Production Note
Cornell University Library pro-
duced this volume to replace the
irreparably deteriorated original.
It was scanned using Xerox soft-
ware and equipment at 600 dots
per inch resolution and com-
pressed prior to storage using
CCITT Group 4 compression. The
digital data were used to create
Cornell's replacement volume on
paper that meets the ANSI Stand-
ard Z39.48-1984. The production
of this volume was supported in
part by the Commission on Prés-
ervation and Access and the Xerox
Corporation. Digital file copy-
right by Cornell University
Library 1991.﻿﻿THE GLORY
'4
AND
THE SHAME OF BRITAIN
Sltt
ON THE CONDITION AND CLAIMS OF
THE WORKING CLASSES,
TOGETHER
WITH THE MEANS OF SECURING THELR ELEVATION.
FIHST PRIZE ESSAY.
HS-*- v J	.
Servants, labourers, and workmen of different kinds, make up the far grer-ter
part of every great political society. But what improves the circumstances of
the greater part, can never be regarded as any inconveniency to the whole.
No society can sure] y be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of
the members are poor and misérable.— Wealth of Nations, book i. ch. 8.
What a fool (quoth he) am I, thus to lie in a stinking dungeon, when I roay
as well walk at liberty I I hâve a key in my bosom cailed Promise.— Pilgrim's
Progress.
LONDON:.
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY ;
DEPOSITOR Y, 56, PATERNOSTER ROW, AND 65, ST. PAUL’S CHURCHYARD
AND SOLD BY THE BOOKSELLERS.
na
'^3﻿﻿CONTENTS.

Introduction ....... page vii
ÜHAPTER I.
TIIE PRESENT CONDITION OF THE WORKING CLASSES.
Object op the Essay.—General condition of the working man—Personal
character and habits, tested by domestic arrangements, popular
reading, popular amusements—Domestic condition, influenced by
rate and regularity of wages—Causes influencing the rate of wages—
“ Strikes ”—Causes influencing the regularity of wages, fickleness of the
workman, periodical seasons of dissipation—Economie expenditure,
vitiated by needless outlay, and unsound remedies—State of the family
relations, exposed to détérioration from unhealthy and inconvénient
dwellings, improvident marriages, deficiencies in female training, witli-
drawal of female influence from home, prématuré pecuniary inde-
pendence of the young in large towns—Results	.	. pp. 1—32
The Position occupied by the Working Classes in reference to
Society as at présent constittjted.—Importance of the question—
Political sentiments—Prevalence of political discontent—Dissatis-
faction with the practical workings of the existing social System—
Chartism—Historical growth of Socialism—its origin and introduction
into this country—its progress and recent achievements in France—Prin-
cipes of Socialism examined—“Liberty, Equality, Fratemity”—Vindi-
cation of the formula—Socialism destructive to freedom, the Equality﻿IV
CONTENTS.
it aims at ehildish, inexpedient, and impossible—Its irateraal professions
falsiûed by its actions, and incapable of being realized—The Socialism
of the gospel ...... pp. 32—63
The Religious Condition of the Working Classes.—The position
which the masses of the people hold in reference to Christianity—Esti-
mate of the professedly Christian section of the working classes—Defec-
tive piety, its causes, importance and duty of their co-operation in
evangelical effort.—The professed opponents of Christianity—Analysis of
popular Infidelity—its spéculative character—Subjective causes, philo-
sophical relations—Infidelity in the form of préjudice, extemal circum-
stances predisposing to it—Religious ignorance in matters of doctrine,
in historié details—Kindred manifestations of Indifférence and Super-
stition—Developments of popular irréligion—Nature of remedy needed,
pp. 63—98
CHAPTER II.
THE PRINCIPLES AND MEÀNS WHICH ARE NECESSARY TO SECURE THE
ELEVATION OP THE WORKING CLASSES.
Social aid.—A generous détermination on the part of Society to assist in
the élévation of the working man, a social duty.—Déficient sense of
social obligation—Benevolence entitled to the rank of a social law—
Identical with justice—The récognition of Benevolence as a social law
one ôf the chief wants of British society—Principles which should con-
trol its exercise—prévention rather than cure, individual rather than
aggregate agency, stimulative rather than eleemosynary aid—Spécifie
objects illustrated by the following :—to establish a friendly intercourse
between the employer and the employed—to supplément and soften the
scientific laws which regulate the rémunération of labour—to ameliorate
the conditions and shorten the hours of toil—to provide better dwellings
for the poor, and to furnish suitable places for exercise and récréation,
and other means of promoting health .	.	.	pp. 98—124
Self-effort.—Necessity for this—First step in the career of improvement,
the laying aside of false impressions ; such as a belief in the efficacy of
physical force, in the fancied enmity of the wealthier classes towards
the working man.—Second step, self-elevation secured by Intellectual
culture,—means of attaining this—proper course of study,—Moral prin-﻿CONTENTS.
y
ciples—dependence of these upon personal religion.—Third step, ameli-
oration of the physical circumstances of home, insured by economy and
cleanliness.—Fourth step, the.elevation of the family relations to a State
of proper efficiency and purity .	.	.	pp. 124—146
MULTIPLICATION OP EdUCATIONAL AGENCIES THE PRE-REQUI8ITE TO
GENERAL SELF-EFFORT ON THE PART OF THE WORKING CLASSES.—
Social duty in relation to éducation—Extent and quality of the éducation
afforded by existing schools—Narrow range of instruction—Necessity
for establishing a more efficient System of primary instruction—Want
of supplementary institutions, public libraries, muséums, etc.—Spécial
demand for popular éducation at the présent crisis, to counteract the
sensualizing tendencies of excessive toil, to promote the refinement of
social and domestic manners, to check the growth of political agitation,
and to help in the work of physical improvement .	. pp. 146—164
A MORE PRACTICAL AND EARNEST MANIFESTATION OF CHRISTIAN TRUTH
NECESSARY TO EFFECT AND RENDER PERMANENT THE ELEVATION OF
the Working Classes.—Christianity misunderstood—Spiritual in its
nature, eminently catholic in its sympathies, wedded to no political
creed, cherishing no favouritism of race, no preference of rank or wealth,
uniformly bénéficiai in its results, as seen in the effects of foreign
missions, as well as in its influence on the growth of civilization and
social rights—Aversion to Christianity on the part of the working
classes—Causes of that aversion—Paralysed in its professors, associated
(to a great extent necessarily) with established interests, popular igno-
rance, an ungodly press.—Necessity for general and solemn préparation
for increased evangelical effort on the part of the church of Christ—
Actuated by the purest motives—more genuine self-sacrifice—more
évident sincerity and devotedness in the ministers of religion—Increased
vigour in the ministrations of the pulpit, and in employing the various
agencies of Christian zeal ..... pp. 164—189
CHAPTER III.
THE CLAIM3 OF THE WORKING CLASSES, AND THE BENEFITS BOTH
TEMPORAL AND RELIGIOUS WHICH WOULD SPRING FROM THEIR
ELEVATION.
The numerical proportion of the working classes to the entire community—
The neglect with which they hâve been treated—The share they hâve﻿VI
CONTENTS.
had in the production of our national greatness—The temporal advan-
tages which would accrue to the eomcnunity at large from their éléva-
tion—A vast extension of the demand for labour the improvement
of the qualitÿ of labour—Influence it would exert on literature and
science—on public health and morals—The augmented strength of the
patriotic sentiment—Disappearance of discord and the amicable fusion
of ail classes—Préparation for possible political changes.—Specifically
Christian motives :-*The example of Christ—Obligations springing from
Christian doctrine and from the self-consistency of piety—The élévation
of the Working Classes would silence the cavils of Infidelity, and add to
the aggressive resources of the church of Christ—What ought to be
the ruling motive of a Christian’s life—Crowning motives which arise
from the promises and hopes of futurity.—Conclusion	. pp. 190—232﻿INTRODUCTION.
---+---
The circumstances which hâve led to the publi-
cation of the following Essay are briefly these :—
In the yeai 1849, the Committee of the Reli-
gious Tract Society offered two prizes of 100?.
and 50?. respectively, for the best and second best
Essays on “ The présent condition of the manu-
facturing and other working classes, so far as the
same is affected by moral causes and personal
character and habits, together with the best means
of promoting their temporal and spiritual welfare.”
Having frequently been brought into contact with
the classes in question, the author’s attention was
powerfully drawn towards the subject : he finally
resolyed to transmit his thoughts respecting it for
compétition, and subsequently had the gratification
of being informed that his Essay had been honoured
with the first prize.﻿INTRODUCTION.
viii
The author trusts lie will not be thought wanting
in the difiidence appropriate to one who asks for
the first time the hearing of the public, if from
motives of deference to the auspices by which his
request is sanctioned, he waives those apologetic
remarks which he might otherwise deem neees-
sary. Gladly availing himself of the circum-
stances which, if they do not impose silence,
render it at least graceful, he would beg mçrely
to add a preliminary sentence or two in reference
to the subject which he has ventured to treat.
When this discussion was first invited, various
causes contributed to invest it with spécial interest.
Recent political events, the dépréssion of trade,
the effects of famine, and the impending scourge of
choiera, ail combined to throw into bold relief the
State of our working population, and roused the
middle and upper classes to unwonted enthusiasm
on their behalf. Those causes hâve for the
présent ceased to operate, but it would be folly
to suppose that the evils they forced into tempo-
rary notice hâve become extinct. We are now
enjoying an interval of comparative prosperity;
popular sensibilities are no longer fretted by the
rumours of foreign insurrections ; generally speak-
ing, the artisan has plenty of work, his children
are well fed, and political grievances are in abey-
ance. Still the state of things is essentially﻿INTRODUCTION.'	ix
unchanged, the core of the evil is untouched.
There is as much improvidence, ignorance, and
irréligion among the masses now as at any past
period. That signs of improvement are apparent
is joyfully conceded; but the only change worth
speaking of has yet to be brought about, and
must be seeured by the patient, united, and well-
directed toils of half a century. The author
cannot hope that everything he has written- will
be so fortunate as to meet with the approval of
the reader; he trusts, however, that as his senti-
ments are expressed with honesty, they will be
received with candour, and prove the means, in
some humble measure, of hastening the fulfilment
of the cherished schemes of patriotism and piety.
Henry Dunckley.
Pendleton, Manchester.﻿﻿THE GLORY
ANBt
THE SHAME OE BRITAIN.
CHAPTER J.
THE PRESENT CONDITION OF THE WORKING CLASSES.
We propose to take, in the présent essay, a brief but
comprehensive view of the condition of the working
classes of this country ; to consider the means which are
necessary to secure their élévation, and to contemplate
the motives which ought to engage ail ranks in en-
deavouring to attain that object.
The condition of the working classes présents us with
three distinct and leading topics of inquiry. They are
the subjects of certain wants, in the satisfying of which
their temporal well-being consists ; they are members of
a commonwealth whose prosperity dépends upon the
mutual sympathy of its several parts; and they are
placed beneath a spiritually remédiai dispensation for
the due improvement of which they are responsible to
God. Thus, in a three-fold view, they are clothed with
the highest interest. It is natural to inquire whether
their présent necessities are supplied with that measure
of ease and regularity which is consistent with the due
B﻿2
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
expansion of their bodily and mental powers ; whether
the social principles which prevail among tbem are su ch
as will conduce to the safety and happiness of the state ;
and whether the réception they hâve given to the
glorious gospel is such as will secure them an interest in
its saving blessings, and promote the further extension
of Christianity. It will be our aim in the présent
chapter to afford the means of satisfying these inquiries
We propose—
I. To reyiew their personal and domestic condition,
pointing out as we proceed the circumstances which
chiefly affect its welfare.
IL To illustrate the position they occnpy in relation
to society as at présent constituted, examining the cor-
rectness of the sentiments they entertain respecting it.
III. To présent an estimate of the views they hold
in reference to the daims of Christianity, analysing them
into their constituent éléments, and tracing those
éléments to their respective sources in the training of
the individual, or the influences of social life.
I. In reviewing the general condition of the working
man, we will first inquire into his Personal character
AND HABITS.
It is here we must find the due to everything which
concerns him. Generally speaking, he is what he makes
himself. If we walk through the factory, converse at
random with the men among the spindles, and then
follow them home, we shall find their domestic comforts
nearly in the ratio of their intelligence. Knowledge is
light and power ; it discloses worthy ends, and points
out the best means of attaining them. It is impossible﻿OP BRITAIN.
3
for a thoughtful man to rest satisfied with a wretched
home ; a furnished mind will soon show its existence in
a furnished house, and refined tastes will reflect them-
selves in cleanliness and comfort.
Discrimination is very necessary in forming an esti-
mate of the character and habits of the working man.
Unqualiiied statements of any kind would be erroneous.
The most favourable and unfavourable assertions might
equally challenge support from facts. Lord Brougham
was unquestionably right in saying that “ among our
journeymen mechanics are to be found the most re-
spectable, the most ingenious, the most skilful, and the
most valuable members of the community.” As was re-
cently asserted before a committee on public libraries of
the House of Commons, it would be easy to select men
from the forge or the loom who are fully equal in point
of intelligence to the best read among the middle classes.
But it is equally true that the number of those to whom
such statements can apply is very small. They are im-
measurably the exception. “ JNTot one in twenty of the
men at work yonder,” said an intelligent mechanic the
other day, pointing from his shop to a mill where five
hundred opératives are employed, “ could converse
sensibly on any topic at the slightest remove from their
daily avocations.” For every operative whose shelf con-
tains the productions of our classic authors, at least
twenty could be adduced who never heard their names.
It is our happiness to be acquainted with working men
who could discuss intelligently the doctrines of Locke, and
who spend their evenings in reading at their own fire-
side some of the chief writers of the day, and with
others who spend their leisure time in perfecting, on﻿4
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
their own piano, the performance of “Judas Maccabæus.”
These are really working men, not eaming more than
eighteen or twenty shillings a-week ; but then, they are
emphatically lights in a dark place, the hill-tops which
are tipped with the rising sun, while the valleys on ail
sides are covered with clouds.
There are several simple tests by which we can form
a tolerably correct judgment respecting a man’s mental
character. We look first at the general arrangements
of his dwelling, certain that, apart altogether from its
affluence or poverty, they will fumish us with obvious
marks from which we may infer the presence or absence
of a cultivated mind. We ask next whether he is able
to read, and if so, what kind of reading yields him most
interest. But above ail we note the character of his
amusements, assured that the occupations which employ
the mind in its lighter moments, afford the clearest
insight into its condition. Let us apply these tests to
the case before us.
With respect to the domestic arrangements of the
working classes, while, in many instances, the amount of
comfort they enjoy fully equals, if it does not exceed,
what we might expect from their pecuniary resources,
it must be confessed that in the majority it falls far
below that standard. Many a man in the regular
receipt of good wages, has a home into which decency
can scarcely venture. Neither taste, order, nor even
cleanliness, has a place in it. The light can hardly
force its way through its dirty Windows ; it would be
impossible to guess the original colour of its walls and
furniture, so covered are they with a common dinginess ;
while chairs and tables are always crowded with con-﻿OP BRITAIN.
5
fused heaps of articles which completely usurp their
proper uses.
We may be guided in estimating the degree of intel-
ligence they possess by the state of their dwellings. A
tendency to indulge in pictorial représentation is widely
spread among them. This, indeed, is one of the forms
in which the primitive taste of the human mind exhibits
itself. It is found among the most savage tribes, always
growing in accuracy with the growth of knowledge.
What then is the state of the artistic faculty among the
working classes 1 In general it is very rude, unable to
distinguish a daub from a painting ; scarcely deserving a
higher place than that observed among the aboriginal
tribes at the sources of the Mississippi. Quaintly em-
blematical représentations of the seasons, a page from
some antiquated fashion-book, or perhaps the queen and
her royal consort emblazoned with ail the glory which
red and yellow can bestow, are among the ordinary
specimens of their pictorial taste. Such things are
trivial in themselves, but they are unequivocal signs of
a certain stage of mental development.
In inquiring how far the working classes are able to
ready we will not insult them by an appeal to criminal
statistics, believing that those statistics cannot be taken
as indicative of their general intellectual condition.
Sufficiently approximate data may be gleaned from the
returns of the Registrar-General. From these we
gather that, of the operative population, about one-half
of the men and two-thirds of the women are unable to
write their names. This, it is true, relates to writing,
but there are good reasons for believing that the ability
to read is not much more extensive; at least, where the
B 3﻿6
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
two are not associated, the latter is a merely mechanical
ability to spell out a few words, and attach a dubious
meaning to a few common sentences, instead of that
large and facile power which alone deserves the name.
It is the misfortune of statistics that they fix the atten-
tion on quantity rather than quality. They tell that so
many persons possess a certain accomplishment, but
they fail to tell us to what extent they possess it. This
must be kept in mind in every attempt to estimate the
intellectual condition of the masses, for large as is the
proportion of those who cannot read, the proportion of
those who would be unable to make out intelligently a
single page of a classic author is probably much larger.
In an adult class formed for the purpose of Biblical
instruction, it is generally found that at least one-half
are unable to read the inspired text with any approach
to facility. Still, a considérable number of readers, in
the better sense of the word, are found among the
working classes.
The next question therefore is, what kindof reading
affords them the most interest 1 This question will be
decided if we can ascertain what kind of books they
Æpend their money in purchasing. The information
giyen on this point by the largest provincial bookseller
in England, Mr. Abel Heywood, of Manchester, whose
business lies chiefly among the working classes, is very
important. The issue of trash from his establishment
is thirty times greater than that of works of average ex-
cellence. The publications constituting the larger class
are beneath criticism, while their morality is still worse.
They are sold chiefly in the form of penny pamphlets ;
usually the first page is half covered with a miserably﻿DF BRITAIN.
7
Bxecuted wood-cut, representing some coarsely tragic
scene. The character of those engravings deserves
spécial notice, giving, as it does, such a due to the con-
dition of those to whom they can minister gratification.
They are disgustingly tragic, the tragedy lying not
in sentiment, but in gross sensualism, in the iüflicting
of so many wounds, and the loss of so much blood.
Their contents are in perfect keeping, just as the interior
of a penny show corresponds to the pictorial horrors
depicted outside. The scaffolding of every taie is much
the same. Without any attempt at caricature it might
be said that in most cases it runs thus,—“ Clifford loves
Clara, so does Belmont : Belmont kills Clifford, and
himself falls a victim to revenge; while Clara either
retires to a convent, or poisons herself in despair.” It
is wonderful how the greatest variety of villany can
succeed in imparting freshness to such a uniformity of
plot, and still more so that human nature, in its most
degraded State, should not refuse with loathing such
tainted food. What must be the intellectual and moral
condition of those persons who can give their time and
moneÿ to such productions ; and under such developing
influences what must they ultimately become !
The amusements in which men choose to indulge
are among the most significant signs of their personal
condition. As an index to the mental character, what-
ever is spontaneous is best ; the rnind is seen most
accurately in a careless mood.' The amusements of the
working classes are an order of phenomena which hâve
not received due attention. They are not capable of
being illustrated by facts which are statistically ascer-
tained, we must appeal instead to such as are open to﻿8
THE GLORT AND THE SHAME
common observation. The lowest order of popular
amusements are such as we find connected with village
wakes. They are degrading to the last degree. We
blush for humanity in referring to them. On such
occasions a spectator might see a pôle erected, duly
greased and sooted, with a hat or a joint of mutton at
the top, the prize of the successful climber. Presently
a number of young females présent themselves, in-
decently clothed, to run for a paltry gown-piece. A
dozen men corne next, tied to the neck in sacks,
“jumping for a goose,” or else, with their hands tied
behind them, trying which shall first catch it in his
mouth. What shall we say of the boasted triumphs of
civilization, when, midway in the nineteenth century,
such scenes can be suffered to take place in an English
county town ? How can the working man expect to be
respected if he does not raise his voice in their con-
demnation ?
Another order of amusement consists of those sports
which spring from training and exercising the instincts
of the lower animais. In past times, a love of field-sports
was a conspicuous element in our national character. Our
patrician forefathers delighted in hawking and the chase,
and many of their descendants still find their element
on the race-ground or the steeple-course. Parallel with
these amusements among the working classes were those
of cock-fighting and bull-baiting. These hâve nearly
died away ; not so, however, the tastes which produced
them. The sentiments of the more refined portion of
the community suppressed those sports, but there are
others equally degrading in which the same feelings find
expression. One of the most prominent of these is the﻿OF BRITAIN.
9
practice of the dog-fancier. In manufacturing towns
this is carried on to a remarkable extent. We hâve
been told of instances in which men suffered their
families to want bread, while their dogs were well
clothed and regularly fed. The wagers sometimes ven-
tured npon them in a trial of speed are comparatively
enormous, rising to as much as twenty or thirty pounds.1
We recently fell upon a group of factory opératives to
the number of three or four hundred, who had been
brought together simply for the purpose of witnessing
a dog race. It was tmly painful to witness the earnest-
ness they threw into the sport, as contrasted with its
degrading littleness. Three hundred immortal soûls
sunk so low as to be capable of feasting themselves on
such a petty exhibition of brute force ! Three golden
hours a-piece, or more than two months of precious
working-time, wasted in grovelling amusement ! What
migJit hâve been done in that time ! How much know-
ledge gained ! How large an addition made to ail the
éléments of respectability previously existing among the
working classes ! But what must hâve been the mental
condition of the men ?—this is the saddest thought.
The highest order of popular amusements consists of
those which dérivé their interest from musical or dra-
matic performances. These are more expensive; they
appeal, at least professedly, to sentiment, and require
some degree of taste and information for their enjoy-
ment. Their character and pretensions are extremely
various, extending from the common saloon to the
(1) In reply to inquiries made in several quarters, we are assured that the
“ stakes” ventured in a dog race, made up, be it remembered, by the lowest
grade of factory opératives, often amount to 501., while a large field is
regularly hired for the season, for the convenience of the “ sport.,J﻿10
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
metropolitan théâtres, with their vaunted array of
histrionic talent. With respect to the theatre, its
ancient pretensions are notoriously exploded. The
great lights of dramatic literature are extinguished.
Shakspeare is driven from the stage, and finds his
warmest admirers among those who never venture into
the theatre. Drivelling sentimentalism and the coarsest
buffoonery hold equal sway within those walls whither
we were once directed to go in search of exalted taste,
and for initiation in every moral "virtue. The professed
play-goer is now, by general consent, a man for whose
intelligence and taste we require the lowest fraetional
expression.
The saloon has now a wider influence than the theatre,
and is a growing instrument of mischief. It accom-
modâtes itself to ail the vicious éléments which exist in
the bosom of a large town, and panders with little dis-
guise to the most sensual passions. The saloons are
places where men can get drunk to music, where the
depraved of the one sex may most conveniently meet
with the abandoned of the other, and where those
acquaintances and assignations may be made which ruin
virtue. These dens of iniquity abound in our large
manufacturing towns. We know one which has been
recently opened on a large scale, the building alone
involving a rental of six hundred pounds per annum.
Pitiable is it to see its contents disgorged about mid-
night, a motley group, in which, among rakes and
prostitutes, it is too easy to recognise a large number
belonging to the rising population of the factory.
Besides these saloons it is common for public-houses
to hâve their musical performances on sabbath evenings.﻿OF BRITAIN.
11
In order to be tolerated by the public, it is given out
that they consist entirely of sacred pièces, though on
notorious evidence they are plentifully interspersed with
profane songs. Some conception of the medley of
which they consist may be gained from the fact, that the
keeper of such a place of entertainment, when snmmoned
before the magistrates of Rochdale to answer for dis-
turbances which had taken place at one of his sabbath
evening concerts, alleged in his defence that they were
always closed by “ singing the doxology.”
From facts of which these are but a few specimens
gleaned by individual expérience, we hâve to infer the
character and habits of the working man. That the
inference to be drawn from them is far from universal,
we gladly admit. As we stated at the beginning of
these remarks, there are gradations among the working
classes which it would be highly unjust to confound. If
we might compare those gradations with others which
exist in society at large, we should distinguish the
working classes into an aristocratie, a middle, and a
lowest class. To the first of these the observations we
hâve made by no means apply. They are intelligent,
industrious, refined, and religious ; their homes are the
abodes of comfort ; they would feel as much out of
their element in the amusements just described as any
set of men whatever. Our observations apply exclu-
sively to the middle and lowest classes of our operative
population—classes by far the most numerous, and on
whose behalf our philanthropy is chiefly roused. These
we may designate, without injustice—not in anger, but
in pity—ignorant, sensual, unreflecting, wretched, desti-
tute of fixed principles, knowing nothing of the past,﻿12
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
unblessed with the faintest ray d£ science, proficient in
nothing but the impure technicalities of the workshop
and the ale-house, looking upon society as a chaos of
chance or fraud, regarding death itself with no higher
émotion than brutal fear. Such is the personal cha-
racter of thousands who inhabit this civilized land 1
Such is the foundation on which the fabric of domestic
virtue must be reared !
From the personal character and habite of the
working classes it is easy to transfer our thoughts to
their domestic condition. The former stand to the
latter in the relation of cause and effect. Personal cha-
racter may justly be regarded as the spring of ail suc-
cess in life. Success dépends upon the cultivation of
the bodily and mental powers—how then can it be
attained by the man who is abandoned to sensuality ?
Success dépends upon the kindly help of others ; but to
whom are men most ready to extend a helping hand if
not to those who are able to grasp it ? Success dépends
upon esteem ; but esteem is never cherished for ignorance
and incapacity. Let but a high standard of moral and
intellectual excellence be aimed at, and ail the éléments
of temporal prosperity will in time combine to crown
the attempt. That influences of an unfavourable kind
are in operation, which the working man is unable
wholly to avert, candour at once obliges us to admit.
These, as they occur in the course of this inquiry, shail
be pointed out, and impartially considered. Still it is
true, that the secret of his domestic condition, and
generally of his success or failure in the business of life,
reposes solely with himself. The influence of personal﻿OF BRITAIN.
13
character is strikingly exhibited in the domestic con-
dition of the working classes. In reviewing that con-
dition, we will take as our guides the chief influences
which act upon it, as they spring from income, expendi-
ture, and the state of the family relations.
Foremost among the circumstances which déter-
mine the domestic condition of the working man must
be placed the rate and regularity of wages. In a highly
civilized community, where every inch of soil has its
owner, and the division of labour is carried to its
furthest extent, no article can be had without money,
and money can only be acquired by the working man in
exchange for his toil. Wages, therefore, represent his
entire ability to purchase the comforts and necessaries
of life ; they constitute (simple truth, but one too offcen
forgotten !) the only barrier between him and absolute
starvation.
If wages are the only means of support which a
working man possesses, the rate of wages is a thing of
the utmost moment. Nothing which is exelusively
temporal in its nature could possibly be fraught with
more important conséquences. Upon this it dépends
whether he is able to supply himself with comforts, or
is forced to languish in want—whether he is able to
purchase warm and decent clothing, rent a healthy
house, indulge himself, now and then, with necessary
récréation, provide for himself the means of intellectual
improvement, educate his children, and start them
suitably in life ; or whether he is obliged to go in rags,
live in a eellar, pass his life in an nnvarying monotony
of toil, study no book but the book of nature, and fax
the very childhood of his children with the burden of
c﻿14
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
self-support. It is a weighty thought, and one which is
commended b y the strongest considérations to philan-
thropy and justice, that according as wages fluctuate, the
poor man may live in comfort, or must pine in misery.
This thought, clear enough to be seen by ail classes,
the working man has been made to apprehend. Ac-
cordingly, the rate of wages is a matter on which he is
most solicitons, and his chief anxiety is to keep it from
being depressed. In endeavouring to secure this object
he is sometimes injudicious. From ignorance of the
laws which regulate the rate of wages he often attempts
what is scientifically impossible, and attempts it in such
a way as to aggravate rather than mend his condition.
The practice of strikes, to which we here allude, has no
tendency to raise wages. Labour is the workman’s
property, which he has a right to dispose of to the
best advantage ; but strikes are imprudent, or strictly
speaking, absurd. Most of the working classes were
in favour of the legislative measure which avowed the
principle of free-trade, but no free-trader can be a
consistent upholder of strikes. Protective duties and
combinations for raising the price of labour must
stand or fall together. If the producer cornes into the
market with goods enough to supply the ordinary
demand of six purchasers, and finds twelve waiting for
him, he will evidently sell to advantage ; within certain
limits he will be able to dictate the terms of the
bargain. But if, on bringing into the market goods
enough for the supply of twelve consumers, the market
fumishes only six, it is equally évident that the ad-
vantage lies with them, and that he must either keep
his goods, or sell them at a reduced rate. In the same﻿OF BRITAIN.
15
way the price of every article is determined by the pro-
portions of supply and demand : if the supply is less
than the demand the price rises ; if greater, the price
falls. Labour is no exception to this rule. The work-
man is a producer—labour is the commodity he brings
into the market, and the price it will fetch dépends
upon the number of purchasers. “ When two men run
after one master wages fall ; they rise when two masters
run after one workman.” If, therefore, strikes can raise
wages, it is because they are able either to diminish the
supply of labour, or increase the demand for it. But
they cannot do either. Nothing but an increase of
capital can increase the demand for labour, and capital
can only increase by means of labour—the very article
which strikes place under restrictions, and thus render
more difficult of purchase. Capital can employ more
labour only as it is productive ; but strikes withhold
from it the very means by which alone it can be made
productive, the marketable use of labour. Thus strikes
hâve a tendency to diminish rather than increase the
demand for labour, and so far to lower rather than to
raise • the rate of wages. Neither are they able to
diminish the supply of labour in the market, for that
supply can only be diminished by annihilating the
labourer, or purchasing his labour, neither of which is
it pretended that strikes can do. Besides, strikes gene-
rally fail, ultimately they always must ; but whether
they fail or not, the workman is always a loser. He
loses five or six weeks’ wages ; he loses the money spent
in maintaining the combination—money which is often
distributed with a lavish, if not dishonest hand, among
a crowd of idlers and placemen; he taxes himself﻿16
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
perhaps for years to pay the debts contractée! while out
of work ; and finally he is cheated of the promised ad-
vantages of the strike, masters, freed from its appré-
hensions, and knowing that their men are absolutely
unable to support another, retuming to their old prices.
In theory, strikes are utterly untenable; in practice,
they are commonly an ingenious device by which the
honourable man is made the dupe of his designing
colleagues.
These remarks are made with an exclusive reference
to the practice of strikes as bearing on an advance of
wages. That the relation which subsists between the
employer and the employed is capable of no ameliora-
tion we are far from denying. We shall hereafter hâve
occasion to show that capital has its duties, and that
the fulfilment of those duties may be enforced by very
different methods from those which hâve ordinarily been
pursued. Still, should the workman be disposed to
repine, it may be useful for him to reflect that he does
not stand alone. Ail sections of the community are
bound by the same law. He cannot afford to hold back
his labour in expectation of higher prices ; but neither
can the tradesman hold back his wares, the grazier his
cattle, nor the farmer his corn. The great bulk of
the community are forced to sell at current prices.
Nor can we doubt that this arrangement is upon the
whole bénéficiai. It is easy to foresee that an opposite
one would lead to universal deamess, and end in the
ruin of ail social interests.
The regularity is of almost equal importance with
the rate of wages. In the vast majority of cases, the
rate of wages is sufficient for subsistence ; in many it﻿OP BRITAIN.
17
will include comforts and even luxuries; but in few will
it suffice for more. Besides, either from imprudence or
necessity, the working man not only lives up to the full
amount of his income, but lives on it in advance ; mort-
gaging for tbis week’s subsistence the wages he expects
to receive at the close. Hence, whatever interfères
with the regularity of wages, is a serious drawback to
his happiness, often involving him in embarrassments
from which he cannot extricate himself for years.
One of the chief circumstances which affect the regu-
larity of wages is the fickleness of the workman. This
is seen chiefly in large towns. In villages and small
towns, there is no choice of masters ; if a man leaves
his présent employer he is generally obliged to remove
elsewhere ; consequently, no slight motive will induce
him to abandon a place of regular work. On the other
hand, the facilities offered in large towns for renewed
employment, are apt to make a workman imagine him-
self independent, and tempt him to throw up his place
at a small provocation, or with a very slender chance of
gaining a better. Many families hâve suffered in con-
séquence of this. We knew one case in which a man
threw himself and several sons out of employ, sold his
fiimiture, and went to the other side of the kingdom,
allured by a trifling advance of wages* In a few months,
the bubble burst, and he was back again with his old
master. Soon afterwards a similar bait was offered, and
again seized. Again he and his family leffc the town,
and in a few months they were back again, begging to
be readmitted to their former situations. As on two
occasions they had shown no desire to consult their
employer’s interest, he was in no haste to consult theirs.
c 3﻿18
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
He took them, finally, a third time into his employ,
but not till they had been out of work for a con-
sidérable time, and had contracted debts which they
would not easily repay. Such changes are common ;
they are often made from a not unreasonable desire of
improvement ; the prospect of easier work, kinder treat-
ment, or better wages is a tempting bait. But let the
working man remember the proverb which fixes the
comparative worth of “a bird in the hand.” Many
persons in the higher departments of labour deem it
prudent to suffer privations rather than give up the
advantages of a fixed income. Those petty annoyances
which selfishness inflicts on others, are not peculiar ta
the lot of the working classes ; on the contrary, they
hâve to be borne by persons of every rank in life, and
will cease only when the hearts of men are brought
under the influences of religion.
Another practice which interrupts the regularity of
wages is the very common one of indulging in periodical
seasons of dissipation. Time is money, and the man
who wastes it is the worst of ail spendthrifts. He
squanders that precious gold which God has coined and
made current, and by which alone the demands of the
soûl and body can be met. If railways, the electric
telegraph, and similar inventions, are valuable chiefly
because they economize time, what an expensive thing is
idleness ! A day a-week seems a trifling thing to lose,
and yet it involves the loss of a sixth part of our national
wealth. It would be madness for a capitalist to throw
every sixth guinea into the sea, for a farmer to commit
every sixth quarter of wheat to the fiâmes, or for a
manufacturer to consign to the stoker every sixth baie﻿OF BRITAIN.
19
of cotton which reaches him from New Orléans ; and yet
such acts would be quite as rational as the practice of
spending every sixth day in dissipation. How many
opératives act as if the end of the week bronght with it
a release from the obligations and cares of existence !
How many, after allotting a bare half of their wages to
domestic daims, abandon their workshops and their
homes till an empty pocket compels them to return !
By such conduct their lives are voluntarily rendered
a constant battle for existence, a daily struggle with
extreme and ever-recurring evils. Dividing their time
between a degree of labour which would task a slave,
and scenes of dissipation which would debase a savage,
they know nothing of the independence which springs
from a regular income, and the equable enjoyments of
the sober man. Life, in their expérience, is a whirl-
wind, a cataract, a precarious foothold on the margin of
a cliff, from whence they are daily in danger of being
tumbled into the gulf below.
The domestic condition of the working classes
dépends primarily upon the rate and regularity of
wages; but money is only a means, and can secure
domestic comfort only as it is laid oui well. Hence the
mode of expenditure employed, as well as the amount of
their income, is an important point to be ascertained.
There is no difficulty in stating the rules which ought
to guide the expenditure of wages. The chief is, that
they should be rigidly apportioned to the necessities of
each demand, or, at least, that they be spread pretty
evenly through the entire week. If this be violated,
nothing can save the working man from domestic
wretchedness. His family fare will consist altemately﻿20
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
of a feast and a fast—gluttony one day will be avenged
by want the next ; physical and moral evils of the
worst kind will ensue, till at length confirmed sensuality
destroys both body and sonl.
Without impugning the intentions of the working
classes, it may be questioned whether they hâve gene-
rally acquired a thorough mastery of domestic écono-
mies. They hâve not yet acquired the power of standing
with stern vigilance over the family purse. Too offcen
the want which is merely the first in point of time is
that which is first relieved. The pocket responds in
chronologies! order to every demand made npon it, till
further response is impossible. There is no arbitrating
between interfering claims, no preference of the greater
to the less, no postponement of an inferior gratification
because a homelier want is more pressing, no acquaint-
ance, in short, with that arithmetic of life which must
be gained by ail who wish to avoid the gazette or the
union-house. It is at length beginning to be under-
stood that the welfare of nations dépends less upon their
armies than the State of their exchequer, and a similar
maxim is true of the humblest household in the land.
The chief faults which vitiate the expenditure of the
working classes are two ; needless outlay, and unsound
remedies. Intoxicating drinks présent us with a striking
instance of the former. In a heavily-taxed country, the
voluntarily tax for the purchase of noxious beverages
exceeds the sum of ail the taxes paid into the exchequer.
So large is this item of social expenditure, that the
saving involved in a general adoption of the principle
of total abstinence would be équivalent to an entire
repeal of taxation, or the extinction, in sixteen years, of﻿OF BRITAIN.
21
the national debt. The people of England maintain
more than 100,000 houses for the sale of intoxicating
liquors, and spend an average of 600?. annually in the
support of each. Every thirty families support their
beer-shop, every three hundred their 'place of worship.
Beer-houses and dram-shops are most plentiful in the
poorest districts ; they are there to be met with at
every tum, startling us by the contrast of their mock
splendour with the general squalor and dinginess of the
scene. Here poverty is changed, not for itself, but for
others, into finery and wealth. A constant succession
of wretched votaries is kept up at these demon-temples,
who receive in return for their offerings a draught of
the enchanted cup. Pale, haggard, and hoary, they
totter in—the youth in whose face consumption has
fixed its mark ; the aged sot, whose disgusting aspect
forbids a second view ; the child whose mother awaits
him yonder, and who pauses on the threshold to steal a
draught for himself. The number of these establish-
ments, and the expensive means adopted to win custom,
are proofs of the wealth they subtract from the pockets
of the poor. How much better if the money expended
in maintaining their gilded paraphemalia were spent in
the purchase of food and clothing ! What joy would
such a diversion of expenditure occasion in a thousand
starving homes !
Needless outlay infallibly leads to embarrassment,
and this brings with it the necessity of attempting a
cure. Too offcen the same improvidence which was the
cause of their misfortune is manifested in the choice of
a remedy. Instead of laying the axe to the root of the
evil by the practice of rigid economy, they hâve recourse﻿22
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
to some expédient which relieves them for a moment at
the expense of burdening the future. In more ways than
one, this remedy is worse than the disease. By giving
them a fresh supply of money it tends to strengthen
that habit of lavish expenditure which is the very evil
to be cured ; and by increasing their pecuniary liabili-
ties it renders it next to impossible for them to escape
its ruinous conséquences. Sometimes they borrow
money from private friends, which, to the unspeakable
détriment of their moral principles, they are at length
compelled to repudiate. Generally, however, they prefer
to trahie with the pawnbroker. The practice of pawning
prevails among the working classes to a frightful extent.
In the poorer districts of large towns, perhaps, every
other family is familiar with it. Articles of furniture
are first pawned, then clothing, which is generally
redeemed weekly, thus involving the ruinous payment
of a weekly rent. But too often their clothing is never
redeemed, and one Tôt after another being thus lost, the
attempt to possess anything better than the common
working dress is given up in despair. This practice is
deemed degrading even by those who constantly resort
to it—so much so, that in some districts a person acts as
a sort of paid pawn-steward to families who are ashamed
to transact the business themselves. Begularly on
Saturday evening and Monday moming may he be seen
laden with bundles of apparel, discharging the duties
of his singular office. That unavoidable poverty some-
times forces the working classes to such expédients for
obtaining temporary relief, is painfully true. The
statements elicited by lord Ashley from a meeting of
sempstresses in the metropolis bear strikingly on this﻿OP BRITAIN.
23
point.1 The number présent was between 1,000 and
2,000. Their average eamings were 2s. 10d. a-week.
They had among them property to the value of 1,200£.
in pledge, on which they were paying annual interest to
the amount of 300£. This statement refers, however, to
a particular class. In general, confirmed improvidence
lias a much larger share in keeping up the practice than
such facts would seem to indicate ; and in some in-
stances we hâve known it resorted to by families whose
united earnings constituted a handsome income.
