the blessed effects of that Divine principle which has tinged even the laws with its spirit, and intended only to succour present misery, has formed permanent habits, and assuaged unborn misfortune.

There is no variance, therefore, between the precepts of philosophy and the injunctions of religion : we are not required to do violence to our feelings from the conclusions of our reason; the prevention of misery is not forwarded by denying it assistance. The instincts of the human heart are in perfect unison with the best interests of the species; the discharge of Christian duty the surest foundation of social happiness. In relieving distress we not only mitigate its bitterness, but diminish its frequency; in attending to the welfare of the present generation, we take the most effectual means of improving the habits of that which is to succeed it.

It is a noble and touching spectacle of human virtue to behold these principles regulating the conduct of the Legislature; to see the rich and the powerful voluntarily binding themselves for the relief of the destitute, and the duty of charity not only recommended to the individual, but declared obligatory on the public. It is a salutary principle to pervade a state, that the selfish shall not escape performance of their duties; nor poverty be permitted to perish, when wealth exists for its relief. Nor is the discharge of such social duties without its reward even in this world. We discern it in the improved habits of the poor, the steady spread of national wealth, the measured growth of population. Among the many claims which the British Legislature has to the gratitude and admiration of mankind, it will not in future ages be

deemed the least, that, amidst all the pressure of a protracted war, and an exhausted treasury, the funds of the poor were maintained inviolate; that, under the burden of an unexampled taxation, greater sums were annually raised for the destitute, that formed the re venue of mighty monarchies; than during periods of disaster, when the interests of all ranks were succes. sively sacrificed, those of the poor were alone preserv ed unimpaired; and that, regardless alike of the cla mour of the selfish, and the mistaken censure of the learned, Parliament steadily adhered to the Christian duty of succouring the unfortunate.

But if England has been worthily and richly rewarded in the glorious result of the late war, for the magnanimous support which, during all her difficulties, she has given to the poor of her own realm; a moral lesson, not less worthy of attention, may now be discerned in the political difficulties with which she is surrounded, from the ascendency of the Irish representatives in the British Parliament. No person who considers with a dispassionate eye the present condition of the British empire can doubt, that the wide-spread misery of Ireland, which has resulted from the continued destitution of its poor for 250 years, has been the real cause both of the continued adherence of a large portion of its inhabitants to the Romish faith, and of the universal and deep-rooted feeling of hostility with which they are animated, both towards the Protestant religion and the English government. The convulsion which has shaken the national establishments of Britain, and the dangers to which they are still exposed, may thus be distinctly traced to the long neglect, on the part of her govern

ment towards the Irish poor, of the first and greatest of social and Christian duties, that of providing for the destitute, which she had so worthily discharged in her own island. This evident result, and the singular fact, that the mighty empire of Great Britain is now, from the state of parties, practically guided by the representatives of the very degraded and now infuriated class to whom the injustice was so long applied, is a memorable instance of that just retribution which a careful examination will almost everywhere bring to light in the moral world. It illustrates the vast agency of that powerful and ceaseless spring in human affairs which is to be found in the principle of increase, and of the tendency of the frightful vigour in its action, which always arises from misgovernment, to work out ultimately a remedy for the evils from which it sprung, and restore that happier state of things intended by Nature, where the due limitations to population are provided for in the extension of human happiness.

CHAPTER XIII.

ON CHURCH ESTABLISHMENTS AND THE VOLUNTARY

SYSTEM.

ARGUMENT.

General acknowledgement of the necessity of some Religious Instruction for the People-Inadequacy of all attempts for their improvement, if not attended with this addition, as proved in the case of France-System of the Voluntaries on this head of the supporters of an Established Church-Argument in favour of the latter—It maintains the Church out of its own funds; and so burdens no one persuasion for the support of another-It is in a peculiar mannet the Church of the Poor-Absurdity of throwing the Religious Instruction of the Poor as a Tax on their own Industry-It unites together all classes-Forms the true bond of National Strength-Prevents the divisions of Time mingling with the concerns of Eternity-Can alone maintain the independence and utility of the Clergy-Mr Burke's opinion on the subject-Experienced impossibility of supporting Religious Instruction of the People from their own Industry-As proved in the case of Glasgow-And with the Dissenters generally in Great Britain-In the colonies of Australia and Canada-Answer to Tocqueville's arguments on this subject.

EXPERIENCE has now demonstrated, that the mere attempt to communicate to the people moral and religious instruction, is in a great degree nugatory, at least in the humbler and more benighted classes of society, where the light of knowledge, and the improvements of disposition are in an especial manner requir ed to counteract the many causes of evil with which they are surrounded; if efforts are not simultaneous. ly made both by themselves and their superiors to better their condition, improve their habits, wean them from sensual and degrading enjoyments, and avert from them that hopeless destitution which in

variably renders men insensible to all considerations but the cravings of animal instinct. The rich have already discovered in many places, and they will ere long learn in all, that an extensive system of beneficence on their part is the best preparation for spiritual improvement, in the objects of their beneficence; that it is utterly vain to expect mental cultivation in a starving population; that large pecuniary sacrifices from one class of society are requisite to prevent the other from falling into a state of hopeless destitution and pernicious corruption; and that, if the faith of the Gospel is the only real antidote to the multiplied temptations with which the poor, in a complicated and artificial state of society, are surrounded, its charityis not less indispensable to prepare the soil for its reception in the humbler, and nourish a right frame of mind in the superior classes of the state.

But while this is abundantly clear on the one hand, it is perhaps still more necessary to observe on the other, that mere improvement in physical comfort, or the spread of material enjoyments, will not of themselves either elevate the character, or purify the heart. They change the direction rather than eradicate the tendency to sin. The low sensuality, the coarse enjoyment, the total recklessness of destitute and miserable man, will probably be abandoned; but they will be so only to give place to a new set of desires, in the end not less fatal to human virtue, and not less destructive to human prosperity, than the worst excesses of brutalized passions. The Sybarite, the sensualist, the libertine, is perhaps more dangerous to the circle in which he moves than the drunkard or the ruffian. Vice may have lost half its deformity,