 Christian be affected with most humiliating emotion, 
 both for his race and himself, while he reflects, — I have 
 a nature which might have yielded itself entire to a false 
 religion, but so reluctantly and partially surrenders it- 
 self to the true one, as to retain me in the condition of 
 having it for the chief concern of my life and prayers 
 that the still opposing dispositions may be subdued. 
 
 The fact is too obvious to need illustration in parti- 
 culars, that this superstition, while it commands the 
 faith of its subjects, completes its power over them by 
 its accordance to their pride, sensuality, and deceitful- 
 ness ; to that natural concomitant of pride, the baseness 
 which is ready to prostrate itself in homage to any thing 
 that shall substitute itself for God; and to that interest 
 which criminals feel to transfer their own accountable- 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 307 
 
 ness upon the powers above them. But then think what 
 a condition for human creatures ! they believe in a 
 religion which invigorates, by coincidence and sanction, 
 those principles in their nature which the true religion 
 is intended to destroy ; and in return, those principles 
 thus strengthened contribute to confirm their faith in 
 the religion. The mischief inflicted becomes the most 
 effectual persuasion to confidence in the inflicter. 
 
 Observe, again, the power possessed by this stu- 
 pendous delusion in having direct hold on the senses, in 
 so many ways, even exclusively of the grosser means, 
 (the grossest possible, as you are apprised,) of which it 
 avails itself to please them. It has attributed an in- 
 herence of something representative of the properties of 
 deity to numberless visible objects, whence it emanates 
 in a continual influence on the mind through the senses. 
 All the vain notions of the superstition thus stand em- 
 bodied before its devotees in material phenomena, which 
 are informed with a significance that seems to look at 
 them and speak to them. Presented to them in these 
 sensible types, those delusive ideas occupy their facul- 
 ties sooner, almost, than they can think, more constantly 
 than they think, and in a mode of possession stronger 
 than mere thought. Indeed it is a mode of possession 
 which, (after faith has grown into the habit of the 
 mind,) may be effectual on the feelings though direct 
 thought be wanting ; for we may presume that in India, 
 
 in other places, when external objects have been ad- 
 m tted as symbols of things believed but unseen, they 
 may preserve in the people much of the moral habitude 
 appropriate to that belief, even at times when there is 
 n strictly intellectual apprehension. The Hindoo is 
 under the influence of this enchantment on his senses, 
 almost wherever the christian remonstrant against the 
 dogmas and rites of his superstition can approach him. 
 
308 ON THE PROPAGATION OF 
 
 seeking access to his reason and conscience. The man 
 thus attempting may have read idle fictions of magical 
 spells, which obstruct the passing of some line, or pre- 
 clude entrance at a gate ; but here he may perceive a 
 real intervening magic, between the truth he brings, 
 and the intellectual and moral faculties into which he 
 wishes to introduce it. In his missionary progress among 
 the people, perhaps he shall address them where there is 
 in sight some gigantic idol, some holy river, some votive 
 object, some consecrated relic, or the tomb of some 
 revered impostor ; things which being connected, in 
 their apprehension, more closely with religion than 
 their garments are with their persons, will impress the 
 assurance that the religious power (the numen) whose 
 emblems are present, is present itself ; that it is a 
 reality, of which evei^ thing adorable or fearful is at 
 that instant impending in menacing authority over 
 them. A thing inconsiderable in itself, firmly associated 
 with an invisible greater thing as its sign, may have the 
 effect not only of reminding of that greater, but of 
 aggravating the sense of both its reality and import- 
 ance. 
 
 His next address may be uttered in the vicinity of a 
 temple, which, if in ruins, seems to tell but so much the 
 more impressively, by that image and sign of antiquity, at 
 what a remote and solemn distance of time that was the 
 religion which they feel to be the religion still ; if undi- 
 lapidatedand continuing in its sacred use, overawes their 
 minds with the mysterious solemnities of its unviolated 
 sanctuary ; while the sculptured shapes and gestures of 
 divinities, overspreading the exterior of the structure, 
 have nothing in their impotent and monstrous device 
 and clumsy execution to abate the reverence of Hindoo 
 devotion, toward the objects expressed in this visible 
 liwi^uage. The -missionary, if an acute observer, might 
 
CnRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 309 
 
 perceive how rays of malignant influence strike from 
 such objects on the faculties of his auditors, to be as it 
 were reflected in their looks of disbelief and disdain on 
 the preacher of the new doctrine. What a strength of 
 guardianship is thus arrayed in the very senses of the 
 pagan, for the fables, lying doctrines, and immoral 
 principles, established in his faith ! 
 
 Or we may suppose the protester in the name of the 
 true God to be led to the scene of one of the grand 
 periodical celebrations of the extraordinary rites of 
 idolatry. There, as at the temple of Jaggernaut, con- 
 templating the effect of an intense fanaticism, glowing 
 through an almost infinite crowd, he may perceive that 
 each individual mind is the more fitted, by being heated 
 in this infernal furnace, to hai'den in a more decided 
 form and stamp of idolatry as it cools. 
 
 The very riches of nature, the conformations and 
 productions of the elements, co-operate in this mighty 
 tyranny over the mind by occupancy of the senses. 
 Deity, while degraded in human conception of it in 
 being diffused through these objects, comes, at the same 
 time, with a more immediate impression of presence, 
 when flowers, trees, animals, rivers, present themselves, 
 not as efiects and illustrations, but often as substantial 
 participants, or at least sacred vehicles, of that sub- 
 limest existence, and the whole surrounding physical 
 world is one vast mythology, an omnipresent fallacy. 
 In praying that the region may be cleared of idol gods, 
 the missionary might feel the question suggested whe- 
 ther he be not repeating Elijah's prayer for the with** 
 holding of rain, since that would certainly do the most 
 toward vacating the pantheon, by the destruction of the 
 flowers, trees, animals, and streams. 
 
 This great enemy, against which we are wishing to 
 excite christian zeal, is " mighty "in the strength of 
 
310 ON THE PROPAGATION OF 
 
 venerable antiquity. Antiquity is, all over the world, 
 the favourite resource of that which is without rational 
 evidence ; especially so, therefore, of superstition ; and 
 the Brahminical superstition rises imperially above all 
 others in assumption of dignity from the past, which it 
 arrogates as all its own, but emphatically that where 
 amazing remoteness appears to confer a character of 
 solemnity on time. Other dominations over human 
 opinion are under the necessity of acknowledging an 
 origin at a particular period, and in comparative insig- 
 nificance ; and have had to attain their due honours by 
 a slowly enlarging progress downward through ages. 
 But this proud imposture, disowning every thing like 
 an infancy, disdaining all idea of having ever been less 
 and afterwards greater, and defying all computation of 
 time, makes the past, back to an inconceivable distance, 
 the peculiar scene of its magnificence. And it teaches 
 its devotees to regard its continued presence on earth, 
 not as the progress of a cause advancing and brighten- 
 ing into greatness and triumph, but merely as some- 
 thing of the radiance reaching thus far, and with fainter 
 splendour, from that glory so divine in the remote past. 
 Its primeval manifestation was of such power as to pro- 
 long the effect even to this late period, in which the 
 faithful worshippers have to look back so far to behold 
 the glory of that vision it once condescended to unfold 
 on this world. The grand point of attraction being 
 thus placed in a past so stupendous as to assume almost a 
 character of eternity, the contemplations, the devotional 
 feelings, and the self-complacency, are drawn away in 
 a retrospective direction, and leave behind in contempt 
 all modern inventions of faith or institution, as the in 
 significant follies sprung from the corruption of a 
 heaven-abandoned period of time. The sentiments 
 excited in them by the many signs of decay in the 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 311 
 
 exterior apparatus of their system, such as the ruined 
 state of numerous temples, will rather coincide with 
 this attraction in carrying the homage and the pride to 
 the glory that was once, than lead to any suspicion of a 
 futility for which the system deserves to grow out of 
 use. This retrospective magnitude, this absorption of 
 all past duration in their religion, this reduction to in- 
 significance of whatever else has existed, (if, indeed, all 
 that has existed have not been comprehended in it,) 
 cannot fail to produce a degree of elation in the minds 
 of the Hindoos, notwithstanding their incapability of 
 genuine sublimity of conception and emotion. 
 
 And again, however inanimate their affections toward 
 their contemporary relations, the idea of an ancestry 
 extending back through unnumbered generations, all 
 having had their whole intellectual and moral exist- 
 ence involved inseparably in their religion, and surren- 
 dering in succession their souls to become a kind of 
 guardians or portions of it, must add a more vital prin* 
 ciple of attraction to the majestic authority and sanc- 
 tion of such an antiquity. Generations of little account 
 in their own times may acquire, when passed away to 
 be contemplated as ancestry, a certain power over the 
 imagination by becoming invested with something of 
 the character of another world, — a venerableness which 
 combines with and augments the interest which they 
 hold in our thoughts as having once belonged to our 
 mortal fraternity. This combined interest going wholly 
 into the sentiments of religion, in the pagans of whom 
 we speak, they will feel as if a violation of that would 
 be an insult to each of the innumerable souls of the 
 great religious family departed, all worthier of respect 
 than any that are now living in the world from which 
 they have vanished. This habitual reference to their 
 ancestors, with a certain sense of responsibility, is main- 
 
312 ON THE PROPAGATION OF 
 
 tained by various notions and rites of their superstition', 
 expressly contrived for the purpose ; as well as by the 
 pride which they can all feel, in a still much greater 
 degree than the more refined and poetical tone of sen- 
 timent, in thus standing connected, through identity of 
 religious character and economy, with the remotest 
 antiquity. 
 
 Nor can the influence be small, in the way of con- 
 firmed sanction and cherished pride, of beholding that 
 which has been the element of the moral existence of 
 an almost infinite train of predecessors, attested still, as 
 to its most material parts, by a world of beings at this 
 hour coinciding with the devotee in regarding it as 
 their honour, their sanctity, and their supreme law. 
 Let the Hindoo direct his attention or his travels which- 
 ever way he will, within the circuit of a thousand 
 leagues, he meets with a crowding succession, without 
 end, of living thinking creatures who, notwithstanding 
 many capricious diversifications of their general faith, 
 live but to believe and act as he does with regard to 
 the most revered of its impositions. And what, in 
 effect, do they all think and act so for, but as evidence 
 ' that he is right ? The mind can rest an assurance of 
 its own rectitude of persuasion on this wide concur- 
 rence of belief, without therefore acknowledging to 
 itself a degrading dependence. Its mode of seeing the 
 matter is, not that the faith of a large assemblage of 
 other minds is therefore its faith, but that its faith is 
 theirs ; not — I think and act as they do, but^ They 
 think and act as I do. This sort of ambitious expan- 
 sion outward, from the individual as a centre, saves his 
 pride of reason from being humiliated by the considera- 
 tion of the sameness of his notions with those of the 
 great mass. The sense of community in human nature 
 is strongly and complacently admitted, when agreeing 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 513 
 
 multitudes corroborate a man*.s opinions without de- 
 priving him of the *T//-coraplacency of believing, that 
 he holds them in the strength of his own wisdom. 
 
 This corroborating influence of the consent of con- 
 temporary multitude in the most essential points of the 
 system, has, as we have hinted, its eifect among the 
 Hindoos independently of social affection. Never did 
 any >vhere a great number of liuman creatures exist 
 together with such slender bonds of attachment to one 
 another. It is a striking illustration of the tendency of 
 their superstition, that it nearly abolishes these in- 
 terests, keeping the whole population in the state of 
 detached and most selfish particles. This seems indeed 
 to be foregoing one of the strongest means of power, 
 since a system of nations and moral principles might find 
 the greatest account in so combining itself with the 
 affections of nature as to engage them for auxiliaries. 
 But then what a triumph of this bad cause, that while, 
 instead of enticing these charities into its service, it 
 tramples on and destroys them, it can notwithstanding 
 make this assemblnge of dissocial selfish beings act upon 
 one another in confirmation of their common delusion, 
 with an effect hardly less than that which might have 
 arisen from friendly sympathy. Of little worth in one 
 another's esteem as relations, friends, and fellow-coun- 
 trymen, it is as things w^hich the gods have set their 
 stamp upon, and located tlieir essence in, that they have 
 their grand value. They have the effect of the sacred 
 figures sculptured on their temples, or of leaves of their 
 books of mythology. The seal or brand of the deities 
 set upon them does not indeed dignify them all, but 
 it makes them all vouchers to the religion. They all 
 in conjunction personify, as it were, that system 
 which as much requires the existence of Soodras 
 to verify it as of Brahmins, The " miry clay" of 
 
314 ON THE PROPAGATION OF 
 
 the feet is as essential a part as the royal material 
 of the head. 
 
 Thus the vast multitude are made to serve just as 
 surety to one another, and all to each, for the verity of 
 the superstition. And as the existence of any of them 
 on any other account had been impertinent, their exist- 
 ence in such prodigious numbers must needs seem to 
 demonstrate a might}- importance in that, for evidence 
 and exemplification of which it was worth while for 
 them to be so many. 
 
 With so despotic a command over the people's minds, 
 it would have been strange if this empire of delusion 
 had forborne to assume the advantage and security of 
 those temporalities, which no other spiritual tyranny 
 was ever unearthly enough to forget, and which, 
 indeed, it would have been a foolish impolicy to forego. 
 Indirectly, it possesses this mode of strength in having 
 for its subjects the princely and opulent persons of 
 the community ; who render it double service, at once 
 by profuse expenditures on its temples, celebrations, and 
 priests ; and by the homage of acknowledging all 
 mere secular superiorities, of wealth, rank, and power, 
 to be intrinsically subordinate to tlie highest of the 
 distinctions founded in religion. There must be con- 
 stant tokens of recognising, as paramount, whatever 
 belongs or is kindred to the divinities. But those 
 divinities have also their direct revenues, in the shape 
 of fixed, and many of them ancient appropriations ; 
 with the addition of an undefined right of exaction, 
 enforced by priests and consecrated mendicants upon 
 the religious charity of the people. This charity is in 
 one sense voluntary ; but when it is considered with 
 what lofty pretensions these applicants make their 
 demands, (not unfrequently even assuming some mode 
 of identity with the gods themselves,) and what 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 315 
 
 benefits or curses are declared, and by the people 
 believed to depend infallibly on their surrendering or 
 withholding the tribute required, it is easy to judge 
 how much these offerings and their quantity are left 
 to free will. 
 
 Their own rights and those of their idols might be 
 trusted, for the power of maintaining them, to men 
 whose demands of a share of the superstitious culti- 
 vator's produce are to be resisted at the believed 
 hazard of a blast on the whole. As if, however, both 
 such endowments, and such force of requisition, had 
 left cause to fear that this infernal hierarchy should 
 become deficient in the substantial resources for pre- 
 serving its dominion of delusion and iniquity, the 
 Christian Government over India has sought the 
 honour of being its auxiliary ; in which capacity it is 
 at once accepted and despised by the descendants of 
 Brahma. The aid has been afforded not simply in the 
 way of securing, in observance of the principle of 
 toleration, the pagan worship and means of worship 
 from violent interference, but in the form of a positive 
 active patronage. The administration of the funds 
 for the ceremonial and abominations of idolatry, has 
 been, to a very great extent, taken under the authority 
 and care of the reigning power, composed of persons 
 zealous on this nearer side of a certain extent of water 
 for the established christian religion, which establish- 
 ment has also been recently extended to that further 
 side, — with what effect toward exploding, or even 
 modifying, this very marvellous policy, or whether 
 deemed to be perfectly harmonious with it, we must 
 wait to be informed.* In the mean time, the religious 
 
 * The writer has been told, that certain readers have taken 
 offence at something in this passage. He cannot well under- 
 stand why ; and perhaps those readers would not be much 
 
316 ON THE PROPAGATION OF 
 
 public are amply informed of a course of measures- 
 having been deliberately pursued tending to support 
 and prolong the ascendency of paganism. It has 
 been disclosed to their view that the highest authority 
 has taken upon itself the regulation of the economy of 
 idols' temples, has restored endowments which had 
 lapsed, and has made additional allowances from the 
 public revenue, where the existing appropriations have 
 been judged inadequate to preserve to those establish- 
 ments the requisite dignity and efficiency ; — requisite 
 for what, but to prevent any relaxation of the hold 
 which the imposture has on the people ? And, be it 
 remembered, the revenue which is to afford this aid 
 is constantly pressing heavily for its means of compe- 
 tence on the distressed resources of this Christian 
 country. 
 
 We cannot presume to conjecture how much sooner 
 this accessional mean of power will begin to fail, than 
 those ancient ones, which the system was possessed of 
 when none of its gods or sages could have foreseen 
 a reserve of assistance in such a quarter. Nor do we 
 
 disposed to explain. The two facts are, that the English 
 Government have adopted a policy of superintending and 
 patronising the idolatrous establishments in India; and that, 
 while systematically pursuing this policy, they have al-'.o ap- 
 pointed and endowed a Christian Ecclesiastical Establishment 
 there. Now, they do, or they do not, consider this measure of 
 establishing a Christian national church there as compatible, 
 consistent, harmonious, with that policy of sanctioning and 
 promoting idolatry. Do they, or do they not 1 Which part of 
 the altemative to assume, it may not be very easy for candour to 
 decide.— — As to the fact of the systematic policy in question, it 
 has been formally stated, or incidentally mentioned, in several 
 publications relating to India. But whoever may wish to see it 
 exposed in its full extent and evidence, may find it in a long, and 
 very able and important article in the 12th volume of the 
 Christian Observer, (the numbers for October and November, 
 1813.) We do not hear of any change having taken place ia 
 the system. 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 317 
 
 pretend to know what oracles of the " lying spirit/' 
 once before trusted in by a government, have given 
 assurance against all alarm respecting the judicial 
 notice which the Governor of the world may take of 
 the Christian supporters of a system which he has 
 doomed to destruction. 
 