The influences which spring from the State of the
family relations are still more important in their bear-
ing upon the domestic condition of the working classes
than those already noticed. Home is the cradle and
the school of man. There are acquired those vices or
those virtues which are destined in after years to become
a curse or a blessing to society. The boast of the
Athenian statesman, that his son was master of the
world, is literally true when applied to the collective
influences of home. What the condition of the world
shall be during the coming âge is no doubtful matter ;
it is being actually decided in the nature of those in-
fluences which are allowed to surround its childhood.
Dismissing every utopian idea, it is impossible not to
believe that the family relations, as they exist among
the working classes, are wanting in purity and vigour.
They are not attaining the exalted ends for which they
were instituted. The old génération is not educating
the new, training it to virtuous habits, inspiring it with
noble sentiments, harmoniously developing and tutoring
the functions it will shortly hâve to exercise ; the former
(1) British Schools, ShadweH, Dec. 8, 1849.﻿24
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
simply gives existence to the latter, and then leaves it
to shift for itself. In a growing number of cases, the
parent has ceased to be the repository of domestic law.
At the outset of youth the feeble ties of discipline are
broken, and an inexperienced and ignorant being, owning
no law but that of passionate impulse, dashes riotously
on towards manhood. Thousands think of home merely
as the place where they passed their childhood, and
where, with their wages in their hand, they are still
welcome ; to them those disinterested thoughts, those
attractive and softening influences, which ought to
cluster around its image, are unknown. An approxi-
mation to such a state of things is lamentable in the
extreme. It is a canker in the heart of society. The
relationships which God has established, are more im-
portant than any artificial associations, and no evils can
be more alarming than those which tend to destroy
them.
Among the chief circumstances which concur to de-
teriorate the state of the domestic relations among the
working classes may be enumerated the following :—
unhealthy and inconvénient dwellings, improvident
marriages, deficiencies in female training, the with-
drawal of female influence from home, and the early
period at which the young people of both sexes,
especially in manufacturing towns, attain to pecuniary
independence.
The dwellings of the working classes afford, gene-
rally speaking, the worst possible conditions for the
growth of domestic comfort. The abodes of thousands
are hovels rather than homes. It would seem that
the health of their future occupants never entered﻿OP BRITAIN.
25
into the idea of their érection. With bad drainage and
ventilation, sunk six feet deep in a fetid soil, with only
one room for the manifold uses and wants of life,—what
misérable accommodation for a human family ! What
a hopeful cradle for domestic bliss ! How difficult
must it be to realize, in such abodes, even a moderate
share of comfort and refinement ! N or is there a sylla-
ble of exaggeration m such a statement. The reports
which hâve been laid before the Health of Towns’ Com-
mission, and those which hâve appeared more recently
in the columns of the “ Morning Chronicle,”1 fumish us
with pictures of real life, far exceeding in wretchedness
the inventions of fiction. Take, for example, that of a
man, his wife, and eight ehildren, living in a single
apartment, measuring only twelve feet square. Two
beds were crowded into this room at night, one of which
contained the man, his wife, and two ehildren, while the
remaining six were crowded into the other. This case
occurred on the borders of Devon, and that it conveys
no exaggerated idea of the domestic condition of a large
portion of the labouring classes, may be inferred from
the fact, that on a house to house visitation which was
made in the parish of St. George’s, Hanover-square,
London, at the instance of Lord Sandon, it was found,
that ont of 1,465 families of the labouring classes which
the parish contained, no fewer than 929, considerably
more than one-half, were living in a single room. In the
large manufacturing towns of the north, one fifteenth of
the population dwell in cellars. Often hâve we seen
these places tenanted by families, ail of whom were
wasting away by disease. Children, in other respects
(1) Morning Chronicle, November 7, 1849.﻿26
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
hopeful, existing in various stages of decay, hastening to
a sickly manhood or an early grave. N or was there
anything strange in such a process ; the cause fay naked
before our eyes ; fever and consumption seemed the
very denizens of the spot, and résidence there a volun-
tary intrusion on the part of man within the fatal pre-
cincts of mortality.1
It would be difficult to paint in colours sufficiently
vivid, the influence of such homes upon the domestic
condition of the working classes. It is impossible for
refinement to flourish there. Spiritual impressions
gained abroad, are sure to be effaced by the coarseness
which holds sway under the parental roof. “ Neatness
and order are unknown in these misérable and over-
crowded dwellings, modest reserve is impracticable,
delicacy of feeling is destroyed, grossness of manners
and language, the conséquence of a mode of life which
admits of no retirement, séclusion, and méditation, be-
cornes the habit of childhood, and préparés the mind for
vicious intercourse in future years. None of the com-
forts of home are there, none of its softening, purifying
influences; and can we wonder, if from such sinks of
filth and immorality corne forth, if they are spared by
épidémie disease, the scandais and pests of society,—the
mendicant, the drunkard, and the thief T2
Improvident marriages are a source of much of
the wretchedness which exists among the working
classes. That step in life which demands from ail,
specially from them, the calmest weighing of prudential
considérations, is not unfrequently abandoned solely to
(1)	Letters on the Dwellings of the Poor, by the Rev. Charles Girdle-
stone, m.a.
(2)	Bishop of London’s Sermon at St. Paul’s on Thanksgiving-Day.﻿OP BRITAIN.
27
passion. Those who hâve most need to pause before
taking tliat step, rush into it with reckless precipitancy,
and find themselves, even in their youth, with the
burden of a family, obliged to become paupers upon the
public, or upon the charity of friends but ill able to
assist them. Many a young couple commit themselves
to the struggle of life with absolutely no préparation.
Their savings are inadéquate to purchase even the
merest rudiments of housekeeping ; their income is
very small and uncertain ; a few months suffice to
break a charm which is often followed by repentance
and disgust ; a loss of work, which might hâve been
foreseen, renders their condition desperate, and soon
they are back again under the parental roof, adding to
its usual cares the burden of their maintenance. These
remarks are not intended as any disparagement of
marriage, nor even to insinuate that it may not be, in
the most extreme cases, the least of two evils. Still
further are they from implying that the indulgence of
honourable affection is a privilège reserved for wealth.
The heart is a domain of our common nature; it is
everywhere equally sacred, and nowhere has the battle
of life been fought more successfully than here. Still
nothing can grant a release from the obligations of pru-
dence. Love may be honourable and ardent, but of
itself it is unable to furnish homes and to purchase food.
Men are indebted for these things to a coarser currency,
and may never hope to gain them by a violation of
common sense.
In few things is there a more observable deficiency
arnong the wives of our manufacturing opératives than in
the ability to create the largest amount of comfort﻿28
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
from the materials placed at their command. Many
are unable to préparé, as it ought to be prepared,
the simplest meal, while the abstruser household myste-
ries are utterly unknown. In many a poor man’s home
no effort is ever made to realize the highest possible
degree of neatness and order. Such an idea is never by
any chance entertained : on the contrary, everything
is suffered to sink to the lowest level of brute-like sub-
sistence. What will do, not what can be done, is the
household maxim. In some cases, this results from the
degrading influence of excessive poverty, but in most,
it must be ascribed to deficiencies in early training.
Careful initiation into the duties of domestic life is
essential to every woman who is emulous of discharging
rightly the duties of wife and mother : but how many
assume those duties in the homes of the working classes
who hâve never enjoyed that inestimable advantage !
At a tender âge they were obliged to take a share in
the maintenance of the family, and those hours which
ought to hâve been spent under a mother’s eye were
passed in alternate toil and gossip with companions
situated like themselves. This mode of life naturally
resulted in a répugnance to domestic habits which each
succeeding year tended to strengthen, and when on
reaching womanhood they assumed the vows of mar-
riage, it was with an utter incapacity for discharging
its most sacred functions. Unskilled in those expédients,
so familiar to the accomplished housewife, by which
labour and money are economized, and unable even to
conceive of those little arrangements which gladden
the evening hour, and cause the labourer to forget the
fatigues of the day in the paradise of home, their houses﻿OP BRITAIN.
29
gradually lost every vestige of comfort. Their aspect
répulsive, their interior to the last degree wretched, they
soon sank into mere réceptacles where a certain number
of human beings fed and slept. Nothing was easier
than to foresee the conséquences which hâve been too
often realized in sad expérience. Entire famüies hâve
sunk into hopeless dégradation, parents and children
hâve seemed content with vegetating away their lives ;
the father has found a substitute for domestic comfort
in the corner of a neighbouring tap-room, and drunken-
ness has brought in its train conjugal estrangement, filial
insubordination and inévitable poverty.
Still more detrimental to the vigour of the do-
mestic relations is the withdraioal of female influence
from home. In manufacturing districts, this is chiefly
conséquent upon the employment of women in factories.
À distinction, however, must be made between the
employment of young females, and that of married
women. The former practice it is impossible, perhaps
undesirable, to discontinue. Where due pains are taken
by the employer to insure a proper regard to health
and morals, factory employment is as eligible for young
females as any other. The dress-maker and plain
sempstress often hâve to work longer hours, and in
worse conditions as regards health, for the same or less
wages. , The daughter of the agricultural labourer
■Works from morning to night in the open field, exposed
to the inclemencies of a March or November sky. As
compared with these classes, the factory girl is placed in
an advantageous position ; and the recent adoption of
the ten-hours’ System allowsher ample time for domestic
improvement. . What is chiefly to be deprecated is the
d 3﻿30
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
employaient of married women in any kind of labour
which regularly requires their presence away from home.
The conséquences of this practice, if judged of by the
mere loss of infant life, are alarming. While the mother
is at the factory, the children are committed to the
care of a woman who perhaps takes in washing. Those
who are too young to walk are drugged to sleep with
cordials, to the great injury of their health, while the
rest are allowed to wander in the streets, and mix with
the floatiug depravity there. Often the little créatures,
straying too far, are unable to find their way back, and
hâve to make their home for the night in the watch-
house. The number of children reported as thus lost
within the borough of Manchester alone in a single year,
is between four and five thousand.1 But the worst con-
séquences are seen at home. Nothing can exceed the
comfortlessness of a house from which both wife and
husband hâve been absent since six in the moming, who
find themselves in the evening, both equally tired, with-
out fire or food, and surrounded with crying children.
The pemicious results of such a state of things are in-
évitable. The wife is transformed into a scolding vixen,
the husband takes refuge in the company of dissolute
shop-mates, while the children beeome in early life pro-
ficients in vice, and préparé for their parents a sad
rétribution of shame and sorrow.
The tendency to filial insubordination which these
circumstances must produce, is strengthened by the
early âge at which, in manufacturing districts espe-
cially, the youth of both sexes attain to pecuniary inde-
pendence. In small towns, apprenticeship indentures
(1) Police Reports for the Borough of Manchester, 1847.﻿OF BRITAIN.
31
keep a boy dépendent on his master, and, indirectly,
upon his friends, till he reaches manhood ; and in agri-
cultural districts, the same dependence is secured by the
practice of engaging from year to year, as well as by the
paramount influence of the employer. But where
manufactures are extensively carried on, the case is
different. The majority of the labouring youth are there
held by no tie which may not be severed in a moment.
Two or three lads often find themselves at the âge of
fifteen the chief support of a family. Their father
perhaps has been thrown out of work, or the smallness
of his wages makes him dépendent on their additional
income. In many cases, this is given up cheerfully and
without any diminution of respect. It is impossible to
conceive a more beautiful sight than some families
exhibit, when ail throw their earnings into a common
treasury, from which a common parent provides for the
wants of each. But the consciousness of bearing such
an important part in the domestic commonwealth, often
awakens a spirit of rebelliousness in the younger
branches. They insist on doing as they please at home,
and choosing their own companions and pleasures
abroad, till at length the parental authority loses ail its
force, and exists only to amuse by its imbecility. But
that authority is divine, and cannot be slighted without
danger. It is a kind of natural conservatism with
which Providence has fenced the interests of mankind,
in order to maintain a just and steady progress.
We hâve thus passed in rapid review the chief cha-
racteristics of the personal and domestic condition of the
working classes. Süfficient has been adduced to show
that this is the department in which their élévation﻿32
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
must begin. It is here that the foundation must
be laid on which ulterior efforts may be permitted
to rear the fabric of a virtuous, enlightened and happy
people : here philanthropy may find its proper work—
the remedies in its possession are precisely such as evils
of this character demand. The mists of ignorance
must be dissipated by the light of science, physical
wretchedness must be ameliorated, the dormant energies
and susceptibilities of the mind must be brought into
healthy action, purer tastes must be imparted, and
nobler sentiments aroused. We would not proscribe
the highest remédiai agencies, let ail be set in motion,
for ail will help on the desired resuit ; but the peculiar
evils we hâve been reviewing are of a social kind,
and the motives required to remove them are such
as humanity alone ought to inspire. If Christianity
possessed that power over the hearts of men to which
it is entitled, other remedies would be needless; the
sovereignty of its virtues would include them ail. The
time will corne when it shall possess that power ; mean-
while it will arm our philanthropy with irrésistible
motives to reflect, that every step gained in promoting
the élévation of the people will materially serve to
hasten its coming.
IL We now proceed a step further in reviewing the
condition of the working classes. From the circle which
encompasses their persons and their homes, we enter
that in which their duties and opinions stand confronted
with the State.
This has hitherto been rendered party-ground, but
the patriot will deem it so no longer. It is one of the﻿OF BRITAIN.
33
many signs which greet us of the dawning of a better
day, that the voice of faction is almost hushed, and that
men of ail shades of political creed are merging tbeir
différences in the attempt to elevate the people. Avow-
ing a suprême indifférence for mere party views, we
propose, in the first place, to point out and illustrate the
political sentiments which prevail among the working
classes ; in the second, to indicate the place those
opinions hold in the historical development of so-
cialism ; and in the third, to examine the more recent
pretensions of that System as a means of promoting
the happiness of mankind.
The importance of this subject could hardly be
exaggerated. It demands and must receive the serious
considération of ail classes. It becomes us to remember
that a strong government is essential to the public
welfare, and that the strength of governments can only
be measured by the allegiance of the people. The cir-
cumstances of the times are silently enlarging the basis
of political power, constituencies are becoming more
numerous, and it is no longer hazardous to predict that
the time must corne when the influence of the operative
population will greatly increase. In a constitution like
ours, numerical strength is an important element of
political power. Where every great question is vir-
tually settled at the poll-booth, the largest party is
necessarily that which rules the State. The principles
of the majority soon make their way to the heights
of government, and thence pour down a healthy or
pemicious influence upon society at large. Rece'nt
events may also teach us that ail real power is vested
ultimately in the people. Every question is liable to be﻿34
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
decided in the last resort by physical force, and in
periods of national excitement, when an entire nation
is the actor, the actions of a moment may give birth to
arrangements which will last for centimes. Hence it is
the impérative call of prudence, to inquire what kind of
principles exist among the masses.
In adverting to the political sentiments of the
working classes, we gratefully admit that, on political
questions, tkeir conduct is characterized by a large
amount of native good sense and traditional order.
À much higher encomium is merited by a few, whose
natural capacity, strengthened by habits of reading
and reflection, entitles them to a foremost place in
the social body. To such a distinction the bulk of the
working classes can lay no claim ; but they possess what
is of sterling value, a disinclination to acts of violence,
a distaste for mere théories, and a disposition to bear
with patience those evils which time promises to
remedy. In them may be found many of the peculiar
excellences of the English character. They are chiefly
distinguished by a power of endurance united to a love
of progress. “ Bear it, and move on,” is their maxim—
a maxim, the principle of which sustained us under the
pressure of a foreign conquest, and silently evoked from
the ruins of oppression a free and mighty people.
They are just, humane, and forgiving, prone neither to
plunder nor revenge ; in their most excited moments
they respect the rights of property, and pause before
the sanctitv of human life ; their political virtues hâve
sometimes been put to the severest test, and the
manner in which they hâve passed the ordeal entitles
them to the lasting gratitude of their country. Within﻿OF BKITAIN.
35
the last four years, Europe has been involved iu
the horrors of civil war. The conflagration broke out
in Switzerland, thence it spread like lightning on
ail sides, till the whole continent was wrapt in flame.
A sad inheritance was thus bequeathed to posterity,
when the wrongs of âges, apparently in the very act of
extinction, fixed themselves in records of blood which
no time will efface. During the same interval, our own
attitude has been one of comparative repose. Our
working classes hâve manifested an invincible attach-
ment to order, not because they can point to no real or
imaginary grievance, or because no leader incited them
to revoit,—on the contrary, they were assailed by the
most specious and subtle tactics, they were assured that
the middle classes were hostile to their interests, that
the existing social scheme was a conspiracy against
industrial rights, and that a single united blow would
lay the government at their feet ; but ail these tactics
were in vain, because they were determined that the
battle, if fought at ail, should be fought peacefully, and
heartily detested measures which bloodshed alone could
make - triumphant.
The first and most obvious feature in the political
sentiments of the working classes is the prevalence
of discontent Frequent outbursts of popular feeling
hâve laid this fact bare to the world. It shows itself in
various shapes, now agitating for an extension of the
suffrage, and anon broaching to listening ears the
wildest dreams of the ultra-republican school. The
advocacy of the “ Charter ” has long been the favourite
form of agitation, but many hâve secretly looked further
than this, and longed for such changes as would make﻿36
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
our govemment a pure democracy. With such ex-
trême views the masses of tlie people hâve no direct
sympathy ; they are animated by the most loyal and chi-
valrous feelings towards the illustrious lady who occu-
pies the throne ; but most of them are familial’ with
principles of thought which, under possible circum-
stances, might lead them into conclusions which no
lover of his country would wish to see realized.
It is necessarily the misfortune of national institu-
tions that they are the only représentatives of the
aggregate forces of society, the first of a long succession
of factors which seems to détermine the private con-
dition of every individual in the state. No other
organizations hâve so much power, and therefore, by an
easy fallacy, they corne to be regarded as all-influential.
Hence government always receives a measure both of
praise and censure, to which it has no just claim. The
happiness of a flourishing community argues wisdom in
the senator, while commercial distress and increasing
poverty are infallible proofs that he is unequal to the
demands of his high station. This misfortune is in-
creased if any considérable number of the people are
excluded from political power. The possession of that
power is straightway clothed with a degree of importance
which is altogether delusive. They magnify its efficacy ;
—it is kept from them, and therefore must be valuable.
Allowing too little for the imperfection of ail human
institutions, ready to ascribe every evil to bad laws, and
every blessing to good ones, the office of the legislator is
clothed with a potency which, in the nature of things, it
cannot possess ; and the placing of it in their hands seems
ail that is requisite for securing the well-being of the﻿OF BRITAIN.
37
community. In such a State of things, whatever might
be the expediency of a spirit of concession to popular
demanda, its moral results, at least in one respect, could
hardly fail to be bénéficiai. It would expose the fallacy
of looking for social régénération at the hand of politics,
and would direct attention to those more influential
causes which are found in the bosom of the people.
As the condition of the community is generally
ascribed to the good or bad measures of govemment,
so, for a similar reason, the quality of the acts of govem-
ment is often imputed to the form, whether monarchical
or republican, under which it may happen to exist.
History, both ancient and modem, fumishes us with
many instances in which nations hâve exchanged mo-
narchy for republicanism, and republicanism for mo-
narchy, with the hope of securing for themselves a more
just and beneficent sway. But if any substantial good
were realized in those instances, it was attained by re-
moving improper persons from power, and not merely by
altering the form under which they held it. The révo-
lution of 1688, which established William and Mary of
Orange on the throne of these realms, was at least as
efficacious in procuring a just administration of public
aflairs, as the création of a republic in Rome on the
expulsion of the Tarquins. Popular forms of govem-
ment are valuable chiefly on account of the guarantee
they fiimish that political power shall be entrusted to
proper hands ; but that they often fail of this end, and
that, at best, they exert a very slow influence on the
progress of society, abundant facts are at hand to demon-
strate. Mexico and the United States are both re-
publics ; Spain and Great Britain are both constitutional
E﻿38
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
monarchies ; but, in both cases, what a différence exists
between those countries in ail the éléments of national
prosperity! A proof is furnished at our very doors.
Great Britain and Ireland are govemed by the same
laws, but who will compare the social condition of the
two ? The same institutions which are here found con-
sistent with the enjoyment of a large amount of social
good, are found utterly unable to allay the hydra-headed
démon which still wastes our sister-land. Social hap-
piness is produced, not by putting into sudden activity
the artificial contrivances of man, but by steadily work-
ing, through a long interval, the great mechanisms of
nature. It is the growth of âges, not the efflorescence
of a sunny hour ; and a growth whose roots are in the
people’s hearts. Political institutions confessedly exert
an influence on the social condition of nations, but this
influence works slowly, and becomes effectuai by
operating a change in national character and habits.
A second and more important feature of the political
sentiments of the working classes is, that they are as-
sociated more or less directly with deep-seated disgmt
at the practical workings of the existing social System.
This feeling is very widely spread, alike in villages and
large towns ; in rural and manufacturing districts ;
among the most ignorant and the most educated por-
tions of the operative population. The contrast of
excessive poverty and excessive wealth which every-
where meets the eye, and présents so dark an enigma to
inquiring minds, is to them a matter of expérience, and
gives them, without the aid of thinking, principles of the
most dangerous tendency. Yast masses of the poor are
Socialists in feeling. They hâve been helped to no﻿OP BRITAIN.
39
induction, plied with no syllogism, yet there the consé-
quence existe, firmly imbedded in their hearts. They
are quite unconscious that the guesses in which they
shrewdly mutter their discontent, are dignified with
philosophie titles, and are leamedly expounded to the
world in weary volumes. It is instinct which speaks
within them, and instinct is incapable of being confuted
or taught. It may be difïicult for the manufacturer,
the tradesman, the capitalisé for ail who are living in
easy circumstances, and, perhaps, are amassing large
fortunes, to find a flaw in the System which enables them
to create wealth ; but no such difficulty is felt by the
tens of thousands whose wages are a mere pittance,
and whose life is reduced to a mere parleying with
death.
It is important to mark how political discontent has
invariably been the offspring of social causes. It is only
in an advanced state of intelligence that a people well-
provided with ail the éléments of physical comfort can be
prevailed upon to contend for abstract rights. A liberal
distribution of corn was found the most efficacious expé-
dient in quelling the séditions of the Roman populace,
and the condition upon which the revolutionists of 1848
consented to remove the barricades from the streets of
Paris was the opening of national workshops. True,
agitation has generally been based upon political théories,
but these théories did not cause the agitation,—they
were, in reality, one with it, and arose from the neces-
sity which was felt for justifying it before the world.
The idea of a révolution had realized itself in the
imagination of ail France, long before the theory of the
social contract was advanced in its support. Had great﻿40
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
social evils never existed, Voltaire would hâve written
in vain, and the révolution of 1789 would hâve been
reduced to a simple problem in political dynamics,
which might hâve been left for peaceable solution in
future years. If, in this country, we mark the periods
at which the cry for the “ Charter ” was most furious,
we shall find them to hâve been precisely those at which
bread was dearest and wages lowest. À good harvest
or a revival of trade was sufficient to scatter agitation
to the winds. It is only when employment fails, and
the necessaries of life become dear, that théories of ail
kinds are discussed, and thousands of the working men
press forward their demands by public agitation. In-
variably the.maxim holds,—let the people be employed
and remunerated at fair prices, and we need stand in no
dread of révolutions.
Chartism is little more than the skadow of political
Socialism. Its chief advocates regard it only as an
instrument for effecting such changes in the fonda-
mental arrangements of society as they may think
necessary for securing a larger share of temporal well-
being to its poorer members. The changes contemplated
are social, not political merely ; they go further than
any extension of'the suffrage, or any repeal of taxation ;
they aim, in short, at a complété equalization of property,
and that, not by any modification of existing laws, but
by substituting a code of arbitrary expédients in their
stead.
Socialism is of ancient birth. Its full development was
reserved for modem times; but its principles rank
among the oldest phenomena of history. Its existence
may be satisfactorily traced to the passions of the human﻿OF BRITAIN.
41
heart, in combination with the instinctive teachings of
nature respecting the original equality of mankind. It
is a blending of envy and reason ; of envy strengthened
by reason, and reason blinded by envy ; an honest but
mistaken protest against the inequalities which hâve
existed in the social condition of ail nations. Sin has
deranged the social System. Benevolence and justice
are essential to its right working, and these hâve been
displaced by selfishness. One of the many evil con-
séquences of this dérangement is, that those gentle
inéqualities which Providence permitted to diversify
the aspect of society, hâve been raised into walls of
division, which interrupt the flow of sympathy, and
distinguish men into separate castes. It needs little
discemment to décidé that such a state of things
is wrong, and history is crowded with the violent
attempts which hâve been made to rectify it. This is
the secret of those conspiracies and révolutions which
lend such interest to the past; a sense of injustice,
rankling in the minds of the masses, has produced those
outbursts of popular discontent which hâve so often
been repressed by physical force. Modem times are
favourable to association in attempting to gain a com-
mon object, and association can only be formed by the
promulgation of doctrines. Buder âges only cared to
act ; the présent seeks to vindicate its actions. Hence
Socialism puts on the garb of elaborate theory ; it can
boast of sages and professors. The same feelings which
in the middle âges would hâve marshalled a famished
peasantry in battle array, now enters the intellectual
arena, and seeks to change the world by dint of intel-
lectual warfare.
e 3﻿42
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
One country and one âge of the world hâve been more
fruitfnl in political and social théories than any other ;
that country is France, and that âge the close of the
eighteenth century. The révolution of 1789 was ac-
eompanied by intellectual throes as severe as the social
convulsions which it produced. In advocating the
independence of our American colonies, the French
literati enjoyed a freedom of utterance on ail kindred
topics which, in different circumstances, would never
hâve been granted under an absolute monarchy. This
freedom was turned to account. Voltaire wrote, and
Rousseau raved. They spoke of a glorious future, when
“kingcraft” and “priestcraft” should be abolished. The
nation believed them, overthrew the throne, and ignored
religion. The révolution was tantamount to a complété
change in the social condition of France; society was
annihilated, and had to be created anew, and a clear
stage presented itself on which théories of ail kinds
might compete for favour. From that moment, Socialism
secretly aspired to the position of a distinct party in the
State. The instincts of the nation kept it true to the
natural order of things ; but a few enthusiasts continued
to write and propagate their views in private, and the
success they realized by dint of persevering effort, gave
at length a degree of importance to their doctrines
which, in a spéculative point of view, they never
deserved. Fourier and St. Simon hâve a right to be
regarded as the chiefs of the Socialist school, but, both
in France and Germany, they hâve been outstripped by
their disciples. Their principles, instead of being left
to the guidance of enthusiasm, hâve been submitted to
the test of logic, and the resuit has been a heartless and﻿OF BRITAIN.
43
irreligious System, in which humanity is degraded, and
the rights of God and conscience are forgotten. It is a
highly significant fact, that the extreme republican party
throughout the continent are as much attached to in-
fidelity as to Socialism, and that their trinmph, humanly
speaking, would Sound the death-knell of religion.
Socialism was indebted for its introduction into this
country to the writings of Robert Owen. Its parentage
was little known, and its sympathies with infidelity
were but slowly discovered. Its fair exterior imposed
on many honest minds, who were satisfied of the defects
of existing society, and were ready to adopt any truly
remédiai measures, even to the adoption of a new
System. As is well known, it at first met with un-
paralleled success among the working classes, but its
décliné was equally rapid. Two causes chiefly ccn-
tributed to this resuit; the practical good sense of
Enghshmen repudiated its economical principles as
unsound, and the open avowal of irréligion on which it
ventured in the heyday of success, was more than the
bulk of the people could endure. Our tracts and Bibles,
our schools and missions, had preoccupied the ground,
the working classes were unprepared for an unblushing
avowal of infidelity, and Socialism was decreed a failure.
But though no longer in its own name a candidate for
public favour, it is yet far from being defunct. Its
professors hâve assumed other names ; its principles,
resolved by analysis, hâve combined with extreme
politica! views on the one hand, and with ordinary
scepticism on the other. The Socialism of ten years
ago sustains an important relation to the popular move-
ments of the présent day, and especially to political﻿U
THE GLORY AND THE 8HAME
agitation. Owen gathered round him a group of
mercurial spirits who, having become missionaries in a
great enterprise, could not possibly retum to tbe ranks
of private life. By a kind of natural necessity, having
once tumed agitators, they were forced to continue so.
Hence, on the feilure of Socialism, no other alternative
presented itself than that of suppressing for a time the
irreligious element which made it generally distasteful,
and bringing prominently forward those political and
social doctrines which, in certain combinations, might
still be widely acceptable. There is scarcely a single
department of popular effort which has not suffered
from this cause. In some instances, the advocacy of
tempérance principles has been made the means of
instilling infidel views into the minds of a worthy
section of the working classes ; the multitudes who are
anxious to obtain an extension of the franchise hâve
been lured by violent leaders to the brink of treason,
and in many districts, Chartism has become synonymous
with infidelity. It is high time that the working
classes inquired into the character and principles of the
men who aspire to be their guides in the difficult path
of social reform. On the stage of public life there are
men who flatter the people the more easily to cheat
them, whose prime passion is selfishness, whose only
religion is hatred of ail religion, and whose political
creed is destitute of every peculiarity save extravagance;
but there are also men of tried character and noble
principles, who are too honest to flatter even as the
price of popularity, and whose abilities are equal to any
task they may undertake. These are the people’s
friends ; in these let the people trust.﻿OP BRITAIN.
45
While Socialism was thus endeavouring, witbout
success, to recover its place in popular esteem, it daily
gathered strength among onr continental neighbours,
and at length, favoured by concurrent circumstances,
ventured upon a deed which bistory bas registered as
the French révolution of 1848. That event may be
regarded as its first overt act; its first attempt to
change, by forcible measures, the existing social System.
That act was applauded by a clique of political agitators
at home, the same party-cries were adopted, and, beyond
a doubt, if it had not been for the firm stand which
was made by the bulk of the people, it would hâve been
parodied on British soil. In considering that event, it
is necessary to premise that whatever might be the
general feelings of the French nation towards the
Orléans dynasty, the révolution which actually over-
threw the throne was achieved by a handM of the
people. Some political change, perhaps, was generally
desired, but the downfal of the monarchy must be
ascribed to the Socialist or red-republican party alone,
and the principles which occasioned its downfal would,
if consistently carried out, hâve led to the downfal of
society itself. The first step which was taken, after the
victory of the barricades, by those who had installed the
provisional government in power, was to demand work
and wages. This demand was acceded to; national
workshops were opened ; ail who wished to obtain em-
ployaient obtained it at a fixed rate of rémunération.
For some time, the Parisian populace virtually paid
themselves out of the national exchequer su ch wages as
they chose to insist upon, for such an amount of labour
as they chose to perform, the farce being carried on﻿46
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
through the medium of govemment officiais. It was
impossible for such a scheme to continue; the same
method, if acted on by private individuals, would hâve
wasted a colossal fortune in a few months. The whole
plan constituted a gigantic System of pauper relief. The
wages paid to the workmen were a clear loss to the
treasury, and had to be made up by increased taxation.
The System, so far as it was carried out, was a legalized
abstraction of money from one portion of the people, in
order, by a simple process, to transfer it to the pockets
of the rest, and its extension to the whole of France
would soon hâve stranded the nation on the shoals
of bankruptcy. The increase of public burdens would
daily diminish the amount of money which could be em-
ployed in trade ; employment at private establishments
would thus daily become less, occasioning fresh burdens
to be devolved in their tum upon the people. It is
easy to see that the circle would soon be run, and that
ail classes would soon sink to the same level of hopeless
poverty.
Such is the history of Socialism; what are its
principles ? We will take as their exposition the im-
posing formula under which it has lately challenged the
attention of the world. “ Liberty, equality, and frater-
nity,” when used with a consistent and honest meaning,
is a cry worthy of being inscribed upon the escutcheon
of ail free nations. Liberty is one of the noblest giffcs
of Heaven. Its possession is the first thing requisite to
a virtuous and happy existence. Other evils annoy
man, but slavery in a sense annihilâtes him. Without
freedom, his sense of responsibility decays into mere
animal fear ; his feelings are frozen; his will is manacled ;﻿OF BRITAIN.
47
he is a section of a machine, a fragment of society, but
not a man. Freedom is the breath of life to the civil-
ized world : suspend it, and commerce déclinés, the arts
wither, religion is sensible of an icy touch, and every
species of social good expires. Freedom is no party
cry ; it issues from the heart of nature, and is echoed
from every nook of Britain—from the cottage, the
castle, and the throne. A more equal distribution of
temporal good is an object which every philanthropist
ardently desires ; to accomplish it is the great problem
which lies for solution before the présent âge. So far
from being averse to it, the most distinguished members
of society are engaged in its promotion ; nor are we
sanguine in predicting that ere long it will be substan-
tially realized. Towards this point every species of
philanthropie effort is silently advancing. Every school
which is opened, every mechanic’s institution which is
established, every building club or freehold land
society which is put in operation, has this for its end—
the realizing of the highest degree of attainable equality
among the various members of the state. As for
fraternity,—this is the very spirit of the gospel. It was
our Divine Redeemer who first taught men that word,
and the Christian church which first presented its living
embodiment to the eyes of a selfish and wondering
world. Within her bosom, based on equal spiritual rights,
a true and attainable brotherhood still exists, imperfect.
yet, but daily improving, and destined to préparé us for
the purer forms of heaven. Liberty, equality, fraternity,
—we adopt the cry ! The formula shall be graven on
our hearts—not as the ambiguous abstract of untried
théories, nor the insidious profession of the manslayer—﻿48
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
but as the language in winch religion proclaims her
triumphs, and humanity exults on descrying the distant
goal.
But what is freedom ? Not, surely, the infinité
multiplication of laws ; not, surely, the existence of a
central power whose agencies shall perpetually pervade
the recesses of domestic life ; not, surely, the having a
govemment so excessively patemal as to take cogni-
sance of our thousand petty wants, and fumish us with
standard modes of supplying them. At the hands of
one man or of many, such kindness would be Idlling.
Freedom consists essentially in permitting each man to
be himself, in allowing an absolute manifestation to take
place of his inner being, in reducing the restraints of
law to the smallest possible number which is compatible
with the préservation of order. This is freedom, and to
withhold it, whether from motives of cruelty or kind-
ness, whether at the instance of an autocrat or a board
of citizens, is not freedom, but a newfangled despotism
which for convenience usurps the name.
Examined by this test, the principles of Socialism are
the very converse of freedom. The Socialist proceeds
by an à priori process to shape out the idea of what
society should be, and this idea ail men are expected to
recognise and obey. In expecting ever to see this idea
established in practice, it is difficult to see how he can
steer clear of a flagrant violation of natural right. It
would be visionary to expect that ail classes of society
will be so convinced of its truth as to adopt it spon-
taneously. Whatever degree of success may attend its
propagation, the number of récusants, on the most favour-
able supposition, will always continue very large. How﻿OP BRITAIN.
49
then shall they be dealt with ? Shall tbey be allowed
to remain neutral ? But it is probable they will belong
to precisely that class of persons whose concurrence will
be most required, those who hâve most to lose by such
a change. Shall they then be compelled to surrender
themselves and their wealth to the community ? This
would, to say the least, be a very inauspicious inaugura-
tion of the reign of freedom. But supposing this
difficulty got over, and Socialism successfully established,
how would its establishment affect the exercise of Per-
sonal freedom ? The présent System of society can
hâve no récusants. It lets every man alone, so long as
he permits the same liberty to others. It allows ail
possible indulgence to private views, provided only they
are harmless. If a person choose to separate himself
from society, society can do without him. If he like
to establish a commune, no law prohibits him, the land
is before him, he may purchase and build. But Social-
ism requires the concurrence of ail the members of
the community in the same object and the same plan ;
the introduction of any modification into its System,
like violence done to a piece of clock-work, would dé-
rangé the whole. Hence the community would find it
necessary to prohibit ail theorizing on the principles of
society, since it might possibly lead a portion of its
members to dissent from the existing scheme. In keep-
ing with this foreseen necessity, Socialism proscribes
certain kinds of literary effort, and poets may esteem it
an honour that they will be placed among the exiles from
Utopia. But Socialism imposes still greater limitations
on practice. For the most benevolent reasons it besets
us behind and before, and guards us even against our-﻿50
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
selves. It forbids trade, since it tends to social in-
equality ; it forbids the public worship of God, since
religion is a fabulous contrivance ; it forbids marriage,
since the irrefragability of the marnage tie is bondage
to the passions, and a monopoly of common rights ; it
forbids political agitation, since ail power will be lodged,
as a matter of course, with the wisest and most intelli-
gent citizens ; even popular suffrage will stand in danger
of being obliged to vindicate its daims, since the man-
agement of public afïairs will slide of their own accord
into the hands of those who possess the greatest talents ;
and in such happy circumstances, when selfishness and
ambition shall hâve no existence, genius and capacity
will naturally constitute themselves suprême. The
choice of a profession is a most important circumstance
to individual happiness. On the présent System every
man settles this for himself ; guided in his decision by
the firm, but not unbending laws of life, every man
enters cheerfully upon those pursuits which lie nearest
to his social condition, ennobled by the fact that he
enters them of his own accord, and that no social barrier
keeps him from ascending, should he ever find the
means of doing so. Nor is this freedom useless. In
many instances, it has enabled a poor lad, to whom no
social board would hâve given crédit for superior talents,
to reach the proudest eminences of literary and civic
honour. On Socialist principles such freedom would be
unknown, every man would hâve his pursuits fixed for
him by the arbitrary decision of a public board, or by
the fallible voice of the people. Such methods would
détermine the amount of common sense which every
man possessed, and in what department of labour he﻿OF BRITAIN.
51
should be employed, whether of magistratë, scavenger,
or policeman. No one acquainted with human nature
can expect that these appointments would always be
made according to the capacity of the individual. The
free compétition in which native power delights would
be proscribed, the “ fair field and no favour ” in which
genius of every kind proves itself to be genius, would
be closed, and the position of every man would be fixed
by the iron decision of irresponsible committees. In
a short time, the administration of such a System would
become a vast jobbery, in which the more designing and
unscrupulous members of the community would play
the tyrant over their simple-minded and well-intentioned
brethren.
A strange spectacle has been reserved for the nine-
teenth century, one of the most egregious examples of
human inconsistency which the history of the world
affords. The Socialists of the présent day know not
what it is they ask for. They professedly take their
stand on the extreme verge of democracy, and yet they
plead for the adoption of the most perfect and un-
mitigated System of despotism which it would be pos-
sible to frame. They find fault with the encroachments
of government, blâme a centralizing policy, condemn
the principles of monopoly when applied to trade, and
yet they cry out for a social scheme which would
obtrude its agencies into the most sacred privacies of
domestic life, grasp the absolute control of ail personal
and local interests, and extend the principles of monopoly
and protection to every conceivable branch of human
enterprise. True democracy, if they did but understand
it, whatever political form it may assume, consista﻿52	THE GLOEY AND THE SHAME
essentially in allowing free scope to ail social énergies,
To the degree in which the world has enjoyed this
freedom, we stand indebted for every great advance
which has been made in the condition of man. Great
reformers hâve arisen, mighty changes hâve been effected
evils which once seemed impregnable hâve yielded to
the assault of truth, and we stand apparently on the
eve of still greater and more bénéficiai events. Ex-
isting Socialist théories are themselves the offspring of
the very freedom they would fain repress. Relax the
swaddling bands with which society is still bound, and
its progress will be still more rapid ; tighten them, and
progress will become impossible. Art is more perfect
than nature, because art converses with the idéal, to
which nature does not aspire. For this reason man can
easily construct a social theory more perfect than any
which is actually developed, but it is irreducible to
practice, it is nothing but the brilliant reflection of his
own mind in the stream of human affairs. Nature can-
not claim the absolute perfection of his theory; she
is mixed, clouded, laden with many evils; but she
possesses, what his theory does not possess, life—life
Divinely communicated, in virtue of which she is con-
tinually correcting her own excesses, and ever advancing
towards a higher degree of excellence. To recognise
and allow full scope to this tendency in politics and
social life is true democracy; every déviation from it
tends to despotism; and its converse, as seen in Socialist
doctrines, is despotism of the rankest and most de-
structive form.
