which they assume the power of prescribing the just boundaries of their literary attainments. Unfortunately the circumstances in which the poor are placed are of themselves sufficient to limit the extent of these attainments: they must labour for bread; there is no avoiding the imperious call of nature; they want time, and often inclination to become moderately learned. Some, indeed, will rise above these difficulties, and under discouragements which nothing less than the impetus of genius could successfully encounter, will tread in the path of science to honour and to fame. And who can wish that these lights from heaven, which occasionally emerge from the obscurity and darkness in which they were originally involved, and "which communicate to objects a morning freshness and unaccountable lustre, that is not seen in the creation of nature," should have the effulgent brightness of their beams extinguished, and its benefit for ever lost to the world, by the useless restrictions which ignorance and misconception impose on a system of popular education? As under a free government, the path of honour is open to all, so every one should have free access to that of literature and science. Let then the elementary branches of education be fairly placed within the reach of the very poorest of the people, and they themselves will be best capable,

of judging how far they can afford a more liberal course of education. It is the duty of the state to impart to the lowest subject the means of acquiring knowledge; it is his rightly to improve them. And that folly must indeed be presumptuous, which affects to say even of his progress in the attainment of knowledge, hitherto shalt thou go and no farther,

In addition to these arguments which have been advanced to prove the utility and necessity of the universal education of the poor, there is yet another, the force of which should certainly be acknowledged in such a country as this: I refer to the obligations of this nature arising from the Christian Religion; the genius of which is as liberal as the most liberal but sound philosophy can desire.

Christianity in its precepts, its spirit, and design, is completely hostile to ignorance in any order of the people. When its divine Author commanded his Apostles to teach all nations, he surely meant all the individuals of which nations are composed. And he himself condescended to shew them an example, by preaching the gospel to the poor,—by teaching those who were as sheep without a shepherd, who were ignorant and out of the way. Indeed, indifference to the interests of the inferior orders of the people is totally incompatible

with that spirit of humility and benevolence which his doctrines uniformly inculcate. These doctrines pre-suppose, what some persons are not very willing to allow, that there is no man, whatever be his rank or situation, who is not capable in some degree of understanding them, and to whom it may not be an irreparable loss not to know them. If there be any truth in that solemn declaration of the Saviour, that this is life eternal to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he has sent, he is not without guilt, who leaves those in ignorance, to whom it is in his power to impart the benefits of knowledge. But certainly there is no way of communicating knowledge so effectual as by an early education; it is in youth that the mind is most easily susceptible of impression, and that principles of piety and religion may be implanted. The work of the preacher is greatly facilitated, when those among whom he labours have been familiar from their infancy with the truths of revelation.

The chief design of christianity, it is true, is to fit men for another life, to raise their hopes and affections to a state of endless purity and joy but it accomplishes this end by turning them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God. While heaven and immortality are its objects, it leaves behind in its progress

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thither the manifest impressions of its divinity. It proves a present blessing of incalculable value in every nation into which it is introduced; since freedom of enquiry, and science, and humanity are its effects; since it produces those mild and silent virtues which meliorate the condition of the poor, and augment the happiness of the rich; and since ignorance and superstition must necessarily retire before its healthful and illuminating rays. False religion addresses itself to the passions and weaknesses of man; the true enlightens his understanding in order to affect and purify his heart. It is christianity alone that restores the poor and the forgotten of our species to their intellectual and moral rights; that enables them to feel and to act in a manner becoming the dignity and destiny of man; that enforces with the awful sanction of divine authority, their claim to mental cultivation; that maintains the worth and immortality of their nature not less than that of the rich and noble ; and that amid all the cares, and toils, and sorrows, to which poverty exposes them, affords them those views, and hopes, and consolations, which make them intelligent, and cheerful, and happy. Is there, then, a man who professes to be a Christian, and yet refuses to enlighten the poor, to aid in educating the sons of misery and want, to disseminate the

knowledge of salvation in every direction?. If there is, that man acts in opposition to the first precepts of revelation, to the spirit and design of the gospel, to the profession of religion which he makes. It is in vain that such a man replies, that the inferior orders may be religious without being enlightened, and true Christians without learning to read: for no man can be possessed of the religion of Christ without some degree of knowledge; and since that knowledge is obtained purest from the bible, the power of reading that sacred book is highly necessary.-But on this subject it is needless to argue, since the progress of vital christianity, to every one who knows what that means, affords a certain pledge of the education of the poor, and the general increase of knowledge.

Let the philosopher, who with the warm feelings of benevolence contemplates the increased happiness of man in distant ages, take into his calculations, the influence and power of christianity in ameliorating his condition. There are moments, indeed, when a retrospective view of the course of human affairs can afford him little confidence or hope for the time to come; when melancholy reflections on the folly, and corruption, and mutation of man, induce him to consider the lovely pictures of ideal

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