 If we add to all these modes and causes of the 
 mightiness of this superstition, the indefatigable acti- 
 vity of the powers of darkness, meaning literally 
 infernal intelligences, believed to be by sufferance busy 
 in this world, it might be readily admitted, we should 
 imagine, that there is nothing in it worthier to have 
 sprung from the inspiration, or to be kept in force by 
 the craft, of such a malignant agency. If there are 
 theologians who deny the intervention of such a cause 
 in this enormity of evil, is it that their laying it all to 
 the account of man alone will serve the argument for 
 that other favourite opinion of theirs, which denies the 
 radical corruption of his nature ? — What new hopes, 
 or consistencies or facilities, for the prosecution of this 
 warfare, might be afforded by their view of the 
 matter, which makes the human nature to be so excel- 
 lent, and yet makes all this to be its spontaneous pro- 
 duct, it would be of no use for us to stay to inquire ; 
 since it is our destiny to proceed in the contest under 
 the notion, that such magnitude of evil can be no less 
 than the leagued depravity of two bad natures. Tliose 
 iviio can ascribe it all to one, and at the same time 
 lavish their adulation on that one, would seem to make 
 no contemptible approximation in point of rationality, 
 toward the superstition we are speaking of, which 
 acknowledges unreservedly what wickedness is com- 
 mitted by the gods, but insists that they are not the 
 less to be adored. 
 
318 ON THE PROPAGATION OF 
 
 Now, can a system of intellectual and moral per- 
 version, of which the demoniac strength is but slightly 
 developed in this brief description of some of its 
 characteristics, shew itself in the view of the adherents 
 of the true religion, without conveying a provocation 
 to their conscience and zeal to come forth, in aid 
 of any reasonable project for carrying a new power 
 into attack on what has maintained, through so many 
 ages, its character of a defier of the living God, in 
 spite of all that might have been supposed to operate 
 toward its destruction from time, and Nature, and the 
 vaunted reason of man ? Those who partake of the 
 spirit of Elijah, and are " very jealous for the Lord of 
 Hosts," will wish that good men might be moved to 
 conspire in a hostility, which shall be carried into effect 
 through being first sent up as a devout service and 
 appeal to heaven, to be thence returned, (for it is 
 in this reflected power that Christian zeal has its effi- 
 cacy,) to be thence returned, as in burning rays, to 
 scorch and blast, here and there, the extended array of 
 idolatry, and at length to annihilate it. But, in think- 
 ing of such a conspiring zeal, thus reflected with an 
 intensity not its own, to consume the mass of abomi- 
 nation, it is for each one to ask within himself. Is there 
 not in that system, made up of so many depravities, 
 some small part, some poisonous atom, some serpent 
 vehicle of an evil principle, which J may be, through 
 the same divine force imparted in its measure to the 
 humblest individual's effort, the means of destroying? 
 And that minute portion of active principle, which 
 noxiously works on in consequence of my not crushing 
 it, — may it not be accounted to work in my name, 
 making my contribution, real however diminutive, and 
 though only by way of omission, to the deadly mischief 
 of that system which I might contribute just so much 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 319 
 
 to abolish ? But even though the state of the matter 
 were, that no actual effect at all should result, none 
 discernible by Him who discriminates every thing in 
 the total of things, still, might I not be required, in 
 mere proof of my fidelity to him, to give some demon- 
 stration of hatred, to fling some practical salutation of 
 war, against an infernal monster that, in character of 
 a constellation of gods, arrogates the worship of a large 
 portion of the human race, and repays it with perdi- 
 tion ? Can I hope to go, without some sense of 
 dishonour, to that higher empire of the Almighty 
 where every possible sentiment of devotion is in actuat 
 excitement, from a region where I have been nearly at 
 peace with such an odious usurpation ? 
 
 But even this state of peace with it has not been 
 enough for some of our countrymen to maintain ; and 
 we think the partiality, arising in some instances 
 almost to fanaticism, which, both at home and abroad, 
 they have manifested without reserve for this grossest 
 paganism, may serve to enforce our demand on Christian 
 zeal. It may do so, partly, by the illustration thus 
 afforded of the quality of the design, since that may be 
 presumed to be greatly excellent which has had the 
 exact effect of irritating out by contrariety the worst vice 
 lurking in profane minds ; and it may additionally do 
 so by the consideration, that if a peculiarly odious 
 kind of depravity, of the existence of which there 
 was perhaps no previous suspicion, suddenly discloses 
 itself in a nation, there should be an extraordinary 
 effort to promote a counterbalancing good. Such an 
 effort, besides that it is due to the honour of God, 
 would seem to be called for in behalf of the character 
 of a Christian people. It may also involve some- 
 what of that policy, in reference to their welfare, 
 which sober men would not easily pronounce super- 
 
320 ON THE PROPAGATION Of 
 
 stitious as exemplified in the parallel case of a ship, in 
 which, if several of the passengers were expressly and 
 ravinglj insulting Omnipotence, any others, fearing 
 the " God of the sea and the dry land,'' would consider 
 an extraordinary degree of homage rendered to him 
 on their part, in direct contravention, a matter not 
 altogether foreign to the safety of the vessel. If their 
 very devotions had been, in the first instance, the cause 
 of bringing out this malignant impiety, they would be 
 certain, on the exhibition of it, rather to double than 
 remit the earnestness and frequency of their prayers. 
 
 The promoters and immediate experimenters of a 
 christian attempt on the pagans of the East naturally 
 expected, in spite of the pretended amiable mildness of 
 the Hindoo character, to encounter a strenuous and 
 perhaps malicious opposition from idolaters. But it 
 was hardly within their calculation that a considerable 
 number of persons of some note in England ; men en- 
 joying the advantages of education ; of repute in the 
 legislation, the mercantile interest, and the literature 
 of the country ; belonging to its respected classes and 
 professions ; and pretending, for the most part, a 
 veneration for the religious establishment ; would be 
 provoked to join in a violent outcry against a scheme 
 for imparting the gospel to the people of India. Still less 
 was it anticipated of what strain the only music in this 
 clamour was to be ; that the virulent invective against 
 the " pernicious fanaticism" of missionary enterprise 
 would ever and anon be heard modulating itself to an 
 expression of indulgent partiality toward tiie execrable 
 superstition threatened by that enterprise. We were 
 not distinctly enough aware of the fact, that men who 
 hate the intrusion of a divine jurisdiction have a natu- 
 ral inducement to be favourable to a mode of pretended 
 religion which they can make light of, as devoid of all 
 
CUT^ISTTANITY IN INDIA. 321 
 
 real authority. The inducement is, that it helps them 
 to make light of religion altogether. The idolatrous 
 superstition is recognised as of the generic nature of 
 religion ; and it comes with great pretensions to au- 
 thority, — high antiquity, reported miracles, learned 
 priests, and an immense number of believers : it may 
 nevertheless be disbelieved with reason and most cer- 
 tain impunity. Under the encouragement of this dis- 
 belief with reason and impunity, the mind, impatient 
 of acknowledging any express manifestation of a divine 
 will, ventures to look toward other religions, and at 
 last toward the Christian. That also has its antiquity, 
 its recorded miracles, its priests, and a multitude of be- 
 lievers. There is an exterior, though in part very 
 fallacious, appearance of similarity. And though there 
 may not be assurance enough to assume formally the 
 equality of pretensions in the two cases, there is a suc- 
 cessful eagerness to evade the evidence and the con- 
 viction, that the apparent similarity is superficial, the 
 real difference infinite ; and the irreligious spirit springs 
 rapidly and gladly, in its disbelief, from the one, as 
 a stepping place, to the other. But that which affords 
 such a convenience for surmounting the awe of the 
 true religion, will naturally be a favourite, even at the 
 very moment it is seen to be contemptible, and indeed, 
 in a sense, in consequence of its being so. Complacency 
 mingles with the very contempt for that from which 
 contempt may rebound on Christianity. 
 
 These partisans of paganism when it can be turned 
 to such an use, it were in vain to warn of a time, when 
 the summons to them will be, in effect, to " come forth 
 against the Lord,'* if they dare "then repeat their well 
 remembered words of homage to idolatry;* a time 
 
 * The most furious and raving of them, a person under a 
 military designation, is dead since this was written. The most 
 
 y 
 
322 ON THE PROPAGATION OP 
 
 when tbelr impious aifectation of liberal respect for all 
 " religions," as proper and useful for their several parts 
 of the world, (meaning that none of them is true,) will 
 give place to the insufferable conviction of having in- 
 sultingly rejected that infinite good which one, certainly 
 and exclusively, had to offer ; and when their con- 
 temptuous disallowance of any higher rule of judging 
 and proceeding with respect to a people's religion, than 
 the consideration of how it may affect government and 
 commerce, will come to be estimated and pronounced 
 upon, in a scene where all worldly policy will be at an 
 end — excepting in its retribution ; and where so many 
 millions will be awaiting that consignment, whatever 
 in the equity of the Almighty it may be, for which 
 they will have grown to a fitness as subjects of a false 
 and depraving religion. Then will such men meet their 
 account with the fabricators and imposers of false reli- 
 gions to serve their ambition, with apostates, and what- 
 ever other enemies of Christ will hear with despair the 
 sentence, " Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and 
 perish." It can be of no use, we repeat, to admonish 
 them; but we may urge it on the friends of true religion 
 and the illumination of the world, that to this phenome- 
 non of a zealous avowal and effort in favour of paganism, 
 
 jocular, vulgar, clever, and far enough from least malicious, of 
 the revilers of the design for converting the idolaters, a person 
 with the ecclesiastical prefix to his name, still lives, amply pro- 
 sperous in the emoluments assigned by the church to excite and 
 reward faithful labours to promote the christian religion in the 
 world. The coarse revilings^ of which the chief objects were the 
 senior missionaries at Serampore, ^ere expended on men who, 
 V.tween the direct efforts to communicate the Bible and teach its 
 doctrines to the idolaters, and the more secular labours to create 
 pecuniary means purely for application to that great purpose, 
 were exerting themselves, amidst innumerable difficultie?!, and in 
 ^n oppressive climate, to the utmost stretch of human ability and 
 patience ; as the now ancient, survivors of the fraternity have 
 continued to do for twenty years longer. 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 3?3 
 
 ' in this christian country, in this stage of its knowledge, 
 their contrary zeal and exertion should be what the 
 living rod of Moses was to the serpents of the magicians. 
 It is at the same time to be acknowledged, that there 
 is a great abatement of the public manifestation of this 
 disposition to vindicate idolatry, and this animosity 
 against all attempts to reduce its dominion. However 
 unallayed the rancorous sentiment may remain, it has 
 been found that its unqualified exposure is a little in- 
 commodious on the score of character. Indeed, in the 
 season of its most virulent eruption, som.e of the per- 
 sons in whom it raged thought it worth while, (others 
 were more bold or honest,) to endeavour to give it 
 a disguised appearance. It was made to inspirit some 
 argument of pretended political expediency. It was 
 vented under the form of a representation, urged with 
 every seeming of a most sincere and wrathful earnest- 
 ness, that missionary proceedings, permitted but a very 
 little while longer, would infallibly work the destruc- 
 tion of the British empire in Asia; although it is 
 probable that some of these malignants laughed in pri- 
 vate at such as might be simple enough to let them- 
 selves become, upon this representation, affected with 
 tliis panic. vSuch assertions were hazarded in a san- 
 guine confidence, for which it is a lamentable reflection 
 on our country that there should have been no slight 
 grounds, that the matter would not be suffered to pro- 
 ceed to the trial. But a power from heaven interposed, 
 acting partly by the instrumentality of the zeal of the 
 religious part of the community ; the Government were 
 decided to prolong the impunity of the reviled mis- 
 sionaries, which authority in their favour has silenced 
 many that were incapable of feeling any restraint from 
 the fear of God ; and time and experience have brought 
 contempt on all their rant of prognostication, ' 
 
i^-^4 ON THE PROPAGATION OF 
 
 We have alluded to such men only to gain frofti 
 them a service for which we shall owe them no thanks. 
 Heligion should keep pace with physical science in the 
 art of making noxious things contribute to salutary 
 operations. No bad moral force, if it cannot be anni- 
 hilated, should be left free from attempts to cheat it 
 into a contrary action to what it naturally intends ; 
 and we wish to make the force of evil, emitted from 
 these men's minds, act in coincident impulse with the 
 motives which should carry the servants of God into a 
 closer and still more animated conflict with the powers 
 of heathen darkness. 
 
 This good cause has prevailed on the judgment, and 
 obtained the practical aid, of the religious public, to an 
 extent which we are willing to regard as an omen from 
 heaven, of great effects to be accomplished in its pro- 
 gress. But it is not improbable there may still remain, 
 among a minority of good men, some feelings not quite 
 reconciled to schemes of such wide scope, such inter- 
 minable demands of assistance, and such a distant field 
 of execution ; schemes, too, at the naming of which we 
 may still seem to hear an echo of the numberless voices 
 that pronounced them chimerical and fanatical ; schemes 
 but partially emerging from the eflfect of that general 
 ridicule which leaves such marks upon an object that 
 most men are long ashamed to entertain it. 
 
 There is much difference of mental constitution for 
 receiving the impression of such projects. There is a 
 class of good men naturally formed to be exceedingly 
 sober, and cautious and deliberate, and anxious for all 
 things to be kept in right proportions and manageable 
 compass. Excellent qualities when themselves in right 
 proportion ; adapted specifically to some departments 
 of duty, and of great use in a certain mea.^ure of inter*- 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. ^25 
 
 feltfnce in all. But let it be suggested to their pos- 
 sessors, that there is perhaps no class of men so apt to 
 overvalue their peculiar endowments, in contra(iistinc- 
 tion to those of a different order ; and no class more 
 needing to be warned of the faults akin to their vir- 
 tues, and into which those virtues are liable to be 
 insensibly transmuted. Nor, while they are in an 
 especial manner ready to take credit to themselves for 
 independence of judgment, are there any good men 
 whose feelings and opinions are more at the mercy of 
 those from whom they differ ; no class being liable 
 to be driven further on one side the middle line, in 
 a concern of duty, by what appears to them an ex- 
 treme on the other. And in their own extreme, when 
 they have once taken their position there, they will 
 maintain themselves with an air and pride of that 
 strong-mindedness which, to deserve the name of firm- 
 ness or independence, ought to have kept them out 
 of it. 
 
 It may be conceded to these worthy men, that the 
 advocates of missions have not always avoided extra- 
 vagance. Especially when under the influence of a 
 large assembly, supposed to be animated by interests 
 which extend to the happiness of a world, they may 
 have been excited into a language which seemed to 
 magnify these interests, and the projects in which they 
 were embodied, at the expense of all other duties and 
 concerns ; insomuch that some of those extra prudent 
 friends of ours, in the auditory, have been wondering, 
 and not without reason, what, at that rate of devote- 
 ment of time, exertion, and money, we are to do, not 
 only with the other claims of religious duty, but with 
 the whole ordinary economy of life, pressing on us 
 as it does with so many peremptory demands. But 
 allowance must be made for a little excess in the 
 
326 ON THE PROPAGATION OF 
 
 pleader of such a cause. Its importance, of which he 
 is at ail times soberly certain, expands into a kind of 
 dazzling magnificence before him, when a multitude of 
 minds seem to be contemplating it in sympathy with 
 him. It appears to him as bright with a reflection of 
 all the complacent regards which those minds are fixing 
 upon it. Under such a temporary animating influence, 
 all the topics and arguments which he has previously 
 accumulated in favour of the selected subject, become 
 as it were dilated and on fire, without any intentional 
 exaggeration ; and unless he had a capacity, like Bacon, 
 of keeping all subjects within his view almost at once, 
 in their relative proportions as in a map, he will natu- " 
 rally represent the claims of the selected one in terms 
 partaking too much of ambition and monopoly. "We 
 cannot wonder that our calculating friends should be 
 making, in their minds, a strong protest against this 
 excess ; but they are aware how little they need enter- 
 tain any apprehension for its consequences ; as well 
 knowing that the persons addressed are never betrayed 
 into such prolonged enthusiasm, as to forget to take 
 the practical standard of their duty at a sufficient re- 
 duction of the requirement made or implied in the 
 hyperbolical language of the advocate. 
 
 While, however, some concession is thus made to the 
 cautious good men, who are more afraid of extrava- 
 gance than of all other errors in designs for promoting 
 religion, they must be told, that it would have been an 
 ill fate for Christianity in the world, if Christians of 
 their temperament could always have held the ascen- 
 dency in projecting its operations. If they would for 
 a moment put themselves, in imagination, in the case of 
 being contemporary with Wiclifl", or with Luther, and of 
 being applied to by one of these daring spirits for ad- 
 Vice, we may ask what counsel they can suppose them- 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 827 
 
 selves to have given. They cannot but be instantly 
 conscious that, though they had been Protestants at 
 heart, their disposition would have been to array and 
 magnify the objections and dangers ; to dwell in em- 
 phatic terms on the inveterate, all-comprehensive, and 
 resistless dominion of the Papal Church, established in 
 every soul and body of the people ; on the vigilance 
 and prompt malignity of the priests ; and on the insig- 
 nificance, as to any probable success, of an obscure in- 
 dividual's efforts against an immense and marvellously 
 well organized system of imposture and iniquity, — 
 even were it not the extreme of self-delusion to expect 
 that those efforts themselves could be of any long con- 
 tinuance, when so easy and apparently certain to be 
 cut short by the ultima ratio of his provoked enemy, 
 in the form of tribunals, dungeons, and death. In 
 a word, if in those instances such counsel had been 
 acted upon as they would have given, that zeal which 
 was kindling and destined to lay a great part of the 
 mightier Babylon in ashes, would have smouldered and 
 expired in a languid listless hope, that the Almighty 
 would 5ome^fme create such a conjuncture of circum- 
 stances, as should admit an attempt at reformation 
 without a culpable and useless temerity. And so we 
 might, for Wicliff and Luther, have been worshipping 
 waxen toys, and trusting our most momentous interests 
 on the strength of masses, penances, absolutions, and 
 ceremonial antics, at this very day. 
 
 And to descend to the undertaking now under con- 
 sideration ; — all that has been accomplished by it in 
 India, and is now accomplishing, as introductory, we 
 trust, to a religious change not less glorious or exten- 
 sive than the Reformation, may be regarded by its 
 active friends as a reward, in some sense, for having 
 refused to be controlled by the dissuasive arguments, 
 
328 ON THE PROPAGATION OP 
 
 and desponding predictions, of many worthy depre* 
 cators of rashness and enthusiasm. 
 