Such is the slender sympathy which Socialism
has vith freedom; let us now ask whether it is fitted to﻿OF BRITAIN.
53
produce a désirable equality among the various members
of the State ? We say a désirable equality, for it is not
every kind of equality which is so. The beggars of
London and the serfs of Russia are pretty nearly equal,
as nearly so as the most ardent leyeller could desire,
but equality in their case affords no mitigation to their
wretchedness. Universally, the fact that our neigh-
bours are in no better circumstances than ourselves,
affords, to say the best, a yery poor and questionable
consolation. That equality alone is worth wishing for
which is consistent with a positive increase in the
éléments of social well-being, and with the permanent
happiness of society.
The distinction here pointed out is deserving of some
attention, since it will enable us to submit the preten-
sions of Socialism to a more accurate test. We will
select a narrower case for illustration. Two men are
employed in the same factory, and in the same branch
of labour, one of whom, by superior tact and intel-
ligence, aided perhaps by a few advantages of a more
questionable character, eams twice as much as the
other. If the wages of the former are required to bring
up a family with comfort, the wages of the latter must
be only half enough, and an evil exists which calls for a
remedy of some kind. The rate of wages in the two
cases ought to be more nearly equal : true, but how
shall it be made equal ; by lowering the larger amount,
or by raising the smaller 1 Let the former plan be
tried first ; acquaint the more ingenious mechanic that
ail he gains above a certain sum will be taken from
him to eke out the wages of his neighbour, and what
will be the resuit 1	He will hâve fewer motives to
F 3﻿54
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
industry than before ; as a conséquence, less work will
be done ; he will eam the amount of wages stipulated
for him to receive, but not a shilling more ; and, in the
end, his condition will be greatly deteriorated, without
any corresponding improvement in his neighbour’s. No
matter how specious the disguise, or circuitous the
method by which this process is carried on ; no matter
how bland the professions or philanthropie the views of
its conductors; while human nature remains what it is
the same results will invariably follow. Equality will
be produced on this method, but it will be equality in
ignorance, idleness and low wages. If this is the only
kind of equality which can be produced, it will be
better to let it alone, since it is undoubtedly préférable
for one to be rich than for both to be poor. Try, how-
ever, another plan : instead of diminishing the larger
amount of wages, increase the smaller ; endeavour, by
means of éducation, to give to both individuals equal,
or nearly equal capacities ; remove ail unfair restric-
tions; let both be' actuated by the same high moral
principles, and the différence between them will vanish.
They will be as nearly equal as is necessary for their
mutua! happiness, and if either is poorer than his com-
panion, he will at least possess a far greater share of ail
that constitutes temporal well-being than he could
possibly realize on any other principles.
This case corresponds sufiiciently for the purposes of
illustration with the larger one which society présents.
Ail social classes may be summarily divided into the
rich and the poor. Within these limits we find the
widest possible extremes ; the millionaire and the man
who is hardly worth a penny ; those who live sumptu-﻿OF BRITAIN.
55
ously, and those who are wanting bread. No candid
man déniés the desirableness of diminisbing the dis-
tance which now séparâtes these classes ; the only
question on which a doubt can possibly arise, is that
which inquires by what method that evil can be most
effectually reached. Two théories aim at solving this
question—Socialism on the one hand, and that which
favours the existing order of things on the other. The
theory of Socialism, stripped of its details, is just this,
—take from the rich, and what you take from them
give to the poor. This process is greatly mystified by
the means which are devised for conducting it, but no
arrangement of central banks or of general collectors
and distributors can hide its essential features. It is,
in reality, a process of abstraction from the earnings
of one class to eke out the earnings of another. This
method might be tolerated if it merely equalized
existing wealth, and did not tend to diminish the
resources of society; but from what we know of
human nature, it can hardly be doubted that if it
were carried out, social rétrogression to a very serious
extent would immediately ensue. The wheels of
society would be tumed back ; the dominion which
science and industry hâve gradually acquired over
nature would be relinquished, luxuries would first dis-
appear, then comforts, till man would hâve to battle for
mere existence. It will be found upon examination
that private interest was usually the source of those
discoveries which hâve added so much to the stock of
human happiness ; and if we imagine the motives which
spring from it to be withdrawn, we can conceive of no
moral power which is able to supply their place. A﻿56
THE GLORY AND THE RH A ME
mechanic plods for years over some ingenious concep-
tion, in the hope that, if he succeeds, it will make his
fortune : a capitalist of fifty pounds enters into business,
Works early and late, practises the most thrifty éco-
nomies, with the expectation of growing wealthy : a
young man enters college, conquers, by dint of inde-
fatigable zeal, the difficulties of science, becomes almost
a martyr to his studies, fired with a thirst for supe-
riority, and with the hope of reaching, through their
medium, an influential position in life. Such are the
moral forces which hâve combined to raise the existing
social fabric : remove them, and it will become a pile of
melting snow. Annihilate the cause, and the effects
will cease. If by quarrelling about the distribution of
the sunbeams we put out the sun, our quarrel will end
in darkness ; and if, chagrined with the inequality of
human acquisitions, we destroy the sole principle of
acquisitiveness, our contention will soon be brought to
a close by discovering that nothing is leffc to fight for.
Man will not work for others with the same energy and
eamestness with which he works for himself ; and if
obliged at least to wear the semblance of doing so, he
will soon find out the lowest degree of real labour which
can be joined to the highest degree of apparent effort.
It is difficult to forbear smiling, with a mixture of
surprise and pity, at the abortive wish which Socialism
displays to set aside the operation of a great provi-
dential law. Men who aspire to be reformera ought
not to be so ignorant of the limits within which ail
human effort is necessarily confined. We may control
or modify established principles, but we cannot change
or destroy them. Theory will not reverse the great﻿OF BRITAIN.
57
facts of our nature ; these are the work of God, and
remain immutable through ail âges. The electric fluid
may be drawn from the clouds, and led about harmlessly
at our pleasure ; we may borrow power from a little
stream to set a thousand factories in motion; by
adjusting his sails to the shifting courses of the winds,
the mariner can force his way through the océan ; but
in these instances of successfiil effort man Works with
nature, in an inferior sense it may be affirmed that he
co-operates with God. Let him neglect the laws of
nature, or act in opposition to them, and his achieve-
ments are at an end ; the lightning, the water, and the
winds can only be purchased on their own terms. In
the same way, man is competent to control or modify
the action of social laws, but change or ignore them he
cannot. He may devise what social scheme he pleases,
but if it be not in harmony with himself it will never
work. The ‘native forces of his bosom, unsuspended,
will continue to move in their own orbit, leaving his
System without any support, or else will dash against it
and reduce it to ruins.
It is readily granted that absolute equality can only
be attained by adopting the principles of Socialism ; but
equality of this kind neither bears on it the authority
of God, nor is consistent with the well-being of man.
It is a System which will never be adopted sponta-
neously, and can never be made permanent by force.
If man were so disposed, ail its objects could be accom-
plished on the existing System by mere benevolence,
and the simple fact that they are not attained is a
sufficient proof that, till his dispositions are changed,
they are unattainable. What ail classes want is, not﻿58
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
absolute equality,—an impossible abstraction; but an
increase and better distribution of the éléments of social
well-being. It is surely cbildish and useless to raise
the cry, “ I will hâve as much as my neighbour,” if the
principles on which alone this absolute equality can be
attained would soon reduce that “ as much ” to a mere
pittance of the necessaries of life. More manly and
hopeful would it be to aid the détermination which
Providence seems to hâve fixed in the generous hearts
of our countrymen of ail classes.—Social wretchedness
shall exist no longer except as the punishment of vice,
and vice itself shall be assailed, in its darkest strong-
holds, by the influences of philanthropy and religion.
Those gloomy depths where thousands, descended from
a common ancestry, hâve long been overwhelmed by
ignorance and crime, shall at length be illumined by
the torch of piety. Every legislative enactment, every
social law, every préjudice, though never so strong and
hallowed, which, when examined, shall be found to rest
on aught but justice, shall be stemly, but with a for-
giving and fratemal spirit, abjured ; the paths which
lead to power, intelligence, and fortune, shall in time
be opened equally to ail, and the fewer inequalities which
may then remain shall be softened by the hand of love.
By these means we may confidently look for the dis-
appearance of social evils without the risk of giving
birth to others which are still more to be dreaded. The
aggregate amount of national wealth and industry will
continue to increase, while enlarged capacities, equal
opportunités, and the moderating influence of religion on
individual character, will raise the poorest. classes of the
community to the enjoyment of compétence and comfort.﻿OP BRITAIN.
59
But Socialism professes to be fraternal, a profes-
sion which its recent atrocities render necessary, but
which they make it impossible for us to believe. The
constructors of that imposing formula, which seemed,
in our simple British ears, to hâve concentrated in itself
the largest amount of love and justice which the world
had ever beheld in combination, soon tore the visor
from their movements, and gave the world a novel
exposition of fraternity. In February, 1848, the prin-
cipes of Socialism acquired a temporary ascendency at
the hands of sixty or a hundred thousand of the Parisian
populace. In June, those principles received a direct
négative from nineteen-twentieths of the nation. One
would hâve thought that common justice, simple hatred
of coercion, to say nothing of those disinterested senti-
ments which fraternity inspires, would hâve led them to
postpone the adoption of their views to the deliberate
vote of so vast a majority of their countrymen. But
mark their conduct :—the brothers of February flew to
arms in June; five months had sufficed, in connexion
with altered circumstances, to change their pacifie prin-
ciples ; barricades were raised at ail points, and civil war
was waged with circumstances of barbarity which
Europe had not known for âges ; not for the mainte-
nance of natural rights against the encroachments of
despotic power, but in order to force the nostrums of a
party on the acceptance of a great nation. The attempt
was fruitless, but history has recorded it, in order to
teach posterity the meaning of brotherhood when used
in Socialist professions.
But from facts we pass to a brief considération of
principles.	It is the privilège of Systems to hâve﻿CO
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
their merits eanvassed aparfc from the conduct of their
•abettors, and this privilège we cheerfully concédé to the
one which is under review. Fraternity among man-
kind is too great a blessing for us to neglect any means
which are professedly able to obtain it. At the outset,
it would seem probable that the simplest social scheme
would be the likeliest to promote fratemal feelings
between man and man, since it would furnish the fewest
provocations to the malevolent passions. When each
person is left to his own exertions, and the enactments
of society are confined to matters of order, there must
occur fewer chances of personal collision than when
every position in life is made a matter of vote and pre-
ference ; where every man would be able to point to a
spécifie decision on the part of others as the sole reason
why he filled an inferior position, instead of such as he
might possibly deem himself qualified to hold. Society,
on this latter System, would be a vast and complicated
rivalship, carried on in an atmosphère daily thickened
by contending passions. But Socialism is the perfection
of fsuch a System, the most complicated of ail conceiv-
able complications. Socialism can be established only
by perverting or suppressing great principles. Free-
dom of thought and action must be proscribed before
society can be clipped down to the stiff equalities of a
formai System,* and in this proscription we discem the
blow which must prove fatal to brotherhood. The
springs of action within the soûl will not suffer bond-
age, its impulses possess a freedom which is perpetually
renewed in every man and in every âge. Let them hâve
free course and they grôw benevolent ; chain them and
they angrily chafe and foam till they are set at libertv.﻿OF BRITAIN.
61
Wealth can ally itself in holiest friendship with poverty.
Intellectual extremes hâve often found the golden mean
of love. Voluntary choice is the procurer of these
unions ; once enforce them, and they become impos-
sible. Oblige wealth and intellect to enter into such
unequal alliances, and bitter enmity will ensue, society
will be covered with rankling wounds from which its
life-blood will issue. Justice daims observance equally
with freedom as a means of establishing genuine fra-
temity among men. We are so constituted as to
expérience émotions of anger at the perpétration of
wrong. These émotions are invariably excited when the
offence is perceived, and in our présent fallen condition
they seldom confine themselves within proper bounds.
These sentiments are not controlled by law. An enact-
ment to legalize murder would fail to change our esti-
mate of that crime, nor would a code of social régula-
tions tending to place the intemperate and the sober on
the same footing, hâve any power to make us regard
such a step as otherwise than essentially unjust. It
requires no great degree of foresight to predict that a
community based upon the déniai of such principles
must prove an utter failure. If freedom and justice
were banished, happiness would quickly follow them
into exile. The halo of friendship which gathered round
it in the heated imagination of its votaries would vanish
as the morning cloud ; and the boasted paradise of
social rights would soon be changed into a theatre
of malignant passions, a nest of brawlers and a den of
thieves.
The fundamental error of Socialism lies in assuming
that human nature is morally perfect, and that ail
G﻿62
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
social evils are chargeable solely on external cir-
cumstances ; losing sight of the fact that man is
a Mien créature, and that his régénération must pré-
cédé the régénération of society. The external world
will always remain a faithful image of that which
is unseen. There is nothing moral in the earth we
tread, nor in the houses, palaces, factories and mecha-
nisms which are the products and the instruments
of human skill ; ail moral schemes are begun and
finished in the heart : leave the heart corrupt, and its
création will be polluted ; cleanse it, and they will be
clean also ; lire man with benevolence, and every
species of wretchedness will excite his pity ; arm him
with justice, and not long will selfishness and rapacity
be unsubdued. If ail men were filled with the spirit
of obedience to the golden rule, it would matter very
little what social System prevailed; and if that spirit of
obedience to the Divine precept is wanting, the best
System cannot supply the deficiency. Can Socialism
change the heart ?—This is the sole question. Ex-
périence enables us to dispense with the confession of
its abettors, that it is totally incompetent for the task.
For this a Divine remedy is needed, principles which
can pierce deeper and exert absolute mastery over the
soûl. A power is wanted which can battle successfully
with selfishness, and allay the commotions of a
troubled heart ; which can furnish motives from cir-
cumstances lying beyond the reach of human sight,
and amidst the shallow, yet turbid waters of this présent
life, guide man’s fragile bark by the pole-star of etemal
truth. This power résides in the gospel, and there
alone. Surrounded with the embodiments of our own﻿OP BRITAIN.
63
depravity, and perplexed at onr own helplessness, we
turn to Bethlehem, to find in the truths enunciated by
the angelic yoices which once êchoed across its plains,
the true way of establishing “ peace on earth, good-
will towards men.”
III. Hitherto we hâve contemplated the condition of
the working classes in an exclusively secular point of
view, and hâve formed an estimate of it in relation to
matters of high, but not of the highest moment ; we
now proceed to examine their spiritual condition as
beings at once fallen, responsible, and immortal, and as
having within their reach the means of restoration dis-
Closed in the gospel.
This question is overwhelmingly interesting, even if
we confine our thoughts to the working classes thern-
selves. If a single soûl is of incalculable worth, if the
misery involved in its possible ruin baffles conception,
what arithmetic can compute the wreck of millions,
what mind can grasp the collective conséquences of their
perdition % But the interest of the question is heightened
when we consider the place which our working classes
hold as members of the human family, and the powerful
influence which their example will necessarily exert
upon posterity. Should we ever become a nation of
scoffers, what a curse shall we prove to the world ! and
how can we assure ourselves that such a fatal end
will not be reached, if the bulk of the people hâve
already started towards it ? As a nation we shall be
irreligious notwithstanding innumerable instances of
piety, if the fear of God be not practically influential
over our working men. Ten thousand sânctuaries set﻿64
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
apart for the purposes of Christian worship, ten thou-
sand costly sacrifices laid upon the Christian altar, the
homage paid by the législature to the Christian name,
—far more than this will be insufficient to make us
a Christian nation, if the religion of Christ be denied a
welcome in the hearts and homes of the people.
In discussing this question we shall endeavour, as
accurately as possible, to détermine the position which
the masses of the people hold in reference to Chris-
tianity. According to the simplest principle of clas-
sification they are separable into three divisions,—
the professed disciples of Christianity, its professed
opponents, and those who occupy a neutral position.
First in nearness to the religious point of view from
which we take this survey stands the class of Christian
prof essors.	On beholding it we are struck with its
small dimensions ; what a contrast does it fumish to
the gigantic proportions of the other two ! A verdant
spot in the midst of measureless deserts ; a strip of
azuré in the darkened sky ; a cliff-girt island, where the
vintage ripens, while, far as eye can reach, the océan
rages round it ;—such is the professedly Christian sec-
tion of the working classes. A few hâve yielded sub-
mission to Christ, but the vast majority are yet firm in
their rébellion. Some hâve opened their hearts to the
gospel message, but what are they compared with the
multitude over whom the darkness of etemal misery yet
lowers 1 A small portion of the wildemess has been
reclaimed, but outstretching on ail sides liesy the un-
tilled desert.
Our Christian opératives, although they form an﻿OF BRITAIN.
65
insignificant section of the working classes, enter largely
into the numerical strength of the British churches.
Few when compared with the multitudes who make no
profession, they are numerous when viewed as forming
a part of those who do. They fumish the entire
material of which no small number of Christian com-
munities are composed, and there are few into which
they do not enter as an important element of strength
or weakness. A large portion of organized religious
effort dépends for its efficaey on them ; they necessarily
wield, for good or evil, a vast moral power ; from them
must proceed a large share of that manifestation of
Christian principle which is intended to attract and win
the world. Working men themselves, they find a
readier and less suspected access to their brethren than
any^other class, and hence in them chiefly centre our
hopes of bringing the bulk of the people under the in-
fluence of saving truth. If not the repositories of the
church’s wealth, they are the main sources of its
strength, and according to the vigour or weakliness
of their piety, may we expect a future of triumphant
aggression or of inglorious defeat.
It is important, therefore, to inquire into the kind of
piety which distinguishes the professedly religious sec-
tion of the working classes. It is this which must
décidé whether in their workshops and dwellings they
will be the missionaries of the cross, or its mere ad-
hérents, distinguishable from others by nothing but
a fairer name. We take it for granted that religion is
not a business of mere impression. Moral impressions
are required in conversion, but in order to be rendered
permanent they must be either the cause or the effect
G 3﻿66
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
of intellectual principles. The soûl is regenerated arid
sanctified through the medium of truth. It is in con-
nexion with this agency that the omnipotent Spirit
Works. Religious truth must be truly and firmly grasped
in order to the production of that moral power which
purifies the heart ; it must be apprehended, moreover,
in its essential meaning ; a technical belief will no more
avail to sustain or enkindle piety than the most fugitive
impressions. Genuine piety consists in the union of reli-
gious conviction and religious feeling, and lises in excel-
lence as these éléments become more copious and pro-
found. Testing by these principles the current piety of the
class of persons under review, in how many instances do
we find it fall short of its healthy proportions—how often
is it dwarfish, sickly, a mere shadow, an escutcheon hung
up to show that the soûl is dead ! It is often nothing more
than an arbitrary alliance between an hereditary creed,
and feelings which hâve been casually aroused. Parental
instruction, or the teaching of a sabbath school, com-
municated to the opening mind some general views of
Christian truth, these were registered in the dogmatic
and necessarily imperfect form in which they were con-
veyed, and constituted, as if by patent, the mind’s un-
changeable stock of theological knowledge. With the
moral constitution which God has given us it is easy for
the feelings to be aroused ; conscience often arms the
voice of the preacher, or the more affecting voice of
death, with irrésistible force ; the powers of the world
to corne are for a time too powerful for “ the strong
man armed.” At this period of fervid religious awaken-
ing the formulas of childhood are remembered. They
are religious, so are the feelings of experienced alarm ;﻿OF BRITAIN.
67
they are therefore joined together in a religious profes-
sion. But the connexion between the two is sapless*
the binding together of a dead branch and a fragile
flower. The feeling neither sprang from, nor led to, the
appréhension of truth ; no truth was in fact perceived,
for that technical belief is nothing. The cause of the
excitement forgotten, the excitement itseïf soon ceases.
It availed, during its brief existence, to bring him within
the circle of the church, and there, by the mere force of
inertness or extemal circumstances, he still remains:
nominally living, really dead ; enrolled among the pro-
fessed disciples of Christianity, with the most settled,
though perhaps unconscious, alienation of heart from
the doctrines which it teaches and the objects at which
it aims.
Narrowing our view to those cases in which piety is
not dubious, where the two éléments of faith and love
unquestionably exist, we find equally painful evidence
of an imperfect appréhension and realization of revealed
truth. The central doctrine of the gospel has been
grasped with sufficient confidence to awaken hope of
final safety, but it has not yet elevated the soûl to a
higher spiritual sphere. The Sun of righteousness has
spread some illumination through its dark recesses, but
it is as yet a stranger to that glowing effulgence beneath
which the shadows of chaos finally disperse, and the
Spirit of beauty dawns upon the new-made world.
Momentary glimpses hâve been caught of truth’s radiant
vision, but that prolonged gaze beneath which the face
brightens, like the face of Moses on the mount of God,
and the prégnant germs of spiritual life are gradually
expanded and matured, has yet to be exerted. It is﻿68
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
the province of contemplation to bring us face to face
with solemn verities, to exhibit them in their essential
grandeur, and arm them with living power; but this
habit of mind is hardly known to the bulk of religious
professons. Thus the objects and instrumentalities of
the gospel are shom of much of their lustre, and their
moral efficacy is in conséquence sadly diminished.
Blindfold the eyes, or inflict on them some serious
injury, and straightway darkness ensues ; suspend the
génial influences of the sky, let the earth no longer
receive its accustomed share of light and heat, and it
will soon become barren. Analogous evils spring from
the cessation of those influences with which it is the
chartered province of truth to supply the heart. Piety,
in their absence, assumes a fixed and stunted form, and
invariably hardens into a mere mechanism of raies and
duties. The free and varied action of life is wanting, it
is content with manifesting itself in old and recognised
phases, but loftier exhibitions or more appropriate
adaptations it cannot supply. Unaccustomed to view
truth in the harmony of its internai relations, piety of
this sort is apt to hâve its doctrinal preferences, and
thus to distort and mutilate the gospel. Seldom con-
versing with its sublimer doctrines, and continually
dwelling on those respecting which equaüy conscientious
minds remain divided, it becomes cynical and bigoted,
and finds its favourite sphere in the dissémination of
party views. Influenced in ail its actions by casual and
inferior motives, its history is a sériés of fluctuations,
and its entire relation to the church is daily in danger
of being altered or destroyed. Thus, from the same
perniciôus source, the want of a steady intercourse with﻿OP BRITAIN.
69
truth, with the life and teachings of that Divine Person
who is truth incarnate, proceed heresy, sectarianism,
vacillation, languor; the types of nearly ail that is
spurious or weak in the piety of the Christian church.
Few things are more important, with a view to the
success of Christianity, than the exhibition of its prin-
ciples in the conduct of its professors. A loftier and
purer morality should certainly distinguish those who
profess to be the followers of the Holy One, and to hâve
felt the regenerating influence of the Divine Spirit, than
ordinarily obtains among those who make no such pro-
fessions. By producing this distinction it was intended
that Christianity should prove herself Divine ; it was
intended that the lips of the scofler should be silenced
by arguments against which even the shaffcs of ridicule
are pointless ; that the profane and unbelieving should
be awed to reverence by the majesty of her virtues ;
that the world should be won by the loveliness of the
church. Such objects were fully realized in the deport-
ment of Christ. His conduct drew from friends and
foes a tribute of involuntary homage. ïïe did “ not
strive. nor cry,” yet wickedness trembled at his presence,
the pharisee felt even his rigid formalism outdone by
the simple garb of goodness, and hypocrisy stole away
abashed from the light of his withering glance. To live
out Christ, to be what Christ was, to force a similar con-
fession from the world, should be the aim of ail his
followers. Are the working classes of this country
familiar with such a manifestation of superior ex-
cellence % Do they behold in the conduct of their
professedly Christian associâtes something which unequi-
vocally proves them to be actuated by higher motives﻿70
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
than themselves? Do they see in the followers of
Christ stainless honour, freedom from the breath of
meanness, rectitude beyond the possibility of suspicion,
uncompromising honesty, unswerving faithfolness, in-
vincible amiableness of temper, manifested in the un-
varying exercise of forbearance, gentleness, and love?
Do they ever find themselves the objects of eamest yet
délicate anxiety ; are they spoken to on religious matters
with that deep yet manly concem which would compel
a friendly hearing ; are they accompanied to their
homes, invited to the sanctuary, plied with altemate
counsel, expostulation, and entreaty in order to win
them to the truth ? Christian working men ! these are
questions for you to answer; what reply shall be given ?
Ail this, consistency requires from the représentatives of
the church; are they generally rendering it? Even
charity is forced to acquiesce in saying, No ! Many
exceptions may be found, but they are not sufficiently
numerous to affect the accuracy of a suspicion that the
working classes do not generally behold in their pro-
fessedly Christian associâtes an example clearly and
decidedly superior to their own. Their conduct is
marked of course by freedom from the grosser vices,
and by an observance, more or less exemplary, of the
outward ordinances of religion ; but this négative species
of excellence falls far short of manifesting, in their full
power, the moral tendencies of Christianity ; by virtues
nobler than these must the hearts of mankind be won !
Before the working classes within the professing
church can be brought to occupy a right position in
reference to those who are without, the church itself
must undergo a change in its entire condition. It is to﻿OP BRITAIN.
71
be apprehended, that the moral inefficiency which is
exemplified in the conduct of one section of religious
professors is traceable to causes which neutralize, to
some extent, the piety of ail. If Christianity is to act
with augmented power upon the world, its influence
must become more absolute and more easily cognizable
in those who hâve yielded obedience to its daims.
If religious example is to become more highly counter-
active of the tendency to moral putréfaction which pre-
vails, its seasoning qualities must be made stronger.
The holy fire must burn with augmented force and
brilliancy within the temple, if its radiations are to
traverse a wider sphere, and diffuse around a larger
amount of light and heat. A more intimate and
experimental realization of Christian truth is the only
way of compassing this happy change. The doctrines
of the gospel once perceived, not as logicai abstractions,
but as life-giving verities, not as the limbs of an in-
tellectual System, but as living émanations from the
Spirit of truth ; and the unearthly nature in believers
would be born anew. Sympathies hitherto unfelt
would swell into conscious being, the impulses and
appetencies of Christian principle would become more
délicate, bold, and comprehensive, filling a larger circle
and bringing to bear upon every point within it a more
intensely regenerative power. When the church shall
hâve reached this higher position, the working classes
within its pale will be known in the cottage, the factory,
the mine, the workshop, as the missionaries of the
cross. Presenting in their own conduct an unimpeach-
able exposition of the truth they urge on the acceptance
of others ; intelligent, but armed with the mightiei;﻿72
THE GLORY AND THE SHAM
energies of piety ; prompt in everything which calls for
a righteous and benevolent response, but chiefly intent
upon commending to ail within their reach the glorious
gift of heaven $ they will imperceptibly pervade the
cold chaotic mass around with the leaven of Christian
love. A manifestation of the blessings religion has con-
ferred upon themselves will disarm objections, and
under the influence of that Spirit who never fails to
bless the practical unfoldings of his own work within
the heart, will win the most alien and intractable
to “the truth as it is in Jésus.”
We now proceed to consider a section of the
working classes in most respects the opposite of that
which has just been noticed,—we allude to the pro-
fessed opponents of Christianity. It is needless to
prove that this section comprises in it a large and
perhaps increasing number of individuals. Unhappily
the fact is notorious, that a considérable proportion
of our working population are the avowed abettors
of unbelief. It will be more in keeping with our
présent object to endeavour to estimate accurately the
nature and seat of the disease, to point out the circum-
stances which hâve induced or aggravated it, and the
mode of treatment by which it may most successfully
be assailed. Generally speaking, the infidelity of the
working classes is a moral rather than an intellectuai
disorder ; it has its seat in the heart rather than in the
head. Ail unbelief springs less or more remotely from
moral causes ; it is .the offspring of reason distorted and
darkened by the affections; but with the infidelity of
the working classes this is peculiarly the case. In the﻿OP BRITAIN.
73
majority of cases it was conceived and matured by the
feelings long before it sought a form and warrant in
the mind. It offcen exists without being attached to
any spécifie opinions, the mind is filled with one huge,
immovable préjudice, which distinctly refuses to give
any account of its origin, or to throw its insinuations
into a logical shape. This is the simplest and most
general form of infidelity ; it may be regarded as the
common foundation on which its numerous varieties
are built, the kind of superstructure which may be
raised upon it depending on peculiarities of individual
character and intelligence. With thousands it remains
a mere préjudice, undefined, airy, indefensible, and
yet beyond the reach of regular intellectual assault.
It resembles the heroes of romance, who, though slain
one moment, would appear alive the next as gay and
confident as ever. Still, opinion is the natural garb
of unbelief, and with this there is generally an effort
to invest it. Hence the avidity with which Systems of
infidelity are seized when first offered, Inexperienced
spectators might imagine that in every instance their
adoption had been preceded by a process of calm in-
quiry into their merits. Nothing could be more fal-
lacious. They are generally adopted, not because
impartial inquiry seems to demonstrate their truth, but
because they seem to embody in précisé terms a senti-
ment which has long been entertained, and offer a
theoretic justification of it to the world.
The presence or absence of spécifie opinions, to-
gether with the ability or the inability to defend them,
divides the adhérents of infidelity into two classes ; those
of the former add opinion to préjudice, those of the
H﻿74
THE GLOÏIY AND THE SHAME
latter are swayed by préjudice alone. We will notice
these classes separately, endeavouring to ascertain the
character and views of each. We notice first those who
are capable of broaching their infidelity in a logical
form, and of defending it with arguments. Respecting
many individuals of this class, their rejection of what we
believe to be the only means of making man pure and
happy clothes them with additional interest. The critical
position they occupy in the face of heaven, and our
anxiety to rescue them from what we deem pemicious
errors, increases rather than diminishes our desire to do
them ample justice. Intellectually considered they are
the aristocracy of the working classes. By dint of un-
wearied and self-denying effort they hâve acquired an
amount of information which places them far in advance
of the class to which, in other respects, they belong ;
and would enable them to sustain an advantageous
comparison with thousands in the ranks above them.
They hâve attained to general historié views ; the shift-
ing scenes which make up the drama of the past are
beheld in their mutual connexion, and in their bearings
upon modem times. They hâve inquired into the theory
of government, the rights of man, and the laws of trade,
and on these subjects they hâve adopted settled opinions,
which they are able speciously, if not soundly to defend.
They hâve a general acquaintance with science, espe-
cially with physiology, astronomy and geology; their
knowledge in these departments, though little more
than technical, is sufficient to open wide fields for the
exercise of thought, and to administer a healthful
stimulus to their mental powers. The general resuit of
this intellectual superiority is an indisposition to merely﻿OF BRITAIN.
75
sensual pleasures, the formation of sanguine views re-
specting man’s natural capacity for improvement, and
an enthusiastic readiness to co-operate with everything
which seems calculated to promote his temporal well-
being. Hence they are generally foremost in the
popular movements of the âge. Whatever promises
a measure of social and political reform is sure at once
of gaining their hearty adhérence. They are often total
abstainers from intoxicating drinks, conspicuous mem-
bers of mechanic institutions, indefatigable promoters
of benefit and other societies which tend to improve the
economical condition of the working classes ; in short,
they are usually the patrons of every ameliorative
change which does not necessarily include religion. To-
wards this they are animated with an inveterately
hostile sentiment, which they variouslv manifest by
a patronizing, but exceptional, approbation, by wom-
out witticisms, or malicious rancour.
Thus, in several points of view, spéculative infidelity,
as it exists among some of the working classes, présents
an amiable exterior. Its opinions are calculated to tell
with pernicious effect upon the multitude, who are at the
same time disposed to receive them, and unable to form
a just estimate of their intellectual value. As a pheno-
menon, however, it is far from being incapable of expla-
nation, it may be easily solved by referring to the
mental and moral growth of it-s abettors. Their rejec-
tion of Christianity, instead of being singular, was ante-
cedently probable. The character of their mental pro-
cesses, the circumstances under which they were carried
on, together with extemal influences of a social kind,
will fully account for it. In the first place, very few﻿76
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
hâve examined the peculiar évidences of Christianity,
they hâve never fairly and dispassionately argued out
the case on its own merits, they hâve contented them-
selves with beholding religion through the distorted
medium of human character, instead of calmly looking
for its image in the glass of truth. Ail the impressions
\vith which they novv view it might be traced, one by
one, to some professed, and perhaps caricatured, exhi-
bition of it in the institutions or conauct of men; not one
has been derived at first hand from intercourse with
religion itself. Their theological knowledge is composed
of those notices, always incidental and sometimes un-
friendly, which are to be met with in books on general
subjects; the Bible, as at once the standard and the
storehouse of religious truth, has never been explored,
and while every penny pamphlet avowedly hostile to it
is eagerly sought for, its host of champions and com-
mentators, its Lelands, its Butlers, its Watsons, its Paleys,
and its Chalmerses, remain unread. Such partiality
exhibited in the admission of evidence would be enough,
if proved in any other branch of human inquiry, to set
aside the verdict ; but there are circumstances in this
case which shake our confidence in the jurors themselves.
The general tendency of their efforts in the work of self-
improvement has resulted rather in the acquisition of
knowledge than in the discipline of their mental powers,
in stimulating the perceptive rather than in strengthen-
ing the logical faculty. Intent on gaining information,
they hâve overlooked the conditions of knowing and the
general laws of thought. The little knowledge of a
metaphysical kind they hâve acquired, has been gained
in the sensational school, the tendency of whose doctrines﻿OF BRITAIN.
77
is to beget a sense of self-sufficiency, and to make in-
quiry coarsely dogmatic. The conséquences of this
yicious training are évident ; both in their oral and
written effusions, they betray excessive ignorance of the
necessary limitations of human knowledge, and of the
rules which govern the worth of evidence. They show
a preference in reasoning for what is gross and tangible,
and seem incapable of dealing with what is individual
and minute. They are apt to attach undue weight
to arguments which arise from separate facts, to the dis-
paragement of those, less easy perhaps to grasp, but far
more conclusive, which spring from the accumulation of
many. In ail cases, they perceive the separate parts of
an argument more readily than the consequential force
which nécessitâtes the conclusion.
On examining the knowledge they hâve acquired we
shall find it vitiated with kindred defects. It is extensive
lather than accurate, discursive rather than profound.
Sometimes it has been acquired in one direction only, in
which case its comparative value is exaggerated,and those
important relations lost sight of which subsist between the
various divisions of the field of facts. Sometimes it has
comprised principles which are only relatively true, and
been chiefly confined to those discoveries in science which
hâve made most noise in conséquence of their opposition
to prevailing opinions. This partial kind of knowledge
is more favourable to scepticism than any other, since it
gives an air of uncertainty, empiricism, and incom-
pleteness to the whole aspect of human research. The
very mode in which this knowledge has been acquired,
that of self-tuition, exposes them to influences which
cannot be deemed happy. One of the many advantages
h 3﻿78
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
of being placed under a competent preceptor is the ten-
dency which it has to induce a lowly estimate of our own
acquisitions. The master is to the boy a full réser-
voir of ail possible knowledge. The accomplished pro-
fessor of classical literature or natural science is to his
pupils the idéal of érudition and research ; he stands on
the apex of the pyramid and touches the sky. In-
accurate as this impression may be in regard to the
individual, its general influence is true and salutary.
The teacher personifies the boundless realms of thought.
In him absolute knowledge daily reads a lesson of
humility to the expanding mind. The spirit of his
instructions draws aside the veil which shrouds the
majesty of science, and shows the young aspirant that
the highest attainments and sublimest discoveries are
but the approximation of a few inches towards her star-
girt throne. Such a course oMraining naturally results
in diffidence, caution, modesty, carefulness in the use
of positive assertions, the habit of weighing well ail
that can bear upon the accuracy of a conclusion, before
raising it to the status of fixed opinion. Self-tuition has
an opposite tendency ; shall it therefore be frowned upon?
Not till we proclaim the sun a nuisance for the exhala-
tions which it raises from the surface of a stagnant pool.
Self-tuition successfully prosecuted, argues the existence
of a high order of intellectual and moral powers, and
gives an individual a fair claim to honourable regard ;
but it is indisputable that without the exercise of spécial
care, the influence it exerts on the formation of charac-
ter and the acquisition of moral truth, is not exclusively
propitious. These peculiarities in the mental training
of our working classes would not hâve had, under ail﻿OF BRITAIN.
79
conceiyable circumstances, the saine disastrous issue.
We can conceive of social conditions in which ail these
defects would hâve been arrayed on the opposite side,
and the proneness to error which they involve hâve
become, by accident, tributary to the cause of religion.
Whatever extemal hindrances impede the progress of
Christianity it is incumbent on us to remove; mean-
while it is important to hâve brought to light those
subjective causes which arm the préjudices that may
be entertained against it with such destructive power,
and render so many of our working men voluntary vie-
tims of the shallowest delusions.
The spéculative character of the infidelity which
exists at any given time among the mass of the people
always bears a certain relation to the prédominant
philosophy of the âge. The two seldom exactly cor-
respond, but the one always follows in the wake of the
other. Sometimes the sequence takes place after so
long an interval, that the philosophie doctrines hâve
passed into neglect, before they hâve succeeded in
modifying the popular sentiments ; the upper régions
of the sky hâve grown serene and bright before the
éléments of warfare hâve burst upon a lower sphere.
The infidelity at présent existing among the working
classes is no exception to this principle ; it is intimately
allied to philosophie doctrines which were in ascendency
half a century ago. Some little colouring has been
imparted to it by the attempted appropriation of
geological facts, a few slight modifications in matters of
detail hâve been effected by the socialist théories which
belong exclu sively to the présent day, but most that is
spéculative in its constitution rnust be ascribed to that﻿80
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
arrogant and sensual philosophy which reached its
zénith about the close of the last century. The flood
of materialism which then threatened to swamp the
foundations of morality and religion had its rise in the
misrepresentations and perversions which were imposed
on the writings of our own illustrions Locke, by his
French commentators. The thoughts of our great
countryman, sensualized and deadened by Condillac,
were the stage on which Voltaire played off his garish
sophistries. Under the Ixion-wings of this arch-scoffer
atheism ventured to laugh in open day, enthroned her
beastly mummeries in the sight of heaven, and uttered
boasts, which common sense, if left unfettered, would
hâve laughed to scorn. The infidel offspring of
materialism hâve been slain, its worthies hang unhar-
nessed on the walls of Zion, and testify by their
mouldering limbs the temper of the Christian blade.
Materialism itself has begun to recede before the
stealthy march of principles which its own enormities
hâve evoked, and the days of its stay in the temple of
science are already numbered. Meanwhile, Paine is a
text-book with the people—exploded arguments are
reiterated by the working man in utter ignorance that
the departed champions of his creed would be ashamed
to use them. A show of fighting is still kept up,
while, if they did but know it, their ensigns are eut
down, their entrenchments forced, and their camp
taken. In an intellectual point of view, popular in-
fidelity, as it at présent exists, is a phantom which must
vanish before the clearer light and healthier spirit
of coming times. Danger threatens us from another
quarter. A more subtle and powerful foe is already﻿OP BRITAIN.
81
entering the field. Pantheism, in one shape or other,
is the demoniac possession of the âge. Receding in-
fidelity saw God in nothing, the infidelity with which
we shall shortly hâve to contend sees God in everything,
and here, as elsewhere, extremes meet. Teutonic
mysticisms are breathed upon ns in borrowed numbers.
