restless desire of political change on every pinching of the times, and its constant concomitant, an aver

who concludes any thing against parental care on this account? The operation of the great institutions for the education of the poor,-the National Schools, those of the British and Foreign School Society,— the Sunday Schools of the kingdom, and other similar educational charities, are not to be judged by too severe a rule. Let it be considered, that the moral effect of the school upon the child, is often counteracted by the example of parents; and that the immoral habits, and too often the total irreligion and profanity at home, fall upon children, thus circumstanced, with an influence derived from the' double source of natural authority, and the pre-disposition to evil in their own hearts.

We are, however, willing to allow, that if those who seem disposed to question the benefit of general education, ask, as the proof of its salutary effect, more than is reasonable, the friends of education have given some cause for so high a demand, by an occasional extravagance of sentiment on their part; and we make this concession the more willingly, because the inordinate opinions to which we allude, have led, in some cases, to errors in the conduct of charity schools, which must be remedied, or a greater disappointment will ensue.

Many of the zealous advocates of education seem to have conceived of instruction as a kind of moral magic, which was at once to charm society into industry, sobriety, and virtue, rather than as a discipline, diligently implanting good principles, and maintaining a firm but patient struggle with the evil tendencies of the human mind." The worst part of this folly has been the too frequent separation of religion from education, and the confining of this hope of magical effect to the mere arts of reading, writing, and arithmetic. To construct the moral man, it has been too often thought sufficient to give energy to the intellectual man; and thus those means which Divine Providence has put within our power, to use for our own improvement, and for the improvement of each other, and from which alone' moral influence can flow, have been neglected, or being regarded only as secondary, have been very partially, or feebly applied. The efforts made for several years past to instruct the poor, have done much good; but they have done good only as they have been connected with religion. The history of man, at home and abroad, in modern and in ancient times, sufficiently proves that it is not in the nature of mere human science to produce moral regulation and restraint. For this reason also, the education spread among the people

sion to the national establishment, partly as the result of ill-digested theories, partly as controlling the favourite notions of the disaffected, and partly because this feeling was encouraged by the negligent habits of many of the clergy, and the absence of that influence they might have acquired in their parishes by careful pastoral attentions. To all this is to be added the diffusion of infidel principles, both of foreign and home growth, which, from the studies of the learned, descended into the shop of the mechanic, and, embodied in cheap and popular works, found their way into every part of the empire. To

of this country would have been more efficient, had it been more studiously connected with religion; had the principles of Christianity been more carefully implanted in the memory; had a regular attendance on the public worship of Almighty God been more punctually observed, and more rigidly enjoined; had the due place been given in every school to the word of God; and had the full tone of the youthful mind, so to speak, been wound up to a consenting sympathy with the supreme importance of spiritual and eternal things. The hoped-for effect will often fail; but it ought to be the concern of all who are engaged in the education of the poor, that it should not fail for want of the exact and serious application of all the means of moral improvement in our power.

The whole question is reduced to this; not whether knowledge shall circulate among the poor, (for that cannot be prevented,) but, whether it shall be communicated by the charitable and influential ranks of society, accompanied by those principles of religion which alone can afford the hope of rendering it a moral corrective. We may suffer a vast number of the lower orders to remain illiterate; but they will not be excluded on that account from the opinions of the day. They will learn them from those of their own class who have got their learning independently of charities; and, should these opinions be pernicious, it is easy to see how much more injuriously they must generally operate upon the unprepared, than upon the guarded mind. The Christian public has it in its power confer the most substantial benefit upon the country, by a general system of education, connected with religion.

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counteract agencies and principles so active and so pernicious, it is granted, that no means have yet been applied of complete adequacy. This is the reason why their effects are so rife in the present day, and that we are now in the midst of a state of things which no considerate man can contemplate without some anxiety. These circumstances, so devastating to morals and good principles, could only have been fully neutralized by the ardent exertions of every clergyman in his parish, of every dissenting minister in his congregation, of every Methodist preacher in his circuit, of every private Christian in his own circle, or in the place which useful and pious institutions of various kinds would have assigned him; and even then the special blessing of God, that influence upon men's minds, and that efficient co-operation with human means, which Mr. Southey treats so lightly, would have been necessary to give effect to the whole. But had no correctives been applied, what had been the present state of the nation and of the Church? The labours of the founders of Methodism were directly counteractive of the evils just mentioned from the beginning; and those have little reason to stigmatise them, who deplore such evils most, and yet have done least for their correction and restraint. Wherever these men went, they planted the principles of religion in the minds of the multitudes who heard them; they acted on the offensive against immorality, infidelity, and error; the Societies they raised were employed in doing good to all; the persons they associated with them in the work of national reformation were always engaged in spreading good principles; and though great

multitudes were beyond their reach, they spread themselves into every part of the land, turning the attention of men to religious concerns, calming their passions, guarding them against the strifes of the world, enjoining the scriptural principles of "obedience to magistrates," and a sober, temperate, peaceable, and benevolent conduct. The direct effect of their exertions was great; and it increased in energy and extent as the demoralizing causes before-mentioned acquired also greater activity; and when their indirect influence began to appear more fully in the national church, and in other religious bodies, remedies more commensurate with the evils existing in the country began to be applied. I shall not affect to say what would have been the state of the church of England under the uncontrolled operation of all the causes of moral deterioration, and civil strife, to which I have adverted; or what hold that church would have had upon the people at this day, had the spirit of religion not been revived in the country; and if, when ancient prejudices had been destroyed by the spread of deleterious novelties in the opinions of men, no new bond between it and the nation at large had been created. But if, as I am happy to believe, the national church has much more influence, and much more respect now than formerly; and that its influence and the respect due to it is increasing with the increase of its evangelical clergy, this is all owing to the existence of a stronger spirit of piety; and in producing that, the first great instruments were the men stigmatized as “enthusiasts," by the Author of the Life of Wesley. Not only has the spirit which they excited improved the

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religious state of the church, but it has disposed the great body of religious people, not of the church, to admire and respect those numerous members of the establishment, both clergymen and laics, whose eminent piety, talents, and usefulness, have done more to abate the prejudices arising from different views of church government, than a thousand treatises could have effected, however eloquently written, or ably argued.

But who are the persons whom the Methodists have alienated from the Church? Here, too, Mr. Southey and others have laboured under great mistakes. They have "alienated" those for the most part, who never were, in any substantial sense, and never would have been of the Church. Very few of her serious members have at any time been separated from her communion by a connection with us, for they have usually continued attendants on her services, and observers of her sacraments. This was the case during the life of Mr. Wesley, and continues to be so in many instances now; and when an actual separation of a few such persons has occurred, it has been usually compensated by a return of others from us to the Church, especially of opulent persons, or their children, in consequence of that superior influence which an established church must always exert upon people of that class. For the rest, they have been brought chiefly from the ranks of the ignorant, and the careless; persons who had little knowledge, and no experience of the power of religion; negligent of religious services of every kind, and many of whom, but for the agency of Methodism, would have swelled the ranks of those who are