 It is from such a quarter that we may hear disap- 
 probation conveyed in the question, What can we do 
 against an evil of such enormous magnitude, and so 
 consolidated ? It may be answered, (as it has been 
 already suggested,) What you can do, if the expres- 
 sion mean what precise quantity of effect a severe cal- 
 culation may promise from a given eifort, is not always 
 to be the rule of conduct ; for this would be to deny 
 the absolute authority of the Divine Master. We 
 refuse to obey him for his own sake, if we assume to 
 place the governing reason for all the services we 
 are to render in a judgment which we think we can 
 ourselves form, whether they will accomplish an end 
 worth the labour ; and therefore to ^x their limit at 
 the point beyond which we cannot with confidence 
 extend our calculations. Such an arrogant principle, 
 carried to its full length, would at last demand of him 
 that he should require no service without placing clearly 
 within our view all those consequences of it on which 
 his own just reasons for exacting it are founded. That 
 is, it would become a demand to be exempted from all 
 services whatever, of a higher order than the secular 
 business of life. 
 
 It is the very contrary spirit to this of restrictive 
 parsimonious calculation that has been the most sig- 
 nally honoured ; inasmuch as some of the most effectual 
 and of the noblest services rendered to God in all time, 
 have begun much more in the prompting of zeal to at- 
 tempt something for him as it were at all hazards, than 
 in rigorous estimates of the probable measure of success. 
 
 Let it be observed also, how all history abounds with 
 great ultimate consequences from little causes ; in which 
 fact it only declares and exemplifies a prevailing law 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 329 
 
 in the constitution of the world ; a law by which the 
 diminutive grows to the large, sparks flame into con- 
 flagrations, fountains originate mighty streams, and 
 most inconsiderable moral agents and actions are made 
 the incipient points whence trains of agencies and 
 effects, proceeding on with continual accession, enlarge 
 into results of immense magnitude. Some of these 
 great results, now forming most important circum- 
 stances and modifications in the state of the human 
 race, bear on them a peculiarity of character which 
 will hardly allow us to look at them without a refer- 
 ence in thought to the points whence the progression 
 began. They appear, notwithstanding their extension, 
 with a certain prominence and distinctness by which 
 we are reminded of their history ; while others are 
 become so diffused and blended into the general con- 
 formation of things, that their own distinguishable 
 colour, so to speak, does not remain obvious enough to 
 excite readily or necessarily any thought of them as 
 effects which may be retrospectively traced to precise 
 points, where their causes first sprung into action. 
 Much of the actual condition of our part of the world 
 consists of a number of these grand results of enlarg- 
 ing trains of effects, progressive from the smallest 
 beginnings at various distances back in the past. And 
 were not these now wide-spread consequences so com- 
 bined into one order of things and familiarized around 
 us, and were not, besides, their history from their origin 
 so deficient and confused, it might very often be a 
 pleasing employment, for both tlie philoso{)hic and thp 
 devout mind, to trace them backward to the diminu- 
 tiveness in which they began. A mysterious hand 
 threw a particle of a cause, if we may express it so, 
 among the elements ; it had the principle of attraction 
 in k ; it found something akin to it to combine with, 
 
330 OJ^ TkE PROPAGAtiON OP 
 
 obtainiilg so an augmentation, to be instantly again 
 augmented, of the attracting and assimilating power, 
 which grew in a ratio that became at length stupendous ; 
 and it exhibits the final result, (if any result yet attained 
 could be called final,) in something, perhaps, which 
 now forms the most important distinction and advan- 
 tage of a nation, or of a still larger section of the w^orld. 
 What was the commencement of the true religion in 
 this land, and of those several reformations which have 
 partly restored it from its corruptions ? And what 
 would be the term of proportion, according to our 
 principles of judging, between the object as seen in 
 the diminutiveness of the incipient cause, and in its 
 present extent of prevalence? — between the germ in 
 the acorn, and the majestic oak ? 
 
 A result thus growing to an immense magnitude 
 from an original cause apparently so insignificant, is 
 the collective consequence of a great number of causes 
 progressively starting and multiplying into consentane- 
 ous operation, each of them having in the same manner 
 its appropriate enlarging series of consequences, still 
 uniting in the one great process. And in looking to the 
 future progress of an undertaking for difi*using Chris- 
 tianity in India, is it not rational to presume, that many 
 small means and little events will be, in their respective 
 times and places, the commencements, and in a sense 
 the causes, of trains of consequences interminably ad- 
 vancing and enlarging ? 
 
 For example, we may imagine the destiny of some 
 particular copy of the Bible or New Testament, in one 
 of the native languages ; and such a volume would be 
 looked at and held in the hand with a strange interest, 
 could there be any sign to indicate this destiny, at the 
 moment of its issuing from the repository. It may be 
 supposed to come into the hands, in a way much like 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 831 
 
 casualty, of a heathen somewhat more thoughtful than 
 his companions. Disgust or indignation at the first 
 aspect of what he finds tliere may prompt him to throw 
 away the book, which he may perceive to be virtually 
 an impeachment of his religion, his gods, his priests, 
 and himself But a certain disquiet, of curiosity mingled 
 with a deeper sentiment, shall have seized him, and 
 shall impel him irresistibly to that book again : he 
 shall feel as if the eye of a spectre had glanced upon 
 him, and stricken him with a fascination that compels 
 him to follow whether he will or not. A rising sus- 
 picion that all within him, and around him, may have 
 been wrong, shall be aggravated, by repeated perusal, 
 to full conviction ; while the dawn of the true light 
 and of a happier state is breaking on the night of his 
 soul. Communications and discussions with his rela- 
 tions and neighbours may accompany the latter part of 
 his process ; and his finally complete persuasion will 
 be followed by zealous exertions to impart what he 
 will deem the greatest good on earth. The vast ma- 
 jority will obdurately resist ; but within a year he shall 
 find one or two, and in the next several more, sur- 
 rendering to t)ie same convictions, and then, as it were 
 instinctively, unfolding their new faith as a net for 
 proselytes. Who shall presume to say what tlie con- 
 sequence may not be in fifty or in thirty years ? 
 Which of our christian deriders of the madness of 
 missionary hopes, would venture to pledge his fortune 
 for the inviolateness, half a century hence, of those 
 shrines and idols, at present frequented and adored in 
 the district where such a man is perhaps at this hour 
 beginning, by the intrusion of the supposed Bible, to 
 be disturbed in his " unchangeable " notions and rites^ 
 as these christians have so often pronounced them ? 
 We may without extravagance suppose these events 
 
332 ON THE PROPAGATION OF 
 
 to happen in a great number of instances, here and 
 there in that realm of darkness ; and we might add 
 many other diminutive incidents and agents. The pos- 
 sible effects of a few tracts, conveyed in a manner 
 appearing at first unaccountable, to a great distance 
 from the place where they may have been put into 
 pagan hands, by good men little apprised of the digni- 
 fied appointment with which those humble gifts left 
 their own, have been remarkably exemplified in some 
 of the rather recent accounts of this mission. Among 
 the little causes thus having a destiny to great conse- 
 quences, will be presented to our fancy some images of 
 the infantine countenances of the pupils now taught, and 
 hereafter to be taught, in those numerous schools brought 
 into existence by the mission, not indeed contrived for 
 proselytizing, as the immediate purpose, but certain to 
 contribute to it indirectly in the course of years. 
 
 You are glad to admit how reasonable, how sober, it 
 is to expect that many such apparently inconsiderable 
 things will thus grow to magnitude, in the progress of 
 their effects contributary to the success of the good 
 cause. But it will occur to you that, in this fiction of 
 great things from little beginnings, we have not begun 
 quite at their beginning. It is a pleasing thing to see, 
 in the hands of the supposed pagan, the book or tract 
 which may thus explode his superstition, and perhaps 
 be the cause of ultimately setting his temple and idols 
 on fire ; but how is that formidable substance to come, 
 gratuitously, into his hands ? Think what must have 
 preceded. Think of the complicated process of its 
 preparation, involving so many kinds of workmanship. 
 And this brings the train of the operation up to its 
 originating matter in your own hands, a commencement 
 so long antecedent to the pagan's receiving the supposed 
 book, the event from which we have dated such pleas- 
 
CnRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 333 
 
 ing consequences, but on wlVicli consequences we are not 
 to be indulging our anticipative gratulations as if the 
 book were to fall from the sky. The little cause, then, 
 which we may follow onward in thought to such noble 
 effects, — see it deriving itself from a still less, — a piece 
 of money ; which may have carried its image and 
 superscription, in the insignificance of ordinary service, 
 through many hands, at each transit very harmless, in 
 one or other of them possibly subsidiary, to the cause 
 of Evil, till it has come into the hand that has devoted 
 it to produce a Bible, which may have the effect at 
 length of a thunderbolt on an idol's temple. Here is 
 an answer to the question, perhaps querulously asked. 
 What can n^e do ? 
 
 But it will be said, that such fanciful fictions, even 
 supposing a certainty that they will be realized, bring 
 no lively incitement, because, the contributions beinj^ 
 thrown into a common sum of means, no one's quota 
 can have any distinct operation, no individual can 
 please himself with the idea that his particular contri- 
 bution may be made the point of origination of one oi 
 these happy trains ; which would thus be merely so 
 many streams sluiced from a reservoir of collective con- 
 tribution ; rather than springing from distinct original 
 fountains, at each of which an individual might place 
 some mark or inscription to signify that it is his. Well 
 then, the question is, whether the sharey which the 
 individual shall have in originating whatever trains ot 
 progressive good shall take their rise from the general 
 receptacle of christian liberality, shall be deemed not 
 worth the purchase. A share belonging to him, though 
 not distinguishable, will really be there. While this 
 union of the means so contributed makes those who 
 supply them sharers of the loss in all those bibles, those 
 little books, and those cases of the tuition given to 
 
334 ON THE PROPAGATION OF 
 
 juvenile heathens, which shall fall of producing the 
 intended good, it makes them participators also in all 
 those happy and noble consequences, of which it may 
 be assumed as certain that some of the bibles, some of 
 the tracts, some of the instructed heathen children, will 
 be the cause. 
 
 This confidence, that in the prosecution of the enter- 
 prise now under consideration, there cannot fail to be 
 some striking instances of particular and apparently 
 diminutive means thus originating a succession of im- 
 portant movements, enlarging as it advances, — this 
 confidence is authorized (independently of all other 
 reasons,) by the fact, that such instances have occurred 
 in every recorded scheme of christian enterprise which 
 has been prosecuted on a wide scale, from right motives, 
 and with indefatigable perseverance. Not that in all of 
 them there have been such magnificent ultimate effects 
 from little causes as we have been describing ; not 
 that in every province of benevolent activity a rill 
 from some little obscure source has swelled into a Nile, 
 and fertilized a whole region ; but in all of them it 
 may be safely asserted that there have been instances, 
 of a magnitude to throw contempt on frigid, indolent^ 
 and irreligious calculation. 
 
 It is not improbable the chief strength of whatever 
 reluctance may still remain, among the friends of Chris- 
 tianity, to yield their full cooperation in projects for 
 sending that religion to supplant the delusion and 
 idolatry of the heathen world, consists in a kind of 
 Religious Fatalism, which would make the objection in 
 some such terms as these ; — If that Being whose power 
 is almighty has willed to permit on earth the protracted 
 existence in opposition to him of this enormous evil, 
 w^hy are we called upon to vex and exhaust ourselves 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 335 
 
 in a petty warfare against it ? — why, any more than to 
 attempt the extirpation of all the venomous reptiles of 
 India, or the immediate demolition of all the idols' tem- 
 ples ? If it were his will that it should be overthrown, 
 we should soon, without having quitted our places and 
 our quiet, in any offensive movement toward it, feel the 
 earthquake of its mighty catastrophe ; and if such be 
 not his will, then we should plainly be putting ourselves 
 in the predicament of willing something which he does 
 not will, and making exertions which must therefore 
 infallibly prove abortive. 
 
 We may question such an objector as to the real 
 length to which his opinion or feeling goes. May it 
 approach to a sentiment like this, — that, the thing con- 
 templated being permitted by him who is infinitely 
 good and powerful, it is therefore not of a spirit hostile 
 to him, not of a nature directly the reverse of that 
 of his attributes, not of deadly malignity to his crea- 
 tures ; that, in short, the brand of divine reprobation 
 stamped by both revelation and reason on idolatry, and 
 on each of its deceits and depravities severally, is itself, 
 in truth, but a deceit of another kind, a mere accom- 
 modation to a certain superficial and conventional 
 theory, the real fact being, after all, that God is at 
 peace with the thing thus reprobated ? 
 
 We may presume he will instantly reply in the nega- 
 tive, and say, that he holds this mass of error and tur- 
 pitude to be intrinsically and immutably opposite to the 
 divine goodness and holiness, and pernicious to man, — 
 any other judgment of the matter being, according to 
 all fact, and all scripture, utterly and impiously absurd ; 
 and that therefore the divine permission of this great 
 evil, being no sanction of it, is simply an impenetrable 
 and awful mystery. 
 
 Then, we immediately say to him, there are two 
 
o36 ON THK PROPAGATION OF 
 
 views, according to one of which you are to form youi* 
 scheme of conduct ; on the one hand, a mystery in the 
 divine government, a permission infinitely inexplicable 
 to you ; and on the other, the most glaring manifes- 
 tation of the quality of the thing so permitted, as hate- 
 ful in itself and in the sight of God. Consider from 
 which of these two it is the most rational for you to 
 take your rule of action ; from that where your under- 
 standing is profoundly lost, or from that where all 
 is demonstration or self-evidence. You have light 
 given you on the nether tract where you are placed, 
 beneath the awful mystery in the heaven above, which 
 interposes darkness between you and the reasons and 
 counsels of the Almighty. By this light you have an 
 infallible manifestation of the infinitely odious nature of 
 an object that stands before you. What can this light 
 and this manifestation be for, but that you might not 
 have need to look up into the darkness for an authority, 
 from reasons unknown, to determine your sentiments 
 and action ? And is it rational, and can it be safe, 
 that the clear evidence which has thus been given, in 
 order to define for you a scheme of duty with the ad- 
 vantage of being independent of the mystery, should be 
 rejected that you may revert to that very mystery 
 for a determination of your duty, — or rather for an 
 authority to conclude that you have none ? Or would 
 you, both despising this light and defying that dark- 
 ness, aspire to surmount the region of mystery itself, 
 ascend into the light around the throne of heaven, and, 
 sharer of Sovereign Intelligence, enter into God's own 
 reasons for permitting the evil ? But even that tran- 
 scendent illumination would not authorize tlie principle 
 of action that because God suffers the continuance of 
 an evil, you shall abstain from hostility against it. 
 For there would be a further expansion for that light 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 337 
 
 to reach, namely, an understanding also of his reasons 
 for requiring from his rational creatures an active 
 enmity to all evil, notwithstanding his sufferance of it, 
 and an apprehension of the consistency between that 
 requirement and that sufferance. Your presuming, 
 therefore, in contempt of that consistency, and on a pre- 
 tence of homage to one part of his reasons to contra- 
 vene another part of them, — that part from which his 
 injunction proceeds, — would be a flagrant impiety; 
 and would convict you of a virtual alliance with the evil 
 to which those reasons and that injunction could not 
 move your hostility. 
 
 But perhaps you will say, that far from any ten- 
 dency to such an alliance, you are, as an indispensable 
 part and proof of your fidelity to God, a mortal foe of 
 this foe to him, in every estimate of your judgment and 
 every sentiment of your heart ; and that the only ex- 
 emption sought, on the plea of the divine permission of 
 the evil, is, that you may be excused, at least for the 
 present, from active measures that would but expend 
 and waste your feeble strength, on that which the 
 almighty strength spares. 
 
 Now in the first place, there seems to be a ground- 
 less assumption implied here, namely the continuance 
 of this permission indefinitely into futurity ; whereas, 
 for any thing that can be known to you, hostile means 
 put in action at this period may coincide with a divine 
 decree to hasten the termination of that mysterious 
 sufferance : and then, whatever were the natural inade- 
 quacy of those means, they would seem to have caught 
 the fire of Gideon's lamps, and be made to flame out 
 with supernatural power of rout and confusion to the 
 host of pagan gods. 
 
 But in the next place, you cannot consistently ac- 
 knowledge that the circumstance of the divine permis- 
 
338 ON TUE PROPAGATION OF 
 
 sion of this dreadful system of delusion affords no 
 particle of ground for conciliation to it, but leaves you 
 under the full obligation of a mortal enmity, — and at 
 the same time claim from that circumstance an exemp- 
 tion from practical efforts against it. Wliat indeed is 
 its permission but simply its existence? — in virtue of 
 which there can be no exemption from the duty of 
 attacking it which would not be equally an exemption 
 from all duty whatever in the form of opposition and 
 conflict ; which therefore would not confer an universal 
 inviolability on evil, and end practically in the maxim, 
 that the more evil there is in the world, the less there 
 is for the servants of God to do. And yet you are say- 
 ing, their feeling, in this state of exemption, should be 
 the same as if they had a great deal to do, and a mighty 
 host to fight. While, with respect at least to the giant 
 evil at present in view, you would plead that they may 
 remain in inaction, they ought nevertheless, you will 
 say, to glow with the actuating principle. But then of 
 what use is that principle except to disturb their re- 
 pose ? That they should be inflamed, as you acknow- 
 ledge they should, against what is working infinite 
 mischief and misery to a large portion of the human 
 race, and yet should in point of action remain at peace 
 with it, would not only be an inconsistency and absur- 
 dity, but would also be an uneasy and mortifying 
 state. Yain passion of christian zeal ! illusory and 
 almost penal fire from heaven ! animating the heart 
 but to consume it, if there should be no practical mode 
 and machinery for conveying outward its energy to 
 strike against the hated object. To have the mind 
 beset and filled, as by main force, with the revolting 
 images of pagan abominations, and to know that this 
 infernal usurpation triumphs in the slavery of millions 
 of our common family, and yet, the while, to submit to 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 3r39 
 
 be unfurnished with expedients of devout revenge ; to 
 have no arrows, no power of throwing reflected con- 
 vergent sunbeams, no missiles charged with the elements 
 most noxious to a malignant nature ; would be felt as- a 
 hard imposition by a man of zeal, who would dread to have 
 his soul, in reference to the service of God, in the con- 
 dition of a hero in chains. What shall we think, then, 
 of a servant of God desiring as an exemption and a 
 privilege to be allowed thus to expend away the vital 
 force of his spirit without action ? We cannot believe 
 that he has any of that zealous emotion which he pre- 
 tends. No, you must not profess to feel and fulfil a 
 duty of enmity in spirit against the permitted evil, and 
 at the same time acknowledge no duty of offensive ex- 
 ertion. The true animosity would be so intent on some 
 means of action, that it is certain the state of feeling 
 which persuades to decline such means is far too pla- 
 cable toward what is insulting God and destroying 
 man. 
 