Men hâve brought into use again the ancient tripod,
they claim inspiration for their ambiguous “utterances,”
and clothe themselves with the tattered garment of the
seer. Paganism revives once more,—eclectic liberalism
recalls her into life—her withered forms are breaking
throngh the incrustations of twenty centuries, her
temples rise at Delphi and Dodona, her statues start
from dust, and take their stand beside their ancient
altars. Rest, Julian! thy mantle has fallen on the
modem prophet ; peace to the heroes of Valhalla !
redress shall corne at length to the wrongs of Thor
and Odin; a brighter day is dawning, when Europe
shall return in penitence to her oaken forests, her
human hecatombs, her wicker cages, and her druid
shrines. Happily, this danger is at présent only
lowering in the horizon, a cloud no bigger than a man’s
hand. The harpers harp never so wisely, but our
Saxon senses are too dull to catch the syren strain.
The utterances of transcendental wisdom hâve hitherto
been confined to a select circle of admirers, and few
even of them hâve grasped the principles by which they
are inspired. The mass of the people are yet, and
must for some time remain, untainted with this leprosy,
their disease is of a less dangerous complexion ; now is
the time to effect their cure, to develop their mental
energies, and promote a healthy circulation in the﻿82
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
spiritual System ; in a word, to assist them in gaining
an experimental realization of substantial truth, that
when the dogmas of Pantheism are presented for their
acceptance, they may hâve discemment and strength
enough to Write them down in the category of fictitious
follies.
A tolerable measure of intelligence is required for
the sustenance of spéculative scepticism ; it can neither
exist in midday splendour, nor yet in the darkness
of midnight; it luxuriates in those twilight shades
which wrap the border-land of knowledge. But in-
fidelity is more extensive than even this moderate
degree of intelligence ; we should expect, therefore,
to find it existing extensively in an emotional as well as
a logicalform. This expectation would be justified by
actual acquaintance with the religious condition of the
working classes. Such acquaintance would detect among
them the existence of a vast amount of scepticism which
it would be impossible to reduce to any System ; a sort of
floating bullion of unbelief, fusible into any shape, and
applicable to any purpose. Infidelity of this kind never
courts the day, it seldom ventures abroad in a cate-
gorical form, it shows itself in vague but powerful
sympathies, is echoed in shrewd suspicions, welcomes
every kindred sentiment with brotherly ardour, says
yes to every charge, however false, which is levelled
against Christianity, but seems incapable of assuming
any position against which reason could direct an argu-
ment. Its stronghold is the heart; bulwarked with
préjudice, and moated in with fioods of poisoned pas-
sion, it thence défiés alike the calm and the boldest
assaults of truth.﻿OP BRITAIN.
83
In reference to this mass of unreasoning scepticism,
the great question is, How can it hâve been produced?
Probably no single cause will adequately account for it.
To some extent it may be ascribed to the natural
enmity of the depraved mind to the principles of a pure
religion, but this is felt to offer no explanation of the
spécifie character of the effect. The most casual observer
must feel convinced that a portion of it is due to cir-
cumstances altogether unconnected with religion. With-
out supposing any change to be made in the fondamental
principles of society, it is possible to conceive of social
circumstances in which, to say the least, the gospel
could be offered to the working man with a much
greater probability of his accepting it than it can now.
This may be conceded without the spécial impeachment
of any section of the community; but whatever the
conséquence might be, stern truth would require its
concession. That the condition of a large section of the
working classes of this country is not calculated to
inspire them with friendly feelings towards Christianity
we cannot but regard as an indubitable historié fact.
Every part of the world is stirring with the enterprises
of British capital, our merchants are literally princes,
they hold the empire of the east, their sceptre sways the
financial world. At home what a glittering and costly
fabric has been reared! What colossal affluence be-
strides the land ! luxury revels in a thousand halls, the
gilded forms of pomp and power are daily flitting before
the people’s eyes. Meanwhile what are the scenes
which might be contemplated in the cellars, the garrets,
the cottages of the poor? There life and death contend
in uncertain struggles. Obscurity covers there from﻿84
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
the world’s eye many a scene of misery which would
shame and sicken it. There the labourer, denied the
boon of toil, endeavours to cheer his pining family with
hopes which he does not feel. There the sempstress
plies her ill-paid work, snatching from life itself the
means of sustaining its existence ; happier even in her
poverty than those in whose bosoms ail hope has become
extinct, and who in that desperate crisis, when reason
almost fails, hâve deemed death less terrible than dis-
honour. Such are the extremes of British society ;
what must be the moral effect of their proximate co-
existence ? What can we suppose will be the theology
and the ethics of starvation? When the artisan has
tried his last resource, and retums without success to
the bosom of his anxious family, what will he be
tempted to think of the equity of that Providence which
has poured thousands upon thousands into the coffers
of his neighbour? It is our happiness to be acquainted
wTith some to whom the want of “the bread which
perisheth” has been made the means of communicating
the richest spiritual blessings, and who, when charity
unexpectedly opened the door of their dwelling, hâve
been found, surrounded with a weeping family, upon
their knees. But such cases are very rare, poverty
more frequently hardens than softens ; the man who is
extremely poor is exposed far more than they whose
circumstances are easy, to contractedness of feeling, to
that combination of envy, hatred, and suspicion which
are the chief éléments of religious scepticism. Talk to
him of the Divine goodness, he is slow to believe it.
He listens more readily to the counsel of Job’s wife.
His dark imagination sees no justice in the wTorld, and﻿OP BRITAIN.
85
therefore no moral govemment, if indeed a God. The
sentiments which sap his faith in the doctrines of
natural religion make still easier work with his Chris-
tianity. The greater goodness which the plan of
rédemption unfolds is still more répugnant to his belief.
The spiritual wants which it promises to supply take
no hold upon his deadened sympathies. The System
which offers him spiritual blessings seems deaf and
dumb in reference to his temporal necessities. Chris-
tianity, as he beholds it, is the guardian of property,
the companion of senators and pfinces, the nurseling of
wealth and fashion ; but for him she has shed no tear,
to him she has vouchsafed no smile, in the hour of his
need she extended to him no helping hand. Infidelity
whispers tbat her daims are unfounded, her piety an
imposture, her chief business to secure a lucrative
income to the “ priesthood,” and rivet more closely the
chains of political power. There is sweetness in the
lie—its very malignity soothes his cankered soûl. Ile
henceforth broods over it, as if in revenge for his
fancied wrongs; it imperceptibly becomes a part of
himself, till at length the gospel is instinctively hated
as the symbol, and its ministers as the agents of oppres-
sion. Cruel falsehood ! Cruel the circumstances which
hâve produced it !
Between a profession of religion on the one hand,
and open infidelity on the other, there stretches a wide
and anomalous région which we will now proceed to
examine. In doing so we will first notice its general
features, and then consider the several shades of feeling
and opinion which mark out its chief divisions. Reli-
i﻿85
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
gious ignorance is the most general characteristic of
that numerous section of the working classes who make
no direct profession. Whatever the attitude they stand
in towards Christianity, whether it be one of indifférence
or of morbid regard, they are utter Etrangers to its
meaning and purpose. This ignorance is not merely
moral; it is more than that want of experimental
knowledge which is common to ail unrenewed men;
they do not comprehend it intellectually. They hâve
no idea of the spécifie différence which distinguishes
Christianity from other religious Systems, nor even that
such Systems hâve, or ever had existence. They hâve
no intelligent view of the place it holds in the Divine
economy, of the purposes it is designed to attain, nor of
the moral instrumentality which has been set apart for
its promotion. Their conceptions of the preliminary
principles of the scheme of rédemption are very feeble
and indistinct. The fallen condition of man, the abso-
lute daims of Divine justice, the inévitable doom of the
transgressor, awaken a very languid récognition in their
hearts. They doubtless feel that sense of guilt which
is inséparable from the commission of sin, and are often
perplexed by those questions which guilt invariably
whispers to the soûl ; but they never understood that
Christianity aspired to solve those questions, it was
never beheld by them in the light of an answer dictated
by heaven to mans stricken conscience. Relatively to
them it occupies a much lower status,—an earthly
institution regarded with religious feelings; at best a
mere code of morality, or a set of sapless traditions.
The relation which the Redeemer sustains to us as our
Mediator with the Father, as the exclusive channel of﻿OF BRITAIN.
87
pardon, as producing in us, by the agency of the Holy
Spirit, a new nature, is utterly unknown. Their beliefs
hâve undergone hardly any change by being brought
into contact with the gospel. Their religion is in
reality the religion of nature, an imperfect Theism
under the guise of Christian names. Their hopes in
the prospect of futurity are purelv Pagan,—melan-
choly rays emitted from that twilight of despair
which Christianity was sent to enlighten. In the
presence of death, the absolute goodness of the Infinité
is their only stay, and as mere expérience leaves this
view of his character somewhat doubtful, their latter
end is agitated by the foresight of a thousand périls,
and is at best but a decorous closing with destiny. If
pushed to it, the confession, “ I am a sinner,” is readily
made, and perhaps a profession of hope in Christ may
be associated with it; little pénétration, however, is
required to discover that these are mere scraps of an
hereditary creed, with which their real sentiments hâve
no more vital connexion than the fruits of the tropics
with the Christmas holly which they are sometimes
made. to adorn.
Where there is no compréhension of these vital
questions, we hâve no right to expect intelligence in
matters of detail, and on these accordingly we find the
grossest ignorance prenait. But Christianity, as it is
embodied in the creeds and parties of the présent day,
is inexplicable without some refcrence to the past. To
an individual entirely unacquainted with the various
steps by which its présent position has been reached,
the numberless divisions which exist among its pro-
fessors, the opposite opinions which cluster alike beneath﻿88
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
its name, and the apparently hostile attitude of different
churches, ail of which are professedly embarked in the
same cause, présent to the spectator a scene of hopeless
confusion. This want of acquaintance with the pre-
vious history of Christianity is characteristic of a large
proportion of the working classes. The steps which
were taken by its first disciples to insure its propagation,
the peculiar influences to which it was exposed from
Judaism on the one side, and from paganism on the
other, its subséquent establishment as the religion of'
the Roman empire, and the détérioration which rapidly
developed itself in the morals and doctrines of its pro-
fessors ; the restless and reckless ambition wThich led to
the establishment of the papal power, the causes which,
the moment it reached its zénith, precipitated its décliné,
and the décisive blow wThich was dealt to it by the
hands of Luther ; the origin of the various sections of
British Protestantism, the circumstances which prolong
their séparation, and the principles which give them, in
the midst of apparent schism, an infrangible unity—on
these, and kindred topics, very often no information
whatever exists. Such ignorance issues in great evils,
vast masses of the people are liable, in conséquence of it,
to become the dupes of specious misrepresentation,—
they hâve no safeguard against the exaggerations of
party zeal. If Luther is reviled, they straightway en-
dorse the libel ; if told that the quarrel of Henry
viii. with the pope is the sum and substance of the
English Reformation, they hâve no refuge from the false-
hood in historié fact, and may be excused for thinking
that any act of a man who bears such a character as
tradition ascribes to that monarch, may with wisdom be﻿OF BRITAIN.
89
revoked. Instinct, it is true, generally ranges ignorance
on the side of received opinions, but its fidelity can
never be trusted ; it is a blinded Samson, one hour use-
fully employed, the next engaged in tearing society from
its basis. But the greatest evil which springs from
religious ignorance is the suspicion it is apt to en-
gender respecting the truths of Christianity. Many
imagine that “ to a subject so fruitful in particular
disputes, there must attach a general uncertainty ; ”
the opposite doctrines, which are broached with equal
confidence by its professors, seem to annihilate each
other, leaving nothing on which the mind can unhesi-
tatingly repose. The Bible, which ought to hâve served
as an infallible standard of appeal, is itself caught up
in the vortex of controversy. Happily, however, a
degree of popular deference is still paid to the sacred
volume wThich, if seasonably improved, may lead to the
happiest results ; but even this deference is often un-
sustained by knowledge ; it is a traditional belief, a
stranded remnant of a wreck, which may keep its place
in ordinary weather, but which the first storm that
rises may carry to the depths of the océan.
Beligious ignorance is the common basis of several
manifestations of the popular mind, which are alien
from true piety. Of these, indifférence and superstition
are the most striking. It is not a matter of chance
which of these two forms it shall in any instance
assume ; every set of circumstances in which an indi-
vidual can be placed, as well as every variety of mental
tempérament, has a determinate leaning to one rather
than the other. In some men independence of charae-
ter is a conspicuous trait, those qualities which belong
i 3﻿90
THE GLORY AND THE SHAHS
peculiarly to themselves are most strikingly developed,
their will is naturally firm and energetic in its résolves.
In like manner, of the numerous external influences to
winch the minds of men are exposed, some hâve, a ten-
dency to bring out and strengthen this individuality of
character, while others hâve a tendency to depress it.
According as religious ignorance is found in union with
the former of these mental tempéraments and social in-
fluences, or with the latter, it terminâtes in indifférence
or in superstition.
Indifférence is the ordinary town dress of impiety.
It is that aspect of it with which we are most familiar
in the language and demeanour of the operative
population. It is this which speaks its meaning in the
face of the working man when he is casually reminded
of religion. His countenance, if rendered vocal, would
say, “ I see nothing in it.” Such is the language of
indifférence ; it is irréfragable because it is absurd. It
is less vulnérable than scepticism. The latter, con-
fessing Christianity, if true, to be of infinité moment,
confines itself to the canvassing of its daims ; the
former, admitting that it is ail which it professes to be,
sets it down as worthless. Argument can be confuted,
the champion of error can be set right, but this blind
indifférence is invincible. If Christianity were seen in
its true import ; if the sum of its déclarations respect-
ing the moral condition of man and the intentions
of God towards him were fully understood; if, in
a word, Christianity were known, the absurdity of treat-
ing it with indifférence would be laid bare. Men
would tben perceive that it has to do with them as
individuals, that it professes to bestow upon them bless-﻿OP BRITAIN.
91
ings of inconceivable worth, and that it must either be
rejected as absolutely nnworthy of trust, or be thank-
fully accepted as the only way of escape from “the
wrath to corne.” The intellectual grasping of its
doctrines might prove the means, in the hands of
the Divine Spirit, of subduing the heart, and at least
something would be gained in forcing impiety to
assume an attitude which would make it more easily
assailable by the arms of truth.
Superstition is the impiety of a weak and obsequious
mind. It is usually found associated with a morbid
moral sensitiveness, an imagination disproportionately
active, and with an enfeebled state of the practical
powers. It is the rural garb of irréligion. In the
wear and tear of city life, and the perpétuai thronging
and collision of men, it is apt to be destroyed ; but in
rural solitude, aided by the greater degree of ignorance,
and the more vivid sense of dependence which there
exist, it sends its fibres deep into the soûl, and spreads
over it a continuaily widening and deepening gloom.
Superstition, as a spiritual disease, consists in the
application of inadéquate remedies to the felt wants of
our moral nature. It has a true and false element in
its composition—it recognises our fallen state ; so far it
is true : it trusts in a fanciful method of recovery—so far
it is false. A consciousness of guilt lies at its founda-
tion, and imaginary methods of deliverance form its
superstructure. A belief in ritual efficacy is the phase
it often assumes ; it places reliance in certain prescribed
forms, in the due répétition of certain prayers, or in
the réception of the Christian ordinances at the hand
of an accredited minister. To this is sometimes added﻿92
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
a confidence in the spécial agency of invisible beings, or
the personal possession of supernatural powers. In
every case, however, the end Controls the means. The
sonl aims at possessing a persuasion of its spiritual
safety, and whatever instrumentality, whether of a
physical or moral kind, is requisite for securing that
object, is heartily believed in. Superstition is the
soul’s attempt to remedy its disorders by its own
inventions ; hence ignorance of the gospel is the neces-
sary condition of its existence, and acquaintance with
the gospel its infallible antidote. Once let the doctrines
of Christianity be apprehended, once let the bene-
volence of the Divine intentions, and the nature of the
Saviour s mediatorial work be clearly seen, and there
will be no room left for superstition. The wounded
conscience will perceive in “ Christ crucified ” an all-
sufficient sacrifice for sin, and will scatter to the winds
its tissue of subjective follies.
We hâve thus taken a rapid survey of the religious
condition of the working classes ; we hâve marked the
chief forms in which the principle of impiety exists
among them, whether it be a weak and unintelligent
profession, avowed infidelity, or that ignorance of
religious truth which shows itself in indifférence and
superstition. Those evils are not inactive, they ger-
minate and bring forth fruit. We behold their baneful
conséquences in every department of social life. Our
sanctuaries are often deserted : beautiful and com-
modious structures occupy the most conspicuous sites
throughout the land, the sabbath-bell proclaims the
hour of prayer, human art unités with the sanctions of
religion to invite the footsteps of the worshipper ; pions,﻿OF BRITAIN.
93
talented, and devoted men are ready to preach the word
of life to assembled thousands; but ail in vain* A
respectable, and in some instances, a numerous auditory
may be présent, but they do not fairly represent the
community, they présent no sample of the current
thoughts and habits of the people. In many assem-
blies it would occasion surprise for a working man, not
connected with them by profession or family ties, to
make his appearance. The multitude flows in another
direction, where nothing reminds them of the Divine
presence, and where the voice of the preacher is never
heard.
Not only are our sanctuaries deserted, but the sab-
bath itself is frequently given up to desecration. That
sacred day which God has set apart for himself, which
is sanctified by the sublimest and most cbeering asso-
ciations, and which has continued through so many
âges the type and harbinger of etemal rest; this
institution, whose maintenance is enforced by the
weightiest obligations, and is commended to us as a
signal proof of the Divine beneficence to man, is per-
verted from its holy ends, robbed of its distinctive
sanctity, and virtually incorporated with the hours of
toil. With great numbers it is a day of pleasure, a day
for visiting, feasting, or rambling. On the sabbath
they display unwonted activity, a set of sensibilities,
hitherto dormant, seem then to be called into action;
the thirst for sensual gratifications, rendered ungovem-
able by six days’ restraint, is now clamorous for enjoy-
ment. Social agencies favour its indulgence, railway
companies lower their fares, contrive trips of fifty
or sixty miles, and to avert the possible charge of﻿94
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
impiety, engage that pleasure seekers shall be enabled
to attend public worship,<xs well as bathe and amuse
themselves, before they retum at night ! Innumerable
other facilities are offered for furthering the business of
desecration, every species of vehicle is in motion, every
thoroughfare is crowded, every village within a moderate
distance of town, is filled to overflowing. Parks,
gardens, saloons, and beer-shops are ail alive with
merriment. Religion seems to hâve bidden farewell to
society, and for one day in seven to hâve confined her-
self exclusively to the house of prayer, leaving the
multitude outside to pursue, without interruption, their
conspiracy against the rights of God.
The same hostility to religion which is seen in sabbath
profanation is also displayed in the disposition which is
everywhere evinced to crydown ail specially religions aims
and motives. Benevolent objects must be now prose-
cuted on other grounds, they must be made as earthly
as possible before they will excite a general sympathy
in their favour. Economie considérations, philan-
thropy, politics, ail these obtain a much higher meed
of public approbation as principles of public conduct
than religion. The open profession of religious motives
always abates something of the vociferous applause
which greets a leader of the people ; it awakes suspicion,
gives a cast of weakness to his character, and is
regarded as a foible to be borne with on account
of other excellences, rather than as an additional title to
their confidence. Religion is becoming more and more
widely dissevered from the various forms of social good ;
society, at every fresh advance, seems to proclaim it
useless. Religious principles hâve no visible connexion﻿OF BRITAIN.
95
with popular objects; every temporal want may be
satisfied without their aid, they are therefore voted
impertinent, very well for “ good people,” but useless
for the world. A modification of these feelings is the
medium through which professing Christians of ail
parties are viewed by the working classes. The church
of Christ is regarded by the people without confidence
and without respect. À wide alienation of feeling exists
between them which often reaches the pitch of ran-
corous malignity. The ministers of religion, as a class,
stand at the lowest point of popularity, their vocation
is regarded as useless, their motives are set down as
vénal, every action which emanates from them is ex-
posed to systematic misrepresentation. If they con-
fine their labours within the circle marked out by a
very narrow interprétation of pastoral duty, they are
reviled as indolent ; if they extend their labours
beyond, they are stigmatized as anxious to make prosé-
lytes. Without much distinction as to the doctrines
they preach, or the source whence they dérivé their
incomes, their occupations are denounced as unpropi-
tious to freedom, and an encumbrance to the State.
It is only natural to expect, in connexion with
the general antipathy which is thus manifested towards
religion, increasing demoralization of social manners.
When the Divine law is constantly slighted in any of
its commands, disobedience to the rest is rendered
a mere matter of prudence ; they may or may not
be broken, but at least obedience is not induced by
a sense of duty. When God is practically denied, the
depravity of the heart is left to grow unchecked, and
will not fail to develop and mature itself in every﻿96
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
species of baneful passion. These remarks are a mere
comment on the morals of the âge ; we see a feeble
récognition of the Deity in every walk of life ; no such
thoughts of him are abroad as can administer an
effectuai check to impiety, or work out the régénéra-
tion of social life. Drunkenness abounds, unchastity is
regarded as a venial sin, frightful crimes are of common
occurrence, and the flood of pollution sweeps along with
ever increasing volume and velocity.
It is unnecessary to dwell upon these manifestations
of popular irréligion; they are too notorious to be
questioned. The real evil with which we hâve to deal
lies not in them, but in the principles from which they
emanate,—in impiety, not as it is evinced in the con-
duct, but as it is throned upon the heart. An external
reformation would be a poor achievement if it did not
spring from purified sources of action : it would be
useless, were it possible, to exact a larger measure of
outward respect for Christianity or any of its institu-
tions, while the same sentiments of bitter enmity
continued to be cherished within. In morals as well
as in physics it is a merciful arrangement that morbid
symptoms usually indicate the presence of disease. In
both cases it is infinitely better that the countenance
should be disfigured, or that some limb should be
deprived awhile of its healthy action, than that a fatal
disorder should secretly prey upon the vitals, and give
no signal that it had commenced its ravages but the
death of the victim. What our working classes are,
that may they appear to be : whatever evil exists among
them, may that evil be presented to the public eye with
a vividness of coîouring fully equal to its intrinsic﻿OF BRITAIN.
97
heinousness ! Extemal symptoms are harmless in them-
selves, while they act as a useful guide in applying the
remedy. The great question which lies for solution
before the church of Christ, and which presses for
solution with increasing urgency, is, not how this or
that instance of impiety may be corrected, but how
impiety itself may be extinguished ; not how a more
strict observance may be secured to any of the institu-
tions of Christianity, but how Christianity itself, in its
life-giving power, as the sovereign channel of pardon,
purity, and happiness, may be made the welcomed
inmate of every cottage in the land. How is this
to be done ? How is religion to be made absolutely
suprême in the hearts of its professors ? How are the
cavils of infidelity to be silenced, and those mists of
sceptical préjudice, which darken and benumb society,
to be dispersed ? How shall the ignorant and the
depraved be brought to confess the grandeur of the
spiritual economy under which they live, and render
willing obedience to the Prince of peace ? Is this
a consummation too blissful to be realized ? Is it
too large a blessing for faith to supplicate at the hand
of God ? Does it transcend the measure of his good-
ness, the grandeur of his designs, or the capability of
his appointed means? Does the prospect of its ré-
ception portray a single scene which has not already
been depicted by the prophétie pen, or involve a single
element of success which the Divine promises are not
pledged to bestow ? Ho ! the impiety which moves
around us is formidable to ourselves alone. The arm
of God is still omnipotent, his word is not bound, his
Spirit is still unlimited in its ability to quicken and﻿98
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
sanctify the soûls of men ; those purposes of mercy,
which are large enough to embrace the salvation of the
world, assuredly include within them the spiritual
recovery of our native isle. What, though religion
be scoffed at, and the feeble ties which hâve hitherto
secured to her a meed of popular allegiance seem well-
nigh snapped asunder, the greatness of the emergency
is fully equalled by the appliances with which it can be
met. With the Bible in their hands, and the love of
God within their hearts, her champions may court the
eonflict. Let but Divine truth be faithfully diffused
and fearlessly applied, and not a single British home
shall long remain unvisited by the glorious gospel.﻿OF BRITAIN.
99
CHAPTER IL
THE PRINCIPLES AND MEANS WHICH ARE NECESSARY TO
SECURE THE ELEVATION OF THE WORKING CLASSES.
In the preceding chapter we endeavoured to take a
comprehensive view of the condition of the working
classes. In the prosecution of that design we became
acquainted with the existence of many evils which call
loudly for removal, and which cannot be sufîered to con-
tinue much longer without seriously impeaching the
philanthropy of the âge. In glancing at their personal
and domestic condition we noticed a deficiency in point
of general comfort, such as must militate very power-
fully against the enjoyments, the uses, and the duration
of life ; such a laxity in the family relations as must
greatly tend to defeat the beneficent purposes contem-
plated in their institution ; and such an absence of in-
telligent views and refined habits, as must prove for-
midably detrimental to the interests of morality and
religion. In surveying the attitude they maintain in
reference to existing society, we detected in it a perma-
nent expression of discontent ; softened, it is true, by
the influence of prosperous times, but rendered deeper
by the pressure of distress, and continually seeking to
manifest and defend itself through the medium of
spéculative doctrines : while on the subject of religion,
we found ail things bespread with the same pallid hue,﻿100
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
ail veiled with the same mournful shades of ignorance,
formalism, or infidelity.
The first question suggested by the contemplation of
these evils, is the momentous one, Can they be removed ?
To this, our faith in God, in truth, and in humanity un-
hesitatingly replies, They can ! The inalienability of
this inheritanGe of wretchedness and sin is inconsistent
with what we know of God’s goodness, and at vari-
ance with that method of recovery which, through his
Son, he has communicated to the world. The causes
of human misery lie not in the physical création;
nature herself is beneficent and lovely, and offers no ob-
struction to the élévation of man ; the earth is stored
with riches, a thousand appliances sleep within its
bosom for promoting the happiness of its possessor;
truth is radiant still,—still the Infinité Mind looks out
upon us in the grandeur and beauty of his works, and
speaks to us in accents of mercy through the Bible and
the cross. Ail things look propitiously on human pro-
gress, man alone opposes it ; but man, even in sinfulness,
is not omnipotent, his selfishness has been grappled
with by Almighty love, and must surrender. The
causes of human misery are found exclusively in the
human heart, and precisely on this account may we
calculate, by Divine help, on their removal.
If these evils are removable, it is important to ask, By
whom shall they be removed? To what classes of
society are we entitled to look for aid ? The answer in
this case is no more doubtful than in the former—the
task of elevating the working man will require the
hearty coopération of ail classes. Intelligence and
wealth must furnish the means of improvement, piety﻿OP BRITAIN.
101
must ply him with precept and example, his circum-
stances mnst be so far changed that no external obstacles
shall oppose his reformation ; but the work, to be com-
pletely successful, must be made his own. He is not
made of passive materials which can be polished and
decorated by foreign skill, but a créature who is endowed
with reason and volition, who daims the right of being a
law to himself, and whose character and circumstances
must always be an exact reflection of what he is within.
The concentration upon him of every propitious influ-
ence would be of little use if it did not succeed in
waking his own energies to life, and warming his own
soûl with the breath of freedom. Pitying angels might
descend to break his fetters, and open the doors of his
prison, but their pity would be bootless if it did not
prevail upon him to use his limbs, and go forth from
the house of bondage.
First, then, among the means which are requisite for
elevating the condition of the working man, we place a
récognition on the part of society at large of its own
obligation to help him; an obligation springing from
those. principles of justice and benevolence which are
inseparably connected with its existence and well-being.
But this by itself would accomplish very little; the
sincerest and best directed efforts on the part of others
can prove useful only by stimulating his own energies ;
he cannot be raised, his élévation must be the work of
his own will : hence it is necessary, not only that others
help him, but that, in concert with them, he vigorously
résolve to help himself. But this self-effort implies the
possession of stronger motives and the exercise of larger
capabilities than the working man at présent possesses :
k 3﻿102
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
it is a melancholy fact, that in the great majority of in-
stances he lias neither the desire nor the ability to help
himself. An individual must be dissatisfied with his
condition before he will seriously think of improving it,
and his attempts at self-improvement will be successful
only in proportion as they are appropriate and well-sus-
tained. Hence knowledge is required for the working
man, in order that he may become the subject of more
refined tastes, and may be fitted intellectually for work-
ing out his own rescue. But secular knowledge is not
all-sufficient, even within its own province, while it can
do little towards conferring upon the soûl the highest
blessings. Its natural tendency is bénéficiai, but it
sometimes finds companionship in vice, and has been
found too often in the spendthrift, the drunkard, and
the thief. Religion alone can make other means suc-
cessful in promoting the physical and moral élévation of
the working classes, while its own unaided force can do
more for the attainment of that object than ail other
means united. In the change which it accomplishes
within the heart, and the élévation of feeling which it
awakens by connecting the soûl with heaven, we find
the surest pledge of improvement in their entire
condition.
I. The first step to be taken in order to elevate the
condition of the working man is a generous détermina-
tion ON THE PART OF SOCIETY AT LARGE TO HELP HIM ;
and we wish in the first place to show that this détermi-
nation is imperatively a social duty. The obligations
which spring from our social relations are yet but very
imperfectly understood; current views respecting them,﻿OF BRITAIN.
103
if not erroneous, are incomplète. They are founded solely
on one aspect of the question, they assume the absolute
correctness of a principle which is fit for being acted
upon only when duly limited by others. If we examine
the mischievous effects of opinion upon the interests of
mankind, it will be found that they spring less from
error than from the exaggerations and misapplications
of truth. The majority of men are incapable of per-
ceiving those délicate lines which limit the application
of a principle, and, accordingly, nothing is more
common than the aggrandizement of a favourite
opinion at the expense of another which has an equal
right to exclusive sovereignty. It might be justly
affirmed, that the various metaphysical Systems which
hâve successively held the empire of human thougnt
were ail true and ail false. For the most part their
constituent doctrines were true, but they were mixed
in wrong proportions, so that each System difiered from
the rest chiefly in the prépondérance of some element
which was common to them ail. If the passions could
hâve taken so deep an interest in metaphysics as
uniformly to hâve cherished a preference for the same
doctrine, ail spéculation would hâve been vitiated by
one common error, which it would hâve required the
utmost energies of truth to correct. What was im-
possible in spéculation has been realized in practice;
here the passions hâve uniformly been partial to the
same principle, the extent of whose application they
hâve enlarged beyond its proper bounds. In the
world, self-interest is regarded as the exclusive social
law. Other principles are formally recognised, but
their jurisdiction is vague and shadowy, they embody﻿104
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
no absolute obligation, they never speak in the im-
pérative mood ; whatever heed may be taken of them is
looked upon as a work of supererogation ; should they
ever steal into the haunts of business they are regarded
as fair intruders, admitted there on a principle of moral
gallantry, rather than their own sovereign right. With
scarcely a single dissentient voice self-interest is vested
with absolute control in ail secular matters, and nobler
principles are kept, as if for state occasions, when the
mind is graciously disposed to acts of unusual goodness.
Self-interest, confined within proper limits, is a just
and beneficent principle. It has been ordained by the
Creator one of the chief means of promoting individual
happiness, and thus of advancing the general welfare of
the species. In this arrangement we see that character-
istic of the doings of an Infinité Mind, whereby the
fruition and happiness of every portion of his works
are consistent with the fruition and happiness of the
whole. In order to promote the happiness of mankind
God bade every man consult his own, having so ordered
the issues of events that obedience to this law would
further the welfare of ail. A regard to self-interest is
only the outward manifestation of self-love, a principle
which holds a place among the simplest éléments of
our moral nature, the influence of which has been dis-
played in the lives of the holiest men, and without
which it is difficult to conceive how the human race
could possibly hâve continued to exist. Self-interest
as a social law is divinely constituted, but it is not
vested with absolute control—it enjoys only a co-
ordinate jurisdiction, its sphere of operation is bounded
by other principles, it has no right to the monopoly it﻿OF BRITAIN.
105
has usurped over the opinions and conduct of mankind.
Benevolence is equally impérative. The same careful and
systematic regard which we pay to onr own welfare, we
are bound to pay to the welfare of others. It is lawful
to act according to the dictâtes of self-interest, but the
same legislative authority which made it so has also de-
creed, that the measure of love which we cherish towards
ourselves shall be the measure of what we ought to
cherish towards our neighbour. We hâve remembered
only half the precept, while the whole retains its force.
We hâve emblazoned in golden letters to the mind’s
eye that part which relates to ourselves, while the rest
we hâve kept in private, as a mémorandum for occa-
sional perusal, or else consigned to entire oblivion.
“ Àll things whatsoever ye would that men should do
to y ou, do ye even so to them.” This is the rule which
mankind received from the lips of the Great Teacher,
and it is confirmed and enforced by the general ten-
dencies of society. Self-interest, as a law of life,
receives a sanction from expérience, but so also does
an enlightened and constant regard to the welfare
of others. As principles of social action, both are
equally important and equally binding. Discard the
former, and society stands still; discard the latter,
and it rushes to ruin. Without the récognition of the
011e, society could not exist ; without the récognition of
the other, its existence must be a sériés of révolutions.
Self-interest acted on as an absolute and exclusive
principle is self-destructive, it tends to a complété dis-
ruption of the social ties, to complété disorganization
and decay. The welfare of society is intimately con-
nected with the mutual sentiments with which its﻿106
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
members regard each other. In order to promote it
they should be bound together by ties of délicate
and manly sympatby ; they should hâve one puise, one
purpose, one soûl. The bosom of every man should
open an avenue through which compassion might freely
pass, to touch those common chords which diffuse
through ail vibrations of kindred pity. In such a state
of the social body physical wretchedness would be un-
known; the knowledge of its existence would be suf-
ficient to array the resources of society in a crusade
against it. Men would feel that the highest ends for
which wealth and influence are lent by Heaven remain
unanswered while their fellow-man is the victim of
evils from which they could effect his rescue. But
selfishness is a deadly foe to these generous social
virtues ; self-interest, constituted the highest law, créâtes
an intense individuality of feeling, shuts the eye to scenes
of sufîering, renders the bosom inaccessible to the daims
of pity, isolâtes man from man, and makes society a
fortuitous assemblage of atoms, rather than a living
whole. Composed of such heterogeneous materials,
with so little cernent in its constitution, society is ill
fitted to battle with the waves of popular tumult, and
will be in danger on the first collision of breaking into
a thousand pièces. While such an exclusive regard to
the dictâtes of self-interest unfits society for resisting
successfully the effects of sudden change, it has by
virtue of its influence on social progress an inévitable
tendency to produce them. It invariably tends to the
accumulation of wealth in a few hands ; in concert with
the power of capital it draws, at every step, the aggre-
gate riches of the community within a narrower circle,﻿OP BRITAIN.
107
and renders broader and deeper the chasm which sépa-
râtes the rich from the poor. But wealth and poverty
hâve their peculiar vices, and except when reconciled
through the medium of philanthropy, they hâve little
in common but suspicion and frowns. Wealth is apt to
indulge in pride and oppression, and poverty in récrimina-
tion and despair. Such éléments cannot slumber peace-
fully in the sky, sooner or later they must meet, and vent
themselves in storms and thunder. This catastrophe
is often delayed by the conservative forces of society, but
only to happen at length with more destructive violence,
rending asunder the social fabric, and filling the earth
with terror, with wailings, and with blood.
On every ground, both human and divine, bene-
volence is entitled to the rank of a social law. It has
no exceptional or occasional jurisdiction, but is entitled
to a joint authority with self-interest in ail the actions
and schemes of life. Its exercise is not a piece of
supererogation, but an act of positive duty, inculcated
by religion, and enforced by a regard to the general
interests of mankind. It exerts a softening influence
upon the heart, brings into play its noblest sympa-
thies, promotes a fusion of soûl with soûl, rescues life
from the charge of being a gladiatorial struggle for
gold, and converts it into a sphere of holy discipline,
where love, yet fragile, by daily exercise may grow
athletic, latent sensibilities may be evoked and trained,
and the intercourse of man with man may be gradually
changed into a reciprocation of guileless courtesies and
honest friendship. Thus, benevolence holds society
together, unités its constituent atoms in the embrace of
an all-pervading principle, enabling it to resist alike the﻿108
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME.
storms of anarchy, and the crumbling touch of time.
Its influence on the social relations is equally propi-
tious ; it giyes to the révolutions of wealth a centrifugal
force, which keeps them sufîiciently large to encircle
the entire community ; it tends to create such a distri-
bution of temporal blessings as would place every man
in circumstances of comfort, and diffuse the life-blood
of contentment throughout the social System. In this
light, benevolence takes its place among those conserv-
ative principles which alone can insure to the interests
of mankind a safe and permanent progress ; Providence
has given us, in its supremacy, a safeguard against
those evils on which commonwealths make shipwreck.
No political révolutions, no outlandish laws, no socialist
théories are necessary to secure the prosperity and per-
manence of social interests ; let men delight in doing
good to each other,—this is the sovereign spécifie. God
has given us a law for making the world happy, its
sanctions are felt in every bosom, and the means of
carrying out its provisions are accessible on every hand.
But benevolence is identical with justice ; it com-
prises no more than man owes to man. Obligation
does not arise exclusively from utilitarian considéra-
tions ; these indicate its existence, but furnish us with
no account of its birth. For the origin of our social
duties we must look, not to the future, but to the past ;
not to indefinite and uncertain tendencies, but to the
will of God, as written on the book of nature, unfolded
more clearly in the pages of inspiration, and echoed in
the heart. Traced to their primitive spring, the sister
streams of benevolence and justice meet : on issuing
from Paradise they are one, only in the dark and﻿OF BRITAIN.
109
tortuous ways of life hâve they been divided. Man
owes to every human being the affection of a brother.
He was not created a savage ; the theory which says
so is profane : he was not originally inspired with
sentiments of inveterate malignity towards his species ;
the libel which affirms it is worthily associated with
despotism in politics, profligacy in morals, and infidelity
in religion. No ! fraternity was the condition of his
création ; social sentiments and affections were implanted
in his bosom, for the exercise of which a génial sphere
was opened by the hand of God. Issning from the
same pair, mankind were continually reminded, by
a visible relationship, of the feelings with which they
ought to regard each other. Had they been created
individually, by a direct exercise of Divine power,
their common origin, derived from an invisible cause,
would hâve been less évident, and would hâve fumished
fewer incitements to social feeling. Finding themselves
placed in a similar physica! condition, and endowed
with susceptibilities of friendship, fraternal sentiments
might at length hâve been developed, but, isolated from
ail others in their birth, without any past, or any col-
lateral ties, it is more likely that those susceptibilities
would hâve died for want of exercise, and that the soûl
would hâve been given up to all-engrossing selfishness.
But God has arranged otherwise. He has written his
will, not only in the heart, but in the inévitable condi-
tions of our existence ; by the institution of marriage
he has opened the channels of a common fatherhood,
and a common fraternity, through which the streams
of love may flow to the utmost limits of mankind.
By this arrangement, relationships which appeal to sense,
L﻿110
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
aid in enkindling sympathies which move the soûl.
The inward and the outward of human life are bound
by a sacred league to help each other. Selfishness is
kept in check by the réminiscences of childhood, by
the presence of a common parent, and the claims of
common blood. The warmth engendered in the soûl
by the parental hearth becomes a focus of heat, whose
génial rays may be conducted through the world.
Under the guidance of inspiration and science, philan-
thropy may ascend through the gloom of sixty centu-
ries, and proclaim from the verdant slopes of Eden—
“ God hath made of one blood ail nations of men for to
dwell on ail the face of the earth.”
The récognition of benevolence as a social law is one
of the chief wants of British society. We hâve arrived
at precisely that stage in our national career when such
a récognition is imperatively needed to rescue us from
imminent evils. During the last century, society amongst
us has undergone a radical change ; we hâve advanced
with unprecedented rapidity to the height of commer-
cial greatness ; the skill and enterprise of individuals,
combined with the application of steam to manufactures
and navigation, and the extension of our maritime
power, hâve resulted in a prodigious increase of trade,
and entirely changed the character and prospects of the
nation. This change has naturally been accompanied by
one of corresponding magnitude in its internai condition.
