Created as thou art, to nobler end The Roman poet indeed has ranked the inventors of arts, in his Elysium, among the most sacred benefactors of the human race: Hic manus, ob patriam pugnando vulnera passi, But this sentiment partakes of the unenlightened Pagan spirit. The Christian poet will be our better guide. It has been well said, with regard to the great body of our people, though upon another subject, not that of Education; "Patience, labour, sobriety, frugality, and 66 religion, should be recommended to them; all the rest "is downright fraud." I shall not adopt this maxim of wisdom, in its full latitude, by saying, that all the rest is downright fraud in the subject of popular instruction. But it is not too much to assert, that unless the principles of a moral and religious life be made the groundwork of their instruction, and the sentiments and duties of such a life recommended to them as their first honour and main concern, all the rest is downright folly; and we must renounce our Christianity, and our rational conscience, to think otherwise. It would ill become the minister of religion, to depreciate the ingenious talent and skill exercised in many departments of the artificial labour of our country; or to overlook the connexion which the system of that labour has with the supplies of our national wealth. I have no intention of doing either. But the moral habits of our people are still the most essential element of our public strength and security. A religious, sober, upright, virtu ous people, would be more powerful, as such, than they could be by the command of the most unbounded pecuniary resources, or of the whole panoply of engineering and manufacturing art. Civil union is strength; morals are strength; the protecting favour of God is strength. Public wealth, without these safeguards, is only a source of low cupidity, discontent, corruption, and consequent insecurity. We rely much upon our powers of manual and mechanic skill. But no mechanism, as yet, has invented the wheel to make a nation brave, united, or happy. And these are truths not liable to be disputed. The fear is, lest they should be forgotten, in the modern institutions of our times. |