 But it is still more plainly to our purpose, as against 
 this religious fatalism, to allege the matter of fact, that 
 though it has been the mysterious will of the Supreme 
 Governor to permit such great evils in the earth, it has 
 as evidently beeii his will to maintain, in his own pro- 
 ceedings, a continual war against them. Why have 
 there been so many vindictive interpositions of his 
 among the inhabitants of the world ? Let the memorials 
 of cities, and tribes, and nations, and in one instance a 
 world, destroyed, testify whether he has set men the 
 example of peace with irreligion and iniquity. What 
 is the inscription on the monuments of beings that his 
 vengeance has smitten ? What has been the interpre- 
 tation required to be put on all the formidable signs 
 held out to deter, and all the plagues that have followed 
 when those signs warned in vain ? The victinr of 
 
340 ON THE PROPAGATION OF 
 
 those plagues, and the witnesses of their infliction, 
 oould not say that the denunciations had been lying 
 signs and oracles, in demanding to be heard as heaven's 
 protest against the evils to which the will of man had 
 been permitted to abandon him. 
 
 Thus we have the action of the Divine Being giving 
 a rule for that of his rational subjects, in respect to the 
 moral evil that infests the world ; or rather impressing 
 an awful sanction on the laws in which he has com- 
 manded their resistance to it. Each of these commands 
 is against something which his unsearchable wisdom 
 has withheld his omnipotence from preventing or in- 
 stantly exterminating. But his servants are to obey 
 in silence. Well indeed might they feel an alarming 
 sentiment at hearing so very many things recounted 
 for them to be committed in deadly strife against ; 
 but what would be the piety, or the prudence, or the 
 consequence, of a remonstrance to him against so severe 
 a vocation, on the plea that himself had permitted, 
 and could have prevented, every thing that he was thus 
 imperatively involving them in painful conflict with 
 over every step of ground till they should fall into the 
 grave ? 
 
 We repeat, that the whole course of the extraordinary 
 divine interference among men has been in the direc- 
 tion, and has commanded human spirits, on their 
 allegiance, to concur in the direction, which we are 
 endeavouring to give to your zeal. In visions and 
 oracles sent to patriarchs ; in deliverances and aveng- 
 ing judgments; in the miraculous suspensions of the 
 laws of nature ; in institutions of religion ; in the illu- 
 minations of prophets and apostles ; in the excitement 
 of the best men to the most invincible pertinacity of 
 warfare ; in the mission of angels ; and, transcendently 
 above all, in the " manifestation of the Son of God to 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 341 
 
 destroy the works of the Devil,** — in all these forms of 
 the divine dispensation, and in all the operation that 
 has been in progress from them to this hour, one spirit 
 breathes, one perpetual emanation of divine will and 
 agency against tliat which will, nevertheless, be per- 
 mitted to retain, but with lessening power, an existence 
 on the earth till a very late period, when the " Lord 
 shall consume it with the breath of his mouth, and 
 destroy it with the brightness of his coming." — Such 
 has been the spirit of all the Divine Intervention. 
 The sun is not more conspicuous by his own light, 
 than this character of the religious economy. 
 
 Now then for a professed servant of God to refuse 
 acting in conformity to this entire tendency of his 
 cause, and to justify himself on the ground of the 
 divine permission of that which the cause is directed 
 against, what is it but, in effect, to say to the Supreme 
 Governor, — I behold two views of thy government ; 
 there is thy sufferance of an awful array and amount 
 of evils ; and there is a system of thy dispensations 
 constituted to work in most direct and absolute oppo- 
 sition to them. The impossibility of apprehending 
 the unity of principle of these contrasted parts of thy 
 government throws a dark mystery on the one of 
 them. But with me, unlike my fellow-mortals, the 
 mystery rests on the latter view, on the economy of 
 interpositions, enactments, and mandates for resistance 
 to the evil ; whereas the reason for its permission is so 
 plain to me, that I can, in dissent from all thy faithful 
 servants since the world began, adopt it as my rule of 
 conduct. In pursuance of this adoption, I dare to be- 
 lieve thou art, in truth, not so much the enemy of this 
 same Evil, as is pretended, even in thy own revelation ; 
 and that I shall, upon a certain secret understanding, 
 please thee fully as well by declining to join in an 
 
342 ON THE PROPAGATION OF 
 
 attack upon it, as by devoting to the utmost my active 
 forces to cooperate against it, in a war which I do at the 
 same time perceive clearly that thou thyself, for what 
 reason of state I cannot conjecture, hast raised and 
 maintained with a palpable and continual interference. 
 Let us suppose him to act in this spirit toward his 
 own soul. When he looks there, he sees there is a pro- 
 portion, a lamentable one, of " that abominable thing " 
 which has rendered the world so horrid a scene. But 
 the Almighty power has 'penniited its existence there. 
 What then ? Can he on tliat account remain quiet, 
 while it is poisoning the essence of his being, and feel 
 as if it were a homage to God to second, if we may so 
 express it, that permission ? With plain sad proof of 
 the very active quality of the malignant infester, which 
 seems also to become, even while he is looking at it, 
 (if under a suspension of resistance,) sensibly stronger, 
 by the force of a principle of augmentation altogether 
 indefinite if left to its own action, and which tells him, 
 as with a demon's voice, that his soul is the intended 
 victim, can he calmly contemplate this permitted state 
 and operation, just as an inexplicable phenomenon of 
 the divine government ? And if he were to pretend 
 reverential submission, what manner of god could he 
 deem himself adoring, that would be pleased with such 
 a sacrifice ? Unless his pretensions to religion are 
 false, and his soul is actually surrendering to per- 
 dition, he will, at the sight of this mournful predica- 
 ment of his own spirit, be ardently intent on an appli- 
 cation of the means of resisting the destroyer. And 
 he will be at once alarmed and indignant if he should 
 perceive his mind admitting, under some influence 
 of the consideration that God has not prevented 
 the pernicious fact of sin within him, any slighter 
 estimate of ,the required energy and promptitude of 
 
CHIUSTIANITV IN INDIA. .343 
 
 the resistance, than that which should be commen- 
 surate to the evil itself, viewed absolutely, in all its 
 atrocity and activity. 
 
 But now let him revert to the heathen slaves of 
 darkness and sin. — If it would be cruelty to his own 
 soul, to make the lighter of the invasion, or the means 
 of expulsion, of its deadly enemy, because God has not 
 precluded nor exterminated it, he may be reminded, 
 and all the friends of Christianity may be reminded, of 
 the obligation implied in the second great command- 
 ment, " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." 
 
 Try once more how strongly you can bring upon 
 your minds the reality of an immense multitude of 
 spirits, of your own nature, existing on a remote con- 
 tinent. You can by an effort of thought come to as 
 realizing a sense of being placed amidst the counte- 
 nances, the vital warmth, the talk, the worship, the 
 infelicities, of people at the distance of some thousands 
 of leagues, as of the inhabitants of an adjacent part of 
 your own country. With as absolute an assurance of 
 fact as if you were at this hour in India, and were just 
 now descrying a tyger crouching to spring on one ill- 
 fated person, or a serpent throwing its folds round 
 another, you can behold the prodigiously numerous 
 tribe of actual living immortal essences, images and 
 counterparts of your own, as it were watched for, fas- 
 cinated, sprung upon, grappled, by things arisen in 
 fearful eruption from the bottomless pit. Look at 
 them involved in the power of the Old Serpent. — If 
 we might enforce the representation by a simile, sup- 
 pose the case, that a professedly benevolent man 
 sojourning in that country, happened to be in a spot 
 where he saw a tyger, eyeing with deadly glare the 
 intended but unapprehensive victim, or a serpent in 
 the very act of contracting itself to dart on an un- 
 
344 ON THE PROPAGATION OP 
 
 warned human object ; and suppose, too, that this 
 spectator had an advantage of position which exempted 
 him from danger, and also that he had in his hands tlie 
 most efficient means for striking the monster with death 
 or sudden fright ; or that at the very least he could 
 alarm the person in peril. Now what sort of philan- 
 thropist shall we represent if we next suppose, that 
 while looking at this creature of living flesh and blood, 
 who is perhaps approaching every instant nearer the 
 spot where death is lurking, he coolly thinks what 
 a hopeless and fearful plight ; muses why the God of 
 nature should suffer beasts of prey and serpents in 
 a world made for man ; takes time, if there be time, 
 for the conclusion that, at all events, since God does 
 suffer them, men must of course be devoured by them ; 
 and so, quietly awaits and witnesses the catastrophe, 
 highly self-complacent, perhaps, in the sort of selfish 
 piety with which he goes away blessing the Providence 
 which had not doomed him to be the victim. 
 
 We need not make the application. We will only 
 suggest whether, since the whole accountableness for 
 all the error and wickedness of paganism must rest 
 somewhere, the alleviation obtained before the Supreme 
 Judge by the heathens who have been denied the means 
 of deliverance from so wretched a condition, may not 
 be at the expense of those who shall have refused to 
 try those means upon them ; and then whether, in the 
 solemn time of adjudgment, these latter will dare to 
 reflect off this accountableness for omission on the 
 Judge himself, in the allegation that the evil was of 
 his own permission, — when they will have the con- 
 sciousness that he gave them means of at least attempt- 
 ing its destruction. 
 
 This torpedo kind of fatalism, from the dominion of 
 
CnniSTIANITT IN INDIA. 345 
 
 which we should be glad to see the active powers of all 
 good men rescued, may somewhat change its tone ; 
 still, however, aiming to elude the requisition to come 
 forth in the activity of the cause. It may affect to 
 recover from the kind of hopeless dead prostration of 
 feeling at the awful fact of God's permission of so 
 dreadful an evil, into adoration of his power as 
 almighty to destroy it. And how magnificently that 
 power shall be glorified, and how emphatically man 
 shall be degraded, when it is hoped that some exemp- 
 tion from service may be suborned from the contrast ! 
 Feelings of indolence combined with ideas of the sove- 
 reignty of God will form a state of mind prolific of 
 such reflections as these : Of what consequence can be 
 the trivial efforts of such insignificant creatures, as 
 cooperating or not with the energy of an almighty 
 power? What signify, in a great process of nature, 
 some few rain-drops or dew-drops the more or the 
 less? What are we, to be talking, in strains of idle 
 pomp, of converting the people of half a world ? How 
 reduced to contempt, how vanishing from perception, 
 will be the effects of all our petty toils, when mightier 
 powers shall come into action ; as the footsteps of in- 
 sects and birds are effaced and lost under the trample 
 of elephants. Were it not even temerity to affect to 
 take the course where the chariot of Omnipotence is 
 to drive ; as if we would intrude to share the achieve- 
 ments proper to a God, or fancy that something mag- 
 nificent which he has to do, will not be done unless we 
 are there ? No, let our text be, as best becomes the 
 humility of mortals and sinners, " Be still, and know 
 that I am God." If he wills the conversion of the 
 heathen nations, he has such powers and means for 
 accomplishing his purpose, as may well allow a sab- 
 bath to the hands of all his servants, while their souls 
 
'S46 ON THE PIIOPAGAT.ION OF 
 
 may adore him in his triumphs — All very true ; and 
 so in the literal warfare referred to in scripture cited 
 at the beginning of our discourse, there were means of 
 Dverthrowing the heathen invaders without the assist- 
 ance of the people of Meroz, or any other people ; for 
 the stars in their courses were to fight against Sisera. 
 It was not because he needed them for combatants, 
 that the God of armies had required their presence in 
 battle. — After what has been already said of the em- 
 ployment of feeble means to produce a triumphantly 
 disproportionate effect, it is superfluous to make any 
 other answer to this indolence, or indifference, or pride, 
 or all of them together, pleading under the semblance 
 of humble piety, than an admonitory suggestion, that, 
 as it has been hitherto God's usual method to employ 
 human instrumentality in his great works of bene- 
 ficence, his now declining to do so would but be the 
 alarming expression of his judgment, that the human 
 agents are now not worth being employed on earth, nor 
 being translated to heaven. Well might a dread of the 
 fatal privilege of exemption under such a judgment 
 suppress the disposition to seek, and the willingness to 
 accept, such a privilege on any ground whatever. 
 
 The religious fatalism, in a still further modification, 
 somewhat distinguishable from these preceding descrip- 
 tions, will make professions of anticipating with great 
 delight the certain accomplishment of the glorious 
 revolution in question, whea Qod^s selected time shall 
 arrive. Then, too, as in former great changes, there 
 will be noble work, and enough of it, for such humble 
 instruments as men to perform : meanwhile, beware of 
 premature attempts, and wait for the signs that the 
 time is come. Language like this has been within the 
 memory of many of you, among the common-places of 
 our christian communities. If there be still some 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 347. 
 
 cautious christians who cannot willingly let it grow 
 obsolete, we might ask them whether they have exactly 
 figured in their minds in what manner the expected^ 
 grand process is to begin, or what appearances they 
 could accept, as signs that the period is come when 
 their efforts would not be like a vain attempt to con- 
 strain the fulfilment of a divine purpose before its^ 
 appointed time. Are there to be extraordinary meteors, 
 significantly passing eastward as they vani=h ? Are 
 they to hear that the temples of Seeva are sunk suddenly 
 in ruins at the stroke of thunder ? Or, still more of 
 prodigy, are all the chief statesmen, and mercautil(^ 
 men, and military men, especially concerned in the 
 affairs of the east, to become with one accord inspired 
 with a fervent zeal for the christianizing of Asia, per- 
 haps impelled literally to a spiritual crusade against 
 Hindoo idolatry ? 
 
 Perhaps they will, after all, disclaim the expectatior^ 
 of any extraordinary signals from heaven, when it 
 occurs to them that they are in danger of the impiety 
 of demanding a specific change in God's manner of 
 declaring his mind to men. And probably they will 
 profess that they wait for no other tokens than such as 
 may afford a rational presumption, according to the 
 rules of judgment commonly admitted amongst wise 
 men. Then we may venture to ask why they should 
 not accept, as something like the required signs, certain 
 of the circumstances that have attended, thus far, this 
 christian enterprise in India. Is it to be taken as a 
 rebuke from Heaven, on a rash anticipation of Heaven's 
 designs, that our missionaries have been kept in their 
 positions and their work with a general impunity and 
 freedom, notwithstanding that during many years of 
 the time there prevailed against them a systematic nn- 
 relenting hostility of spirit, in authorities which in all 
 
348 ON THE PROPAGATION OF 
 
 human appearance might have crushed them in a 
 moment, and were subject to no visible cause of re- 
 straint on their will, — a preservation reminding us of 
 that of Daniel in the lions' den ? Or, that the inacti- 
 vity of fanatic malice, and the considerable favour, expe- 
 rienced among the natives, have seemed to betray some 
 divine coercion put for their sake on the lions and the 
 furies of direct paganism itself, to the disappointment 
 of the christian paganism ? Or, that they have been 
 preserved in the excellence of the christian character 
 in a scene presenting many temptations to forfeit the 
 distinction, and while bearing the moral responsibility 
 of an undertaking in which that forfeiture would have 
 been fatal ? Or, that by the multiplicity and extent of 
 their labours and attainments they are sometimes re- 
 calling to our imagination the hundred-handed giant of 
 fable ? Or, that between the produce of their own 
 exertions and the supplies from the religious public, 
 pecuniary means have never failed for the constantly 
 enlarging prosecution of the design, — even a very great 
 disaster having operated as if the fall of an edifice 
 should bring a concealed treasure of gold to light ? * 
 Or, that while the sacred scriptures have been spread- 
 ing with rapidity among the nations of the East, the 
 undertaking which has given them this range of mis- 
 chief to the gods, has produced several marked benefits 
 in our religious societies at home ; especially in th(i 
 point of helping to break up, by the introduction of so 
 many new subjects connected with religion, the mono- 
 tony which too much prevailed in their religious ser- 
 vices, topics, and feelings ? 
 
 What is the interpretation which our soothsayers of 
 
 * Alluding to the fire which, some years since, reduced to ashes 
 the printing office at Serampore, with its large literary stores and 
 other materials for the service of the mission. 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 349 
 
 the colder religious climate put on thf se signs, con- 
 joined, as we are gratified to view them conjoined, with 
 ilie enlarging missionary exertions and successes of our 
 brethren of other religious denominations ? Or will 
 they sagely observe to us that, in the great concourse 
 of casualties it is at any time possible enough for a san- 
 guine spirit to descry and bring into conjunction a 
 number of things which may be delusively converted 
 into intimations, that a favourite project of its own is 
 also the intention of Heaven ? When they have said 
 tliis, they may consider whether they should not, in 
 their solicitous veneration for Heaven's appointment of 
 times and seasons, abet the gods and their priests in an 
 appeal to the Lord of the world against these missionary 
 intruders, as guilty of insubordination to Hvm^ in hav- 
 ing presumed to " come to torment ikem before the 
 time." 
 