We hâve experienced, in the rapidity of progress, the
breaking up of ancient interests, and the disruption of
ancient ties. The population has been grouped afresh,
in accordance with new laws ; trade with its magie wand
has transferred it from the country to the town; thou-﻿OF BRITAIN.
111
sands who would otherwise hâve gained a livelihood by
agriculture, or the sober transactions of domestic com-
merce, dépend for their subsistence on the fitful de-
mands of foreign markets. If the people hâve not
become absolutely poorer, their poverty has been
brought into more startling contrast with wealth, and
has thus been rendered more impressive. Manufactures
hâve developed more strikingly than could hâve been
done by agriculture, the chief doctrine of political
economy, that labour is the source of wealth, and has
thus started in many a mind new trains of invidious ré-
faction. Important changes hâve at the same time taken
place in popular sentiment : our ancient nationality
of feeling has almost vanished; feudal influences hâve
been swept away ; that chiyalrous vénération which the
masses once felt for ancestral splendour and hereditary
rule has been considerably diminished. Principles which,
whether good orevil in themselves, had at least the
merit of binding the different classes of society together,
hâve been displaced, and none hâve been adopted in their
stead. As a people we are disunited ; we are broken into
factions, sects, and classes ; discontent is fiercely brooding
in our bosom, hopeless penury finds relief in nursing
envenomed thoughts. We want such a manifestation of
love as would smile them into kindness, the prevalence
of a universal sentiment of brotherhood in which ail
could find unity and repose. Instead of that restless
craving after wealth which reads so keen a satire on the
âge, we want a more distinct perception of those vir-
tuous uses which alone can adom it with a stainless
lustre : instead of that unmingled satisfaction with
which, as the year closes, we look at the sum-total of﻿112
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
our national profits, we want a more anxions desire to
ascertain how far they hâve been shared by the indus-
trial millions : instead of that disposition to regard the
labourer merely in the light of a human machine, into
which the maxims of political economy are so apt to
betray us, we want a practical récognition of his higher
nature, of his essential equality with ourselves, of his
daims upon our pity, our gratitude, and our esteem ; we
want sucli a warm and unquestioning philanthropy as
shall batter down our frigid conventional sympathies,
rnake the master the friend and counsellor of the. man,
reach the friendless and outcast in their dreary dwell-
ings, and lay, by the potent spell of love, the frenzied
démon which rules within their hearts. The exhibition
of such a spirit, not only on the part of those who are
conspicuous for wealth, but on the part of ail who
possess influence over the temporal condition of others,
would heal many of the evils which oppress society,
quickly impart strength and elasticity to its languid
frame, light up its downcast countenance with sunny
gleams, and gild its path with the anticipated -visions of
a brighter day..
Regarding a generous détermination to help the
working classes as an impérative social duty, we proceed
to ask, What are the principles which should control
its exercise, and what are the practical forms which it
may most appropriatély assume? In reply to the
former of these questions we remark—First, that the
object aimed at should be prévention rather than cure.
In this respect a great defect is chargeable on our bene-
volent efforts. We provide for the destitute, the sick,
the helpless, the guilty; we hâve our dispensaries, our﻿OF BRITAIN.
113
hospitals, our workhouses, our asylums, and onr gaols;
we stand, as it were, on the brink of the moral cata-
ract, whence wretchedness of every sort précipitâtes
itself upon society, and endeavour, but without success,
to turn it aside into the petty channels which we hâve
prepared for it. Instead of thus vainly struggling with
overwhelming evils, how mu ch better would it be to
explore those dreary régions where they take their rise,
and destroy them at their source ; instead of providing
exclusively for sickness, how much better to fumish the
people with the conditions of health; instead of re-
maining satisfied with maintaining asylums for the
improvident, and penal settlements for the guilty, how
much better would it be to spread among the people
those intellectual and moral influences which, with the
Divine blessing, would make them thrifty and pro-
vident, virtuous and happy !
Secondly,—Whenever practicable, indimdual should
be preferred to aggregate agency. Organizations hâve, to
a great extent, usurped the place of personal effort. For
the attainment of some objects they are very necessary,
but it is to be feared that they too offcen stand as a merely
theoretical acknowledgment of duty,—a public servant,
kept to perform badly what each individual would do
best himself. In how many cases, for example, does the
subscription of a guinea to a charitable institution fumish
conscience with a dispensation from the necessity of being
liberal for a whole year ! Every new claim which may be
presented is tacitly referred to this standing act of bene-
volence, and instantly silenced. Like ordinary business
transactions, charity is thus done by Wholesale, with a
similar resuit in point of cheapness. How many
l 3﻿114
THE GLOBY AND THE SHAME.
adyantages would be gained if private benevolence were
to become its own almoner ! Not to speak of the pecu-
niary saving which would resuit from having a less
amount of charitable machinery to keep in operation,
what costly blessings would be conferred both on the
récipient and the giver 1 It is one thing to be relieved
by the officer of a public institution, who is paid for
doing it, and another to receive help direct from the
hand of a disinterested friend. In the former case an
émotion of joy is experienced, but no sense of personal
obligation enters into it, and for moral purposes it is
useless; while in the latter the feeling awakened is
strong and defini te—the expression of, personal sym-
pathy has caused the tenderest chords within the soûl
to vibrate, and fixed itself in pleasurable réminiscences
and grateful résolves.	N or would a less advantage
accrue to the giver: aBlessed is the man that con-
sidereth the poor.” Converse with the destitute is
healthful; it brings into action a class of sensibilities
whose influence is highly necessary for the purpose of
discipline, fumishes a salutary check to the growth of
indifférence and pride, and opens to us a source of the
purest pleasure. To be charitable by proxy is to make
ourselves Etrangers to half u the luxury of doing good.”
Thirdly,—Benevolence should adopt those modes of
administering help which are most likely to stimulate
the individuals relieved to self-exertion. Except in
extreme cases, many evils spring from eleemosynary
aid. It offers a premium to indolence, takes away the
chief stimulus to exertion, and aliénâtes the coarser
motives of self-interest from the side of labour. When
given frequently, it does positive injury to the récipient.﻿OP BRITAIN.
115
God has arranged that the bodily and mental faculties
shall be developed by labour. A man is a stranger to
himself till he gains the acquaintance in the crush of
actual life. Perpetuate the treatment of infancy, and
man would remain a babe ; one half his soûl would lie
asleep, to be roused perhaps to a sense of its intellectual
pupilage only by the stroke of death. It is quite
possible to be too paternal in the treatment of man-
kind. Let them stand alone ; help them only when they
fall, and then only till they hâve risen again ; any
forther help is impertinent, it is unkind. By altemate
success and failure let them prove themselves, and be
disciplined for immortality.
These evils affect the individual, but there are others
springing from the same source which affect society. As
heat is propagated through liquid bodies by a free circu-
lation of particles, so are true principles diffiised through
the world by the free action and reaction of one mind
upon another. Render ail human minds but one dé-
pendent upon that one, and progress would be impos-
sible ; one opinion, one tendency, whether good or bad,
would be common to them ail. Precisely as the principle
of dependence is developed in society, is the mobility of
the mass diminished, and social progress impeded. Be-
sides, in proportion as the individual deteriorates, the
social energies of mankind are weakened. A community
is industrious, provident, and enterprising in exactly the
same ratio as corresponding qualities exist among its
members. Society is dépendent upon no human power
besides itself, since it represents the aggregate of man-
kind. It can accomplish ail that is possible to man,
but this must be accomplished by its own energies or﻿116
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
not at ail. No miracle guards it from extinction ; if it
choose to do nothing, and dare nothing, as a matter of
course it will die. But the détermination and self-’
reliance which are thus necessary to the very existence
of society can only spring from the détermination and
self-reliance of those who compose it. Thus every
indolent, irresolute, and improvident man is an element
of social decay and dissolution.
With- these principles in view, benevolence may be
left to choose its own manifestations, assured that it can
only choose such as are bénéficiai to society ; there are,
however, several spécifie forms in which its action is emi-
nently required, to which we will briefly direct attention.
It is required in order to establish the habit of
friendly intercourse between the employer and the
employed. They are at présent separated too much
for the interests of society and themselves. Yery often
the employer is known only as the owner of capital ; the
only aspect under which he is presented to his work-
people is a mercenary one. He seldom speaks to them;
they cannot approach him confident of obtaining at
least a patient and respectful hearing; the entire
management of their mutual relations is consigned to
foremen and overlookers, who act as they please without
any danger of appeal to higher powers. Should such
an appeal be made, the reply in too many cases would
be, “ I leave ail matters of that sort to my manager,—
I cannot interfère with his arrangements.” Such dele-
gated authority is at least liable to abuse, and since it
is exercised in the name and in the behalf of the
master, it is his interest to see that it is fairly exercised.
Still more usual is it for employers to give themselves﻿OF BRITAIN.
117
no concem about the domestic condition, or the cha-
racter, whether moral or religious, of their work-people.
Arbitrary or bigoted interférence with such matters
cannot be too strongly deprecated, but absolute apathy is
equally criminal. The individual who has a thousand
persons in his employ, holds an enviable and responsible
position. What a noble sphere of usefulness ! Talk of
churches, municipal corporations, kingdoms,—the heads
of these organizations hâve less real power than he. To
raise the temporal and spiritual condition of a thousand
persons is an object worth living for, and should far
transcend, in a Christian’s estimation, the amplest for-
tune which their toil might raise. Why has Providence
permitted so many to be brought under the influence
of one man % That they may make him richer %—No;
chiefly that he may possess the means of guiding,
educating, and raising them—that the weak may hâve
a champion in the strong—that the intelligence and
refinement of the wealthier classes, by being connected
with the means of subsistence, may exeit a more power-
ful influence on their humbler brethren. Providentially
considered, the acquisition of wealth is a subsidiary end ;
and yet, as society will soon discover, an end which
will be more successfully gained by a faithful discharge
of those moral duties which are bound up with it.
It is required to supplément and soften the scientific
laws which regulate the rémunération of labour. The
mutual relations of demand and supply détermine the
price at which labour can be procured, but those rela-
tions do not affect the morals of the question. Owing
to spécial circumstances it is frequently the case, that
the market price of labour would starve the workman,﻿118
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
while the master is well able, from the profits of his
business, to double it. For example, we know two
large mills, each employing perhaps a thousand work-
people, one situated in the heart of a manufacturing,
town, and the other, which was established with the
benevolent view of affording employment to a yery
destitute district, in the neighbourhood of a small
agricultural borough. In the latter of these manu-
factories the rate of wages is twenty-five per cent,
lower than in the former, and its owner recently ex-
pressed his conviction that if he were to reduce the
wages of his workpeople to two-thirds their présent
amount, they would be compelled to accept the réduc-
tion. And yet both firms buy and sell in the same
market ; and both are highly flourishing and lucrative.
In this and similar cases, it is évident that the market
price of labour, though it fixes the amount of wages
which the workman can demand, does not measure
either the ability or the duty of the employer to remu-
nerate on a more liberal scale. This is a province in
the domain of conscience ; here benevolence and justice
are called to act ; here Christian principle has scope for
proving its superiority to the selfishness which too often
guides the transactions of trade. The question of wages,
as presented to a Christian employer, should be, not, At
what rate can I force mv workmen to serve me ; but, At
what rate can I afford to pay them, reserving safe and
suitable profits to myself. This at least is the light
in which the Scriptures place it,—“ Masters, give unto
your servants that which is just and equal ; knowing
that ye also hâve a Master inheaven.”1 If scientific
(1) Colos. iv. 1.﻿OF BRITAIN.
119
laws were intended to control the conscience of the
Christian, there would be no room for such a precept.
A generous solution of this question might offer some
check to the rapid amassing of large fortunes, but it
would tend to abate the severity of compétition, to
give greater security to capital, and spread the pos-
session of compétence among a much greater number
of the people. To accomplish this object no sacrifice
is demanded, no dérangement of the social System, no
surrender of the rights of property, but only such
an observance of what is fair, generous, just, as a
man, under the influence of correct principle, would
deem it his interest to yield.
The influence of the same principle is required to
amdiorate the conditions, and shorten the hours of toil.
In both these respects the tide of improvement has set
in. The health of the workpeople is now kept pro-
minently in view in the larger class of factories, espe-
cially in those which hâve been most recently built.
Nor is this a thing of trivial moment. It is proved by
indubitable evidence, that by badly ventilated work-
rooms the health of the workpeople is most seriously
affected,— their ordinary rate of mortality being in
some establishments doubled, from this cause alone.
Simple justice requires that the places where the work-
man is obliged to spend one-half of his existence should
be made as conducive to his health as the nature of his
employment will admit : it is his labour not his life
which wages profess to purchase. In nothing more
than this is short-sighted economy more certain to
defeat its own ends. Sickly workmen never work well ;
whatever injuriously affects their comforts diminishes in﻿120
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
the end the profits of the employer. A change for the
better is also perceptible in the disposition winch is
gaining ground to curtail the hours of labour. On this
subject the législature has pronounced its decision in
passing the Ten-Hours’ Bill. Without advancing an
opinion respecting the principle of that measure, we may
be permitted to rejoice in its results. The time which
has been rescued from labour is not given up to dissipa-
tion ; by thousands of our factory youth, who are burn-
ing with the desire for self-improvement, it has been wel- *
comed as a precious boon, and is conscientiously devoted
to intellectual pursuits. The factory-girl has leisure to
knit and sew, and initiate herself in the various domestic
duties; the father can spend a free hour by his fireside,
without encroaching upon his night’s repose ; can un-
bend his mind, gather his children round him, and
snatch a few of the positive joys of existence. Ail this
can be accomplished without any injury to the pecu-
niary interests of either the employer or the employed ;
in most cases the same quantity of work is doue and
the same amount of wages earned as on the old System.
Something équivalent in effect to a Ten-Hours’ Bill is
needed beyond the precincts of the factory ; the young
men of England hâve yet to be set free from the
bondage of excessive toil. Society is earnestly im-
plored to give to the most intelligent and most promis-
ing of its rising members the means of fitting themselves
for the responsibilities they will shortly hâve to assume.
To confer this boon no vast révolution is necessary ; it
is almost reducible to a little family arrangement,—let
everybody purchase by day and not by night, and the
work is done.﻿OF BBITAIN.
121
To the same quarter we liave to look for the provid-
ing of better dwellings for the labouring classes. This is
a primary want, it stands at the outset of ail improve-
ment. Let an individual who is accustomed to the
domestio arrangements of middle life imagine himself
and family obliged to live year after year in a single
room, and endeavour to picture the numerous privations
to which he would be snbjected. If in addition he
imagines that room to be a cellar, with scarcely an
aperture through which light and air can be conveyed,
and surrounded by a district so damp and badly drained
that fetid moisture is constantly oozing through its
rotten walls, he will hâve some idea of the circum-
stances in which thousands of the poor are placed. An
appeal like this is often barred by the response,—“ But
they are accustomed to it, they do not feel the wretch-
edness of their condition, never having experienced a
better.” This is too true, but instead of softening our
view of their condition, it only renders it, to the eye
of enlightened humanity, incomparably worse, since it
shows that they hâve sunk to the level of their outward
circumstances, that the soûl is as dark and uncouth
as its brutal abode. To raise the social condition of the
working man, his home must be made more healthful ;
he must be rescued from those misérable courts and
alleys, those damp and filthy cellars where he now
prolongs a living death, and must be placed where he
may at ieast be reached by the light and air of heaven.
The dunghill must be moved from his door, the cess-
pool with its fever stench must no longer pollute his
dwelling, those limpid streams which are •straggling
down the bosom of the neighbouring hills on their﻿122
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
way to the océan, must be diverted from their course to
minister to his cleanliness ; for him nature must own
her primitive subjection, and discharge her friendly
offices : he too must feel that the world was made for
man, and that it is not meet for him who was created to
enjoy its sovereignty, to wallow in more than brutal
wretchedness. This at least can be done for him—here
even mammon may approve ; let but the experiment be
made, let suitable buildings be erected, with a measure
of cbnvenience amounting to comparative luxury, and
provided ordinary intelligence be exercised in carrying
it out, it will yield, certainly not nine or eleven per
cent., but good remunerative profits on the outlay.
Thanks to lord Ashley and his coadjutors, the expe-
riment lias been made, and with complété success.
Through their benevolent exertions hundreds of families
hâve been placed in clean and healthy dwellings. “ The
Metropolitan Society for improving the Condition of the
Labouring Classes,” under the patronage of Her most
Gracious Majesty, and the presidency of her illustrious
Consort, is actively engaged in carrying out this noble
work ; calling, by the force of a good example, to every
lover of his country, to. “ go and do likewise.”
We will mention only one other department in which
society can directly contribute to the physical well-
being of the wTorking classes, the establishment of suitable
places for exercise and récréation, and other means of
promoting health; we refer more especially to public
baths, wash-houses and parks. A positive necessity
exists for such institutions. We are apt to regard
them too much as luxuries, and not enough as ab-
solutely requisite for developing and sustaining the﻿OF BRITA1N.
123
various fonctions of life. The spread of physiological
knowledge will help to correct these erroneous im-
pressions ; we skall soon perceive tliat such things are
among our chief wants, and that to dispense with them
is opposed to the first dictâtes of prudence. The bulk
of our manufacturing population is situated in the
heart of large towns, surrounded b y huge factories and
labyrinths of streets, while even the sky is concealed
from them by a canopy of smoke which the sun’s rays
can scarcely pierce. The land in the immédiate neigh-
bourhood is generally the property of the wealthier
citizens ; their villas stand on every advantageous site,
each surrounded by its ample range of shrubbery and
garden. The prospect is exhilarating ;—fair evidence of
wealth and taste ! but here is no spot which the work-
ing man may call his own, he treads everywhere on
sufferance, he seems excluded from the héritage of
nature. Apart from considérations of mere utility, how
unpropitious must such circumstances be to the moral
feelings of the working classes ! How crushingly must
the thought fall on them, that they are merely born to
toil ! What pensiveness must they feel at being thus
shut out from the amenities of création ! For them
the rose-bush blossoms notj the solemn oak—they never
reposed beneath its shade ; the breath of moming, per-
fumed with the odours which hâve been caught up from
beds of flowers—it never regaled their senses : and yet
they hâve sympathy with nature in its floral beauties ;
witness that sickly géranium, tended like a child from
day to day ; see a whole family clustered round it,
anxious to verify the announcement that the favourite
has blossomed. Here are tastes which only need to be﻿124
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
developed, sympathies which only require culture to be
made the source of grateful and ennobling pleasures.
In this respect also we are on the eve of improvement;
the first steps hâve already been taken, they only
require to be imitated and followed up. Several of the
larger manufacturing towns can now boast of their
public parks : Manchester possesses three, to one of
which a library, reading-room, and muséum are attached,
ail free. These parks hâve been confided to the people’s
care, and faithfully has the trust been kept. Though
frequented by thousands daily, it is rarely that a flower
is plucked or a plant injured. The gymnasia are the
resort of the agile of ail âges : the child, the youth, the
man, are there, engaged in appropriate pastimes, ex-
ercising to healthy action the muscles which haye been
cramped by labour, and preparing themselves for work-
ing vigorously and cheerfullv on the coming day.
II. We hâve thus endeavoured to show that it is the
duty and interest of society to help the working man,
and indicated some of the methods in which that help
may most advantageously be given; we hâve now to
speak upon a still more important topic,—What can
THE WORKING MAN DO FOR HIMSELF ?
In entering upon this branch of the subject we would
again assure him of the more than friendly spirit which
dictâtes every word we write, did we not hope that he is
by this time so well convinced of it as to render such
an assurance unnecessary. A higher motive than this
prevents us from endeavouring to win his assent by
mere professions ; unaffected respect for the working
man disposes us rather to ask nothing from him but the﻿OF BRITAIN.
125
exercise of candour. Let him calmly, and without
préjudice, weigh every sentiment which may be ad-
vanced ; in a word, let him think for himself, and then
should he even happen to difîer from us, the resuit will
gratify, if it will not be equal to our wishes.
There are two Unes in a modem poet, which faction
has often quoted, but which we venture to quote in the
name of the highest freedom. The working man is
familiar with them in another application :—
“ Hereditary bondsmen, know ye not,
Who would be free themselves must strike the blow!”
This sentiment, worthy to be the watchword of the
patriot when reanimating the lires of liberty in the
bosoms of an enslaved and degenerate people, is much
more worthy of the man who adopts it as the utterance
of a spirit bent on freeing itself from the fetters of
ignorance and vice. The working man must help him-
self \ for unless he does so he cannot be helped at ail.
Wealth may lavish its thousands, truth in order to win
him may assume the purest garb and adopt the most
persuasive accents, but if he will not rise, ail the world
cannot raise him. Under God—ennobling yet perilous
fact !—he is his own keeper, his own master, his own
guide. But can he help himself? In some directions, wre
acknowledge, he would hâve to encounter many difficul-
ties—difficultés in the removal of which he is entitled
to expect, and will assuredly receive, the help of others;
but after making every allowance, the broad truth is still
indisputable that he will be his own greatest friend or
greatest foe, and that he could do more by his own
efforts towards elevating his condition, than could ail the
çombined resources of society without them. We will
m 3﻿126
THE GLORY AND THE SHÀME
endeavour to show, as briefly as possible, how the work-
ing man both can and ought to help himself.
In order to make any successful attempt at self-
improvement, the working man must first disabuse
himself of several fallacious impressions, which injure
his position relatively to other sections of the social
body. One of the most mischievous of these is his
belief in the efficacy of physical force. It has been the
fashion with political agitators of a certain class, when-
ever a supposed grievance has been mooted, to hint
darkly but unmistakably at the power which résides in
the multitude, and the probable success of an armed
collision with the public authorities. They hâve made
him familiar with the idea of “ carrying the ‘ Charter*
at the cannon’s mouth”—of establishing a “ people’s
parliament ” in opposition to the duly elected représen-
tatives of the nation. So strongly hâve the feelings of
a large section of the working classes been enlisted in
favour of su ch measures, that an indisposition to enter
upon them amounted at one time to a complété for-
feiture of their confidence. This has resulted in the
alienation of their truest friends, and in the monopoly
of their applause by men who entered upon agitation as
a gainful trade, and who, after conducting infatuated
crowds within the meshes of the law, generally con-
trived to escape scathless. Try the theory of physical
force by what it has done for the people :—it has not
gained them a single triumph, it has in every instance
failed. To say it has done nothing, would unhappily
be untrue ; it has divided their energies, it has divorced
brute power from intelligence and principle, it has in-
creased the alienation which previously existed between﻿OF BRITAIN.
127
the middle and working classes, it has strengthened
the fears of the wealthy respecting démocratie ascen-
dency, and has thns put off from time to time any
extension of the political franchise. It is happily a
mistake to imagine that physical force can gain any
concessions. The constitution of this country is not to
be coerced : many who are the foremost in acknow-
ledging its defects, regard it with high vénération. It
has been the palladium of British freedom in the darkest
times; it is the prize for which patriots contended in
those early struggles which still inspire the hearts
of their posterity with grateful heroism. Beneath its
shade property has rested secure, the rights of the
people hâve been successfully maintained, and the cot-
tage hearth declared as inviolable as the precincts of the
throne. Talk of its démolition, and the very instincts
of the nation array themselves in its defence. It is too
much to claim for it entire exemption from defect, or
to say that, unlike every other création of hum an skill,
it is incapable of being beautified or repaired ; but let
these changes be effected peacefully. If ail political
ties were broken, if society were thrown into a rudi-
mental state, and the wisest and best of our countrymen
were invested with plenary power to form everything
anew, it is unlikely that they would hit upon precisely
the présent arrangement. But this is impossible ; the
présent is always made for us ; it is the legacy of the
past ; for its faults and its excellences the présent géné-
ration is not responsible ; and as a social polity of any
sort is better than none at ail, it is our duty to accept
it in a liberal and thankful spirit, and endeavour by
graduai changes to make it a more valuable possession﻿128
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
for our children. But progress, in its very nature, is
pacifie ; the rankest conservatism invariably follows in
the wake of physical force ; the man who draws a sword
forges a chain ; every act of violence, every incendiary
speech, rolls back a stage or two the car of freedom.
Moral force was never so influential as it is now ; public
opinion détermines the decisions of the législature and
the course of government ; whenever a truth intrenches
itself in the intelligence of the nation, from that moment
its triumph is certain. Publicity is the test of justice,
and this is within the reach of ail. The press is open
for the discussion of public grievances, or the utterance
of private wrongs. The insertion of a paragraph in a
newspaper calls forth in a few hours the irrésistible
verdict of a whole nation. Probably any one of those
letters on the state of the labouring classes, which hâve
recently appeared in the Morning Ckronicle, has done
more towards improving it than ail the “strikes” which
Trades’ Unions ever maintained. Reason is the only
weapon which should be used in the battles of civilized
men ; take the sword of civil warfare, and hang it up
among the racks and thumb-screws of a barbarous âge !
Another fallacious impression of which the working
man must be disabused, is that which leads Mm to
regard himself as the object of relentless hatred to the
wealthier classes. That such an impression exists, but
little pénétration is requisite to discover ; it is often so
strong that a merely respectable appearance is construed
into a badge of enmity. The simple fact that an indi-
vidual gains his livelihood by conducting a business on
his own account, is thought to render it impossible for
him to sympathize with those who subsist on weekly﻿OF BRITAIN.
129
wages ; while the aristocracy, as beheld through the
medium of their jaundiced fancy, are a set of tyrannical
and selfish men, engaged in a conspiracy against popular
rights, and more anxious to retain a shred of honour,
than to promote the welfare of the masses. Such im-
pressions are excessively mischievous ; they fumish the
imagination of the industrial classes with dark ideas,
administer a malignant stimulus to the passions, and
silently create a power which may burst out at any
moment into destructive action. They alienate class
from class, give a hue of treacherousness to the most
sincere intentions, and render them futile by with-
holding the co-operation of the very individuals whose
condition they aim at ameliorating. But are such im-
pressions correct? Setting récrimination aside, and
endeavouring to reach the bare truth, what are the
feelings with which the wealthier classes regard their
poorer brethren ? We speak not of opinions, we pronounce
no judgment upon the various schemes by which oppo-
site parties are carrying out professedly philanthropie
designs, we allude simply to those qualities which rule
our estimate ofindividual character, and these, we affirm,
are not of that malignant and selfish hue under which
they are often represented. It is true that no section
of the social body can boast of an exclusive patent for
goodness; unjust and unamiable men are too common
in every grade of life, and, as peculiar circumstances
often give a spécifie direction to what is sinful within
us, the common material of depravity which has shown
itself among the poor in sentiments almost bordering
upon hatred towards their superiors in wealth and
station, may possibly hâve appeared among the latter﻿130
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
in the guise of haughtiness and over-exaction. But
exceptions do not nullify the rule, they rather confirm
it. Working men are not ail drunkards, because a few
are occasionally intoxicated ; neither are the wealthier
classes unjust and rapacious because sonie of their
number hâve entitled themselves to such a description.
To what classes do those individuals belong who are the
foremost in advancing the welfare of the people? Some
hâve sprung direct from the ranks of labour, but the
majority belong to those of nobility and wealth.1 It is
needless to mention lord Ashley, a nobleman whom it
would be an insult to eulogize, but whose philanthropie
exertions, so earnestly and consistently pursued, hâve
won for him the proud distinction of a benefactor to his
species. Let us listen to another eminent individual
who recently declared from his place in the House of
Lords, that “sooner than consent to any measure
which should either in seeming or in reality diminish
the comforts or necessaries of life of the great masses of
the people, he would forfeit the place he had the honour
to hold among their lordships’ ranks.”2 Nor are these
exeeptional instances, they fairly express the feelings
which already exist to a very wide extent among the
wealthier classes of society, and which are rapidly
spreading. The most eminent philanthropists of the day
are the men who are most popular, not solely or even
chiefly among the working classes, but among those
(1)	It is a pleasing circumstance that at the splendid banquet recently
given at the Mansion House, London, in référencé to the Industrial Exhibition
of 1851, at which were présent His Royal Highness Prince Albert, the magis-
trates of 202 English cities and boroughs, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the
foreign ministers, and leading statesmen of ail classes, one of the sentiments
proposed was—“ The working men of the United Kingdom.”
(2)	Earl of Carlisle.﻿OP BRITAIN.
131
who, for factious purposes, hâve been represented as
conspirators against the interests of the poor. Society
calls upon the working man to expel suspicion from his
bosom; whether he choose to believe it or not, he is
the object of a generous friendship which ardently longs
for his improvement. Instead of putting an unkind
construction upon what may be attempted in his be-
half, let him hail it with cordial feeling, and aid with
his whole heart in its promotion. Only let him combine
with the watchfulness which he is bound to exercise
over his own interests, a little of that charity which
thinketh no evil, that generous feeling which lives with
kindliness and self-reliance, and he will soon find that
rank, and criminal indifférence to the wants of the poor,
wealth, and hostility to the daims of labour, do not
necessarily co-exist, and that where he expected to
encounter the cold looks of calculating selfishness, there
awaits him the cordial embrace of a brother.
Having disabused his mind of these and similar
impressions, the working man will be fitted for entering
upon the path of practical improvement. In this, his
first step is to raise Jiimself. Having once accomplished
his own élévation, the rest of the ascent will be natural
and easy. Generally speaking, the internai and exter-
nal conditions of an individual exactly agréé. The
poet’s grotto and the lion’s lair correspond respectively
to the nature of their possessors. If beauty is to
reign without, it must first be enthroned within. Man
is himself the instrument by which alone the blessings
of life can be acquired. Success is not the gift 01
chance ; it is won by the persevering use of suitable﻿132
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
means. If we were to examine the career of those
men who seem by the suddenness and extent of their
prosperity to hâve been especially fortunate, we sbould
probably find that thev hâve received no more than the
exact value of the intelligence and labour they expended.
Just as soon might the artisan hope to execute a
first-rate piece of workmanship with bad tools, as to
raise himself in the world by means of ignorance and
apathy. The results of human life are proportioned to
the skill with which it is managed, and the quantity of
vital force which is infused into it. Hence, an indivi-
dual whose mind is uninformed, and whose will is
destitute of energy, however he may complain of his
lot, assuredly has no right to expect a better.
Intellectual and moral culture lies at the foundation
of self-improvement. How, then, may this culture be
attained? Mental discipline and the acquisition of
knowledge require books and teachers. How can the
possession of these means be made accessible to the
slender resou rces of the working man ? We confess
that in this dilemrqa he may not unreasonably expect
some aîd. Here, however, we wish to direct attention
to the fact, that, with few exceptions, he is àble to
provide the means of instruction for himself. The
intelligence of an individual must be measured, not by
the number of books which he has in his possession,
but by the number which he has carefully perused.
Hence, the object to be gained, is not that he should
be the absolute possessor of fifty volumes, but that
he should hâve the opportunity of perusing them.
Now, though fifty working men might be quite un-
equal to the purchase of fifty volumes apiece, they are﻿OP BRITAIN.
133
each able to purchase one ; thus, by a little friendly
co-operation, each might hâve the opportunity of read-
ing the entire fifty at the trifling cost of one-fiftieth of
the entire outlay. It is equally within the power of
the working man to procure the services of a skilled
instructor. A single individuai might be quite unable
to pay, for example, twelve pounds per quarter for this
purpose ; such a sum would perhaps be equai to the
whole amount of his earnings during that period ; but
he could easily spare five shillings, which, from fifty
persons, whose studies could be effieiently conducted by
the same teacher, would make up the required sum.
A combination of these plans is that which is adopted
in Mechanics’ Institutes, People s Colleges, and similar
associations, and there is scarcely a branch of learning
which may not by its means be made accessible to the
working man. Mathematics, mechanics, chemistry, logic,
intellectual philosophy, ancient and modem languages,
are ail opened to him ; nor is there any reason why,
with a tolerable share of application and perseverance,
he may not realize, at a trifling cost, many of the sub-
stantial results of regular academical training.
But an instructor, though highly useful, is not indis-
pensably necessary ; much greater progress may be
made with such assistance, but success is not unattain-
able without it. A tolerable degree of capacity and
effort is required to dérivé much good from the most
accomplished teacher, and with this prerequisite the
working man may aecomplish much by his own exer-
tions. We hâve already had occasion to refer to some
of the incidental evils of self-tuition ; many of these
evils may be avoided by due attention to the order
N﻿134
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
and method of study. A moments reflection on our
mental operations is enough to show us the différence
between the mind and its acquisitions. A knowledge
of what has transpired and is still transpiring in the
world without, and of the various properties and laws of
matter, is of great practical importance ; it is secondary,
however, to the development and discipline of the mind
itself. In reference to everything besides itself, the mind
is to be looked upon as the agent or instrument ; it is
évident, therefore, that its culture should take prece-
dence of every other pursuit. Hence, an individual
bent upon self-improvement, would do wrong to plunge
at once into the lighter departments of literature, or
even into the researches of physical science. He should
begin with Euclid rather than with Spenser, and should
postpone the gratification which he might draw from
the “ pictured page” of Hume, and Gibbon, and
Macaulay, till he has fortified his mind by familiarity
with the writings of such men as Whately, Whewell
and Mill. An acquaintance with intellectual philo-
sophy should form the thresliold of self-tuition ; and
to a deficiency in this respect may we ascribe many of
the narrow views, and much of the fallacious reasoning
which pass current with the partially educated. Having
conformed to these conditions, there will be less danger
of going wrong in the subséquent details of study.
Instead of being satisfied with inferior books, the
operative student will avail himself of the very best
which the several departments of literature afford.
Instead of reading indiscriminately whatever cornes in
his way, he will make a careful sélection from the list
of authors. A higher object than mere amusement﻿OP BRITAIN.
135
will regulate his studies. He will not be niggard of
patient investigation and hard thought. A few diffieul-
ties will not daunt him. The vapid taie and sensual
romance will be loathed as they deserve to be, and
nothing will be tolerated within the precincts of the
mind, save that which will furnish refined and substan-
tial pleasure, or subserve the attainment of useful ends.
But intellectual culture can only be regarded as an
element of self-improvement as it is allied with moral
principle. The former is immeasurably inferior in value
to the latter; its chief and noblest end is to make
its possessor intelligently acquainted with religious truth.
On no subject are the majority of men more careless
than on religion, and in nothing does it behove them
to be more earnest. They neglect it as a matter of no
importance ; they regard it as a suppliant for the
honour of their patronage, not as a messenger from
heaven laden with blessings which it would be folly to
refuse, and invested with daims which they cannot with-
out criminality resist. But so far from being at liberty
to décliné ail anxiety on this subject, they are bound
by the first obligations to examine it. Man cannot
change the condition under which he is bom ; he cannot
divest himself of his immortal and responsible nature ;
he cannot nullify the weighty responsibilities which
press upon him ; he cannot annihilate futurity nor
quench his own being. He is bound to ask—What am
I ? Whither am I destined ? What is my présent con-
dition, and how does it bear upon the prospect of my
future well-being ? Does anything lie within my power
by which my eternal interests might be rendered more
secure ? These questions are simple, natural, and manly ;﻿136
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
the disposition to sift them thoroughly has no neces-
sary connexion with fanaticism. He may refuse to ask
them ; but he may also refuse, if in business, to
examine his books, or to escape from the fire which
encompasses his dwelling, and we know with what
resuit. How admirable to be free from care ! How
manly to retain composure in circumstances which
would inspire others with profound alarm ! True ; but
what shall we say of inévitable bankruptcy, or of being
buried beneath a burning pile? The prudential cha-
racter of any action is affected by its remotest consé-
quences ; men may déridé religion in time,—but what
shall we say of eternity ?
Religion is the great lever of self-élévation. Chris-
tianity is the only agency which can create the highest
forms of personal excellence. This is far from being
universally acknowledged. Thousands who join in the
chorus which the whole âge sings to religion as the
herald of civilization, refuse to own her when she appears
in the precincts of private life. Such conduct is
shallow and inconsistent. Religion is the benefactress
of the world, because she is the benefactress of man ;
and the bénéficiai influence she exerts upon the world’s
progress is only a faint reflection of the good she confers
in ministering to the wants of our fallen nature. The
présent âge is utilitarian in the extreme, and on a
principle of adaptation, the defender of Christianity has
directed a large measure of attention to its temporal
advantages. Such a course was wise, but it is possible
to push it to pemicious lengths. When, under the
care of science, the film is removed from the sight
of one who has hitherto been blind, it may be well that﻿OF BRITAIN.
137
his first view of the optical beauties of création should be
gathered from the starry heavens, where the light of the
sun is faintly reflected from the surface of the attendant
planets ; but as soon as his sight is strong enough
to bear it, who would hesitate to unveil to its gaze the
midday splendour of the sun himself ? Yes, it is well
to attend the footsteps of the religion of Christ as it
scatters among its true adhérents the fruits of temporal
well-being ; but these, however valuable, are among her
inferior gifts ; they are only the twilight of her reflected
rays. The efîulgence of her full-orbed splendour is
seen within the human soûl, into which she has darted,
straight from heaven, the light of mercy; from whose
bosom she has driven the clouds of ignorance and guilt ;
whose cold and torpid faculties she has quickened with
celestial love ; and where, beneath her génial influence,
the lovely fruits of peace and righteousness abound.
In the Book of books an individual is introduced to
us who, under the power of strong émotion, utters the
inquiry,—“ What must I do to be saved ?” Nay, start
not, reader ! Let none of your fostered préjudices
induce you to fling away this question unexamined.
You may never hâve heard it, save from individuals
whom you pitied as hypocrites or fanatics ; you may
hâve regarded it as the chosen formula of “ cant,” or
the meaningless common-place of a hireling preacher.
Recall for a moment the hasty verdict, and calmly
reconsider your judgment before you finally décidé.
Are you so faultless or so happy that “salvation”
cannot possibly hâve any sense appropriate to you ?
Is there no danger from which you could be delivered,
no innate evil from which you could be freed ? You
n 3﻿138
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
can scarcely affirm this; your heart has some mis-
givings ; allow them for a moment full utterance, and
lend the ear of wisdom to what they say. You hâve
cherished sympathy with sin, you hâve given the reins
to sensuality, avarice or ambition ; while keeping the
letter of honesty you hâve broken its spirit ; behind the
mask of virtue you hâve rioted in impure fancies, and
hâve sometimes detected yourself in wishing that the
laws of décorum were less stringent, that you might be
profligate without becoming odious. At least there has
been wanting that child-like love towards the Suprême
Being which even reason teaches us is his due, and the
absence of which can be regarded only as a heinous sin.
Your soûl averts its glance from every quarter where it
expects to meet with God. Grant any one of these
prégnant facts, and what is your position? You are
spiritually alienated from God, and if so, imagination
wTould fail to depict the dangers which surround you.
But absolute mercy dwells with God ;—yes, and absolute
justice too. In him both are equally suprême and abso-
lute, and during the night of reason every spark of hope
which the one enkindles in the sinful bosom, is at once ex-
tinguished by the other. Close the Bible, and the cry of
humanity in ail âges is answered only by its once plaintive
echoes,—“How shall man be just with God?”—“How
can God be just, and yet the justifier of the ungodly ?”
The gospel is valuable because it gives an answer
to these inquiries. The burden of its announcement is
—“ God so loved the world, that he gave his only-
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should
not perish, but hâve everlasting life.”1 Christ is the
(1) John ïji. 16.﻿OP BRITAIN.
139
Giver of salvation. The blessings he bestows are pre-
cisely those which we most need. On the one hand, he
places us in a State of réconciliation with God, pro-
curing for us entire justification and acquittai; on
the other, he bestows upon us the influences of his
Spirit, quickening us from spiritual death, nurturing
within us holy affections and desires, and gradually
transforming us into his own perfect image. In order
that Christ might bestow upon us these blessings,
it was requisite that he should assume our nature, stand
in our place, and suffer on our behalf. To this
he willingly submitted. “ He was found in fashion
as a man,”1—“ He gave Himself a ransom for ail,”2—
“ He died for our sins,”3—“ He was wounded for our
transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities.”4
Raised from the dead on the third day, he ascended to
the right hand of power, and there as our great High
Priest “ he ever liveth to make intercession for us.”5
Through his blood ail who believe in him hâve now
“ boldness to enter into the holiest,”6 and may hope
to receive, on passing from the présent state, “an
inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not
away.”7 The inestimable value of these blessings is
enhanced by the freeness with wliich they are bestowed.