 It has been the lot of several of the persons who 
 have believed themselves to be obeying the will of the 
 Supreme Authority, by leaving this country in prose- 
 cution of the christian enterprise in Hindoostan, to die 
 in the service. They had devoted themselves so to die, 
 and rejoiced in the confidence that they were also 
 devoted by a superior decree. In what manner may 
 we believe that their departing spirits have been re- 
 ceived by their great Master ? Has it been qualified 
 " Well done, good and faithful servant," that they have 
 heard ? — as if he should say, — Feeble in judgment, rash 
 ill temperament, but honest in intention, you are par- 
 doned through a peculiar extension of mercy ; and are 
 admitted now to a state of illumination in which you 
 may cultivate the humility that was so defective on 
 earth, and see, in the progressive disclosure of your 
 Lord*s designs, how long his servants ought to have 
 ' repressed the presumptuous forv/ardness of their zeal. 
 
v350 ON THE PROPAGATION OF 
 
 No, this could not be their reception in a world 
 where they were soon to be joined by the first-fruits of 
 that very zeal, those converts from idolatry who, subse- 
 quently to some of their teachers, have died in the faith 
 of Christ ; and carried demonstrative living proof to 
 heaven^ that the true religion had not in a premature 
 and officious zeal been conveyed sooner than the divine 
 appointment had commissioned it to go, sooner than the 
 divine power was ready to accompany it, to a region 
 whither some of its professed friends would not have con- 
 tributed to send it. And if we may imagine the nature 
 of the emotion in the great assembly, at the arrival of 
 these spirits from the dominions of idolatry, we shall 
 not believe it to have been the repressed felicitation 
 whifch should welcome them as but solitary exceptions 
 to a destiny, regarded as still permanently to abide on 
 the immense division of the human race whence they 
 <came. Repressed, we say ; for we could not conceive 
 of an unmingled delight in receiving them as translated 
 1 hither chiefly to exemplify that sovereignty of Go'^ 
 which he will manifest in every department of hie 
 government, by suspending in rare, and only rare 
 instances, his most general appointments ; as two indi- 
 viduals have been exempted from the general law of 
 mortality. The sentiment without w^hich the joy would 
 be languid, must have been that which should hail 
 them as signs that a decreed change of dispensation, a 
 new aspect of the divine sovereignty, is beginning or 
 approaching to shine on a dark hemisphere of the 
 world ; that death is becoming incomparably more 
 tributary to heaven ; and that the ancient barrier be- 
 tween the realms of Asia and the kingdom of eternal 
 glory is beginning to break down. 
 
 This indulgence of thought in representing to our- 
 selves the feelings experienced in an invisible and 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 351 
 
 superior worZd, is quite within the just range of our 
 contemplation of the subject. It is a noble distinction 
 of religion, that (once admitted as true) it affords a 
 rational substance to bear out the most imaginative 
 exercise of thought. It is a ground on which our ideal 
 excursions may venture, without offence to reason, 
 such a length as they could not on inferior subjects 
 without abandonment to poetical extravagance or mere 
 vanity. It verifies to us as a reality a solemn relation 
 between us and another economy of existence ; and 
 constitutes a vital intermedium through which we have 
 the sense of a real interest in beings and a state beyond 
 the sphere of this world. Thus religion, believed and 
 felt, is the amplitude of our moral and intellectual 
 nature. And how wretched an object therefore is a 
 mind, especially of thought, sensibility, and genius, 
 condemned to that poverty and insulation Avhich infi- 
 delity inflicts, by annihilating around it the medium of 
 a sensible interest in the existence, the emotions, the 
 activities, of a higher order of beings ! Our Lord tells 
 us of great and happy intelligences in the invisible 
 world who rejoice over a sinner when he repents. It 
 is quite rational, then, to have indulged our imagination 
 for a moment in ideas of the reception, in that scene, of 
 those first converts from paganism, in the course of our 
 Mission, who have been followed in death by some of 
 the persons whose labours were crowned with this 
 success. And we are espt^cially warranted in the most 
 vivid imagination which it is possible to form, of the 
 emotions of these proclaimers and these 'converts of the 
 truth, in their mutual recognition, when thus reunited 
 and in communion with the preceding believers, apo- 
 stles, and confessors. If but a comparatively faint 
 apprehension of tlie emphasis of those congratula- 
 tiuns could be brought, hy some momentary illapse, 
 
Z62 ON THE PROPAGATION OF 
 
 on the souls of the most neutral or even the most 
 hostile spectators of the attempt which has been the 
 cause of such emotions in the happiest society, might 
 it not instantly turn to grief at the thought that those 
 felicities had owed none of that rapture to them ? 
 
 And let us remind those professed christians, whose 
 coldness toward a great project of evangelization would 
 justify itself under a plea of reverently awaiting the 
 disclosure of the divine purposes, that by their profes- 
 sion they aspire to join ere long that company to which 
 departed missionaries and their converts have been 
 added. It may be the destination of some of them to 
 leave this world at nearly the time appointed for the 
 removal by death of other of these indefatigable la- 
 bourers, and of their proselytes. In the reflections 
 which may be excited by such an idea, will there be no 
 sentiment partaking of apprehension ? No mortifying 
 anticipation arises at the thought of entering the other 
 world in company with an angelic being, the diflTerent 
 rank of his nature precluding all comparison, or all 
 painful humiliation at the difference if comparison were 
 made. But methinks there is something to cause great 
 displacency, and even a degree of intimidation, in the 
 ■ thought of approaching the most illustrious society in 
 the universe in the company of spirits of our own nature 
 and our own times, trained under nearly similar privi- 
 leges and instructions, or possibly the very same, but 
 who through superior zeal shall have left us in a great 
 disparity. Think whether it be possible that, even on 
 the passage to the superior kingdom, there might be an 
 unwelcome sense of contrast. Supposing the transition 
 to be contemporary and mutually witnessed, it were 
 inevitable there should be a perception of a signal 
 difference, between those passing from the conclusion 
 of a course of devoted enterprise to extend the king- 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 353 
 
 dom of their Lord into the regions of inveterate cruel 
 superstition, by efforts whose commencing success is 
 attested by redeemed spirits of heathens gone before or 
 accompanying them, — and those persons who, though 
 having been in circumstances little different from theirs 
 in early life, and having professed the same devotedness 
 to the christian cause, shall yet be conscious of having 
 scarcely made an effort for its advancement ; of hardly 
 having given their cordial good wishes to this under- 
 taking in its service ; of even having, possibly, been 
 almost pleased that the small number, as yet, of con- 
 versions from heathenism should seem to afford some 
 advantage to the imputers of enthusiasm to the project. 
 May not the thought of the feelings possible to be ex- 
 cited at such a time by such a contrast, suggest to 
 christians whose faculties seem more readily applicable 
 to the exercise of finding objections to animated schemes 
 of christian experiment, than to that of devising means 
 for their success, a new topic for solicitude and per- 
 haps for prayer, namely, that they may be permitted 
 to enter the superior state in a way that shall not im- 
 mediately bring them in communication or comparison 
 with their brethren ascending from the war against 
 idolatry ? 
 
 We may be allowed, at the least, to suggest, that in 
 order to be entirely free from the anticipation of any 
 reflections, tending to throw a shade over the joy of 
 passing into the great Master's presence at nearly the 
 same time as those devoted spirits, there must be the 
 testimony of conscience that in some other manner his 
 service is zealously prosecuted. The man indifferent 
 or opposed to the enterprise in which these men are to 
 die, but who yet professes to take an interest in the 
 advancement of religion and the general good, can 
 
354 ON THE PROPAGATION OF 
 
 avoid the apprehensiveness of such a future comparison 
 only by having evidence to himself that, though pro- 
 jects which seem to him to partake somewhat of 
 enthusiasm are not exactly adapted to seize his mind, 
 he is diligently intent on promoting the cause of God 
 in plainer, less adventurous, and let him call them, if he 
 will, soberer methods. But, in truth, experience is not 
 in favour of our expecting a very active zeal for ex- 
 tending Christianity in any, even the ordinary methods, 
 from those who are prompt to impute enthusiasm to 
 the extraordinary ones. 
 
 For ourselves, when we think of those who are thus 
 appointed to fall in the immediate conflict with the 
 powers of paganism, shall we not earnestly desire and 
 pray, that we may be so animated to promote the 
 christian cause in every practicable way, that we may 
 never have reason to wish, as what would have saved 
 us from any such pain of a close comparison at the 
 time of going to the great account, that these men, in- 
 stead of being our contemporaries, and fellow-country- 
 men, and neighbours, no more privileged originally 
 than ourselves, had been in the number of those dis- 
 tinguished agents in the christian service of other times 
 and countries, whom we can look at and venerate in the 
 distance of history, without having our attention and 
 conscience so directly forced on a comparative estimate 
 between them and ourselves ? 
 
 To return, but for one moment, to the repressive in- 
 fluence on some good men's principles of action and 
 hope, from the idea of the sovereignty of the divine 
 appointments, we may observe, that the most assured 
 belief in the divine decrees, as comprehending all 
 things, has not necessarily the efiect of paralyzing the 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 355 
 
 active powers. There is no denying that such is its 
 tendency in cold, inanimate, indolent spirits, that are 
 really indifferent to the objects demanding their exer- 
 tion. And so with respect to any doctrine of religious 
 or moral truth, there is a possible state of mind which 
 is apt to take from it an injurious impression. But let 
 there be an earnest interest about the objects in question, 
 and then the zeal and activity will be incited rather than 
 repressed by the faith in all-comprehending and abso- 
 lute decrees. Accordingly it has been, we think, for 
 the greater proportion, by decided predestinarians, that 
 the most ardent and efficient exertions of religious inno- 
 vation have been made upon the inveterate evils of the 
 world. That they were not checked and chilled by 
 this article of their faith, is the least that their conduct 
 testified of its effect. Not only were they not withheld 
 from driving impetuously against the hated thing before 
 them by any surmise whether it might not, for the pre- 
 sent, be guarded invisibly by the shield of a decree. 
 Not only did they dart their weapons, when the enemy 
 appeared to be within their reach, without being stopped 
 by any suspicion of an optical deception in this seeming 
 nearness, this possibility of striking it. This is only 
 supposing them not to be the less energetic in conse- 
 quence of their predestinarian faith ; it is what they 
 might be, supposing them the while to forget it. But 
 it was not as forgetting their principle, and being actu- 
 ated, for the time, solely by the independent force of 
 different ones, that they so nobly exerted themselves. 
 No, they acted in the full recollection of it, as a source 
 of invigoration no less indispensable than for Antaeus 
 to touch the earth. It was in the element of this 
 doctrine of decrees that they felt their impetus the 
 mightier, their weapons the sharper, their aim the surer. 
 
356 ox THE PROPAGATION OF 
 
 And while their opponents in belief might be wonder- 
 ing at the phenomenon of such a glow of life, and play 
 of strength, in an element which they had been con- 
 stantly pronouncing the most mephitic in the whole 
 world of opinion to moral energy, the persons on whom 
 the faith had this influence could have shown how ex- 
 plicable and how far from absurd was such a practical 
 effect, in the case of men in the prosecution of plans for 
 the destruction of what was opposed to the kingdom of 
 God. The first consideration in the matter was the 
 trite and general one, — they were certain that the 
 Almighty will make very great use of human agents 
 in what remains of the course of his dispensations in 
 this world. Next, whatever concealment may rest on 
 the precise nature of his more special determinations, 
 which constitute, so to speak, the divisible portions of 
 his one grand design, there can be no question, with 
 believers in revelation, whether that grand design be a 
 progressive demolition of the dreadful tyranny of evil 
 over the human race. Now that was what they were 
 intent upon ; and they were putting themselves di- 
 rectly into his hands as willing instruments to be 
 applied to that use. And was it not (they thought) 
 most reasonable to entertain a general assurance that 
 willing agents, offered to him for a purpose which he is 
 determined to accomplish, would have their appoint- 
 ment for effective service ? If so many would be 
 required that even repugnant or undesigning ones would 
 be made to contribute and cooperate, by his constrain- 
 ing and over-ruling Providence, the willing and zealous 
 ones might in all reason be sure of being put to such 
 iin use. The disposition itself was inspired, they 
 thought, for the very purpose of adapting them, and 
 the adaptation given with the intention of employing 
 
CIIKISTIANITY IN INDIA. 357 
 
 tliem. Thus, on the certainty of their coincidence 
 with God's intention, considered generally, they justi- 
 fied a confidence that they had a general appointment 
 to do something in his great work, — an appointment, 
 that is to say, to promote it in some way or other. 
 
 But no man who is powerfully actuated can stop in 
 generals. Those devout predestinarians, those genuine 
 adorers of the God of decrees, were earnestly attentive 
 to the manner in which his general and comprehensive 
 design was seen, in his revelation, resolving itself into 
 defined parts, and taking the form of several great 
 purposes, distinguishable from one another, while all 
 combined in the entire design. Of these several pur- 
 poses, thus distinguished and announced, there was 
 prol)ably one which was of a nature more specially to 
 interest their feelings, and draw to this particular 
 direction the zeal and cooperation w^hich were in de- 
 voted readiness to coincide with the divine intentions as 
 regarded generally. And when they felt their general 
 coincidence of spirit thus determined to one marked 
 division of the divine plan, they acquired a still more 
 animated assurance of their appointment to a practi- 
 cable and successful service, in proportion as they thus 
 came more distinctly to see how they might cooperate 
 in that design. 
 
 Nor Avas this all ; for when they thus saw one particu- 
 lar part of the scheme of the divine intention manifested 
 with considerable definiteness, they felt an irresistible 
 tendency to make it more definite still, by resolving 
 this also into particulars. For example ; if revelation 
 has declared the destruction of superstition to be one 
 leading object comprehended in the great general in- 
 tention, their zeal has impelled them to regard this 
 declaration as bearing with special emphasis on those 
 
358 ON THE PROPAGATION OF 
 
 particular forms of superstition which they were most 
 intent on destroying. Those particular forms, they 
 have said, so eminently hateful, cannot but be very 
 marked objects of the exterminating intention of the 
 supreme will. It has seemed to these men as if the 
 whole force of the general decree were converging to 
 strike just where they wished to strike. And as the 
 principle of destruction is to be conveyed through the 
 means of human agents, who so likely to be employed, 
 they said, as we that are already on fire to destroy ? 
 Beyond all doubt it is exactly here that we have our 
 decreed and unalterable allotment. Exactly here it is, 
 that our will and the supreme will coalesce to a pur- 
 pose which therefore defies all chance and all created 
 power. 
 
 But their assurance that their intention, as fixed on 
 a particular selected object, was decidedly identical with 
 that of the Almighty, did not authorize itself solely by 
 thus giving to those declarations which express the 
 divine purpose in comprehensive terms, a more deter- 
 minate bearing on a special object. For some inspired 
 declarations were found which were themselves of 
 special import. They evidently pointed out, by their 
 own terms, with much definiteness, certain distinct 
 parts and special processes in the general scheme which 
 Providence will execute. These appeared as depart- 
 ments or sections, within wider divisions of operation, 
 which are still themselves but parts of the grand 
 scheme ; as, for example, the foredoomed destruction 
 of the Popish superstition, though a thing of such 
 magnitude, is only a portion of the divine plan for the 
 destruction of superstition in general, which is yet but 
 a part of the entire scheme announced for accomplish- 
 ment. The devout men who have sou^^rht their incite- 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 359 
 
 ment and their strength in the decrees of heaven, have 
 often believed that they saw, in some of these more 
 defined and special portions, in these comparatively 
 distinct representations of movements which are to 
 fulfil on earth the purposes of heaven, the very image 
 of such designs as the genius of their zeal was shaping 
 forth. It was quite certain at least that those ap- 
 pointed operations must at any rate involve such as 
 they were projecting ; and the predicted success of the 
 whole must be the success of the included parts. But, 
 they said again, there are predestined agents ; and who 
 still so likely as men who shall be ready with their life 
 and their death for precisely that service ? The infer- 
 ence was not far off; — These very plans and proceed- 
 ings of ours are decreed, as portions of the sovereign 
 scheme ; we and our work are a part of eternal 
 destiny. 
 
 By this short process, through a general confidence 
 of some predestinated appointment into a determination 
 to one special service, we may believe that some of the 
 distinguished actors in a good cause have gone into 
 their career. At the same time it is to be acknow- 
 ledged, as probable in respect to others of them, and 
 possibly the greater number, that they have had no 
 process to pass through, no need to verify their com- 
 mission by speculative inferences from the general 
 designs of the Almighty, no waiting and deliberating 
 to know their destined vocation. It came on them by 
 the immediate force of circumstances and events, that 
 provoked them to action. Their attention was seized, 
 and their ardour excited, at the sight of some one great 
 evil to be combated, or good to be achieved ; and that 
 ardour itself, combining with their predestinarian faith, 
 created the assurance of their destination. This is the 
 
o60 ON THE PROPAGATION OF 
 
 very thing, they said, which we came into the world 
 for ; and this, unless accomplished sooner, we must 
 prosecute till we go out of it. 
 
 We are not here called upon to suggest the cautions 
 against the possible excesses and dangers of this con- 
 fident assurance in good men that their designs are 
 specifically identical with the divine purposes. Our 
 object was to show, that the consideration of sovereign 
 decrees, which cold unwilling minds are so ready to 
 allege for their inertness, and which is so commonly 
 asserted to have necessarily that consequence, may, on 
 the contrary, become one of the mightiest forces for 
 action. It is this that can make, but under a far 
 nobler modification, the man that the poets have de- 
 lighted to feign, who would maintain his purpose 
 though the world fell in ruins around him. A mis- 
 sionary against the paganism of the Hindoos may feel 
 an animation specially appropriate to the service, in 
 this assurance that his intention is the intention of God. 
 Those people fortify themselves in the notion, or the 
 pretence, that they are immediately actuated by some 
 deity, and therefore fulfilling, under a law of necessity, 
 his determinations : the missionary will feel peculiar 
 invigoration in advancing to the assault of a supersti- 
 tion with such a principle in its front, in the force of a 
 principle analogous in form, but of heavenly essence. 
 While they will have it, that he may as well spare the 
 efforts on them which it were his more proper business to 
 level at the gods, if he could reach them, the energy of 
 his soul will reply, that he accepts the challenge so made 
 for those enthroned abominations, for that he verily 
 believes himself and his confraternity to be an Avatar 
 for their destruction. 
 
 1 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN iNDIA. 361 
 
 We have dwelt too long on this topic of religious 
 fatalism, a term we liave employed to signify a per- 
 verted application, in reasoning and feeling, of the 
 doctrine which acknowledges God's sovereign and un- 
 alterable predestination of events. Our excuse must be, 
 that these reasonings and feelings are peculiarly apt to 
 suggest themselves in contravention to such claims as 
 those we are at present wishing to exhibit. And be- 
 sides their own direct force, they lend strength to other 
 objections and repugnant feelings not arising from so 
 speculative a source. The meanest of the passions, that 
 can make an opposition to a worthy project, or with- 
 hold from it the necessary aid, are very ready to find an 
 excuse, a justitication, or even a merit, in a pretended 
 waiting submission to the decrees of heaven. 
 
 Many causes of a nature not implicated with these 
 obscure speculations, are operating to prevent or lessen 
 the assistance to such an enterprise. We may briefiy 
 notice one or two. 
 
 If we just name Party-spirit, it is not in order to 
 indulge in any accusatory complaints that our parti- 
 cular undertaking has materially suffered by it. * 
 Doubtless we may be somewhat the worse for it ; but 
 we have as little the inclination as the means for cal- 
 culating how much. And even were a calculation made 
 and verified of that proportion of pecuniary and other 
 modes of aid which a perfect christian liberality would 
 have awarded to this project, and which party-spirit 
 
 * The Baptist Mission ; of which the primary establishment, 
 at the beginning of 1800, was fixed in the small Danish settlement 
 of Serampore, in consequence of the menacing indications that 
 the British Government would not tolerate, within their own do- 
 minions, an attempt to introduce Christianity among the pagans. 
 
362 ON TILE PKOPAGATION OF 
 
 may have withheld from it, we should still please our- 
 selves with the persuasion, that the greater part of 
 what may have been so averted has probably been 
 devoted to other excellent designs to which we wish all 
 possible success. The history of this portion of the 
 general christian operations of the age, will have little 
 to say of convoys intercepted by selfish allies. We are 
 too confident of the prolonged favour of Providence on 
 our work, and too much pleased at seeing that Provi- 
 dence favouring the exertions of the same tendency 
 made by other sects of the great christian community, 
 to regret not having obtained any one particle of the 
 means which have availed to good in their hands. And 
 we think we have too systematically avoided giving any 
 just causeof jealous reaction to our friends of the other 
 denominations, to be debarred in modesty from de- 
 nouncing, with unrestrained censure, the spirit which 
 cannot see the merit of a noble object when there is 
 some point of controversy with its promoters, and 
 which would almost rather wish it might be lost than 
 aid them to attain it : a spirit which, in promoting an 
 interest professedly as wide as the world, as liberal as 
 the sun, would enviously account success, or the means 
 of success, conferred on a different class of labourers in 
 the same general cause, so much unjustly subtracted 
 from our own connexion and project ; and would avenge 
 on the grand catholic object the petty offences of party, 
 or affronts to individual vanity. 
 
 If the christian communities, most liable to feelings 
 of competition, were asked in what character they con- 
 ceive themselves to stand the most prominently forward 
 before the world, as practically verifying the exalted, 
 beneficent, expansive spirit of their religion, it is not 
 improbable they would say, it is as conspirers to extend 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 363 
 
 heavenly light and liberty over the heathen world. 
 But if so, bow justly we may urge it upon them to 
 beware of degrading this the most magnificent form in 
 which their profession is displayed, by associating with 
 it littleness which may make it almost ridiculous. 
 Surely, in thus going forth against the powers of dark- 
 ness, they would not be found stickling and stipulating 
 that the grand banner of the cause should be surmounted 
 with some petty label of a particular denomination. 
 Such mortals, had they been in the emigration from 
 Egypt, w^ould have been incessantly and jealously busy 
 about the relative proximities of the tribes to the posi- 
 tion of the cloudy pillar. A shrewd irreligious looker- 
 on, who can divert himself at the expense of all our 
 sects, and despises this their common object, might 
 indulge his malicious humour, in saying, All this 
 bustling activity of consultation, and oratory, and sub- 
 scription, and travelling, is to go to the account, as you 
 will have it, of a fervent zeal for Christianity : what a 
 large share of this costly trouble I should nevertheless 
 be sure to save you, if I could just apply a quencher 
 to so much of this pious heat as consists of sectarian 
 ambition and rivalry. 
 
 We cannot too strongly insist again, that a sense of 
 dignity should spurn these inglorious competitions from 
 the sections of the advanced camp against the grand 
 enemy. Here, at all events, the parties should acknow- 
 ledge the Truce of God. If they have, and must have, 
 jealousies too sacred to be extinguished, let their indul- 
 gence be reserved for occasions and scenes in which they 
 are not assuming the lofty attitude of a w^ar against the 
 gods. But the great matter, after all, is to be solemnly 
 intent on the object itself, on the good to be done, com- 
 pared with Avhicii, the denomination of the instrument 
 
364 ON THE PROPAGATION OF 
 
 will appear a eircumstance vastly trivial. Let all the 
 promoters of these good works be in this state of mind, 
 and then the modes in which the evil spirit in question 
 might display itself will be things only to be figured in 
 the imagination, or sought as facts in the history of 
 former and worse times. For then we shall never 
 actually see a disposition to discountenance a design on 
 account of its originating with an alien sect, rather 
 than to favour it for its intrinsic excellence ; nor an 
 eager insisting on points of precedence ; nor a syste- 
 matic practice of representing the operations of our 
 own sect at their highest amount of ability and effect, 
 and those of another at their lowest ; nor the studied 
 silence of vexed jealousy, which is thinking all the 
 while of what it cannot endure to name ; nor that 
 laboured exaggeration of our magnitude and achieve- 
 ments which most plainly tells what that jealousy is 
 thinking of ; nor that manner of hearing of marked 
 and opportune advantages occurring to undertakings 
 of another sect which betrays that a story of disasters 
 would have been fully as welcome ; nor underhand 
 contrivances for assuming the envied merit of some- 
 thing which another sect has accomplished and never 
 boasted of ; nor excitements to exertion expressly on 
 the ground of invidious rivalry, rather than christian 
 emulation ; nor casual defects of courtesy interpreted 
 wilfully into intentional hostility, just to give a colour 
 of justice to actual hostility on our part, for which we 
 were prepared, and but watching for a pretext ; nor 
 management and misrepresentation to trepan to our 
 party auxiliary means which might have been intended 
 for theirs. 
 
 While we would earnestly admonish all the pro- 
 moters of our object to display an example in every 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 36o 
 
 point the reverse of such tempers and expedients, we 
 will assure ourselves of the favourable dispositions of 
 christians in general toward a design which has its own 
 sphere of operations, in which it has both the happi^ 
 ness and the merit of interfering with no other. It 
 has not, by either interference or ostentation, given any 
 provocation to party jealousy ; and we may add, that 
 we trust it is grown to a strength and an establishment 
 beyond the power of that unfriendly spirit, were it 
 excited, greatly to injure. 
 
 When we mention the Love of Money, as another 
 chief prevention of the required assistance to such a 
 cause, we may seem to be naming a thing not more 
 specifically adverse to this than to any and every other 
 beneficent design. A second thought, however, may 
 sugojest to you a certain peculiarity of circumstance in 
 the resistance of this bad passion to the claims of a 
 scheme for converting heathens. By eminence among 
 the vices which may prevail where the true God is not 
 unknown, this of covetousness is denominated in the 
 word of that God, Idolatry. Now as it is peculiarly 
 against idolatry that the design in question is aimed, 
 the repugnance shown to it by covetousness may be 
 considered as somewhat on the principle of an identity 
 of nature with its enemy. One idolater seems to take 
 up the interest of all idolaters, as if desirous to profit 
 by the warning, that if Satan be divided against him- 
 self his kingdom cannot stand. 
 
 Or rather it is instinctively that this community of 
 interest is maintained, and without being fully aware ; 
 for the unhappy mortal, while reading or hearing how 
 millions of people adore shapes of clay, or wood, or 
 stone, or silver, or gold, shall express his wonder how 
 
366 ON THE PROPAGATION OF 
 
 rational creatures can be so besotted ; shall raise his 
 eyes to heaven in astonishment that the Almighty 
 should permit such alienation of understanding, such 
 dominion of the wicked Spirit : and there is no voice 
 to speak in alarm to his conscience, Thou art the man ! 
 
 As this unhappy man may very possibly be a fre- 
 quenter of our religious assemblies, and even a pre- 
 tender to personal religion, he is solicited, in the name 
 of Jesus Christ, to bring forth something from his 
 store in aid of the good cause. He refuses perhaps ; 
 or, much more probably, just saves the appearance and 
 irksomeness of formally doing that, by contributing 
 what is immeasurably below all fair proportion to his 
 means ; what is in such disproportion to them that a 
 general standard taken from it would reduce the con- 
 tributions of very many other persons to the smallest 
 denomination of our money, and would very shortly 
 break up the mechanism of human operation for prose- 
 cuting a generous design, throwing it directly on Pro- 
 vidence and miracle, with a benediction perhaps uttered 
 by this man, (for he will be as liberal of cant as parsi- 
 monious of gold,) on the all-sufficiency of that last 
 resource : Yes, God shall have the glory of the salva- 
 tion of the heathens, while he is happy to have secured 
 the more important point — the saving of his money. 
 
 How much it were to be wished, that the fatuity 
 which this vice inflicts on the faculty which should 
 judge it, (herein bearing one of the most striking cha- 
 racteristics of idolatry,) did not disable the man to take 
 an honest account of the manner in which it has its 
 strong hold on his mind. If, when his eyes and 
 thoughts are fixed on this pelf, regarded as brought 
 into the question of going to promote the worship of 
 God over the earth, or staying to be itself worshipped, 
 
CIIIIISTIANITY IN INDIA. 367 
 
 he could clearly feel that he detains it from fervent 
 affection to it as an absolute good, he would be smitten 
 with horror to find his soul making such an object its 
 supreme good — for supreme it plainly is when thus 
 preferred to the cause of God, and therefore to God 
 himself. 
 
 But perhaps he thinks his motive regards the pro- 
 spects of his family. Perhaps he has a favourite or an 
 only son, for whom he destines, with the rest of his 
 treasure, that portion which God is demanding. In 
 due time that son will be put in possession by his 
 father's death, and will be so much the richer for that 
 portion. That this wealth will remain long in his 
 hands, a prosperous and undiminished possession, may 
 not seem very probable when we recollect what has 
 been seen of the heirs of misers. But let us suppose 
 that it will, and suppose, too, that this son will be a 
 man of sensibility and deep reflection. Then, his pro- 
 perty will often remind him of his departed father. 
 And with what emotions ? This, he will say to him- 
 self, was my father's god. He did, indeed, think much 
 of me, and of securing for me an advantageous condi- 
 tion in life ; and I ought not to be ungrateful for his 
 cares. He professed also not to be unconcerned for the 
 interests of his own soul, and the cause of the Saviour 
 of the world. But alas ! it presses on me witli irresist- 
 ible evidence, that the love of money had a power in 
 his heart predominant over all other interests. It can- 
 not be effaced from my memory that I have often ob- 
 served the strong marks of repugnance and impatience, 
 an ingenuity of evasion, an acuteness to discover or 
 invent objections to the matter proposed to him, how- 
 ever high its claims, if those claims sought to touch his 
 money, which he contemplated, and guarded, and 
 
368 ON THE mOPAGATION OF 
 
 augmented, with a devotedness of soul quite religious. 
 But whither can a soul be gone that had such a reli- 
 gion ? Would he that acquired, and guarded even 
 against the demands of God, these possessions for me, 
 and who is thinking of them now as certainly as I am 
 thinking of them, oh would he. if he could speak to me 
 while I am pleasing myself that they are mine, tell me 
 that they are the price of my father's soul? 
 
 If the rich man in either of the parables which exhibit 
 the curse of wealth without benevolence, (parables being 
 for a moment taken as literal facts,) might have been 
 permitted, as one of them petitioned, to send a message 
 to his relations on earth, what might we imagine as 
 the first thing which the anguish of his spirit would 
 have uttered in such a message ? Would it not have 
 been an emphatic expression of the suffering which the 
 wealth he had at once adored and abused inflicted on him 
 now, as if it ministered incessant fuel to those fires ? 
 Would he not have breathed out an earnest entreaty 
 that it might not remain in that entireness in which it 
 has been his idol ; as if an alleviation might in some 
 way arise from its being in any other state and use 
 than that in which he had sacrificed his soul to it ? 
 Send away some of that accumulation ; give some of it 
 to the cause of God, if he will accept what has been 
 made an abomination by being put in his stead. Send 
 some of it away, if it be but in pity to him of whom 
 you surely cannot help sometimes thinking wMle you 
 are enjoying it. Can you, in the pleasures and the 
 pride which that wealth may impart, escape the bitter 
 thought, that for every gratification which it admi- 
 nisters to you, it inflicts a pang on him by whose death 
 it has become yours, and by whose perdition it is so 
 much ? 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 369 
 
 How different the reflections of those inheritors, who 
 feel in what they do not possess a delightful recognition 
 of the character of their departed relations ; who feel 
 that they possess so much the less than they might have 
 done, becau^e those relations have alienated to them 
 nothing of what was sacred to God, and to charity ; and 
 who can comprehend and approve the principle of that 
 calculation of their pious predecessors, which accounted 
 it even one of the best provisions for their heirs to 
 dedicate a portion of their property to God. How dif- 
 ferent therefore the feelings of a descendant of such a 
 person as that late most excellent christian and philan- 
 thropist of your city, whose name the present topic has 
 probably recalled to the minds of most in this assembly.* 
 
 We cannot be unaware how many wellwishers to our 
 cause must feel a severe limitation put on their means 
 of aiding it by the pressure of the public burdens, 
 those burdens which oppress the energy and the re- 
 sources of every scheme for doing good. How often 
 does the thought of such designs present itself to a 
 benevolent man, at the moment of his being accosted 
 with the peremptory demands on the public account, 
 and make him look wishfully and regretfully at the 
 sums he is thus surrendering, to be speedily followed, 
 .he knows, by more sums surrendered, from the profits 
 of his laborious industry, or the produce of his little 
 property. How many implements for the holy war, he 
 says to himself, how many bibles, or tracts, or school- 
 manuals, in the languages of Asia, might have sprung 
 from even my share of this forced sacrifice ; but this 
 all-consuming monster, denominated the State, seems 
 to know instinctively whatever good men are devising 
 
 * Reynolds. 
 B B 
 
370 ON THE PROPAGATION OF 
 
 of gratuitous service to the welfare of their fellow- 
 creatures, and to delight in frustrating their designs, by 
 making spoil of their means, — as if in revenge that 
 they should seem to reproach the national power by 
 presuming to apply their little individual means to 
 worthier purposes than those on which the grand public 
 resources have been expended without limit. 
 
 We cannot make the odious vision pass away from 
 our view. A great christian state, with every con- 
 ceivable mode of beneficence offered to its sight and 
 within its powers, has throughout half an age been 
 stimulated to almost miraculous exertions, to an expen- 
 diture surpassing all the dreams of the golden empires 
 of romance, a consumption of forces and of materials 
 which might seem to have been adequate, under some 
 imaginable forms of application, to give a new charac- 
 ter to the moral world ; and when, after all this, the 
 christian philanthropist looks to see the condition in 
 which this triumph of its astonishing capabilities has 
 left it, he finds that, excepting some hopeful com- 
 mencements, made quite apart from the public system, 
 and in spite of its insatiable requisitions, that which 
 was to be done remains still to be done, with a fright- 
 ful addition of evils to the account ; and to be done 
 by the efforts of individuals, and those individuals suf- 
 fering, from the course of national affairs, a lament- 
 able diminution and alienation of their means.. 
 
 In any large assembly, nevertheless, there may be a 
 number of persons who rather approved than con- 
 demned, while it continued, that headlong, rampant, 
 and devastating career, of which they would plead the 
 now oppressive consequences in excuse for contributing 
 but slightly in aid of a concern like that under our con- 
 templation. Without making it our business to arraign 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA, 371 
 
 them for such approval, we may suggest that they 
 should be discreet in using this plea. Tliey should 
 think again before consequences which, as resulting 
 naturally from a certain order of public measures, they 
 were required in reason to foresee, at least to a con- 
 siderable extent, when they deliberately gave their 
 approbation to those measures, shall be alleged by them 
 in exemption from assisting a better cause than any 
 that has absorbed their subsidies. If they have been 
 the professed servants of that Prince of Peace whose 
 kingdom is not of this world, but nevertheless demands 
 tribute from the worldly resources of its subjects, it 
 must have been their acknowledged primary obh'gation 
 to look to the advancement of that kingdom ; in prac- 
 tical conformity with that prayer, of which the very 
 first petition is in this reference — unless they could 
 think it enough to say that prayer. This sacred obli- 
 gation they had to keep in memory, while considering 
 what other expenditures of their property they should 
 take the responsibility of approving : the responsibility, 
 we say ; for to abet and sanction a proceeding is to 
 incur the accountableness as completely as if the mani- 
 festation of an opposite opinion would 'prevent that 
 proceeding ; and it were an idle evasion to plead that 
 the course of measures in question would have been 
 pursued, all the same, though disapprobation instead of 
 coincidence had been avowed by these individuals. 
 With this obligation resting on memory and on con- 
 science, they could not, one should think, without 
 alarm for their christian principles, give their sanction 
 to what must inevitably create speedy and large de- 
 mands on their property, unless they had \^vj solid 
 ground for assurance of being left still competent to 
 meet the claims peculiarly authoritative on them as 
 
372 ON THE PROPAGATION OF 
 
 christians. They had to consider then what, in sober 
 calculation, it was probable or possible there should at 
 length be spared to them, by the voracity of such a 
 gulf as they saw swallowing up, year after year, the 
 means of the community. We will presume that they 
 did, as a matter of conscience, seriously consider this 
 question, and that through the progressive stages of 
 experience they were still satisfied, as remaining con- 
 stant in the assurance that their approval of the policy 
 which caused such a tremendous consumption, did not 
 involve their consent to an alienation from the cause of 
 Christ of any thing honestly belonging to it. But then 
 we must tell them, that they will now come with a bad 
 grace to say they have been deceived, and that the 
 cause of Christ must pay the forfeit of their miscalcu- 
 lation. Surely against the claims of a service to which 
 their best strength was put under the prior and para- 
 mount obligation acknowledged by their profession, 
 they will hesitate to plead that they have been lamed 
 in their willing adherence to another, of such widely 
 different character. 
 