They are given to us as sinners; they are entirely
irrespective of our merits; whoever is sincerely anxious
and seeks with true faith to possess them, may do
so “ without money and without price.”8	“ God is
love,”9 this truth irradiâtes création, it sparkles in every
(1) Philip, ii. 8.	(2)	1 Tim. ii. 6»	(3) 1 Cor. xv. 3.
(4) Isaiah liii. 5.	(5)	Heb. vii. 25	(6) Heb. x. 19.
(7) 1 Pet. i. 4.	(8)	Isaiah lv. 1.	(9) 1 John iv. 8.﻿140
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
dew-drop, and blossoms in every flower ; but its richest
lustre descends upon us through the cross ; God is most
godlike in forgiving the transgresser. If, reader, y ou
hâve ever deigned to weigh the one great question
of a sinful soûl, listen to the reply which the gospel
gives to it, “ Believe on the Lord Jésus Christ, and thou
shalt be saved.”1
Many intelligent working men affect to despise the
doctrinal parts of Christianity as useless, while they
speak highly, as indeed they are obliged to do, of its
moral precepts. Hence it is not uncommon to find
them embracing Socialism, or pushing on some scheme
of tempérance or éducation, to the utter disparagement
and neglect of religion, alleging that it is more practical ;
and while ridiculing the Bible, affirming that they are
nevertheless the advocates of “practical Christianity.”
Where, we ask, in the name of common sense, is the
reason of such conduct h Can morality ever be sepa-
rated from principle? Is not what we believe the
spring of everything we do ? It is sometliing to remind
a man that he must be honest, but it is surely far
better to make him so ; and if any System professes to
be able to do this, it is certainly no disparagement
to that System, but, on the contrary, a great recom-
mendation. Christianity makes this profession ; it gives
us the precept, and at the same time, through the
medium of its doctrines, opérâtes such a change in our
principles and habituai feelings that obedience becomes
both easy and natural. It is the doctrines of Chris-
tianity which render it so superior to ail other Systems,
because it is by virtue of these that it possesses such a
(1) Acts xvi. 31.﻿OP BRITAIN.
141
hold upon the heart. Surely man does not go wrong
becanse he does not know how to go right. The fault
lies in a defect of will, and not of'knowledge ; the object,
therefore, is not so nmch to tell him what he ought to
do, as to make him do it. Education alone cannot give
him this willingness; our every-day expérience tells us
this ; an intelligent man may feel no scruple at telling
a lie, overreaching his neighbour, getting drunk, or at
positive dishonesty. We find selfishness breaking through
the strongest net-work of rules and precepts : what
does this teach us, but that selfishness itself requires to
be rooted out of the soûl ? Christianity professes to do
this; to make a man virtuous, upright, just, disinterested
at ail times and of his own accord; and if Christianity
cannot accomplish this, assuredly no other System can.
When the working man has raised himself by intel-
lectual and moral culture, the improvement of his
outward condition will he an easy taslc. A well-fur-
nished abode and a well-regulated family are the sure
fruits of intelligence and religion. As this subject,
however, is one of no slight importance, we shall be
permifted to indulge, in reference to it, in a few
practical and homely remarks. The temporal con-
dition of the working man dépends upon the way
in which he discharges a numerous set of duties, each
of which is trivial in itself, but which involve in
the aggregate a powerful agency for the promotion
of domestic comfort. It is unnecessary to enter into
details, not because they are unimportant, but because
they are fully treated of in a class of periodicals which
the poorest can easily purchase. We shall only adverfc
to two points, namely, economy and cleanliness. With﻿142
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
respect to the former, it is a sad fact that many working
men eam good wages, and yet live in a state of
beggarly wretchedness ; they hâve no money, no clothes,
no fumiture, no home worthy of the name; they are
always poor, always complaining, always misérable, and
yet their income is quite as large as that upon which
thonsands in the ranks immediately above them are
obliged to maintain a respectable appearance. We
could point to numerous cases in confirmation of this
statement. We know families consisting of seven in-
dividuals, of whom the father and elder children are
engaged in some sort of employment, whose joint
earnings are equal to a salary of 120Z. per annum; their
weekly rental does not exceed four shillings, other
similar items of expenditure are low, and yet their
homes are not fit for a human being to enter, nor
can they stir abroad on the sabbath for the want of
decent apparel. It would not be difficult to point out
the way in which their money disappears; if an in-
dividual were allowed to witness their daily prépara-
tions for dinner, he would cease to feel surprise at
their poverty. There is no thrift, no contrivance,
no forecast; each meal is provided for as it cornes,
the table is replenished with such eatables as cost least
trouble, without any reference to their extra expensive-
ness ; in a word, there is no economy. Such families are
artificially poor; they spend ail their autumnal store
•without laying by a grain for winter, and are wretched
in the midst of ail the éléments of comfort. Their
condition has re-acted fearfully upon themselves, and
rendered their élévation almost hopeless; fed by an
unnaturally stimulated appetite, the body has over-﻿OF BRITAIN.
143
grown the soûl. The same individuals who dispense
with economy generally set at nought the conditions of
health. Extravagance often indicates a want of mental
energy which shows itself in ail the arrangements and
duties of life. Whatever debases the character, weakens
it, and lowers the standard of personal convenience.
As the^ influence of sensuality increases, a less amount
of deccncy is sufîicient to satisfy the sense of self-
respect, till at length a degree of coarseness and squalor
truly brutish is manifested. Surely some attention is
due to health; if not refinement, at least death may
speak. The atmosphère of many a dwelling is so
contaminated, so laden with noxious smells, that it
would seem almost impossible to breathe it even for
a few minutes, and yet it is inhaled month after mont-h
by a whole family without any sense of inconvenience.
In many cases, this does not arise from any deficiency
in the means of ventilation, but from the constant
accumulation of filth in the corners and crevices of the
dwelling. Su ch sights are piteous ; they seem to set
the seal of hopelessness upon the condition of the
working man ; his health, his enjoyments, his character,
ail that imparts dignity to a human being, daily
wasting away from causes which he is competent to
destroy. But they must be destroyed, he must release
himself from such fetters, and he will. Intelligence
and piety will shed a fructifying radiance upon the
liumblest virtues ; under their influence economy and
cleanliness, the twofold condition of happiness and
health, will become his household law, while the in-
terior of his dwelling will présent to the delighted
eye of philanthropy the abode, not of a cluster of﻿144
THE GLORY AND THE SH A ME
instincts regulating the motions of a human form,
but of an enlightened, industrious, frugal, healthful,
and happy man.
The highest or lowest phase in the external con-
dition of an individual is found in the State of the
family relations. This constitutes his highest earthly
charge. As a parent, he occupies a moral position
alike honourable and arduous. In no other capacity
is he clothed with such absolute control over the
persons of others, or entrusted with the keeping of
such momentous interests, or put in possession of such
a well-spring of pure felicity. The authority with
which he is invested as a parent is conferred upon
him direct from heaven, and for its proper employment
he cannot possibly be made fully amenable to any
earthly tribunal. Society steps in to correct the
flagrant violation of some of its duties, but its higher
and more spiritual obligations no human jurisdiction
is competent to enforce ; these are left to the dictâtes
of an enlightened conscience, with no other check than
that which- arises from the foreseen conséquences of
neglect, and the final account which ail must render
at the bar of God. In the parental relation man is
eonfronted with the future ; it conneets him directly
with générations yet unbom : in the first degree of
descent the influence of his personal character will
probably be quadrupled; from thence its circles will
be extended on every side till they embrace the moral
condition of thousands. Within certain limits the
parent may be styled the moral creator of the coming
âge. How vast the responsibility which lies upon him !
How solemnly the future interests of the world adjure﻿OF BRITAlîîi
145
him to use his influence well ! But parental duties
connect him not only with a temporal, but with an
eternal future. His children will live for ever, and
will probably carry with them the effects of his
example throughout the entire range of their duration.
He is training soûls,—let him never forget it. He is
wakening the susceptibilités and developing the powers
of immortal beings. Waiving this high estimate of his
position, still it is of unspeakable importance in its
bearing upon domestic happiness. A happy home can
hardly fail to make a happy man; let ail be génial
there, and how much better will he be fitted for facing
the frowns or sustaining the reverses of the world!
But what is home? Certainly not any arrangements
of bricks and mortar, nor any set of means, however
expensive, for providing material comfort ; these are
not home. Home is the palace of the affections, the
résidence of the Virtues, the place where mutual obliga-
tions and mutual sympathies fuse ail hearts into one,
the place where patemal authority is recognised,
maternai tenderness is felt, and brothers and sisters find
delight in exchanging the vital courtesies of friendship.
But such a home is not the work of chance ; it is the
hallowed fruit of the divinest influences communicated
through an exemplary discharge of parental duty.
The working man must hâve such a home, he needs
it more than any other; but how many important
means must be used for its attainment ! His first step
is to keep it before the mind as something to be realized,
and so to master the influences which spring from thê
parental relation that they may be used with a view to
its realization. Seriously asking himself what, as a
o﻿146
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
parent, he ought to do ; what, with the means at his com-
mand, he is able to do ; he will at once earnestly and
prayerfully commence doing it. Anxious to promote
the welfare of his family, he will spare no pains to
supply their temporal wants ; regarding this as his first
vocation, he will exclude everything from his bill of
expenditure till this is met. He will make home
familiar with his presence, he will spend there every
leisure moment he can command, cheering it by
wearing a génial mood, inviting confidence, eliciting
inquiry, and scattering around him hints of encourage-
ment and caution. He will caxefully avoid whatever
is vulgar in conversation and deportment, knowing
how easily it may be copied. He will treat even his
children respectfully, aware that self-respect is the true
source of deference and vénération for others. He will
recognise the obligations which are laid upon him to
seek their intellectual and moral culture ; he will regard
it as binding upon him to forego a portion of the com-
forts of life, rather than suffer them to grow up in igno-
rance ; and especially will he deem it his most sacred
privilège and duty to imbue their minds with those
religious principles which afford the only suffieient
guarantee that they will pursue a virtuous course in
this life, and that they will be prepared for entering
upon that which is to corne.
III. It is the duty of the working man to help him-
self ; society calls upon him to discharge that duty ; but
HOW SELDOM IS HE EITHER WILLING OR ABLE TO GIVE AN
EFFECTÜAL RESPONSE !
In the majority of cases he is utterly unable to con-﻿OF BRITAIN.
147
ceive of the advantages of knowledge, of the pleasure
which accompanies refined habits, or of the sources of
comfort which exist in an orderly dwelling and a well-
trained family. It would be as easy to awake in the
bosom of the Esquimaux a desire to exchange his
snowy abode for the brighter habitations of Hindostan,
or to inspire the Hottentot with a longing for the con-
veniences of civilized life, as to arouse within the minds
of a large section of the lower grade of opératives an
energetic résolve to raise their social condition. To
create this détermination it is necessary to change the
inner man, in order that the extemal arrangements
which hâve hitherto yielded satisfaction may do so no
longer, and that it may spontaneously demand a dif-
ferent set of circumstances as the first requisite for
happiness. But we hâve said that the first element in
self-elevation is intellectual culture; this must be pos-
sessed, and, for a stronger reason, the means of acquiring
it, before any permanent improvement can be expected in
the physical and social condition of the working classes.
We are here brought face to face with that which is
in many respects the great question of the day, we
mean the éducation of the people. On this unhappily
thomy topic we shall avoid whatever is merely dispu -
tatious, our aim being less to adjust the daims of
hostile théories, than to illustrate and enforce what is
practically admitted by ail parties. We may, how-
ever, be permitted to submit that the controversy on
this subject has hitherto been pursued on grounds
which are too absolute and abstract, with too little dis-
crimination of principles, and under the influence of
prédilections which defy the possibility of arriving at a﻿148
THE GLORY AND THE SHAHE
common resuit. On this, as on purely religious ques-
tions, the advocates of opposite Systems hâve been more
anxious to find out and magnify the points of différ-
ence, than to discover a stand-point of practical union ;
bent rather upon maintaining respective peculiarities of
opinion in ail their breadth, than ascertaining how far,
without compromise of principle, they might work
together. The existence of such discordant views
renders it doubly necessary to urge the claims of the
uneducated masses, lest they should be lost sight of in
the hurry and din of conflict ; to point out the infinitely
greater importance of the object itself than that of any
peculiarity in the method of gaining it ; and to suggest
whether knowledge, when once received into the mind,
may not be able to fumish an effectuai antidote to any
evils which incidentally attach to the channel through
which it is conveyed.
It is unquestionably the right and duty of every man
to educate himself, and on similar grounds it is the
right and duty of every parent to educate his children ;
it may however be the duty of others to assist us in
discharging duties which are exclusively our own.
This is, in fact, the foundation of ail our relative duties;
every man is sponsor for his fellow-man, each is his
brother’s keeper; we are bound to place among our
personal obligations that of stimulating others to a
sense of theirs. This obligation is universal, Christianity
recognises it, and enlists it in the promotion of the
highest spiritual ends ; but it is as old as society, and
springs from the primitive and necessary relation which
man sustains to man. Mankind are not intended to
remain so Isolated from each other, that none needs﻿OP BRITAIN.
149
concera himself about the course pursued by those
around him; it is the inaliénable duty of each to do
everything in his power to stimulate and help the rest
in the discharge of duty. This duty is presented to
society in another form. So mutually dépendent are
the interests of its members, that it is impossible for a
large section to leave their personal obligations undis-
charged without injury accruing to ail. Thus the
sense of self-preservation is properly affected, and expe-
diency, in the absence of a higher principle, obliges
them to provide that such obligations shall be dis-
charged. The neglect of personal duty by one section
of society may tend to produce actions which society as
a whole is bound to punish ; in such a case consistency
requires that ail its energies be exerted in correcting
the neglect from which they spring.
By such considérations éducation is proved to be a
social duty. It belongs to individuals in relation to
themselves, it belongs to society in reference to each
other. Every man ought to educate himself and his
é children to his utmost ability; but if he is careless
about doing it, or if his utmost ability for doing it is
veiy small, it becomes the duty of others to stimulate
and assist him. Ignorance is a great privation; the
uneducated man is a stranger to a vast amount of hap-
piness which his Creator intended him to enjoy; the
purest founts of pleasure are sealed to him, he is desti-
tute of the mightiest instruments of action, he can work
only in common toil, in him those capacities are sadly
narrowed which enable an individual to live and act for
God. Popular intelligence is one of the greatest aids,
and popular ignorance one of the greatest obstacles to
o 3﻿150
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
social progress. The one increases, the other diminishes
the capacity for individual improvement, the avenues
and instruments of trade, the refinement of public
manners, and the probability of a whole people becoming
great and happy. Society does not exclude the unedu-
cated man from its jurisdiction, neither does it admit
ignorance as a valid excuse for crime; it dispenses
laws which he is expected to keep, and spécifiés duties
which it is incumbent upon him to fnlfil; it croates
a police, erects gaols, establishes courts of justice, and
hangs before the crowd the terrors of exile or the
scaffold. What a boon is intelligence to the individual
man ! what a blessing to the world ! what a means of
insuring obedience to law, by enabling the mind to
appreciate the considérations on which it rests, and by
raising it above those grovelling pursuits which usually
lead to crime! Thus by the three-fold principle of
benevolence, expediency, and consistency, society is
bound to educate the people.
The récognition of popular éducation as a social duty
does not involve the holding of any spécifie opinion
respecting the mode in which that duty should be dis-
charged, whether by individual effort, or by voluntary,
municipal, parochiai or govemment organizations. On
this point it would be equally unbecoming and useless
to enlarge; we will only direct attention to the class of
persons upon whom the fulfilment of this duty, through
some medium or other, chiefly devolves. There is a
section of society in whom ail social power résides.
Sometimes this influential section consists of the nume-
rical majority; sometimes of the most weaithy, the
most intelligent, or the most religious. From this class﻿OF BRITAIN.
151
those influences proceed which operate powerfully for
good or evil upon the condition of the rest ; the indi-
viduals who compose it are the repositories of social
power ; they are responsible, not for themselyes alone,
but for the présent and future welfare of the commu-
nity ; for ail practical purposes they are society. If they
perceive causes in silent operation which, in after years,
may lay the social fabric in ruins, it is unpardonable
culpability to remain satisfied with the right perform-
ance of their private duties; they are summoned to
discharge a public one ; this is as much their own as any
of those which arise from the circumstances of private
life. They are members of a community, this is the
condition of their existence; Providence has placed
them in a position which renders social coopération
essential to the promotion of their mutual welfare, and
every benefit they received from this source was aceom-
panied with a tacit agreement on their part to promote
the interests of society in retum.
It is impossible to point to any undisputed facts in
reference to the number of children actually receiving
instruction in schools of every sort throughout Eng-
land. Mr. Charles Knight estimâtes the number of
day-scholars at 2,200,000, and the combined number
of day and Sunday-scholars at 3,500,000/ the latter
of which would give one scholar to every five of the
population. This is a high estimate, and would show
that we are superior in point of the number of children
in actual tuition, to ail the continental and American
States, with the exception of Bavaria and Pennsylvania.
Independent facts, however, seem to indicate its cor-
(1) Companion to the British Almanac. .﻿152
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
rectness, and at the same time give us a due to
the quality of the instruction imparted. In 47
cotton mills of Manchester, no less that 82 \ per
cent, of the whole number of opératives were able
to read; and out of 500 convicts in the prison of
Pentonville, only 71 had never attended school, while
the remaining 429 had been at school on an average
of more than 4 years.1 These facts make the vast
amount of ignorance which exists, consistent with the
large number of names on the school-roll. The in-
struction hitherto given has operated very slightly
in deterring from the commission of crime. The
number of criminals reported as wholly ignorant, has
for several years been steadily decreasing; but the
number of those reported as able to read and write
has been steadily on the increase, leaving the absolute
number of criminals but very slightly diminished.
In the majority of schools the range of instruction
is limited to reading, writing, and arithmetic, and
in few does it extend beyond the éléments of gram-
mar and geography. Owing to the shortness of the
time during which the pupil is allowed to remain
at school, or the inefïiciency of the tuitional System
adopted in it, his acquaintance even with these
subjects is very small. He can read, but reading with
him is a merely mechanical process ; it is an instru-
ment of which he does not know the value, being quite
ignorant of the literary and scientific treafures which it
places within his grasp. He can write, but no better
than he can read ; he is able to describe the letters of
the alphabet, form them into words, and imitate a copv
(1) Recent parliamentary debate on Mr. W. J. Fox’s motion.﻿OF BRITAIN.
153
with tolerable exactness, but he can go no fiirtber. It
is with the utmost difficulty he can frame a sentence ;
he has no conception of those general laws of com-
position wrhich enable a person to express his thoughts
with propriety. Hence, both reading and writing are
forgotten within a short period of leaving school. The
recollection that they were once possessed, and that
the ability to spell or scrawl out a few sentences still
remains, is a pretension to scholarship which he seldom
sees rivalled, and beyond which he has no wish to
aspire. The nugatory character of the éducation
which is given in ordinary day-schools is one reason
of the little anxiety which parents manifest to procure
the admission of their children. When good schools
hâve been opened, in which the range of instruction
comprehended, for example, the rudiments of drawing
and music, parental rivalry has been most beneficially
aroused. They saw the advantages of éducation in a
form which they could appreciate, not merely its
instruments and technicalities, but its fruits, and in-
stantly endeavoured to procure them for their children.
They looked with apathy upon mere reading and
writing, but the scraps of scientific knowledge, the
historié and geographical lore which were duly re-
tailed every evening by the fire-side, together with
the artless music, leamed at school, which often made
home gladsome, gave them new views of éducation,
and an immeasurably deeper impression of its value.
Generally speaking, the interest which, when once
aroused, a parent feels in the intellectual achievements
of his children is so intense, that if good schools were
established at a moderate charge, nothing else would﻿154:
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
be required to fill them with scholars, and to secure
parental coopération in the maintenance of discipline.
The chief fault to be found with our educational
'practice is, that the means of éducation are allowed
to monopolize the time and effort which. ought to
be devoted to éducation itself. The elementary arts
of reading and writing are based upon merely formai
knowledge ; they are the starting-post and not the
goal of éducation. Instead of being taught chiefly
in the abstract, they should be constantly applied
to the purposes of mental discipline and information.
Sélections from approved standard authors might
advantageously be interspersed with the ordinary
course of reading. The principles of composition
should be taught simultaneously with the progress
of the pupil from “ straight strokes;” as he proceeds
he should be encouraged to express his thoughts in
writing on familiar subjects, to copy interesting facts
for his own use, and oecasionally to address his
teacher and fellow-scholars in an epistolary form. By
such methods reading and writing would be rescued
from dégradation ; having so thoroughly mastered their
difficulties, and become familiar with their application
to general subjects, the pupil would hâve no temptation
to let them fall into disuse. But reading and writing,
even thus applied, must not be suffered to constitute
the entire range of instruction. History, geography,
and grammar, the higher branches of arithmetic, the
éléments of geometry and algebra, the principles of
music and drawing, the fondamental facts of astronomy
and chemistry, the standard works of British literature,
should ail enter into it in due proportions. Such a﻿OP BRITAItf.
155
course, instead of loading the memory with dry and
useless forms, would issue in a fair expansion of ail the
intellectual powers ; reason, judgment, imagination,
would ail in turn be appealed to, and the individual
would be gradually trained for acting intelligently in
the various departments and functions of human life.
In order to extend the range of popular instruction
to such limits, a twofold provision is necessary : first,
the adoption of a more efficient System of primary
instruction; and secondly, the establishment of sup-
plémentai institutions where that instruction can be
continued in adult years. With regard to the former,
its necessity has been generally recognised, and ail
classes of educationalists are aiming to supply it. The
changes required are chiefly those which relate to the
attainments of the teacher, and the amount of work
which is given him to do. The average attainments of
the great body of teachers are still inadéquate to the
efficient discharge of their important duties. Their
professional and social status hâve acted injuriously on
each other. The importance of their position has not
been recognised, their labours hâve been poorly remu-
nerated, the ignorance of the community has at once
degraded and starved them. Hitherto any person has
been deemed competent to the office of instructor ;
those who hâve failed to gain a livelihood by mechanical
pursuits, who hâve been disabled by sickness, or even
by indolence, for laborious employment, hâve tumed
schoolmasters, and brought, by their vénal quackery,
a disgrâce upon a most honourable profession. As
intelligence advances, such cases will be corne more and
more rare, till at length their toleration will be impos-﻿156
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
sible. The teacher must préparé ta take his place
among the first men of the âge, his vocation is a
noble one, the instruments of national glory or dégra-
dation résidé with him, his character will leave its
impress on the condition of thousands. It is not mere
information which will fit him for his office, he must
hâve a fund of generous sympathy and warm affection ;
his heart must be fired with philanthropie ardour, and
glow with spiritual résolves ; to raise up a band of reli-
gious and intelligent youth must be his steadfast aim.
Society must second him in his endeavours, give him
the means of suitable training, and diminish his work.
In a commercial academy, intended for the sons of the
middle classes, a master and three or four accomplished
teachers are considered no more than sufficient for
eighty or a hundred boys, whereas in schools intended
for the children of the working classes, one individual
has often twice that number under his sole charge.
The monitor System deserves to be mentioned with
gratitude, but it is a very imperfect substitute for the
Personal efforts of a trained master. The additional
instruction the elder scholars receive is not sufficient to
qualify them for the business of tuition. In éducation,
as in agriculture, the magnitude of the crop dépends
upon the appliances which hâve been brought to bear
upon the soil ; in both, if we sow sparingly, we-shall
reap also sparingly ; if we consign two hundred boys to
one master, it is folly to expect much from his labours ;
distributed over so wide a space they must be compara-
tively inefficient. Of this he is painfully conscious,
and hence results a serious discouragement. A con-
scientious teacher finds his chief reward, not in the﻿OP BRITAIN.
157
pecuniary équivalent of his labours, but in the progress
of his pupils ; as they improve his work becomes less,
while the motives to diligence are increased. Thus
a flourishing school acts beneficially upon the teacher,
stimulating him to more devoted exertions ; but if from
any cause his efforts are paralysed, an opposite influence
is exerted ; his zeal déclinés, a sense of unavoidable
failure quenches every purer motive, and forces* him to
draw the necessary incentives to effort from the bare
idea of pecuniary gain.
In order to insure a suitable range of instruction for
the working classes, it is not only necessary to raise
the quality of that which is given to the juvénile
population ; institutions must be established in which
its principles may be carried out during the subséquent
years of youth and manhood. At the âge of ten or
twelve they are generally obliged to leave school,
and betake themselves to manual labour, but in the
majority of cases they might yet devote a portion
of time, generally in the evening, to obtain instruction,
if educational machinery were contrived with that
spécial object in view. The best advantages enjoyed in
early life will be lost if they are not sedulously cul-
tivated. The educated professional man, if eut off from
intercourse with books, and denied ail opportunity of
converse with kindred minds, soon grows intellectually
barren ; in order to keep his présent stores he finds
it necessary to increase them. Still more is this the
case with the labourer or mechanic, whose éducation is
more elementary, and whose engagements are more
averse to intellectual pursuits. By the use of suitable
agencies, on the foundation which is laid in the youthful﻿158
THE GLOEY AND THE SHAME
mind by the instruction received at school, it is possible
to rear those refined tastes, that love for the beautiful
in art, that inquisitiveness into the mysteries of science,
that wholesome vénération for antiquity, that progres-
sive spirit which yearns with sympathetic hope over the
coming âge, which are the natural antagonists of degra-
ding pleasures, and at once the omaments and safe-
guards of the community to which they belong. These
important ends are to be gained by the establishment
of mechanics institutions ; by the formation of public
libraries, and schools of design ; by exhibitions of paint-
ing, statuary, specimens of manufacturing skill, and
other works of art ; by muséums of natural history,
antiquities, and physical science ; these will always
form an invaluable element in the éducation of the
people. Of themselves they would be sufficient to
confer no small measure of intelligence, but they are
chiefly valuable on account of their tendency to de-
velop that intellectual life, the séminal germs of which
were received in childhood. They are the jinishing
schools of the working classes, without which many
of their previous acquirements will be lost. If the
maxim is true when applied to private families, that
the best éducation is the cheapest, it is eminently
so here. On economical grounds the chief question
should be, whether éducation shall be altogether with-
held, or whether it shall be made as complété as the
resources of society will permit.
Popular éducation has important purposes to sub-
serve in the process of improvement ; it is imperatively
needed under ail circumstances, but especially at the
présent time. It would always eonfer immense advan-﻿OF BRITAIN.
159
tages upon society, but never was its agency invited to
. a nobler sphere than that which is opened to it in the
existing condition of the working classes. It is required,
for example, to chech the sensualizing tendencies of ex-
cessive toil. The présent âge is preeminently a working
one. More life is expended, and in less time, than for-
merly. Pretematural causes seem to hâve given an
impetus to every branch of human enterprise. Events,
any of which would be sufficient to give celebrity to a
century, are crowded within a year or two. “ Work
faster ” seems to be the decree which now hangs over
man. To obey it, nature assists with her discoveries :
steam and electricity hâve combined to change the
aspects and prospects of the world. No départ ment of
labour can claim exemption from it. Whoever intends
to make his way, or even to live, must work, and work
incessantly. The merchant, the manufacturer, the pro-
fessional man, so far from being exceptions to the rule,
are perliaps its best exemplifications. It is true they
toil with the head instead of the hands, but mental
employment is no less laborious than manual, while it
often monopolizes the time which he who works only
with his hands can give up to sleep and récréation. It
cannot be doubted that the excessive toil of the présent
âge has a sensualizing tendency ; it employs the mind
too long and too intensely upon material things ; leaves
little time, and less disposition for contemplation ; tends
to give everything a simply materialistic value, and thus
to lessen the apparent importance of the spiritual and
the eternal. The chief remedy for such an evil is to
develop, with proportionable assiduity, the mental
powers. Every hour which can be spared from necessary﻿160
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
pursuits must be devoted to reading and thought ; the
intellect must exert itself with so mucb energy, that
the practical powers, notwithstanding their yaried ac-
tivity, may still be kept in abeyance, and spiritual
yiews and purposes reign suprême over ail the lower
avocations of life. Ail classes need the application of
this remedy ; the diffusion of a taste for reading shows
that in some quarters it is extensively applied; but
none need it more than the working man. Upon this
it dépends whether he become a mere machine, dividing
the whole of his time between bodily exertion and
bodily repose—whether he toi! in gloom, stimulated
only by indulgence in coarse and frivolous conversa-
tion—whether, when his work is done, he find a fierce
récréation in the quarrels of the dram-shop—or whether
he work cheerfully, supplied, by a well-stored memory,
with an exhaustless fiind of pleasure, and find at home,
in the acquisition of entertaining knowledge, a complété
oblivion of care, and a buoyancy of spirit which will fit
him for entering anew upon his daily calling. This is
the blessing which éducation will bestow. The edu-
cated labourer is known by the cheerfulness of his
disposition, the contented, yet enterprising spirit which
animâtes his features, and the intelligence which gleams
in his thoughtful eye. Labour has not sensualized
him; on the contrary, allied with habits of reflection, it
has developed virtues which would else hâve remained
concealed, given those virtues maturity and strength,
and made him what we may not inappropriately desig-
nate a manly man.
No less a blessing would éducation bestow upon the
working classes in checking political agitation. We do﻿OF BKITAIN.
161
not decry an interest in political questions, when exer-
cised within the limits the law allows, and with a due
regard to conséquences. It is an Englishman’s privilège
to discnss ail public matters, and to aim at the redress
of what he deems to be iniquitous or pemicious laws.
Not only is such condnct not illégal, but our constitu-
tion recognises it as a binding duty npon every member
of the state. Those institutions which we so justly
prize, which place us in such an advantageous position
when compared with other nations, and which are
valuable, not only on account of the good they confer
npon us now, but also for that which they promise
for the future, were won and secured to us by the
patriotic efforts of our forefathers. We may boast that
the throne itself, so offcen the symbol of interests at
variance with the interests of the people, is amongst us
at once the safeguard and monument of freedom. But
agitation has often been carried to most pemicious
lengths, and for the avowed accomplishment of very
questionable ends. Politics hâve again and again been
the staple materiai of min to the working raan. They
hâve led him to the ale-house till his home grew strange
to him, and he was better acquainted with the state of
the public exchequer than his own. In the discussion
of grievances he has made himself the victim of men who
notoriously care only for themselves—not bad men,
perhaps, in the ordinary sense of the word, but men
who are actuated only by self-interest, a motive which
may not always dovetail with the interests of their
clients. Nothing is more sickening than to see a body
of well-meaning, generous-hearted working men, neck-
ridden by a political adventurer, freely giving him the
p 3﻿162
THE GLORY AND THE RH A ME
command of their confidence and their pockets for some
object which he knows well it is beyond his power to
attain. This is not the way to obtain a redress of
grievances; that man takes the surest course who
spends every leisure moment in improving himself, who
masters the principles of political economy and general
government, acquaints himself with literature and
science, and above ail displays his mental superiority in
raising his physical and social condition. If ail working
men were to adopt a course like this, political privilèges
would be easily obtained ; their appeals would then
be irrésistible.
Ànother object which popular éducation is adapted
and required to gain, is the realization of greater refine-
ment in the domestic and social intercourse of the working
classes. There is a fictitious and a true refinement. The
former springs from the desire to imitate the manners
of those above us, with the view of increasing our own
conventional value. Such refinement is cramped, and
artificial ; it springs from despicable motives, and
seldom fails to make the person who affects it ridicu-
lous. But there is a true refinement, which springs
from cultivated tastes, from a mind well stored with
knowledge, from a gentle and generous soûl : it is not
an accident or mere appendage, a thing made for the
occasion, but a genuine effusion of the heart—a part of
the living man. Many in condemning the former hâve
overlooked the latter. The freedom and bluntness of
our Saxon manners are apt to degenerate into vulgarity
and rudeness. Working men too offcen eschew courtesy
as a weakness, deliver themselves in the coarsest style,
and seem to think any approach to blandness of exprès-﻿OF BRITAIN.
163
sion a mark of effeminacy. How often, in domestic
conversation, is every sentence pointed with a rude
impérative. How often is the language of the shop a
string of filthy metaphors which modesty cannot under-
stand without a blush. How often is a surly question
met with a surlier reply, and followed with exécrations
and blows. Such characteristics call loudly for reform.
The working man should be in the truest meaning of
the word a “ gentleman.” This distinction, the highest
in a secular point of view to which any man can aspire,
is within the reach of ail. It is independent of wealth
or social position ; it needs not for its support a spacious
mansion, a noble équipage, a retinue of servants, or a
host of workmen ; it requires only unaffected kindness
and a cultivated mind. Nor is this an empty dis-
tinction, a merely gilded bauble : it is a positive blessing ;
it confers substantial benefits upon its possessor; it
heightens the charm of social and domestic life, gives the
polish and glow of beauty to the meanest matters, and
strengthens the kindly sympathies from which it flows.
Finally, popular éducation is demanded as an indis-
pensable ally in the work of physical improvement. We
hâve already shown what in this department should be
done for the working man, and what he should do for
himself, but the possible extent of both is to be measured
by the amount of intelligence he possesses. The
wretehedness of his abode is often unperceived by him-
self, he has no sense of its existence, everythmg is just
what he would choose it to be. If he could but be
made the prey of a little wholesome dissatisfaction,
more decent and comfortable arrangements would soon
appear possible. He might then perceive that it would﻿164
THE GLORY AND THE KH A ME
be more economical to spend a shilling a week extra in
removing to a drier and more airy situation, than to
await the fever which annually visits his présent abode.
He might then reflect that the room in which his family
sleeps, for a trifling outlay, could be well ventilated,
and that this would be far better than to permit their
health to be injured, by allowing them to breathe for
six or seven hours daily, an atmosphère from which the
vital element is almost entirely withdrawn. But this
dissatisfaction can only be produced by intelligence; so
long as he is ignorant, he is conscious of no higher wants
than the cravings of his animal nature ; there is no
taste to gratify, no ingenuity to be displayed, no self-
respect to be propitiated, no social status to be main-
tained. Even the conditions of health can be with
difficulty understood. He does not recognise air as an
entity except in a storm; that it consists of separable
éléments, or that its fitness to sustain life dépends upon
their relative proportions, is to him one of those innu-
merable myths of science which he cannot question, but
which he does not heartily believe. Enlighten him in
these mysteries, and while the knowledge itself will be
a source of pleasure, his life will become at once healthier,
happier, and longer. Let no effort be relaxed which
enlarged benevolence can desire for bettering his con-
dition, but above ail things give him intelligence;
without this it will be impossible for others to help
him; with it he will be able, to a much greater extent,
to do without their aid.
IY. We now proceed to consider the fourth general
principle which must be acted upon in endeavouring to﻿OF BRITAIN.
165
raise the condition of the working classes,—a more prac-
TICAL AND EARNEST MANIFESTATION OF CHRISTIAN TRUTH.
We do not undervalue other remedies when we affirm
that the chief remedy for existing evils would be the
hearty réception, on the part of the masses, of the
glorious verities of the religion of Christ. Others are sub-
side ary, this is chief; others may facilitate its operation,
this alone can adequately meet the case; others may
prodnce a partial and temporary amelioration, this alone
could render it universal and permanent. Religion
could dispense with them, their best effects could be
produced in time by its own spécial agency; but they
could not dispense with religion; for the realization of
man’s highest good they are powerless without it. Ail
the social virtues hâve their root in piety ; intelligence,
tempérance, frugality, industry, self-reliance ; religion is
the fountain whence they spring, and the all-embracing
océan to which they run. If the problem were given,
to raise a people from the lowest dregs of dégradation,
to rescue them from self-inflicted poverty, to cure their
vices, check disorder, promote unity, kindle a spirit of
enterprise, and rear them to the stature of a flourishing
and happy commonwealth; the solution might be given
in a word—make them religious, bring them under the
power of Christian principle, and the end is gained.
Christianity is misunderstood, it is therefore regarded
with disfavour; the working man is prepared to regard
it in any light rather than that of a sympathizing friend.
The true aspect it bears towards him is veiled by pré-
judice, it is unconnected with his future hopes, it has
no propitious influence on his présent condition; it is
the religion of his master, of the corporation, of the﻿166
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
government, but not liis own. Such impressions are
false; they embody a libel on the God-like System to
which they refer ; let them be laid aside for a moment,
and let us survey Christianity with that impartial can-
dour which it deserves.
The chief attribute of Christianity is its spirituality.
It cornes to us from a Being who is invisible, and ap-
peals to us concerning interests which are not appré-
ciable by the senses. Its aim is, to ply us with motives
springing from the unseen world, and to give the future
a grand and invariable prépondérance over the présent.
Its history is commensurate with the history of man-
kind, its first announcement was coeval with the fall,
and from that moment ail the events of Providence hâve
been arranged to subserve its promotion. The way was
prepared for it by an inferior economy of types and
shadows, by a sériés of the most remarkable events, and
by the fulfilled prédictions of inspired men. At length,
when the fulness of time was corne, the Son of God
appeared amongst us in the likeness of man, submitted
to poverty, suffering and death, in order that he might
furnish to the world the means of obtaining the Divine
forgiveness. Benevolence could not paint a nobler object
than that which Christ came to achieve ; that object was
simply to reconcile us to God ; but who can grasp the
sublime comprehensiveness of such an aim % It in-
cludes an entire change in our relations, our character,
and our condition. It seeks to change the relation
which, as guilty créatures, we sustain to the Divine
government, to reverse the sentence of condemnation
which justice has recorded against us, to silence those
appréhensions which agitate the soûl at the thought of'﻿OF BRITAIN.
1G7
God, and to inspire it with those filial feelings winch
will make communion with Him a source of pleasure.
It seeks to change the heart, to fill it with noble wishes,
adorn it with pure affections, take away the very desire
for sin, and secure the glad submission of our whole
nature to the Divine will. It seeks to make us happy,
laying the axe to the root of those vices which make us
misérable, “ teaching us that, denying ungodliness and
worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and
godly, in this présent world; looking for that blessed
hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and
our Saviour Jesus Christ.” 1 Christianity has thus an
end of its own, an end of the noblest kind; it is inde-
pendent of ail other Systems, it neither leans upon them
for support, nor is responsible for their follies. The love
of God is its origin ; its justification is found in our own
misery ; its credentials spring from a long sériés of ful-
filled prédictions and miraculous events, from the sub-
limity of its doctrines and the loftiness of its morals ; its
arguments dérivé irrésistible force from the experienced
wants of our nature; while its objects are associated
with our well-being both for time and etemity. Hence
Christianity has an impérative claim upon the accept-
ance of eveiy man; to despise it is the darkest ingrati-
tude, to reject it is the wildest folly.
Christianity is not only spiritual in its nature, but
eminently catholic in its sympathies. It is wedded to no
political creed. It is the sworn friend of justice, and
the determined enemy of oppression ; but it broaches
no spécifie theory of social rights, and dictâtes no spécifie
forrn of national govemment. Its spirit sanctified the
(1) Titus ii. 12, 13.﻿168
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
patriarchal authority of ancient times, commended sub-
mission to the absolute autocracy of the Cæsars, gnards
with its sanctions the regai office, and takes republies as
well as empires under its fostering wing. Content with
reproving wickedness wherever it is found, with fixing in
the heart the séminal principles of ail good, Christianity
eschews unholy warfare, and calmly awaits the peaçeful
évolution of its purposes. Neither has Christianity any
favouritism of race. Its message is the same to ail. Its
proclamation broke down the barrier which had thereto-
fore separated Jew and Gentile, and made them thence-
forth one. It disclaims those distinctions which avarice
and ambition hâve erected amongst mankind, and recog-
nises them ail as springing from a common fatherhood.
It holds out the hand of equal sympathy to the Cauca-
sian and the Malay, and binds with the same ties of
friendship both the civilized and the savage. It fur-
nished the first ameliorative element to the intercourse
of nations ; in the person of its apostles it traversed the
length and breadth of the Eoman world, breaking the
dominion of conquest, annihilating national jealousies,
and teaching everywhere the reciprocal rights and
duties of humanity. While the buccaneer and free-
booter plied a recognised trade, and captured strangers
were everywhere looked upon as lawful slaves, Chris-
tianity was enforcing upon the philosophers of Mars’
Hill the common brotherhood of mankind. Still her
sympathies are world-wide, as of old ; the angel of the
everlasting gospel is charged with a commission “ to
every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people.”
Christianity has no preference for rank. Her blessings
are bestowed equally on bond and free. Honouring the﻿OF BRITAIN.
169
institutions of civil society, and recognising those varia-
tions of social position which spring legitimately from
social laws, in reference to the objects she seeks to pro-
mote, she regards ail men as equal. Into the church no
earthly distinctions enter ; there the monarch lays aside
his crown, and the peasant forgets his poverty. In order
the more strikingly to exhibit this peculiar feature
of his religion, Christ himself became poor, selected his
companions from the poor, and accounted it one of the «
proofs of the Divinity of his mission that the gospel was
preached to the poor. In the early days of the church,
the same spirit was manifested by his followers. The
Epistle of Paul to Philemon may be referred to as a
beautiful exposition of the spirit which, according to
apostolic authority, should subsist between Christian
servants and Christian employers. Christianity throws
into the shade the artificial distinctions which exist
among men, by bringing out those great attributes in
which they ail agréé. Ail are alike fallen, responsible,
and immortal; in the presence of these august and
awful resemblances who shall dare to mention those
accidents of birth and wealth in which they differ ? In
the gospel not a passage occurs which can favour the
suspicion that external circumstances of any kind can
render one individual more eligible to its réception than
another. Its invitations in ail cases are couched in the
same terms, and are pressed with the same degree of
urgency ; they are given freely, and are given to ail.
Though Christianity aims chiefly at promoting the
spiritual interests of man, its influence on his temporal
condition is largely and necessarily bénéficiai. On this
account alone it might challenge the admiration of the
Q﻿170
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
world. If it were proved to hâve no influence in fitting
us for the life to corne, it might still claim our grateful
adhesion for the happiness it is capable of conferring
upon the life which now is. Its adaptation to amelio-
rate the physical condition of man has been proved by
experiments on every scale, and under every variety of
circumstances. It is seen in the relative degrees of the
prosperity of nations. Where evangelical truth is most
influential, there wealth abounds and liberty prevails.
Where priestcraft has proscribed the sacred volume,
and papal superstition broods over the intellects of the
people, there freedom is an empty name, and ail the
éléments of national greatness are unknown. The pro-
gress of modem missions has enabled us to ascertain
the actual eflects of the gospel when received by a
barbarous people. ‘ In Greenland, in the West Indies,
the isles of the Pacific and in Western Africa, in every
quarter of the globe, under every variation of tempe-
rature, and amongst every variety of the human species,
the same eflects hâve followed. Towns and villages
hâve sprung up in the desert, the pursuits of agri-
culture hâve supplanted those of the chase, theft and
piracy hâve given way to lawful commerce, and tribes
that once lived in open war are now bound by the re-
ciprocal ties of friendship. Flax and cotton hâve been
spun into clothing, or exchanged for the productions of
other climes ; the dens of cannibalism hâve been turned
into human abodes ; disease has been combated by the
skill of science instead of the cruelties of witchcraft ; and
the besotted slaves of sensuality hâve been roused to a
sense of their spiritual manhood. In many instances,
similar results hâve followed the réception of Christian﻿OF BRITAIN
171
truth at home. Hundreds never knew how to read till
their conversion ; that great change broke the fetters of
the mind, and developed intellectual powers which
would else hâve continued dormant, and made them
the ornaments at once of society and the church. Nor
is it difficult to account for the effects which hâve thus
been produced. Man is without, exactly what he is
within. He is visibly what he is really, The arrange-
ments of domestic life reveal to us the coarseness or the
delicacy, the rudeness or the refinement—in a word, ail
the noble or degrading sympathies of the mind by which
they were conceived. Malte the soûl a paradise, and
kindred beauty will bloom around. Exalt, refine and
stimulate with Christian principle, let the chambers of
the heart be hung with the sumptuous drapery of truth,
and the superiority of man over the brute création will
shine undimmed, the vestiges of vice will vanish from
his outer life, poverty will lose its sting, and misfortune
cast no shadow. Christianity fully realized in the
hearts of men, would issue in a new création ; the re-
generated soûl of humanity would make for itself a
regenerated world. Without violence, softly as the
footsteps of receding darkness, would selfishness and
impurity disappear, and the sacred morn of truth and
freedom break upon the world.
It is the misfortune of Christianity to be made re-
sponsible for the deficiencies of its adhérents. Its beams,
like those of the sun, hâve to pass, in reaching us,
through a cloudy région, and often seem distorted and
obscured, but this distortion and obscurity résidé not at
the fount of light, they are gathered on its passage
hither. No aspersion has been deemed too foui for﻿172
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
Christianity ; she has been spared no insult at the
hand of her impious foes. It has been insinnated that
she is an enemy to leaming, liberty, and progress ; that
she sides with the oppressor against the oppressed ; that
her smiles rest more complacently npon the rich than
upon the poor ; that she has kindled in society the
flame of fratricidal strife, and whetted the steel for war.
She has been branded as the pampered child of privilège,
a misérable device of priestcraft, a cunningly devised
fable, a phantom, a cheat, a bubble which is destined to
burst on the reef of time. OfFspring of heaven ! what
hast thou done to be thus an object of envy and hatred
to mankind ? Is it for this that thou hast braved the
fiâmes of martyrdom, overcome the tyranny of the
Oæsars, softened the barbarism of the Goth, and lapped
the nations in the fruits of peace ? Is it for this that
thou hast trodden the earth in quest of suffering, hast
heard the cry of the captive, broken the fetters of the
slave, cheered by thy consolations the orphan and the
widow, made the poor man’s cottage happier than the
courts of princes, and thrown over the last hours of this
earthly existence the radiance 'of immortality ? How
great must be the blindness or the ingratitude of man-
kind, if they can fail to appreciate such blessings, or can
recompense them with mockery and reproaches.
Ne ver was there uttered a fouler calumny than that
which denounces Christianity as inimical to the progress
and liberties of man. Instead of this, her career has
been identicai with the process of the world’s growth,
its various stages hâve been synchronous with the per-
manent advances of justice and humanity. Previous
to the Christian era society was based upon no settled﻿OF BRITAIN.
173
principles; for four thousand years its history records a
succession of experiments and failures; it had “ motion
but no progress.” Empires suddenly rose to a gigantic
height, and then crumbled to ruin. The facility with
which they were raised in a few years to an amazing
pitch of greatness, places in a melancholy light the
pliancy of the materials of which they were composed;
men could count for nothing in a State of things which
enabled one man so easily to grasp the control of
millions. The world was then a social Egypt, its popu-
lations were gathered into a few huge pyramids, of
which the tops alone are visible in the lapse of time;
despotism, sometimes dazzling, was enthroned upon their
summits, but below, how ominously dark ! what social
wretchedness fretted hopelessly around their base! The
cries of poverty hâve perished on the winds, ten thousand
desert graves enclose the victims of irresponsible satraps,
of famine, proscription, massacre and war; tyranny
hushed the taie of their sufferings, but human nature
remains unchanged, and no voice from the past is needed
to tell us what the world must hâve been when one man
was worshipped as a god and ail the rest were slaves.
Christianity has changed the scene, she has not y et done
ail that it is in her purpose and her power to do, but
she has taken a gigantic stride towards it. She has
created the éléments of social strength, multiplied the
affinities and attractions which hold the atoms of the
mass together, and thus rendered it less easy to mould
it into shapes of oppression. She has asserted the com-
mon origin and the essential equality of man, brought
out his individuality and stamped it with a higher
value, forced into general récognition the great principles
q 3﻿174
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
of justice which should control the conduct of meu
and nations, and is gradually changing the world into a
community of friendly and mutually dépendent States.
She made her appearance at a time when the last of the
great empires of antiquity was about to culminate, and
won her earliest triumphs on a soil which was radiant
with classic lore : when the northem barbarians de-
vastated Europe, and literature and freedom forsook it
in dismay, she stayed behind and commenced that work
of civilization which at length enticed them back.
During the middle âges, Christianity, though debased in
its character, was still a temple of refuge to the oppressed.
The serfs, the working classes of those days, found in
her a constant friend. Her voice was lifted up in their
behalf when every other tongue was silent; to the in-
fluence she secretly exerted upon the condition and
sentiments of society our working classes are indebted
for two great blessings, the social enfranchisement of
labour, and the récognition by the législature of the
right of poverty to support. Wherever she fixes her
abode the mists of superstition vanish; her voice en-
kindles the flame of genius, prompts the discoveries of
science, and calls into existence the arts which soffcen
and embellish life; her sympathies are commensurate
with the daims of universal right, she lives among the
splendours of suprême perfection, her career is one of
ever-widening and ever-during conquest. Her mission
is not over, every day fulfils it; her soûl is still prégnant
with schemes of happiness for the world; let man but
accept her immortal boon, and the work of philanthropy
would soon be done.
When from this view of Christianity we turn to look﻿OP BRITAIN.
175
at its réception by the masses of the people, we are
prompted to ask, what can hâve given rise to the
hostility with which they greet its daims? Surely
powerful influences of some sort must hâve been at
work to produce so strange a phenomenon. Why is not
the Divine message accepted ? Why is a scheme which
is fraught with good-will to man rejected with scorn?
This resuit may to some extent be owing to the enmity
with which it is natural in man to regard the things of ‘
God ; but apart from this, it is impossible not to perceive
that the resuit is afîected by numerous secondary causes,
the removal of which is peculiarly our own vocation.
In the first place, it must be acknowledged with sorrow
that Christianity is paralysed in its professors. Their
exhibition of its principles is weak or spurious, it has
not attained sufficient mastery over their own conduct,
its sovereignty in their hearts is divided with rival senti-
ments ; their activity in the cause of religion proceeds
too plainly from a large mixture of inferior motives, is
too arbitrary, mechanical and spasmodic. They do not'
uniformly exhibit that high-toned morality, that cordial
benevolence, that all-embracing sympathy with suffering,
that entire surrender at whatever cost to the principles
of the gospel, which are required to bring out the
genius of Christianity, and to évincé the sincerity of
their own belief. The professors of Christianity exhibit
in their intercourse with each other a spirit which is too
often the very reverse of that which it inculcates. Love
is no longer recognised as the highest Christian virtue;
mere doctrinal agreement, extending to the non-essential
portions of our common faith, has been silently exalted
over it. Accustomed chiefly to think about, and struggle﻿176
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
for, the less important articles of religion, their spiritual
life has lost its native vigour; they are fired with no
zeal, filled with no outbursting consciousness of a lofty
mission; they hâve dwindled down to the littleness of*
those petty distinctions with which they hâve almost
identified their religious existence. The names which
distinguish the various sections of the church of Christ
are, with scarcely an exception, suggestive of something
confessedly non-essential. Churchman and Dissenter,
Calvinist and Arminian, Baptist and Pædobaptist,
Episcopacy, Presbyterianism and Congregationalism; to
what do these names point? certainly not to Christ;
they hâve eclipsed that ancient name by which the
church was known in its palmiest days. That name
must be restored to its rightful ascendency, Christ must
be recognised as suprême, it must be known everywhere
that we account those names as nothing compared with
that with which we associate our highest hopes.
Christianity is associated (to a great extent necessarily)
with established interests, and hence incurs a share in
the odium which they sometimes excite. On examining
British society we cannot avoid discovering that there
exists a partial alienation of classes. It is growing less
every day, soon may it hâve vanished ! but its présent
existence is undoubted. The institutions of the country
are regarded with disfavour, and religion, as one of the
most powerful, cornes in for its share of unpopularity.
Government recognises it by a formai profession, the
laws are enacted under its sanctions, property is fenced
round with its support; respectability, if no higher
principle, attaches to it the aristocracy of rank and
wealth; hence the working classes are prejudiced against﻿OF BRITAIN.
177
it: true, their préjudices may be unfounded and unjust,
but men do not care to be logical in their feelings, and
they are not on that account the less real. The physical
and intellectual condition of the working classes is ex-
ceedingly unfavourable to the réception of Christian
truth. They are wom out with excessive toil, they
hâve no time for reflection, solitude is a luxury which
they cannot obtain, and for which they hâve no relish.
Popular ignorance présents a foe still more formidable.
Christianity appeals to intelligence, and can never be
severed from it; it exacts a reasonable service; its truths
are embodied in the written word, for the perusal and
due compréhension of which a facile use of the common
instruments of leaming is absolutely necessary. With-
out some measure of mental discipline, oral teaching,
the great instrument which Christ ordained for convert-
ing the world, must be comparatively inefficient, in con-
sistency with which we are not to expect the universal
triumph of the gospel till “ many run to and fro, and
knowledge shall be increased.” The utmost simplifica-
tion of thought and luminousness of expression will not
release the hearer from the necessity of considérable
mental effort, and the purer the form of Christianity
which is inculcated, the higher the degree of intelligence
which is required. Eomanism, for example, has little
need for such a refined instrumentality; that form of
worship kindles dévotion through the medium of the
senses, and makes the imagination the chief means of
mastering the soûl. But Protestantism must die without
knowledge; in dispensing with a gorgeous ritual, and
renouncing ail pretension to infallibility, we abandon
acknowledged sources of power, and truth demands that﻿178
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
their loss be compensated by such a diffusion of intelli-
gence as will enable men to yield a reasonable homage
to her daims. While a large portion of the working #
classes are thus unfavourably situated, by the want of
intelligence, for the appréciation of religious truth, the
intellectnal influences which act on the remainder are
anything but propitious. The press is fearfully prolific,
ungodly productions of ail sorts are continually pouring
from it, sensualism and infidelity are the staple food of
thousands, numerous penny publications circulate in our
large towns in which the lowest tastes are sedulously
eonsulted, and the vilest passions are pandered to. In
the higher reading circles, and within the limits of re-
ligious dénominations, the religious press maintains a
respectable position, but among large sections of the
working classes its productions are scarcely known, there
irréligion holds entire mental monopoly. Meanwhile
the pulpit is comparatively shorn of its power, to a great
extent its ministrations are languid and mechanical ; it
gives no certain Sound, its denunciations seem to buffet
the air, its teaching awakes no vital response within the
soûl; its traditional influences are still strong with the
middle classes, but with the mass of the people its
strength is gone; either they neglect Divine worship, or
to them nothing is half so dry and profitless as a sermon.
Considering the operation of such causes, it is no
marvel that, with ail its excellence, Christianity should
fail in winning the affectionate adhérence of our work-
ing men. This resuit may be accounted for without
supposing that human depravity is invincible, or that
the influences of the Spirit are bound. As long as such
causes are allowed to work, it will be vain to look for﻿OP BRITAIN.
179
the complété evangelization of our native land. With-
out such an extraordinary manifestation of Divine
power as we hâve no reason to expect, the conversion of
the working classes is, under existing circumstances,
impossible. God has left the task of removing external
hindrances in onr hands ; the valley mnst be exalted, the
mountain and hill must be made low, the rough places
must be made smooth, and the crooked places straight,
before the glory of the Lord can be revealed. Chris-
tian principle must become more transparent, more
energetic, more uncompromising, more masterful, more
affectionately earnest, before Christianity itself can be
enthroned in the affections of the people. Let us
briefly point out a few of the methods by which we
may hope to attain this resuit.
First, in contemplating, as her peculiar task, the
evangelization of the working classes, the church o*
Christ may fitly indulge in general and solemn pré-
paration for it. Humiliation for the past will be the
appropriate precursor of determined efforts for the
future. Penetrated with a sense of individual responsi-
bility.and neglect, let each of the foliowers of Christ
présent himself at the footstool of mercy, to obtain that
measure of Divine help which shall henceforth secure
his entire devotedness to the cause of truth. Chris-
tianity must be learned afresh, its first principles must
be re-examined, we must contemplate its sublime dis-
closures till they produce in us their proper effects.
Spiritual-mindedness must be produced by frequent
communion with the invisible ; our impressions of the
value of the soûl must be deepened, those sensual illu-
sions which betray us into a false estimate of présent﻿180
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
things, and keep us, like the boy in his butterfly pur-
suit, busily engaged in chasing trifles, must be displaced
by noble and truthful tboughts. We must acquire the
habit of looking steadily upon the highest good, and of
estimating the value of ail besides by the relation it
holds to its attainment. In the choice of models for
the guidance of our Christian life we must go back
to the apostolic âge, hear from the lips of Christ the
exposition of our duties, and mark how sublimely it
was illustrated in the lives of himself and his disciples.
In a word, we must become Christians in reality—we
must aspire to be ail which in its fullest meaning that
name dénotés; to realize and exhibit the strongest in-
fluences of truth, to rise to the highest possible pitch of
calm enthusiasm and heroic self-denial which truth can
inspire, should be the scope of our ambition. Such an
augmentation of piety would rouse the thoughtless and
sceptical of ail classes, a new spirit would seem to hâve
descended upon the church of Christ, a pentecostal
energy, to whose resistless force the strongest intrench-
ments of the powers of darkness would be compelled to
yield.
Entering thus spiritually prepared upon the discharge
of its solemn duties, the Christian church must also be
evidently actuated by the purest motives. There is
amazing power in the impression that an individual is
honestly endeavouring to promote our welfare. Though
we think him mistaken in his principles, and care not a
straw for what he seems so anxious to impart, yet his
jsincerity places him beyond our ridicule, and gradually
gains upon our esteem. But generally if a person of
intelligence is thus interested on our behalf, we are﻿OF BRITAIN.
181
induced to think that some value must attach to the
object of his exertions, and we are led to examine it for
ourselves. This is precisely the impression it is désirable
that the professors of Christianity should communicate
to the working classes of Great Britain. The impression
actually conveyed is just the reverse. The working man
imagines that his spiritual welfare awakes no honest
concem ; he imputes the anxiety which he sometimes
hears expressed for his conversion, to sectarian zeal ; he
has no idea that the church of Christ is moved towards
him with profound compassion ; could he once be really
assured of this, his hostility would be disarmed. The
question is, how can such an assurance be produced ?
Self-sacrifice is, in one form or other, the invariable
and exclusive proof of sinceritÿ; the world requires the
proof, let it be promptly given. Let every modification
of religious selfishness be eschewed. Selfishness in
religion prompts us to rest satisfied with personal
enjoyment, to sit under our own vine and fig-tree, to
think of no vineyard but our own, to ask no one to
share with us in the sumptuous repast, to feel the
blessedness of religion undisturbed by any recollection
of the myriads who are perishing without it. Selfish-
ness in religion prompts us to attempt nothing unless we
are sure the resuit will be visibly connected with our own
efforts, to do nothing if it is not to be blazoned forth to
the world, to prefer those modes of doing good which
are most showy, to give our alms at the corners of the
Street, and blow a trumpet when we wish to pray. Selfish-
ness in religion prompts us to labour more for our own sect
thanfor the common objects of Christianity; it fosters the
impression that ail is lost which is not given to promote﻿182
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
our own peculiar views, and leads ns to listen with a
degree of jealousy which we should be ashamed openly
to acknowledge, to the snccess which may hâve been
enjoyed by other sections of the church than that to
which we belong. Such forms of selfishness must be
banished from amongst us for ever, if the world is to
count us honest. “ If I really held your creed,” said a
sceptic to a remonstrant friend, “ I could give myself
no rest. The conviction that my fellow-creatures were
in danger of perishing, and that I possessed the know-
ledge of a method which could effect their rescue, would
overwhelm me, if I did not daily task my energies to
save them.” The satire is just, we will submit to be
instructed by an enemy. Our faith and practice must
be more consistent ; at. the Saviour’s bidding we must
“ go forth into the highways and hedges.” Our sympa-
thies must gather more exclusively around the soûl, the
inhabitants of our lanes and cellars must be made to
feel that it is of infinitely greater conséquence that they
become the genuine subjects of piety, than that they
practise the outward forms of Churchism or Dissent;
that their children are gathered into our Sabbath-
school, not to become the prosélytes of a sect, but the
catechumens of the universal church, and that ail the
purposes of evangelical solicitude will be answered if
they are rescued from the power of darkness, and are
translated into the kingdom of God’s dear Son.
If it is important to the evangelization of the working
classes that the efforts of the church of Christ on their
behalf should be evidently sincère, it is specially so that
the ministers of the gospel should possess their confi-
dence and esteem. The institution of the ministry is﻿OF BRITAIN.
183
one of the practical forais in which Christianity meets
the eye of the people. True, it is independent of its
essence, at most it is only an important adjunct of the
Christian scheme ; but préjudice makes no subtle dis-
tinctions ; popularly, religion is one with its ministers,
and the same honour or dishonour is put upon both.
Moreover the pulpit is the right arm of Christian
agency, it is the appointed means of bringing men to a
knowledge of the truth ; but préjudice will cripple its
power ; to breathe on its character is to blight its use-
fulness ; it is impossible for moral benefits to be con-
veyed through a medium which is held in contempt.
The ministers of the gospel do not, as a body, hold
that position among the working classes which is neces-
sary to extensive success. They are regarded as chiefly
actuated by mercenary considérations. Their work is
degraded into a profession, and their efforts in the cause
of religion are set down to a desire for personal
advancement. How often has the most disinterested
piety been forced to weep at fmding the sacred office
reduced, in the popular estimation, to a mere expédient,
sanctioned by superstition, for gaining a respectable
maintenance ! That unworthy men hâve sometimes
assumed the duties of the Christian ministry for merely
selfish ends, is unhappily too true, but that such a
censure is generally applicable we hesitate not to deny.
Still the disposition to record such a censure is a signi-
ficant fact, and indicates an evil of some sort which
calls loudly for removal. That an office which was
instituted by Christ himself, and which he adorned by
the labours of the holiest life, should be inherently
hostile to the interests of the people, is impossible.﻿184
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
Injustice or inconsistency, or a blending of both, must
exist somewhere. It may be that a higher degree of
humility and zeal is requisite for approaching tbe
Scripture model of a Christian minister, and that, on
the other hand, imfounded préjudices hâve thrown dust
into the people’s eyes, and prevented them from recog-
nising their truest friends. Let the evil be corrected
on both sides. Let the working classes be assured of a
fact which they will some day acknowledge, that no set
of men are more disinterestedly devoted to their welfare
than the ministers of the gospel; that hundreds whom
they look upon with suspicion, whom, when they see
them near their dwellings, they inwardly denounce as
hypocrites, would cheerfully make any sacrifice in order
to promote their happiness. And can the ministers
of religion do nothing to win back the confidence of the
people ? Is it impossible, without neglecting their
peculiar duties, or infringing upon the appropriate
sanctity of their character, to évincé a larger measure
of sympathy with popular feelings and popular move-
ments? Hâve not schemes been suffered to languish,
or else to be wielded to the détriment of religion, Which
a little timely aid from them might hâve rendered
vigorous and useful? Public opinion is perhaps justly
censurable for such results, but it is high time for the
ministers of religion to eschew false delicacy. Freedom
of conscience must be conceded and practised in action
as well as in belief. Every man in acting for God is
sacred as the ark which Uzzah touched, and for the
touching of which God slew him. Let the ministers of
Christianity drink deep into her own noble, generous,
and fearless spirit, approve themselves hencefortb as the﻿OP BRI TAIN.
185
teachers and shepherds of the poor, seize with a friendly
grasp the hand of labour, discuss the circumstances
and opinions of the working man at his cottage
hearth ; by such methods confidence will be won,
apathy and suspicion will give way to esteem, and it
will be found that religion, whatever else it may be, is
at least manly, rational and benevolent.
If the pulpit is by Divine appointment one of the
chief means of enforcing truth upon the conscience,
it is of the highest importance that its ministrations
should be clothed with vigour. To say that in this
respect it is at présent déficient, is only to écho a
sentiment little short of universal. The ministers of
religion themselves are sensible of the deficiency, and
are striving in various ways to correct it. Some are
endeavouring to do so by means of more subtle reason-
ings and a more refined address ; others by looking for
the staple matter of their preaching in the minor
doctrines of Christianity, or in the relations it sustains
to history, philosophy, and science; others cling with
unintelligent tenacity to recognised creeds, are more
anxious than ever to express old doctrines in old
formulas, delight in using, with ail their offensive
peculiarities, the phraseology of certain theological
schools, and too often succeed, by sounding the tinkling
cymbal of orthodoxy, to cheat themselves and their
hearers of substantial truth. These methods are
false, and must ultimately fail. The great and sole
requisites for the efficiency of the pulpit are spirituality,
eamestness, and common sense ; and in the production
of these qualities intelligence and faith must be com-
bined. The communications of the New Testament
r 3﻿186
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
must be felt to embody etemal verities—to possess
innumerable affinities with the soûl, and to be capable,
under the promised influence of the Holy Spirit, of
correcting ail the evils which hâve been produced
by sin. These communications, perceived in their
vital connexion with human happiness, must be con-
veyed to others with ail the fervour which a sense
of their value can inspire. The pulpit ought never
to be confounded with the professor’s chair; the
laboured theme, the polished and accurately balanced
essay, the careful avoidance of everything like en-
thusiasm, so well fitted to attain the purposes of the
latter, are worse than useless in the former; their
introduction into the pulpit betrays utter ignorance
of the conditions on which the success of a public
speaker dépends, and the practice of a similar method
at the bar or in the senate would involve a total
failure. The first and last element of popular oratory
is power—the power which springs from vigorous
thought conjoined with eamest feeling. Effeminacy,
indolence, affectation, ignorance, or mental imbecility,
may be tolerated in any one rather than in the
preacher, and must be most heartily repudiated by
ail who aspire to be worthy of the name.
In a word, the great want of this and of every âge
in relation to the pulpit, is a discriminating and
earnest manifestation of Christian truth,—a manifesta-
tion not only of its connexion with the discoveries
of human reason, but of its own positive and absolute
essence as a scheme of saving mercy revealed by heaven.
Such a manifestation will bring out into bold relief
tliose doctrines which constituée its distinguishing﻿OF BRITAIN,
187
peculiarities, the Deity of Christ, the utoning efficacy of,
his death, the necessity of the new birth, and of the
agency of the Spirit in producing it. These doctrines are
the living strength of Christianity ; without* them it is
a solemn nulhty, a sublime impertinence. To blink
them, to speak of them in an apologetic strain, to wish
that they were brought forward in the Scriptures with
somewhat less prominence, is treason to their daims.
Their seeming antagonism with the teachings of true
philosophy lies only on the surface, a realization of
their meaning by the aid of eamest and prayerful
thought would show how intimately they are con-
nected with every fragment of discoverable truth in
life and nature. Let them be boldly taught, they
carry with them their own démonstration ; they hâve
a correspondence with the wants of our fallen nature
which arms their simple manifestation with irrésistible
power. Discrimination in stating truth will offcen
dispense with the necessity of argument. Let but the
truth as it is in Jésus be intelligently and earnestly
proclaimed, and error, like Dagon before the ark of the
Lord, will be discomfited by the presence of its enemy,
and the cross, re-invested with its own attractive
powers, will soon fulfil the prédiction of its illustrious
victim by drawing ail men unto it.
But methods are nothing without principles ; and
principles, truly felt, are sure to create the means
which are necessary to make themselves efficient.
The possible instrumentalities of Christian zeal are
innumerable, capable of being wielded by individuals
of every intellectual grade, and of employing ail the
material and spiritual resources of Christians. They﻿188
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
include every agency by which the way of salvation
may be communicated to others—the ministrations of
the sanctuary, the instruction of the young, the way-
side conversation, the diffusion of religious publications
by millions among our cottage homes, district visita-
tions, Christian instruction societies, city and rural
missions, every species both of organized and individual
effort. Let but the church of Christ be duly elevated,
and these instrumentalities will corne into existence of
their own accord. Christianity is living truth; it is
free from everything artificial, from mechanism, and
from coercion ; its doctrines extend, its principles
become efficacious, and its converts are multiplied by
virtue of its own spiritual processes—processes as
natural and spontaneous as the germinating of the
hidden seed, or the budding of the flower. Pour, then,
upon us, Etemal Spirit ! the gifts of love ; expand our
selfish hearts by thy génial influence, and so array
before us the daims of our benighted countrymen,
that every inferior feeling may be swallowed up in
a zeal to promote their rescue. Then shall religion
break forth on every side, “the righteousness thereof
shall go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof
as a lamp that burneth.”﻿OF BRITAIN.
189
CHAPTER III.
THE CLAIMS OF THE WORKING CLASSES, AND THE BENEFITS,
BOTH TEMPORAL AND RELIGIOUS, WHICH WOULD SPRING
FROM THEIR ELEVATION.
It is one of the chief maxims which we deduce from
the existence of a moral government, that justice and
utility, rectitude and true happiness, invariably include
each other ; that however divergent, or even opposite,
their interests seem at présent, they will meet in the
same point at last. A conviction of this kind is charao-
teristic of the lowest faith in the existence of a suprême
Govemor, but it is too frequently supposed that the
scene of its realization will be exclusively the future
life. The présent state is erroneously supposed to lie
under the entire sovereignty of evil principles, and a
final reckoning is deemed necessary to give the faintest
colour of equity to the existing sériés of events. This
is the exaggeration of an indubitable fact. Conscience
and Scripture alike attest that ‘cGod will judge the
world,” and this judgment is necessary to fill up the
measure of punishment and reward ; but God rules in
this world as absolutely as in the next, and the excep-
tions to an équitable distribution of good and evil are
fewer than a superficial observer might imagine. Sin
Works evil, and only evil, everywhere ; within the soûl it
works “hatred, variance, émulations, wrath,” and ail
those passions which render man a self-tormentor ;﻿190
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
while every sinful act which finds its way into the outer
world receives there an immédiate chastisement. The
laws of matter and of society are subordinated to a
moral government, and can only operate in the further-
ance and reward of well-doing. Hence we may conclude
that in everything connected with social économies,
justice is the highest expediency, and every act of
enlightened benevolence redounds to the welfare of the
doer. Thus the apparently discordant interests of
society are held together by a mystic chain, and blend
in a common unity. Opposition of interests is a thing
impossible, the semblance of it can only exist when we are
blinded by selfishness ; amidst the social changes which
may be expected as man presses forward in his career,
ail that need be asked, whether to stimulate or console
us, is simply this, Do they flow legitimately from a
legitimate principle? If so, ail will be well, we may
safely trust them. In the highest and truest sense a
surrender to truth is a surrender to ourselves; every act
of philanthropy is a stone in the fabric of our own happi-
ness. A guinea spent by society in improving the con-
dition of its members, will in time contribute ten to the
common exchequer ; the élévation of one class will tend
to secure the substantial and permanent élévation of ail.
Having in the preceding chapters considered the con-
dition of the working classes, and attempted to point
out the chief means of promoting their élévation, we
wish, in the space which remains, to group together very
briefly the chief benefits which would accrue from the
accomplishment of that object. Those benefits are pro-
spective, they speak in the language of allurement ; but
there are a few preliminary considérations which exhibit﻿OF BRITAIN.
191
in the light of obligation the course of effort which they
will combine to reward ; and to these we will first
direct attention.
The most obvious fact in the condition of the working
classes is not the least impressive, namely, that they are
by far the largest portion of the community. They con-
stitue the majority of almost every town and village in
the empire. Only a few dwellings in the secluded
hamlet can be pointed out as the résidence of wealth,
the rest are inhabited by the sons of toil. In the
numerous villas which grâce the approaches of our large
towns we recognise, with feelings of patriotic pleasure,
the abodes of our merchant princes, while a large num-
ber of humbler dwellings in their neighbourhood may
be assigned to those who are following them with a busy
step in the road to wealth : but to whom belong those
dingy masses of brickwork extending over hundreds of
acres nearer the centre of business, and which, when
viewed from a distance, resemble an irregular stratum
deposited by the hand of nature, instead of the habita-
tions of man ï These are the abodes of labour, there
are hived up the myriads of the people, there they live
and die ; their existence almost forgotten by the busy
world without, except when perchance they are brought
out in startling array by a holiday show or the voice of
famine.
The daims of the working classes, rendered imposing
by their numbers, are made impérative by past neglect.
The duties which are implied in the very nature of
the social compact, and the peculiar obligations which
Christianity enjoins, hâve been violated in the persons
of our poorer brethren. With the exception of a﻿192
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
legislative enactment now and then aimed at the redress
of some glaring wrong, nothing has been donc, till very
recent times, for the improvement of the masses. For
âges subséquent to the Conquest their existence was
hardly recognised. except when goaded to the verge
of rébellion, or enlisted under the banners of contend-
ing chiefs. In later times, when it might be expected
that a maturer civilization would hâve produced better
fruits, the lower orders, the “ profanurn vulgus ” of classic
circles, were held in refined contempt. The growing
influence of the burgher class was evidenced in the m-
creasing ascendency of the House of Commons in the
national councils, but the classes below them existed in a
state of comparative villanage. With what dérision would
the wits of the Restoration hâve hailed any plan which
professedly aimed at the enlightenment of the masses !
Even in better times the progress of healthy feeling was
extremely slow ; the Augustan âge of English literature
was distinguished by no generous sympathies for the
people ; the uneducated multitude excited but little in-
terest in the proud republic of letters. Those great men,
whose writings hâve rendered the beginning of the
eighteenth century the most brilliant era in our literary
annals, were troubled with none of the qualms of an
excessive philanthropy. What with politics abroad and
poetry at home, the intrigues which infested the court,
and the artificial notions which paralysed society, no
room was left in the mind of that âge for so utopian an
idea as that of elevating the people. N or can the various
Christian communities of the land be exempted from
blâme in this matter. The Establishment, to which we
look first as the authorized instructor of the people, was﻿OF BRITAIN.
193
far from evincing, for âges subséquent to the Reforma-
tion, that vigorous religious life which has more recently
been developed within its pale. With the clergy, as well
as with the laity, those were the days of party strife, or
of learned leisure. The nation is not without political
obligations to the former ; while the writings of such men
as Tillotson, Atterbury, Warburton, and Butler will
always rank among the most éloquent apologies and ex-
positions of the Christian faith ; but we look in vain to
this quarter during those times for a keen appréciation
of popular wants. If we turn to the various grades of
Protestant dissenters, we find them engaged in measures
of self-defence, rather than in diffusing religion amongst
the crowds by whom they were persecuted and despised.
To Wesley and Whitfield belongs the honour of having
been the first to enter fully upon this neglected field ;
and from their times we trace the growth, both within
and without the pale of the Establishment, of a steady
attempt to bring the working classes under the influence
of the gospel. The success of their labours roused and
stimulâted every section of the Christian church. About
seventy years ago the Sabbath School Institute was
founded, and this was but the commencement of a
sériés of efforts for diffusing the gospel at home and
abroad, which hâve rendered the close of the last cen-
tury and the beginning of the présent a truly illustrious
era in the annals of our common faith. From this period
dates the origin of missions both foreign and domestic.
At the beginning of the présent century, the Bible and
Tract Societies were formed, through whose combined
operations more is now being done to evangelize the
masses than at any former period. Religion at length has﻿194
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
corne to the rescue ; but how slow hâve been her move-
ments, and how inadéquate are the resources she has yet
embarked in the enterprise for its successful completion!
These motives springing from the past period of our
history are enforced by considérations peculiar to the
présent. In whatever light we regard the working
classes, they are the very pith and sinews of our national
strength, one of the factors of an accumulation of wealth
which turns the hoardings of a Crœsus into poverty, the
foundation on which is reared that fabric of prosperity
which is at once the admiration and envy of other
nations. But for them capital would exist in vain,
mechanical contrivances would be useless, and with our
présent resources we should be no richer than less
favoured portions of mankind. A bountiful Providence
has formed our land to be the abode of wealth, has
indented its coasts with deep and spacious harbours, in-
tersected it with navigable streams, made it fruitful in
ail the necessaries of life, and hidden beneath its surface
an inexhaustible supply of minerai treasures ; but what
would these advantages avail us if we had been denied
the only instrument which can make the richest natural
resources of any value, an ingenious, enterprising and
industrious people ?
We need only glance at history to ascertain how large
a share has been taken by the working classes in pro-
ducing the comparatively illustrious présent. There was
a time when the freedom we now enjoy lay hid in ancient
usages and musty laws ; a great event had changed our
institutions, imposed upon us the rigours of a feudal
System, and threatened us with a long night of despotic
power. In neighbouring nations the gift of liberty was﻿OP BRITAIN.
195
lost, to be recovered only in our own times by deeds of
violence, whieh would outweigh tbe value of anything
less precious ; here tbe mutual struggles of kings and
barons seldom ended in the mere consolidation of private
power ; the influence of a third estate, upon which both
were equally dépendent, insensibly swaved them to a
higber end. It was the lower classes, fired with the
nobility of Saxon blood, and daily working themselves
up to fresh influence in the State, that gave those
struggles a patriotic cast, and kept them true as the
pole-star to the cause of freedom. The prize they helped
to win they hâve been always ready to maintain. They
were marshalled at Runnymede, they flocked to the
camp at Tilbury, and in the most recent case of threat-
ened invasion, none were more eager to defend, if needful
witli their lives, the independence of their native land.
Wherever we turn we are struck with the monuments
of their industry and skill ; under their hands the
aspect of the country has been entirely changed;
marshes hâve been drained, forests hewn down, exten-
sive districts of barren moorland inclosed, which are
now çovered with luxuriant pasturage or golden grain.
As to those noble érections of the middle âges, on which
our architectural pretensions chiefly rest,—something
more than the genius of a Wykeham was required to
plaoe them there ; we see in them the. patient toil of
multitudes “ unknown to famé,” whose dust has reposed
for centuries beneath the shadow of the mighty fabrics
which, when living, they helped to rear. To the work-
ing classes science is largely indebted for her latest
achievements. Our highways, our canals and railroads
are the fruit of labour ; our réservoirs, aqueducts and﻿196
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
tubular bridges owe their existence to tbe united strength
of a thousand rough-wom hands. These brought the
iron from the mine, the wood from the forest, and the
stone from the quarry, and fashioned them into the
gigantic and solid proportions at which the spectator
gazes in silent awe. Genius would be nothing without
labour ; without labour its most félicitous conceptions
would be so many splendid dreams. Watt and Stephen-
son might as well hâve died in their cradles had they
been denied the physical strength and daring which
were required to carry out their inventions. The naval
greatness, the commerce, and the wealth of Britain
dépend upon her manufactures, and these again upon
the industrial energies of the people. We are natu-
ralized by our manufactures in every clime, they make
us truly the citizens of the world ; but every article of
our enormous exports is the produce of labour. Shut
up our workshops, let our population grow less in-
dustrious or less skilful, and our navy would soon be
rotting in our harbours, and the fabric of British great-
ness would melt away like a snow-tower in the sun.
If from the past and the présent we tum to survey
the future, how many bénéficiai results do we observe
springing from the élévation of the working classes!
Let us contemplate the chief of those which bear upon
the temporal welfare of the community.
Among the immédiate results of the élévation of the
working classes would be a vast extension of the demand
for labour. Scarcity of work is the great want of the
times ; it is this which forces the working classes into
such close compétition with each other, and brings wages﻿OF BRITAIN,
197
down to so low a point that they will scarcely maintain
existence. It is this which peoples our towns and
villages with crowds of loiterers, whose emaciated and
anxious countenances bear them witness that they are
willing to work if only they could procure employment.
It is this that originates the sad necessity, under the
pressure of which hundreds of thousands every year
forsake their native land for a distant shore, and which
has recently enlisted the benevolent energies of society
in carrying out a scheme of Wholesale émigration.