 To those who are not liable to this sort of argumen- 
 tum ad hominem, while deploring the disability inflicted 
 by the consequences of national conduct, it may be sug- 
 gested as at once a consolation and incitement, that the 
 most unequivocal omen of an amendment of the national 
 condition, even in a temporal respect, is the^ very cir- 
 cumstance of this recently arisen zeal and activity, in 
 missionary and so many other ways of operation, for 
 extending the prevalence of the true religion in the 
 world. From what has been seen thus far we may 
 affirm, that the Almighty has indicated this as the part 
 of the world whence he is determined to draw, in the 
 outset at least, the chief human means of accomplishing 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. S7^ 
 
 his most glorious designs for its many nations ; that 
 here he has his mines, and his assembling camp ; that 
 here is the part where lie the sinews of the sacred war.* 
 But if so, and if that war is to be on so great a scale as 
 appears to be prefigured in the visions of his prophets, 
 may we not venture to say that he will, that he must, 
 protect the stores applicable to his approaching cam- 
 paigns, from the renewal of such dreadful depredations 
 as we have witnessed, and from the unmitigated con- 
 tinuance of such as are suiFered now ? We may assure 
 ourselves that he will in due time warn off the sacrile- 
 gious hands of the plunderer. And what a glorious 
 change of the national condition, when God shall, as it 
 were, place his angel between what shall remain after 
 all the ravage of ambition, war and corruption, and the 
 re-approach of these spoilers. And how gratifying to 
 behold too, in the contrasted operations, the different 
 rate of cost in proportion to the respective results ; to 
 see that, whereas an astonishing and unparalleled ex- 
 penditure in the vulgar kind of war has resulted in — 
 leaving men, relatively to the objects of that war, not 
 far from where they were, the grand spiritual power, 
 which we behold entering into action, will require an 
 incalculably less amount of material means for its con- 
 sumption in the whole extent of its operations to 
 transform the moral world. 
 
 You will not, my brethren, feel it a damp on the 
 pleasure of anticipating the gradual retreat of the spoiler, 
 that the temporal means so rescued will still not be held 
 in entire and absolute property by their possessors, but 
 will still be in part under a foreign and authoritative 
 
 * Our American brethren have given worthy pledges of a wil- 
 lingness to make themselves tributaries to the same imperial 
 cause. 
 
374 ON THE PROPAGATION OF 
 
 claim. For, besides that it is pleasing to devout minds 
 to hold and regard all things as belonging to God, and 
 as to subserve whatever purpose he pleases, they may 
 be very confident that he will make it to be the better for 
 the community itself, in a temporal respect, whenever 
 there shall prevail in it a disposition to apply its means 
 to promote his cause. Indeed this very spirit will in- 
 volve a principle of counteraction to all such things as 
 we have seen most miserably destroying the temporal 
 welfare of the nation. 
 
 For the present, while many friends of religion are 
 labouring under the grievous pressure, we may suggest 
 it to them as a consideration not unfit to accompany 
 the exercise of their prudence, that the offerings to 
 God from what calamity has left have a peculiar value 
 in his esteem, and in the feelings of the sufferer may 
 contribute to exalt adversity into piety. Should we 
 go back in thought to that period of the world when 
 sacrifices, literally, were appointed for the expression 
 of homage to Heaven, we might imagine the case of a 
 devout man whose harvests, or plantations, or flocks, 
 had for the greater part perished by some destructive 
 visitation, as by tempests, or fire, or locusts, or disease. 
 Let us suppose him, nevertheless, in looking pensively 
 over the desolation, to consider whether yet some small 
 portion of the remainder might not be spared for God, 
 as a token of humble resignation to him thaf gave and 
 had taken away. Would not that probably be the 
 most acceptable sacrifice that had ever burnt on his 
 altar, and offered with the most affecting emotions of 
 religion ? Nor would it seem to him to lessen what 
 was already so little, but rather to augment it in value 
 by bringing a divine benediction upon it. Or suppose 
 a pious man, in that ancient time, to have been cast, by 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 375 
 
 shipwreck, alone, on a desert coast. If his religion, 
 predominant in all scenes and over all feelings, inspired 
 the wish to make a burnt-offering to his God, his only 
 means might have been something of the little store he 
 had saved from the wreck, and fragments of his ship 
 for fuel. But in the solemnity of bearing toward heaven 
 the expression of a sublime devotion, this would sur- 
 pass all other sacrificial flames he had ever kindled or 
 beheld. It might appear to his faith, amidst the gloom 
 of the solitary shore, as a symbol of that presence which 
 was in the fire that Moses saw in the desert. 
 
 Perhaps it may be justly thought, that the notions, 
 dispositions, and circumstances, above recounted as 
 adverse to the spirit for christianizing the heathens, 
 and as intercepting the desired assistance to a mission 
 actually at work among them, did not require to be 
 commented on at such length. We gladly leave them 
 to become harmless under the progressive ascendency 
 of unfettered thinking, experience, benevolent zeal, and 
 that better aspect which we hope that a good Provi- 
 dence will ere long give to the times, if it were only 
 for the purpose of replenishing the resources of schemes 
 for extending the dominion of divine truth. We shall 
 hasten toward a conclusion by briefly suggesting a few 
 ideas tending to animate the piety of persons already in- 
 clined in this way to " come to the help of the Lord." 
 
 And surely there is something very captivating in 
 such an expression itself, combined with numerous 
 sentences in the Bible, less bold and striking in phrase, 
 but of the same spirit. It is strange that we are not 
 oftener surprised and delighted at the condescension 
 shewn by the Almighty, in expressing the dictates of 
 his will to his servants in terms and images which 
 
376 ON THE PiiOPAGATION OF 
 
 permit them to regard the performance of their duty, 
 their mere duty, in the light of cooperation with him. 
 The thought of being authorized by him to entertain so 
 sublime an idea of their vocation, might bear them up 
 in their deepest distresses and most arduous labours ; 
 might animate them though a world were against them. 
 So ennobled a character of their service, however, 
 which it would have been profaneness for them to have 
 arrogated without such a sanction, is fit to be dwelt 
 upon in its full magnitude only when their minds are 
 the most elevated in devotion, when consequently their 
 humility is the most profound. In the usual tenour of 
 their religious feelings, it should be honour enough to 
 inspire complacency and activity in their work, that 
 they can regard themselves in the humbler capacity of 
 mere instruments ; that the Supreme Agent chooses to 
 effect by means of them what he could accomplish with 
 infinite facility without them. 
 
 Apply the consideration to the matter now before us. 
 lie could by a simple act of his will cause an instanta- 
 neous disappearance from the globe of that enormous 
 system of mythological delusion, with all its rites, 
 iniquities, and guardian evil spirits. It might vanish 
 like a vapour of the morning, and leave but its wreck 
 and monument in fallen temples and shivered idols, 
 thenceforth a harmless mass of matter, dispossessed of 
 that property which had breathed poison* into men's 
 souls. And indeed, if we were regarding the extermi- 
 nation of that monstrous superstition in no other view 
 than that of the advantage of its being the soonest out 
 of existence, we might be tempted to desire so illus- 
 trious a catastrophe. If such a thing might be, a ser- 
 vant of God would be willing to forego the honour of 
 his share in the destruction. But when he finds it so 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 377 
 
 evidently a principle in tlie beneficent designs of the 
 divine administration of the world, that they are not 
 directed solely to the accomplishment of one ultimate 
 object, but are intended and adapted to be, in their 
 execution, an employment, a discipline, and an honour, 
 to human agents, he will feel (if his spirit be attem- 
 pered to the great purposes of his Master) a generous 
 impatience that these agents may be prompt to seize 
 the honour thus brought within their reach. With 
 fire-brands and torches put into their hands, can they 
 be content, he exclaims, to stand still and let them burn 
 out, while the huge fabric inhabited by demon gods, 
 and filled with pestilent abominations, spreads wide 
 and towers aloft in security and defiance before them ? 
 Let them advance and prove who has sent them, and 
 whence the fire came that they bear. Let them go 
 and demonstrate upon the proud assemblage of pos- 
 sessors of a region not their own, that the decree of 
 expulsion coming on them at last is not the less armed 
 v/ith authority because He, whose own approach when 
 on earth was always the imperative signal for infernal 
 audacity to retire, seems now only to send his servants 
 to execute his will. That his will should pass into 
 effect through such an agency, may well excite the 
 wonder of those who find such a commission offered to 
 them. It must be the highest distinction which he has 
 to confer on mortals, to be thus, by him, in the sight 
 of far nobler mightier intelligences, ('* a spectacle to 
 angels,") accounted worthy to act a part in the grand 
 scheme and process for the enlargement of his kingdom. 
 It will also be a religious triumph as against the prin- 
 cipalities and powers of evil, that it should please him 
 to accomplish his victory by the means, in part, of crea- 
 tures who. in thus serving their God, should be avenging 
 
378 ON THE PROPAGATION OP 
 
 their race ; that these powers should see, that when the 
 irresistible might was at last to be put forth, it was to 
 be through the instrumentality of beings of that order, 
 in whose debasement and misery they had so long 
 maintained a direful evidence on the face of the crea- 
 tion that they were not yet consigned to the rigour of 
 their prison-house. 
 
 It is a still further cause of delight, that this putting 
 forth of strength under the external form of weakness, 
 is analogous to the one greatest manifestation of vindi- 
 cating and redeeming energy. 
 
 As an incitement to christians to throw a measure of 
 their activity into enterprises aimed at such an object, 
 they may be reminded that, while enjoined to preserve 
 moderation in their own demands upon this earth, they 
 are entitled to be ambitious, shall we not say arrogant, 
 on behalf of their Lord. In their view, the worst 
 usurpation beyond all comparison, in the world, must 
 be that which any where presumes to withliold an in- 
 habited tract from his actual dominion. On whatever 
 it is that does so presume, let them expend the ani- 
 mosity which might otherwise find its meaner exercise 
 against the boundaries that obstruct their own projects 
 of acquisition. And in this nobler direction it will not 
 be the passion which frets itself against what is im- 
 moveable and then subsides or recoils in despair. For 
 they have reason to be assured that those limits against 
 which this more consecrated ambition is impelled in 
 hostility, will at length be carried away. They can 
 descry through the gross darkness that covers the 
 pagan regions, a mystical signature by the finger of 
 God, on every spot, to indicate its assignment by that 
 covenant which has given to the Messiah the heathen 
 for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. o79 
 
 for his pos?ession. That declared decree in heaven, 
 that substance of the thing hoped for, is brought down 
 to the earth in the confident anticipations of the faithful, 
 and beheld in foresight as become accomplished in the 
 actual spectacle of an universal kingdom. 
 
 They see among leading mortals an ardent compe- 
 tition lor dominion over spaces of territory, with angry 
 controversy about titles and usurpations, and an inces- 
 sant resort to the expedient which wastes the contenders 
 and the subject of contention. They loathe and abhor 
 this spectacle of a world with its unnumbered myriads 
 continually made a sport and a prey of the bad passions 
 of those predominant mortals, by their power of exas- 
 perating and directing the bad propensities of subser- 
 vient multitudes. The contemplators of the scene, if 
 they believed it must be always thus, might w^ell be 
 affected with passionate longings for omens of its ap- 
 proaching dissolution. An oracle that should tell them, 
 in the plainest meaning of the words, that " the end of 
 all things is at hand," might delight them more than 
 ever a pagan mover of an ambitious enterprise was 
 elated by voices or signs from the fane of his deity 
 assuring him of conquest. But they have a better 
 consolation in the faith that amidst all these tumults of 
 conflict, amidst all these destructive competitions of 
 transitory potentates, there is gradually unfolding itself 
 a cause destined to grow to a dominion which will 
 leave no province or tribe of the earth to be contested 
 by the rivalries of an insane ambition. 
 
 In the mean time, if they observe any state making 
 a great progress in power and occupancy of the face of 
 the world, it will well become their character to show 
 an animated concern that the kingdom which has their 
 peculiar allegiance may be as evidently advancing, and 
 
380 ON THE PROPAGATION OF 
 
 that to this progress that enlargement of the temporal 
 dominion may be made in some way to subserve. And 
 here you will all be reminded of the wonderfully rapid 
 extension of the British acquisitions in Asia, where we 
 cannot help interpreting it as a sign in favour of a 
 higher cause, that a lying spirit should have betrayed 
 so many pagan and Mahomedan powers to provoke 
 their own destruction. In this view of such vast con- 
 quests, we can thank the contrivers and the heroes, 
 whose contempt would at any stage of the career have 
 been excited at the notion of its being the real cause of 
 their success that they were preparing the way for 
 Christianity. 
 
 It is of course for men of counsel and of w^ar to scorn 
 this fanatical mode of estimating splendid conquests. 
 But we can see little on any other ground to console 
 good men for the heavy addition made by conquests so 
 splendid, to those public burdens which leave them 
 such scanty means of doing good, of their own choice 
 and in their own manner. Should national glory be 
 talked of, we could have no fear of making the appeal 
 to every one within hearing, whether he, as an indi- 
 vidual of the nation, and one of the owners therefore of 
 the glory of these eastern acquisitions, would not most 
 willingly surrender his share of it on the terms of 
 receiving back, w^ere that possible, so much as it may 
 fairly be calculated to have cost him. Especially this 
 would be a safe appeal to a man who is thinking what 
 a valuable contribution that sum would be to projects 
 for diffusing Christianity through any part of the 
 world. It has not been left him lor such disposal. But 
 still, let him hope in Divine Providence that even to 
 that object it has not been altogether lost. And here 
 is a project which seeks to redeem to that very purpose 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 381 
 
 what has been taken and expended in a spirit infinitely 
 foreign to it, and what, unless so redeemed, may be 
 truly accounted, for the greater portion of it, lost in the 
 most absolute sense. But this enterprise too is a con- 
 cern of serious expense. The advocates of this design 
 have no way of avoiding the confession, that it seeks to 
 impose a little more cost for India on persons to whom 
 that country has, independently of their will, cost too 
 much already ; but it is an addition somewhat of the 
 nature of an insurance for Christianity on the ultimate 
 effect of the expenditure. It is, like the prophet's 
 action, casting something into the deep to cause that 
 miraculously to float which were else irrecoverably 
 sunk. 
 
 The object is, that the true religion may advance — 
 too slowly, at first, it is true, but with a continual 
 movement, to be accelerated in Heaven's good time — 
 on the track of our victorious armies ; may plant sta- 
 tions on the fields of their encampments and battles ; 
 may demolish, in the moral sense, as many strong-holds 
 of superstition as our artillery has reduced fortresses ; 
 may, in short, carry on operations corresponding to the 
 wars in all the points esteemed the most glorious. And 
 what a delightful thing, if thus a Power never thought 
 of by any of the parties in the long conflict, shall come 
 in and take the best of the spoils ; and assume, in a 
 better sense, the dominion which so many potentates 
 have been compelled to resign ; showing the one peo- 
 ple how they had, in truth, been beguiled through 
 expenditure and exertion, for an object ibr which they 
 would have scorned to make, knowingly, a hundredth 
 part of such a sacrifice ; and the other, that they had 
 lost their political independence but as a prelude to 
 their deliverance from their tyrant gods. — But how is 
 
382 ON THE PROPAGATION OF 
 
 a design which looks to such consequences to be sup- 
 ported in the early stages of its prosecution ? It is 
 evident there is no v/ay but that in which the friends of 
 religion may, if they will, decline to afford their aid. 
 
 Among the many reasons to be pleaded why they 
 should not so decline, we may suggest the certainty 
 that all the pecuniary aids received by our brethren in 
 India will be faithfully applied, so as to return the best 
 equivalent, in labour and the results of labour, that can 
 be insured by that careful economy of expenditure 
 which has hitherto been one of the most uncontested 
 merits of their proceeding. It is impossible to con- 
 ceive a stronger pledge for that faithful application, 
 than the fact of their having many years generously 
 devoted the product of that portion of their own inde- 
 fatigable labours, which they undertook and have pro- 
 secuted for the sole purpose of creating their own 
 means for their christian enterprise. Thin warfare 
 therefore, in Hindoostan, is in no danger of incurring 
 a charge which has been constantly and heavily laid 
 on the conduct of our other wars there. We may be 
 assured that all the supplies afforded to this service will 
 go into the effective apparatus, and will be felt in the 
 enemy's camp. 
 
 While we pay the tribute of our grateful admiration 
 to the devotedness, the disinterestedness, and the most 
 extraordinary performances, of the fraternity at Seram- 
 pore, we cannot help being reminded that the chief of 
 these labourers are advanced in life, and the leader of 
 the band verging fast, in point of age, to the decline. 
 We will not dwell on the irreparable loss which the 
 cause sustained by them with so noble an energy is one 
 day to suff(^r. But it does seem highly desirable that 
 the remaining portion of the lives of these veterans 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 383 
 
 should be turned to the utmost account. A few spirits 
 so long and severely disciplined, who have mastered so 
 much difficulty, that nothing which can remain appears 
 formidable to them, and who habitually, and now as it 
 were mechanically, labour at the extreme pitch of their 
 labouring power, — and that power indefinitely in- 
 creased by practice, — a few such men, and those also 
 acting in concert, are to be estimated at many-fold 
 their numerical force, even considered in reference 
 simply to the amount of work they can perform. The 
 valuation, therefore, of whatever may remain to them 
 of life is to be according to what these acquired powers 
 and habits have added to the ordinary efficiency of in- 
 dustry and ability. Now, while there is no adding to the 
 length of these invaluable lives, it is possible to make, if 
 we may so express it, an addition to their breadth. 
 That is, it is possible for these men's minds and their 
 system to be carried, by means of larger supplies, into 
 action on a wider extent. And our argument is, that 
 such ampler supplies during Xhm life would be means 
 put in action, over that extent, not to produce an effect 
 merely according to what may be deemed their ordi- 
 nary rate of operation, but in proportion to the ad- 
 vantage, which is temporary and may be short, of be- 
 ing employed by such excellently disciplined agents : 
 such enlarged aid would serve the cause in the magni- 
 fied proportion of these men's peculiar qualification to 
 make them effectual to serve it. 
 
 Nor is it any disparagement, by anticipation, to the 
 zeal and talent which we are confident the Supreme 
 Head of the church will appoint in long succession to 
 this work, when we represent the special importance 
 of aiding it in this particular stage, on the ground that 
 a combinatiou of men uniting the advantage of a patri- 
 
384 ON THE PROPAGATION OP 
 
 archal priority in time, with individual endowments so 
 adapted, such diversified exercise and experience, such 
 difficulty surmounted, and such duration of faithful, 
 firm conjunction, can hardly ever be e([ualled in the 
 power of making the most efficient application of what- 
 ever means shall be supplied. 
 
 The right policy, in this case, is the same as that 
 which would impel a State, engaged in some ambitious 
 enterprise, to push its military operations most earn- 
 estly, and with every practicable reinforcement, during 
 the last campaign in which those operations could pro- 
 bably have the advantage of being directed by an 
 unbroken band of veterans trained in conjunction to 
 victory in the service.* 
 
 * It may not be amiss, with respect to persons but slightly ac- 
 quainted with the missionary portion of the history of our age, to 
 add a few sentences to the mention, in a preceding note, of the 
 three men who formed themselves into a fraternal union at 
 Serampore, between thirty and forty years since. — The rule of 
 their institution was, that as soon as possible (and it was soon 
 actually attained) they should support themselves, and devote to 
 the christian service all they should gain, beyond what was 
 strictly necessary for that support, by combining with their 
 directly missionary employments certain other occupations, lite- 
 rary and connected with literature, as expedients for raising an 
 income. — Not long afterward there were stationed in the same 
 place and neighbourhood other missionaries of the same religious 
 denomination, in a ceAain degree associated with them, but not 
 of the union in which these three had voluntarily constituted their 
 own independent system, of deliberations, measures, support in 
 common, and mutual accountableness, exclusively of all other 
 authority. 
 
 Within a very few years after the time the references to them 
 were made in this discourse, one excellent member of that union. 
 Ward, was removed by death. The remaining two, one of them 
 now past seventy, and subjected at last to a pressure of bodily in- 
 firmity which indicates the approaching conclusion of his labours, 
 the other but few years below that age, both having been remark- 
 ably favoured in point of general health during the third part of 
 a century, in a climate so inauspicious to Europeans, have con- 
 tinued to prosecute with unremitting exertion to the present 
 time (1833), with a gradual accession of assistance by the active 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 885 
 
 And even as regarding these men themselves, will- 
 ing, like St. Paul, to forego, if it might be put at their 
 
 zeal of younger cooperators, the undertaking to which they so 
 long since devoted themselves for life and death. Their mis- 
 sionary operations have been continually extending to a wider 
 compass, though sustained by pecuniary resources far less in pro- 
 portion than the ordinary cost of similar undertakings. But, 
 their own means for creating those resources having been gradu- 
 ally reduced, by various circumstances in that country, almost to 
 nothing, they have now to depend chiefly on such aid as shall be 
 supplied to them from those in this country who cannot be will- 
 ing that such workmen should be disabled by any thing but 
 death, or that so important a work should fall to the ground in 
 the presence of the idolaters and their gods. —Through good 
 report and evil report they have proceeded on, actuated by the 
 same invariable determination, to their great object; not sur 
 prised that they have had to experience, what must be reckoned 
 on by all who surpass their fellow-mortals, in the service especi- 
 ally of Christianity, an ample visitation of malice, misrepreseu- 
 tation, and calumny ; partly from the undisguised enemies of 
 religion, and partly from such as claim to be accounted its friendc; 
 But they will stand most worthily and eminently conspicuous in 
 christian history, ages after the calumnies and their authors shall 
 have sunk in oblivion. 
 
 Mere justice to them requires an observation to be here made, 
 on what was said in the discourse in the way of urging a somewhat 
 extra liberality, on the consideration of the too probably short re- 
 mainder of the lives of men so peculiarly qualified to apply the 
 contributed assistance to the best advantage. The writer, (or dis- 
 courser,) never having had the least curiosity to inquire into the 
 official affairs of societies or committees, was really not aware thai 
 no part of what was contributed, then or long before, to the general 
 missionary purposes, went in aid of the Serampore fraternity ; who 
 sought no such assistance, but, during a very long period, more, 
 probably, than twenty years, supported and extended their 
 system on the sole strength of their own exertions and means ; 
 and were disinterested enough to be willing that this fact should 
 be very little known, while their great reputation was availing so 
 powerfully to obtain from public liberality supplies which went 
 to missionary uses entirely distinct from their operations. — In 
 the long course of those operations they have expended, for purely 
 christian and philanthropic purposes, from the proceeds of their 
 own various industry in ways secondary and subsidiary to their 
 extensive gratuitous labours in missionary and bible-translation 
 work, an amount which would have made them all rich ; but 
 which, in their honourable poverty, they are rejoicing to have so 
 C C 
 
386 ON THE PROPAGATION OF 
 
 choice, a more speedy emancipation from their toils to 
 the final rest, and to labour on to the last period of ex- 
 hausted nature, — it seems due from our sympathy and 
 gratitude to wish that, if death should not deny them 
 the time, the christian public should not refuse them 
 the other means, for advancing the introductory process 
 of the great work to a point where they would be per- 
 fectly willing to bid it adieu. That supposed limit of 
 their christian ambition is not altogether an imaginary 
 one : not a chariot like Elijah's for their departure 
 would inspire in them such joy, in quitting the world, 
 as to know that the most important parts of the revela- 
 tion of God had been brought to speak in every con- 
 siderable language of Asia. 
 
 But at all events, they will depart with the delight 
 of knowing, that their distinguished lot on earth has 
 been to open the way, in an important sense, to the 
 region whither they are going, for innumerable souls 
 escaping from the kingdom of darkness in succession of 
 time to follow them ; while they will rejoice to have 
 stayed long enough to see the evinced and completed 
 
 expended. — By the loss, in the recent dreadful commercial crash 
 at Calcutta, of what small funds they possessed appropriate to the 
 service, they are at present reduced to a situation of extreme 
 diflSculty for the means ,of continuing the support, on even the 
 most restrictive plan of economy, of the missionaries whom they 
 have placed at no less than eighteen different stations on the im- 
 mense territory under the British government or influence. They 
 have transmitted a plain statement of this situation, with an 
 appeal to the liberality of the friends of religion in this country. 
 During a very long period they held an ostensible connexion, 
 without dependence or accountableness on their part, with the 
 Baptist Missionary Society ; and, when toward the end of that 
 period their resources had become greatly diminished, received 
 pecuniary aid, for a few years, from that Society. But about 
 seven years since the connexion entirely ceased ; and from that 
 time all assistance requested for them is expressly in their name 
 as the Serampore Missionaries. 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 387 
 
 efficacy of their appointment as evangelists in some 
 that are gone before them. They will know that by 
 the cause in which they have lived and laboured, and 
 are dying, a new mode of the divine attention, a greater 
 measure of the divine interest, has been drawn and 
 must remain fixed in benignant radiance on a formerly 
 estranged and desolate tract of the world ; inasmuch 
 as wherever there are faithful witnesses to the truth, 
 repenting sinners, and pagans making sacrifices of the 
 idols to which they had offered sacrifice, and commenc- 
 ing in the name of Christ a new life, amidst prayers 
 and praises in languages which never addressed the 
 Almighty before, there is (speaking reverently) some- 
 thing to necessitate toward that spot a far more special 
 emanation of favour and providence from heaven, than 
 when that moral waste contained nothing spiritually 
 related to God. If there were but one particle there 
 of such new and sacred existence, heaven must continue 
 in communication with the spot where there is some- 
 thing so much its own, till it became extinct, or were 
 resumed to the sky. How happy then if there shall be 
 there an augmentation, every day, of what thus bears a 
 special relation to God, to become a continually stronger 
 attraction of the divine benignity thitherward ; till at 
 length the language of prophecy shall be fulfilled, " Be- 
 hold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will 
 dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God 
 himself shall be with them, and be their God." 
 
 In a confidence of a progressive prevalence of the 
 gracious dispensation of which we think we see the 
 commencement, it might be permitted to indulge for a 
 moment in the contemplation of India as in a future 
 age, in which distant period we can in a measure con- 
 ceive what will be the reflections of a devout observer. 
 
388 ON THE PROPAGATION OF 
 
 regarding the scene in reference to the past. With the 
 picture on his imagination of India as the missionaries 
 had found it, and as many preserved authentic descrip- 
 tions will agree with them in representing it, he may 
 look over the ample region, to wonder what is become 
 of that direful element, which was once perceived per- 
 vading and corrupting the whole wide diffusion of men- 
 tal and moral existence ; betraying in a darkness visible 
 the character of the people's souls through their less 
 sable exterior. The dusky visages, the attire and the 
 structure of habitations perhaps, and the grand features 
 of Nature, will be seen the same ; but a horrid some- 
 thing, composed of lies, and crimes, and curses, and woes, 
 that did rest in deadly possession over all the land, will 
 be broken up and gone. Where has a place been found 
 for what occupied for ages after ages so many cities, 
 and villages, and houses, and minds ? What tempest 
 has driven it away ? What presence has been here 
 which that presence could not abide ? Was it that 
 Spirit in awe of which eternal night vanished at the 
 creation of the world ? 
 
 He may look from the southern and western shores 
 toward the sublime mountain-boundary of the region on 
 the north, and reflect what a scene it was to confront 
 heaven, in all this breadth, with deities and worships, 
 institutes, dogmas, and licensed morals, hostile and 
 hateful to God ; each individual of unnumbered millions 
 being infatuated with notions, and perverted to habits, 
 which exemplified to what depth a rational nature 
 could fall. But how glorious for that reflecting ob- 
 server to feel it verified to him that this is but a vision 
 of the past, and that, departing like a dream when one 
 awakes, it leaves him in view of a bright and blessed 
 reality. How he will exult in the palpable evidence 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 389 
 
 that the Son of God has spread his dominion from 
 tliose shores to those mountains ; that the oracles of 
 truth have taken place of the most silly, and loathsome, 
 and monstrous legends with which the father of lies 
 ever made contemptuous sport of the folly of his 
 dupes ; and that the new religion admitted in faith as 
 doctrine, has evinced its moral excellence in the virtues 
 of its believers. When joining with them in exercises 
 of worship to the true God, he may have short lapses 
 of mind into a view of the past, presented in vivid 
 images of the fantastic fooleries, and the detestable 
 orgies, that had once elated superstition to madness on 
 the very same spot, as attested by some monumental 
 ruin of a temple ; and he will recover from such brief 
 alienation of thought to verify the fact, that he actually 
 is among persons reverently calling on God in the 
 name of Christ. That disease of the soul will be gone 
 that exhibits itself in alternate lethargy and raving 
 The charities of humanity, restored among them, will 
 show why it was that their ancestors could look upon, 
 or even cause, the death of relations and friends with 
 stockish indifference. And finally, he will see the 
 effect of that which missionaries are seeking to promote 
 among them, in the manner in which the death of 
 christianized Hindoos will differ from that insensate 
 quiet, that stoicism without magnanimity, with which 
 the pagan Hindoo submits to fate. 
 
 And if we might, for a moment, entertain so impro- 
 bable an idea, as that this observer and comparer should 
 be uninformed of the general course of means and 
 operation, through which the Almighty Spirit had ac- 
 complished this great change, we can suppose his con- 
 jectures on the subject to be much too magnificent. 
 How came thousands of temples to be surrendered to 
 
390 ON THE PROPAGATION OP 
 
 the decay of time or the shorter work of dilapidation, 
 an infinity of idols to be demolished, a mythology and 
 ritual, involving the whole life and being of the human 
 multitude, to be exploded, the powers of Brahmins and 
 priests to be annihilated, a whole intellectual and moral 
 system to be supplanted by its opposite ? Might not 
 such questions put his mind on the effort to imagine 
 the most extraordinary modes of divine interposition ? 
 He might fancy, perhaps, that some great convulsion 
 of nature had contributed to the overthrow of so many 
 structures forming the glory and the fortresses of super- 
 stition ; that portentous phenomena, bearing a me- 
 nacing aspect on the pagan rites, had been displayed in 
 the heavens ; or that a new dispensation of miracles, at 
 once verifying the record of the ancient ones and sur- 
 passing them in magnificence, had expelled the fabu- 
 lous monsters of the popular faith, as our Lord sent the 
 demonized herd into the sea, and had brought the truth 
 with the force of irresistible facts. Might there not 
 also have been an eminently peculiar manifestation of 
 providence for the temporal welfare of the converts, 
 marking them out to the gross apprehension of the 
 idolaters as exclusively the favourites of the Power 
 that governs the world ? And might he surmise in 
 addition, that the foreign christian state, which had 
 conquered Hindoostan, must have systematically lent, 
 during the acquisition and possession, its whole influ- 
 ence arising from conquest and dominion, to promote 
 Christianity by every expedient short of force ? 
 
 No, he might be told, you see, in this happy trans- 
 formation, nothing which is to be referred to any such 
 causes. The work began in some of the humblest 
 movements that ever pointed to a great object, move- 
 ments in which the actors owed iu part their tole- 
 
CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA. 391 
 
 ration to the contempt felt for them by the people 
 they adventured among. A train of ideas had been 
 excited in the minds of some individuals respect- 
 ing the prophecies relative to the heathen nations. 
 Their conversations about these with their religious 
 friends, had led to meetings, prayers, little arrange- 
 ments of cooperation, and slender contributions of 
 money. A gradual extension of these measures had 
 resulted in the sending of several zealous men, by means 
 of conveyance marked w^ith the disfavour of the govern- 
 ing authorities, to begin the experiment. It was com- 
 menced under appearances very far from resembling 
 Constantine's pretended vision of a cross in the clouds, 
 inscribed as the sign of victory ; or from recalling to 
 mind what is said of pagan priests of other ages hav- 
 ing been affrighted by a trembling of their fanes, and 
 fearful voices from their recesses announcing the aban- 
 donment of the solemn abode by the deities. Had these 
 servants of Christ taken up their design on any condi- 
 tion of the intervention of preternatural omens, or any 
 presumption of a sudden revolutionary efficacy of their 
 humble and ordinary instrumentality, the only dictate 
 of their experience hitherto would have been to lay it 
 down. But, wild as they were accounted, both the 
 promoters in England, and the agents in the East, they 
 had not been such elated visionaries in their expecta- 
 tions as that a less than moderate success thus far 
 should deject them to a surrender of the resolution to 
 persevere, and to enjoin on their successors an inter- 
 minable perseverance, in the trial of what the Almighty 
 should see fit to accomplish at length by means of the 
 divine revelation sent into every region, a never tired 
 repetition of missionary journeys, addresses, and friendly 
 conferences, with the cooperation of schools and pro- 
 
392 ON THE PROPAGATION OP 
 
 gressive knowledge, and an infinite diffusion of printed 
 religious instructions ; and all recommended by the 
 virtue and unequivocally manifest benevolence of the 
 christian reformers. This system of plain expedients, 
 (it may be supposed to be said to the future wonderer 
 at the transformation,) these operations so little par- 
 taking of the marvellous, so little inflamed vsrith fana- 
 ticism, went on with a never-ceasing activity, and with 
 continually multiplying means and accession of hands, 
 after those who had commenced them and those who 
 had followed next had sunk, one after another, in the 
 dust. On their tombs, (both those fresh in date and 
 colour and those mouldering with age) their successors 
 devoted themselves to prosecute the same design. Con- 
 verts from heathenism, in numbers but small for awhile, 
 but each year more, and at length amounting to a deci- 
 mation, were brought in as captives, but to go out 
 under the oath of hostility against that of which they 
 and their ancestors had been the slaves. The succeed- 
 ing generation of the christians of the west, were 
 happy to continue from that quarter their alliance and 
 aid in the mighter progress of a cause, which their 
 ancestors had set on foot in so diminutive a form, com- 
 mitting in faith and hope its success to God. The 
 influence of that Sovereign Spirit has descended in a 
 progressive increase of efficacy far more than propor- 
 tioned to the enlargement of the system of means : and 
 so it has come to pass, (it might be said to the future 
 admirer,) that you can exult in the disappearance from 
 the world of one mighty power of evil that once 
 stretched the shadow of death over all your regions. 
 
 For us, and our period of time, there is not only thiS' 
 one grand domination of moral evil, standing in hideous 
 tyranny over a large portion of our world ; in many 
 
CHRTSTIANITT IN INDIA. 89o 
 
 forms of more immediate invasion of ourselves, that 
 worst enemy maintains a powerful and dreadful pre- 
 sence. We require to be kept in a habitual and alarm- 
 ing sense of the fact, that the one thing in the creation 
 which surpasses all others as an object for hatred, is 
 here amidst us, and all around, in many diversities of 
 malignant existence ; and with all of them it is our 
 vocation to be at enmity and war. It were in vain to 
 seek to escape from the condition of our place in the 
 dominions of God. A mind of wandering and melan- 
 choly thought, impatient of the grievous realities of our 
 state, may at some moments almost breathe the wish 
 that we had been a different order of beings, in another 
 dwelling-place than this, and appointed on a different 
 service to the Almighty. In vain ! Here still we are, 
 to pass the first part of our existence in a world where 
 it is impossible to be at peace, because there has come 
 into it a mortal enemy to all that live in it. Darkness 
 and silence over the universe deny us all knowledge of 
 ihe inhabitants of its innumerable worlds ; but we 
 would willingly believe that this may be the only 
 region (except that of penal justice) where the cause of 
 evil is permitted to maintain a contest. Here perhaps 
 may be almost its last encampment, where its prolonged 
 power of hostility may be suffered in order to give a 
 protracted display of the manner of its appointed 
 destruction. Here our lot is cast, on a ground so 
 awfully preoccupied ; a calamitous distinction ! but yet 
 a sublime one, if thus we may render to the Eternal 
 King a service of a more arduous kind than it is 
 possible to the inhabitants of any other world than 
 this to render him ; and if thus we may be trained, 
 through devotion and conformity to the Celestial 
 Chief in this warfare, to the final attainment of what 
 
^ 
 
 394 ON THE PROPAGATION OF OHRISTIANITr. 
 
 he has promised, in so many illustrious forms, to him 
 that overcometh. We shall soon leave the region 
 where so much is in rebellion against our God. But 
 we shall go where all that pass from our world must 
 present themselves as from battle, or be denied to 
 mingle in the eternal joys and triumphs of the 
 conquerors. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 R. CLAY, PRINTISR, BREAD 8T!W£KT HtLL. 
 
 3 8717