Yarious reasons hâve been assigned for the existence of
this evil, the laws of God and the genius of man hâve
both been impugned by tums. It is said that the
people multiply faster than provision can be made for
their subsistence; as though population were not a source
of wealth, and it were not a libel on the goodness of the
Creator to suppose that an individual can be brought
into being who is not able by the utmost aid of his
faculties to keep himself from starvation. Machinery
is quarrelled with, one-half of the working classes would
destroy every vestige of it to-morrow if they were with-
held from such a course by nothing but a faith in its
utility ; as if ignorance and imbecility were the necessary
conditions of human progress, and the advance of the
mind in the career of its dominion over matter, could
end only in making the individual wretched. If we are
indeed shut up to such conclusions, the prospects of
mankind are dreary enough; we must conclude that
irreconcilable enmity exists between their highest in-
terests, and that the development of their mental great-
ness is the path to misery. Surely it becomes us to
look well about us before resigning ourselves to such
s 3﻿198
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
hopelessness. Rather should we expect to find some
radical defect in our own conduct, than lightly believe
that such contradictions can exist in nature, or that the
Divine administration can be justly chargeable with such
a want of benevolence or foresight.
It is quite true that something more than mental de-
velopment is needed to make the world happy. The
widest generalization in other departments of inquiry
would lead us to expect that intellectual power might
work harm to social interests if divorced from moral
principle. The créations of genius must go hand in
hand with that benevolence which is the handmaid of
Christian piety, if they are to produce those natural
fruits which constitute the sum of physical well-being.
This must be admitted, and deserves to be seriously
pondered; but we are not obliged to denounce machinery
in order to account for the fact that thousands are out
of employ. Instead of asking why the supply of
labour is so large, suppose we ask why the demand for
labour is so small. Instead of repining that so much
labour is brought into the market, let attention be
directed more frequently to the question, Why is so
little labour wanted ? Excluding ail reference to foreign
markets, is the home market carried to its furthest
limits % Are the working classes fully supplied with ail
the comforts of life % Is convenience a drug in the
houses of the poor ? Survey the working man from
head to foot ; is he clad as respectably as he might be %
has he exchanged his rags for fustian, or his fustian for
broad-cloth ? are his children more than just redeemed
from nakedness % ishis wife possessed of such attire as
she deems befitting the sanctity of the sabbath, or the﻿OP BRITAIN.
199
self-respect of a woman? Accompanying him to his
abode, does it contain the necessary accessories of a
civilized life; can we discover in it plentifdl traces of the
cabinet-maker and the artist; or should we feel obliged,
if guided by extemal evidence alone, to refer the fumish-
ing of his dwelling to a period before docks were in-
vented, or mankind had leamed the convenience of such
things as tables and chairs 1 We cannot doubt that if
the homes of our working men were furnished as they
might, and as they ought to be, our home trade would
be increased to three or four times its présent amount.
We should want, in order to supply them, three or four
times the présent number of employera, and three or
four times the présent number of workmen. N or would
this extra amount of employment be monopolized by
one or two branches of business; on the contrary, it
would be difîused through every trade in exact propor-
tion to the importance of its bearing upon the comforts
and conveniences of life. The cotton-spinners and
calico-printers of the north, the clothiers of the west,
the manufacturera of hosiery, hats, gloves, laces, ribbons;
the builder, the joiner, the tailor ; the maker of shoes,
watches, cutlery, mechanical instruments and books,—
ail would rejoice together ; plenty of work would be
offered to ail, and abundance of employment, springing
from no unjust or ephemeral source, would guarantee
the continuance of high wages.
In order to produce this resuit, to increase the de-
mands of the home market three or four-fold, we hâve
only to elevate the working man. His élévation is just
synonymous with the increase of his wants and of his
means of supplying them. Make him industrious,﻿200
THE GLORY AND THE RTT AME
sober, and economical, and the work is done. If the.
money which is now spent wastefully were expended in
the purchase of really useful articles, what a multitude
of factories would be set in motion ! Let thirty millions
annually, instead of being laid out in buying intoxi-
cating drinks, be turned into the channels of productive
trade, and how many thousands would it rescue from
the streets, and raise to an honest and comfortable
living ! Every thrifty individual adds to the available
resources of the country ; he increases the amount of
capital which can be applied to the purposes of trade ;
his fifty pounds, deposited in the bank or elsewhere, is
not idle, the interest it pays him is only an index to the
good it has conferred upon others. He has not employed
a workman himself, but one has been employed for him.
The holders of his money will put it in motion ; either
through agriculture, merchandise, or manufactures, or
in influencing the general value of money, it will find
its way into active life, and issue in the increased
demand for labour. Thus the physical prosperity of
the working man, if based on principle, is self-pro-
tective ; economy and well-regulated expenditure lead
to high wages, high wages increase the amount of
money which can be retumed to the channels of trade,
and this tends to create such an additional demand for
labour as guarantees the permanency of high wages.
Let but the working man reform himself, avoid the ale-
house, buy judiciously, and save carefully, and he will
do more towards extending employment than ail those
who merely theorize on the rights of labour. The same
causes which increase our home market will tend also
to increase the demands of foreigners. In proportion﻿OP BRITAIN.
201
as our working classes become elevated will their wants
become more numerous and varied. Comforts will rank
as necessaries, and luxuries as comforts. The less
money they expend on intoxicating liquors, the more
will they hâve to spend in the purchase of tea, sugar,
and other articles of foreign produce ; an increased con-
sumption of home-made articles will increase our trade
with those portions of the earth which supply the raw
material; we shall become larger purchasers of silks,
cotton, timber, hides, and such commodities, and thus
be able to dispose of a larger quantity of our own manu-
factures. Besides, as the intelligence of the people ad-
vances, we shall become more enterprising and more
pacifie. Abundance of capital at home will open for
itself channels of useful employment abroad, connecting
us thus, by the bonds of mutual profit, with ail nations.
Instead of that défiant posture we hâve often unne-
cessarily assumed, we shall learn to eschew war except
as the last resource of threatened freedom, and thus win
for ourselves friendly coopération on the part of those
who hâve hitherto fought against us with exclusive
treaties and hostile tariffs. Thus does private virtue
end in public good; thus, by promoting the moral
élévation of the people, do we take the surest way
to surround ourselves with the blessings of physical
prosperity.
Not only the demand for labour would be affected by
the élévation of the working classes, an equally favour-
àble influence would be exerted on the quality of the
supply. The manufacturer needs not to be informed of
the close connexion which subsists between an intelli-
gent and industrious operative class, and the production﻿202
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
of goods at such a rate of quality and cheapness as will
enable him successfully to compete with foreign nations.
It is evidently for the advantage of the former that the
latter be skilful and inventive, that they keep punctnaUy
the honrs of business, apply themselves diligently while
at work, hâve no temptation to wander off in search of
other masters, and especiaily that they should be able
fairly and dispassionately to appreciate the important
questions which are continually arising between the
employer and the employed. The excellence of manu-
factured articles can never rise above the skill of the
workman, and the average capacity of our operative
population for any species of manufacture, fixes the
limit to which we can advance in that direction. In
nothing are we more déficient, wThen compared with
other nations, than in the faculty of artistic conception
and inventiveness of design. We hâve hitherto been
distinguished for the strength and quantity, rather than
the fineness and beauty of our produce ; the palm of
muscular energy, of enterprise, and scientific skill is
ours, but in point of design we are debtors to the in-
ventive genius of our neighbours. But why be inferior
to them in any respect ? The toleration of inferiority
in any species of manufacture must be seriously detri-
mental to our trading position, and should only be sub-
mitted to when, from physical causes, improvement is
plainly impossible.
In ail these respects the élévation of the working
classes must hâve a highly favourable influence on the
supply of labour. The increase of their knowledge
and the culture of their conceptive powers will hâve a
bénéficiai effect upon their taste and inventive skill.﻿OP BRITAIN.
203
Acquainted with a wider range of ideas, accustomed to
décomposé and form them into new combinations, and
familiar with those specimens of art in which the images
of beauty which are présent to the human mind hâve
been most felicitously embodied, they will no longer
rest satisfied with garbled imitations, or with their
previous tame or extravagant performances ; they will
be ambitious to create for themselves, under the guidance
of severe simplicity and graceful freedom. In the
manual branches of labour a corresponding improve-
ment will take place ; their mental faculties awakened,
conversant with the principles as well as the raies of
their employments, they will cease to be mere machines,
unable to départ a hair’s-breadth from their technical
instructions. Freedom from degrading vices and the
possession of outward comforts will endear labour to
the working man, he will be inspired thereby with a
sense of its trae nobility. Yiewing it in connexion with
its reward, independence and a happy home, he will
pursue it with greater cheerfulness, doing it more
heartily, and more conscientiously alive to the interests
of his employer. Such a man will feel the value of
labour, and will not willingly spend an idle hour; he
will hâve no weekly drinking days, no half sober
seasons, when men do no more work than they are
obliged to do; he will indulge in no fickle changes,
assume no airs when his employer is in straits ; intelli-
gence and moral worth will elevate the relation sub-
sisting between them; it will become softer, more
génial, the channel of mutual courtesies, a golden
instead of an iron chain, equally strong, but more
costly, beautiful, and lasting.﻿204
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
The interests of literature and science would share
extensively in the benefits resulting from the élévation of
the worhing classes. One of the first conséquences of
the attainment of that object would be an indefinite
multiplication of the class of readers. For every indi-
vidual who now finds pleasure in perusing the works of
our best authors we should then find ten. This would
proportionably extend the trade of the publisher, in-
crease his profits, enable him to repay literary labour
on a more liberal scale, and thus induce a larger
number of educated men to devote themselves to the
intellectual wants of the people. To what causes are
we to ascribe the comparative cheapness of books, and
the vast variety of useful publications of the présent
day? The steps which preceded the publication of a
volume fifty years ago would now be thought ridicu-
lously solemn, while the price for which it sold would
startle the economical sensibilities of modem readers.
This change is owing chiefly to the spread of intelli-
gence, which by enlarging the demand of the book
market, has enabled the publisher to offer the same
article at a greatly diminished price. “ People’s Edi-
tions” were a novelty in the last century, the standard
works of our historians and poets were then quite above
the reach of the working man, they were looked upon
as commodities which it was not possible for him to
want; the capitalist would as soon hâve thought ot
speculating on his behalf in a cargo of precious stones,
as of placing within his reach the highest productions
of human genius. There was then scarcely any periodical
literature, no “ Edinburgh ” and “ People’s ” Joumals,
no “Family Economists” and “Working Man’s Friends;”﻿OF BRITÂIN.
205
none of those gigantic weekly missives which make the
giving of news the apology for fnmishing us with infor-
mation on ail subjects. There were then no “ Weekly
Volumes,” no “ Standard Libraries,” no “ Monthly
Publications,” no “ Penny Encyclopædias.” Foreign
authors were then thought to be the peculiar héritage
of the leamed, no cheap translations brought the
matchless productions of ancient genius to the working
man’s fireside, and rendered Sophocles and Plato the
denizens of an English cottage. These advantages hâve
been the produce of late years, they resuit from the
additional thousands who are willing to purchase books,
and an extension of the cause would issue in a multi-
plication of its désirable effects. Extend the demand
for books and they will become still ' cheaper. At the
présent moment, several noble schemes are kept in
abeyance by the appréhension that the works in question
would not circulate sufficiently to defray their cost;
remove this appréhension, and forth those books will
go to do their part in refining the national mind. The
increase of knowledge will tend also to raise the moral
tone of our popular literature. Strengthen the intellect,
and it will relish healthy food ; engage the services of a
higher class of writers, and the panderer to sensuality
will be driven from the field. Such changes would
exert a bénéficiai influence upon the highest depart-
ments of literary effort ; the admission of fourteen
millions of the working classes within the temple of the
Muses, would render the effusions of those mystic
beings more truthful, rational, and intelligible, without
any injury to the higher element by which they are
said to be distinguished.
T﻿206
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
In a way still more congenial to sympathies of
literature and science may their interest be promoted
by the élévation of the working man. Genius has
sometimes blossomed in humble life ; the artisan has
become, through his ingenious mechanisms, a nation’s
benefactor ; the ploughboy has won a poetic wreath
from the hand of Famé. These developments hâve
taken place under favouring circumstances, but it is
quite impossible to say how much more numerous they
might hâve been had the requisite conditions been
more generally supplied. Great geniuses, we know, are
rare, and in those which hâve engaged the attention
of the world there was a prodigious force of mind
which would seem to hâve guaranteed their success
under anÿ circumstances; but of how much that is
sweet and ennobling, to say no more, may we hâve
been deprived because a great and prégnant soûl was
unable to articulate its thoughts ! At least, how vastly
more refined and picturesque might hâve been our
common working life, if éducation had developed and
taught the people to express those ideas and émotions
which are the common poetic possession of the human
mind. The greatest discoveries of science are based on
facts, the generalizations of the observant and inquiring
intellect précédé the course of the steam-engine, and
mark out the path of the electric fluid. Earth and
heaven are still full of mysteries; rain, dew, meteors,
and the habits of insect life, on these and similar
subjects we are ignorant, because we hâve no facts
to warrant our conclusions. We want more observant
eyes, we want the contact of intelligence with the
countless phenomena which are daily happening around ;﻿OF BRITAIN.
207
let this be given, and science will résumé her march.
Elevate the working classes, and we multiply inde-
finitely the intelligent investigators of nature, and the
probabilities of discovering hitherto hidden truths.
We hâve not yet reached the limit of useful mechanical
inventions. We could make hands of iron do much of
the drudgery which is now ~performed by man. In
many trades, time could be saved and the article
rendered both better and cheaper by the adoption of
some simple contrivance. Discoveries of this sort are
not made by scientific investigations, they are the
product of a happy thought, the offspring of a perceived
difficulty, brooded over by the skill and fancy of an
ingenious mind. Elevate the working classes, make
them thinkers, initiate them into the principles of
mechanical science, inspire them with right views of
the vocation of labour, and the âge of discovery through
which we hâve passed may prove only the brilliant
dawning of a day of inconceivable splendour.
Results of a still higher order, springing from the
élévation of the working classes, are those which would
issue. in the improved health and morals of the com-
munity. It is a startling fact, that the physical con-
dition of a large portion of the population is totally
opposed * to the demands of health. In many of the
poorer districts of large towns, so complété are the
arrangements which exist for the production of disease,
that imagination might easily regard them as a demoniac
agency for shortening human life. Devoutly recognising
the hand of God in the dreadful pestilence which has
recently visited our shores, it nevertheless becomes us
to acknowledge that the causes from which it sprang﻿208
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
were to a great extent the offspring of a criminal viola-
tion of His natural laws. Impurities had been allowed
to accumulate and tester beneath our eyes ; filth, for-
bidden to appear in the public streets, had been allowed
to skulk unheeded among the hauntsof poverty; intent
on the pursuit of gain, or dazzled with magnificent
schemes of benevolence, we had forgotten the first duties
of citizenship, the simple daims of justice ; and the
plague was sent as a waming voice from heaven to
rebuke our folly. The choiera is only an occasional
visitant, but there are other diseases, springing from the
same conditions, and equally destructive, which hâve
become naturalized amongst us. Pitiable, indeed, is
the mortality of children in large towns ; sad to think
that in some of them, in Liverpool for example, about
one-half of the entire population die before completing
their fifth year. Many districts are never free from
fever; month after month it pursues its silent course
unnoticed, because familiar. Every year it takes a
firmer hold, and exerts a wider sway. From the poor
man’s cottage it passes to the abodes of wealth, growing
at every step more impartial in the sélection of its
victims. Suddenly a house is wrapt in mourning, halls
which lately resounded with the joyous prattlings of
childhood, are silent and desolate ; in the budding pro-
mise of youth a parent’s hopes hâve been blighted,
and for thousands the world which lately bloomed with
beauty, has been changed to a gloomy pathway to
the tomb. Hecatomb after hecatomb of human sacri-
fices is offered to the King of Terrors, man ail the
while unmindful of the fact that Providence, by these
visitations, invites him tounregarded lessons, and rebukes﻿OF BRITAIN.
209
him for making light of its unchanging laws. Let
society recognise its duties, avail itself of the discoveries
of science, diffuse around the homely gifts of water,
light and air, drain every Street and alley, forbid the
tenancy of cellars, and remind every district, by the
presence of public baths, that cleanliness is a social
duty, and expérience warrants the hope that the rate of
mortality will soon diminish. It is proved by incon-
testable facts, that progress in the éléments of physical
well-being is invariably followed by a prolongation of
human life.
Health and morality are very closely allied ; the
causes which are detrimental to the one are seldom
favourable to the other. The same improvements in
the condition of the people which lessen their liability
to disease, will also help them to the attainment of
purer morals. Greater privacy at home will foster
greater refinement of feeling, and this will show itself in
the better maintenance of outward decency. Whatever
is répugnant to good taste, whatever tends to break
down those barriers of mutual respect with which na-
ture has environed man, or shocks the unsophisticated
sensibilities of woman, will be instinctively eschewed,
and the practice of it be regarded as a badge of infi-
nité shame. Nor would this be a trivial attainment;
vulgarity and rudeness are always the pioneers of vice.
Elevate the people, and there will be fewer tempta-
tions to the alehouse ; they will loathe the buffoonery
of the tap-room, and scorn the idiotie professions of
universal friendship or universal war which sit upon
the drunkard’s lip. Our young men will no longer spend
their time in filthy conversation, hanging indolently at
t 3﻿210
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
the corners of the streets, as if they were lying in wait
for sin; they will repair to the reading-room, the
lecture, or their own home, rendered attractive now by
the denizenship of appreciated genius, the treasured
productions of illustrious men ; or they will walk
abroad to contemplate the beauties of création, and
joyfully recognise the marks of infinité power and
wisdom which it display s. For this génération the
saloon and the theatre will hâve no charms. Ideas will
hâve got the better of sense. Accustomed to the corn
templation of life and nature, as they are mirrored forth
in the human mind, with the faultless appendages of
fancy, they will look with disgust upon the barbarous
mimicry of the stage, its forceful passions, its mecha-
nisms of rain and thunder, its trap-doors, and tinsel
royalties. The mind, enlightened and accustomed to
reflect, will be sober even in its amusements, and carry
into its very pleasures a sense of those spiritualities
with which it can never be dissociated. Through the
medium of such changes, the élévation of the working
classes will not be a hidden fact ; its radiant proof will
be presented to every eye ; the atmosphère of life will
be purer ; in speech, manners, employment, aims, in ail
the manifold phases of human existence, man will seem
to be invested with a higher dignity.
The élévation of the working classes will tend to
nothing so much as to produce among them a larger
stock of public virtue, to jire them with a spirit of
patriotism and the love of order. These are not the
times for lightly dispensing with such sentiments; they
are the natural safeguards of society against lawless
force, whether directed against it from without, or﻿OF BRITAIN.
211
traitorously roused within its own bosom. That com-
monwealth has just cause for alarm which is not sus-
tained by the warm attachment of tbe great majority of
those who compose it. But patriotism is not a mere
instinct, it is a reasonable sentiment, and is capable
of a rational vindication, It is fed by the possession
of sterling benefits ; it springs from the consciousness
of being an appréciable part of the social whole, of
counting for something in the history and actions of
the country. A slave has no home, no fatherland, no
honoured soil ; he can never rise to the dignity of the
patriot ; but how much better than a slave is he who is
bound to his country chiefly by the tie of taxation,
whose home is a scene of abject wretchedness, who has
no patrimony, not an inch of soil he can call his own,
whose présent existence is a misérable shift from one
difficulty to another, and whose future is abandoned to
hopes never to be realized, or to grim despair? Of
what meaning to such a man is the^ old patriot résolve
to die for “ hearth and altar,” since he knows nothing
about the one, and is morally incapacitated for caring
about the other ? A state requires the support of ail
its sons ; they are its true pillars, and the absence of
one is so much weakness. Ail cannot guide and rule ;
to reach the pinnacles of power must be the fortune,
not greatly to be envied, of a few ; but every heart
should be loyal to it ; a sentiment of profound attach-
ment should inspire the humblest individual who is
govemed by its laws. A healthy nationality should
circulate through every bosom, in itself the fruit of
justice and the pledge of progress. Elevate the people,
and this object will be gained ; their country will soon﻿212	THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
become dearer to their hearts. Àssist them to throw
off the burden of vicious habits ; cheer them on in their
attempt to become more virtuous and more intelligent ;
stretch out the helping hand to struggling résolve ; let
the man wlio deems himself better than his neighbours,
instead of standing aloof from them on that account,
hail them with so much greater cordiality, seeking, by
the force of a hearty, but discriminating friendship, to
raise them to a level with himself ; let the poor man
feel that there is a national heart which beats in sym-
pathy with his own, that his country cares for him> and
is willing to forego a portion of its wealth to promote
his welfare, then will he rejoice in his country, and the
throne will boast a firmer allegiance nowhere than
among the cottage homes of Britain.
The élévation of the working classes, in kindling the
fire of patriotism, would consume those jealousies which
hâve been so sadly detrimental to our social interests.
Surround them witlj social comforts, give them a happy
fireside, ennoble them with the truths of religion, and
they will cease to look with envy upon the ampler pos-
sessions of others. Such a change will hâve the effect of
giving them broader and juster views, of stripping rank
and wealth of the quality of suprême value with which
our fancy is so apt to clothe them, of postponing the
idea of absolute perfection to another life, where the in-
equalities of the présent will be seen to hâve been regu-
lated by a wise and tender regard to our highest welfare ;
of awakening thankfulness for laws which secure to
every man his own, throwing the shield of their protec-
tion equally around the wealthy and the poor, and of
enabling them, should anything, to a political eye,﻿OP BRITAIN.
213
require a juster balance, to distinguish between persons
and Systems ; and while perchance they oppose the
latter, to cherish the kindest sentiments towards the
former. False impressions and ungenerous préjudices
hâve not been confined to one side only ; too often the
worst suspicions hâve been entertained in higher quar-
ters respecting the ranks beneath. Eeasoning from a
few instances, it has been thought that nothing but
fierceness and brutality, merged in the most mischievous
designs, could possibly dwell among the humbler sec-
tions of the people. Alas, that circumstances shoidd
ever hâve created a liability to such errors ! Let ail
parties understand each other. Perish every thought
which would perpetuate this alienation ! The working
classes are gentle, generous, accessible to noble senti-
ments, loyal, forgiving, worthy, and capable of the
highest friendship. Nothing but ignorance and blind
selfishness can prevent ail classes from laying aside ail dif-
férences, extinguishing every cause of enmity, and merg-
ing themselves into one united and prosperous people.
Surveying the progress of events in this country
during the last twenty-five years, especially in connexion
with those which, during the same period, hâve occurred
upon the continent of Europe, it is impossible to resist
the conviction that the working classes will eventually
attain a larger share of political power than they now
enjoy. Whether such a change is désirable or not makes
no différence to the probability which is shadowed forth.
Within a comparatively short period the constituencies
of the country will probably be so modified as to place
increased political power in the hands of the masses.
The decisions of the House of Commons will in that﻿214	THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
case become a reflection of the popular mind ; the
settled principles of which, both in its likes and dislikes,
will thenceforth pass into law, This change is contem-
plated by many with the greatest dread, and by others
with sanguine hopes : both should seek to be prepared
for coming events.
The way to prevent the possible occurrence of appre-
hended evils is, to proceed with ail diligence in the path
of social improvement. No danger need be feared from
the fullest exercise of political power by a people truly
enlightened in their own interests, and pervaded with
the spirit of religion. If we suffer the swarming popu-
lation of our large towns to grow up without instruc-
tion, if popular evils are permitted to go on uncorrected,
if the growing infidelity of the people is left without its
proper counteractive in the spread of scriptural know-
ledge, if an ungodly press is allowed to monopolize ail
access to the popular mind, if the missionaries of
socialism are left to insinuate at leisure their sugared
fallacies, without any effort being made by the more en-
lightened portions of the community to expose them ;
then indeed we shall hâve much to fear from any
increase of popular power within the halls of législature,
and the gloomiest prédictions of the anxious patriot may
fall short of the actual fulfilment. But if, on the other
hand, the présent season is devoted to united and
vigorous exertions in endeavouring to improve the con-
dition of the working classes, if every agency which can
be devised is put into operation to elevate their social
position and increase their domestic happiness, if the
truths of religion are pressed upon them with ail the
persuasiveness which disinterested friendship can invent,﻿OF BRITAIN.
215
if in generously assisting and stimulating their Per-
sonal exertions we give them in a few years a patrimony
of their own to guard, an inheritance, the price of
industry, to leave their children, then the complété
ascendancy of the people will be the ascendancy of order,
piety, and freedom ; there will be no violent severance
of the continuity of our national existence ; the past
will be honoured, the names of illustrious patriots and
legislators will still be mentioned with admiration, and
the light of great examples be transmitted with un-
dimmèd lustre to succeeding âges.
Such are a few of the benefits which would accrue to
society from resolutely prosecuting the career on which
Providence is now urging us to enter, the gifts which
God has annexed to well-doing, the peaceful triumphs
with which he will crown, in tins life, united and honest
endeavours to promote the welfare of man. It is law-
ful to reverse the picture, and to contemplate the loss of
these benefits as the penalty imposed upon possible
apathy and neglect. Assuredly unless ail classes of the
community arouse themselves to meet the social de-
mands of the présent crisis our national doom is sealed.
The star of our greatness will set for ever, decay will
lise higher and higher through the various grades of
society, until, as with the waters of a second deluge,
every vestige of wealth and splendour will perish
beneath a flood of ruin. Our history will remain a
pyramid of blasted glory, on which posterity will read,
in fiery characters, the secret of our downfall, which will
teach them that they “ do justly and love mercy,” that
they aspire not to the empire of the world till they hâve
rooted out the mischiefs which endanger their sovereignty﻿216
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
at home, and that the foundations of solid grandeur can
only rest on the affections of an enlightened people.
This may be the end to which the transition state
through which we are passing will conduct us, but such
a resuit can only happen if the wamings of Heaven are
disregarded, and criminal supineness is preferred to
generous effort. An energetic manifestation of sound
principles would not only rescue us from the pressure of
existing evils, but place in our hands the pledge of a
career of prosperity.
Such are some of the motives which spring from the
temporal condition of the community; let us glance for
a moment at those which are fumished by religion. In
surveying the considérations which ought to influence a
Christian’s mind, it is impossible to lose sight of those
which flow from the example of Christ himself. One of
the leading features of his character was sympathy with
the common wants of man. His miracles were chiefly
designed to prove the Divinity of his mission, and they
would hâve answered this purpose as well if they had
ne ver been associated with works of mercy. He might
hâve commanded the stars to stand still in their courses,
dried up the waters of Jordan, or called down fire from
heaven to consume his persecutors ; but he preferred
reaching the convictions of men by methods which
would also win their hearts,and to guide the conduct in
establishing the faith of his disciples. Hence “ he went
about doing good,” choosing the objects of his goodness
chiefly from those who could render him nothing in
return. He preached so powerfully that the world has
never forgotten his lessons, but he did not stop here; he﻿OF BRITAIN.
217
mitigated physical suffering, gave hearing to the deaf
and sight to the blind, allowing not the grandeurs of
eternity or communion with his heavenly Father to
render him inaccessible to the ordinary calamities of
man. Neither was the compassion of Christ confined
within the circle of his immédiate followers, nor circum-
scribed by the limits of a conventional piety. He sat
at méat with “ publicans and sinners,” exhibiting thus
that mixture of benevolence and forbearance which
causes “ the rain to fall and the sun to shine on the evil
and on the good.”
In addition to the obligations arising from Christ’s
example, there are those which spring from the doctrines
of Christianity. The truths which were scattered among
mankind by the Great Teacher, accompanied by a con-
tinuation of those influences winch were poured forth on
the day of Pentecost, hâve been winning in every âge
more and more of man’s allegiance, gradually establish-
ing a stronger and more spiritual influence over him,
and diflusing a purer spirit through every department
of social and political life. The Scriptures recognise this
process, and light us on to its glorious consummation,
when “ the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth
as the waters cover the sea,” and the envious passions of
man “ shall neither hurt nor destroy in ail his holy
mountain.” That such will be the final issue of
Christianity we hâve the assurance of God himself; but
how shall it be secured % By the consecrated energies
of the church of Christ. Man is to act on man, the
leaven of Christian truth is to be diffused by the aid
of human sympathy ; truth is to become articulate in
the human voice, and be presented to the world﻿218
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
through the medium of an organization of believers.
Human agency is made the absolute condition of
success, and if it were possible for ail the people
of God to forget their solemn vows and sink into
apathy, we should require a new révélation to inform us
how mankind could be won.
The Christian church has not been altogether récréant
to these obligations, she has recognised herself as con-
stituted and charged to preach the gospel to the world;
but this step, so far from relaxing the obligation to
domestic effort, increases it by those motives which spring
from consistency. Her missionaries hâve gone forth to
distant lands, the ends of the earth hâve been made the
theatre of her sympathies; she has descried the negro in
chains, the Polynesian sharpening his weapons for savage
war, the son of Africa rioting in the excesses of a loath-
some superstition, the Hindoo bending his knees to
venerable puerilities, or suffering his existence to be
absorbed by pantheistic dreams, and she has sped forth on
the wings of mercy to dissipate these evils. God forbid
that a single prayer should be withheld, or a single
shilling alienated from this holy cause; rather let the
number of such offerings be augmented ten-fold; but
still a larger amount of domestic effort is required to
reconcile them with the claims of justice, or to ex-
emplify their character as the fruits of a healthy piety.
Assuming that the salvation of a given number of ouf
countrymen is equal in value to that of any similar
portion of the human race, the mere fact that they are
nearest in local position gives them a prior claim. If a
ministering angel were to descend upon a field of battle
immediately after the carnage had subsided, would he﻿OF BRITAIN.
219
not pause at the first bleeding victim, and refuse to
leave him, though a thousand others were dying in the
distance, till he had moistened his lips, and closed his
gaping wounds ? True piety, like the sun, will diffuse
the largest measure of light and warmth in its nearest
neighbourhood, and will warm remoter régions only by
proceeding through the intervening spaces. If there is
nothing unjust or exaggerated in the efforts which are
now being made to elevate the heathen abroad, what
amount of anxiety ought we to évincé for the heathen
at home ? If the distant parts of the field can con-
sistently receive so large a share of attention, how much
effort ought to be expended upon those immediately
beneath our eye ? If our piety is so powerful after
having travelled ten thousand miles, and overcome ten
thousand dangers by sea and land,—if it burns with
such fervid lustre upon the distant plains of Africa and
Hindostan, what must it be at home, what must it be
if only to keep its character from suspicion ? While
the bulk of the working classes are strangers to religion,
can we continue without misgiving to offer the re-
jected boon to other nations ? If the irréligion which
characterizes so large a proportion of our countrymen
springs from any defect inhérent in the gospel, how can
we retain our confidence in its adaptation to elevate
the moral condition of man ? but if, as reflection must
assure us, that evil arises from the inadequacy or imper-
fection of the means employed for its diffusion, ought
we not to ask for Divine wisdom to remedy the defect,
resolved upon proving the temper of our weapons in the
comparatively secluded field of domestic warfare, before
we venture forth to attempt the conquest of the world ?﻿220
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
The élévation of the working classes would remove a
reproach which infidelity has been eager to fix upon
religion and its professors. What, the infidel triumph-
antly asks, has religion done for the masses ? Look
at their condition—how degraded! thousands divested
of every relie of happiness and hope, the slaves of
brutal vices ; thousands more entered annually upon
our calendars of crime ; millions upon whom the
gospel exerts no greater direct influence than upon the
savages of central Africa. Is time required to effect a
moral change ? Religion has been established for âges.
Is learning désirable to develop its évidences, or talent
to enforce its daims ? The érudition and talent of the
choicest minds hâve been consecrated to its service.
Are zealous preactiers requisite for its diffusion? Twenty
thousand men are set apart in this country to the sacred
office. Is the fostering patronage of royalty and wealth
necessary to give full scope to its energies? These
advantages hâve been enjoyed. How is it that religion,
possessed of every reasonable help, should hâve accom-
plished so little? Could it possibly hâve been so
fruitless, if, as its professors avow, it sprang from God,
and still enjoys the co-operation of His Spirit ? But
infidelity is capricious, and easily changes ground ac-
cording to the intended nature of its attack. If religion
is to be condemned in its essence, it is represented as
being possessed of every collateral advantage, and as
unsuccessful through its own impotence ; if, on the
other hand, it is to be assailed through its professors,
they are represented as utterly wanting its spirit, a
parcel of hypocritical pretenders. The latter attempt
is more safe and popular than the former, and therefore﻿OF BRITAIN.
221
more frequently resorted to, though generally with the
help of the most shamefnl partiality and exaggeration.
The Christian church is represented as hostile to the
interests of the people—as intrenched in an impreg-
nable citadel of selfishness—as passing by on the other
side, with the Levite, and thanking God that she is
not as others, with the Pharisee. Such a représentation
is calumnious; the Christian, however imperfec.t, is
more than a match for the infidel, and Christianity
in its lowest manifestations is more benignant in its
aspect than infidelity. What has infidelity done to
assume this loffcy vantage-ground ? Where shall we
find her deeds of love ? What unknown services to man-
kind, what unseen development of her virtues, can
suddenly hâve raised her from the position of a petty
and rancorous rival, to that of an impartial censor?
Her good actions, if she has performed any, are of
yesterday, and hâve not yet been brought to the light.
What impudence to présumé upon their merits before
the world has had time to note their existence ! how
largely must she calculate upon the credulousness of
humanity !
A ready method exists, by which the cavils of infi-
delity may be silenced. Let the reproach of neglect
and inefficiency be taken away by such a manifestation
of Christian principle as shall, with the blessing of God,
insure success. The utmost possible limits of what the
church of Christ can do hâve never yet been reached,
the most energetic efforts she has yet put forth hâve
not tasked a tithe of her real strength. She has raised
her finger, and multitudes hâve been won ; what, then,
shall be the stretching forth of her arm ? Hitherto the
u 3﻿222
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
field of conflict has only been surveyed, and a few
detached outposts assailed ; we can only conjecture
what would ensue were the hosts of the Lord to pré-
sent themselves with embattled front upon the plain.
Armed with those weapons which hâve already proved
mighty through God to the pulling down of strong-
holds, no evil, however inveterate, would long resist
the attack. If the church of Christ is only true to
itself and faithful to God, the working classes will soon
be won. And what a reflex influence will every ap-
proximation towards this triumph exert upon its own
aggressive power ! The impiety of the masses weakens
the church. Hundreds upon whom favourable im-
pressions hâve been produced, are suddenly hardened ;
exposed to the influence of ungodly companions, their
spiritual anxieties soon prove like the moming cloud and
early dew. New converts, who were lately regarded with
grateful hope, hâve been seduced from their professed
allegiance to Christ, to swell again the ranks of impiety.
The majority of professors of religion, exposed during
six days in the week to the conversation of irreligious
and sceptical associâtes, soon sink into indifférence, and
rest satisfied with a merely négative character. These
influences are always at work; but at times they
become unusually pemieious. Under the direction of
some sceptical agency, they are arrayed in deadly anta-
gonism to the gospel, and by the vast number of1
apparent conversions to infidehty, spread temporary
panic through every section of the church. True, such
avowed opposition is soon silenced, but not till it has
given a profitable éclat to the cause of unbelief, and
confirmed the incipient scepticism of thousands. Let﻿OP BRITAIN.
223
the church of Christ “ lengthen her cords and
strengthen her stakes” among our home population,
and what additional vigour would be infused into ail
the movements of piety ! How many who are now the
objects of missionary labour, would themselyes become
missionaries ! What augmented contributions would
flow into the Christian treasury from the willing
hearts of our operative millions ! Upon what a broad
foundation would the fabric of Christian effort repose ;
and with how much greater hopes might we look for
the renovation of the world !
But while extraneous motives may be of use in
rousing us to practical effort, it must not be concealed
that in proportion as our piety becomes more vigorous
will there be the less necessity for urging them. Chris-
tianity, as realized in the heart, is a principle of bene-
vôlence which by its own simple and independent force
should be sufficient for enlisting us in opposition to
every evil which oppresses our fellow-men. This prin-
ciple is widely generic ; it is applicable to ail the forms
of misery which haunt the world ; evil as evil is the
antagonist with which it wrestles. In this holy war it
is accessible to no false tendemess, and appalled by no
prospective terrors, but fearlessly points its lance against
everything which is opposed to God, and therefore
hostile to the interests of man. Evil is various in its
manifestations, but its essence is indivisible. It is sin,
the alienation of the heart from God, which has filled
the earth with mouming, «and it is against this that the
Christian is bound to wage uncompromising war. This
obligation is identical with his Christianity. He is
associated with one who came into the world in order﻿224
THE GLORT AND THE SHAME
“ to put away sin.” “ For this cause the Son of God was
manifested, that he might destroy the Works of the
devil.” The object practically involved in this obliga-
tion commends itself to the strongest sympathies of the
renewed mind. Divine forgiveness alone can effectuaily
break the dominion of sin within us. A sense of pardon
through the atoning sacrifice of Christ alone can supply
influences sufficiently strong and subtle to effect a moral
renovation. Hence love is the conqueror of sin ; Di-
vine mercy, as exercised through the cross, the world’s
regenerator; and the simple act of leading men to
Christ, the richest of ail blessings.
Behold, Christian, what ought to be the ruling object
of your life. It is to lead your fellow-men to Him who
came “ to seek and to save that which was lost.” He has
placed you for this purpose in the sphere you occupy.
Whatever the character of your position, however ele-
vated or however lowly ; whether situated amidst the
daily bustle of thousands, or in the most sequestered soli-
tude ; whether you fill the relation of master or servant;
whether you are affluent or needy; your lot has been
distinctly fixed by the Head of the church, with a view
to your usefulness in his service. Your duty is of the
most exalted kind. Others confine their efforts to the
removal of secondary evils; you aim at extinguishing
the one great séminal curse of sin : others confine them-
selves to the cultivation of particular virtues; you seek
to resuscitate the whole of man’s spiritual nature, and
to adorn it with ail things whatsoever which are
“ lovely and of good report others place the goal of
their endeavours no further than the uttermost verge
of time ; you carry it forward till imagination loses it﻿OF BRITAIN.
225
in the depths of etemity. Mankind are for the most
part étrangers to solid happiness, the victims of guilt?
and the slaves of sin ; you aspire to lead them to the
fountain of living waters, to tell them of Him who
“ died the just for the unjust,” and to make them
acquainted with that Spirit of holiness throngh whose
energy we are quickened from “ dead works to serve the
living God.” Thus your mission is one of the loftiest
benevolence; it is the most compendious method of
doing good. In the prosecution of this work ten thou-
sand motives press upon you; but there is one which,
in power and comprehensiveness, includes them ail. The
apostle ascends to the summit of Christian duty when lie
exclaims, “The love of Christ constraineth us!” At
this height duty is softened into privilège, and the
rugged bands of obligation melt into the gentle but
omnipotent impulses of cheerful willingness. Before
the spectacle of self-devotion which Calvary exhibits,
selfishness expires. At the voice of a crucified Redeemer
who, touched with infinité compassion, laid aside the
robes of glory, and tasted for us the bitterness of death,
what’ bosom does not swell with gratitude? What
heart can refuse the consécration of its best energies
and affections to the furtherance of that object which
drew him from the skies?
The motives which hâve been urged thus far belong
to the présent life ; there are others which belong to
that period of our existence which will only commence
with the end of the présent economy. That God will
then most surely reward those who shall hâve been
found faithful in their stewardship, is a truth which
révélation places beyond ail question. When, indeed,﻿226
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
we think of the evils which in every âge the witnesses
for righteousness hâve had to endure, we feel the bene-
volence of those promises, whether written in the
language of hope upon the heart, or beaming from the
pages of the inspired word, which supported them in
tortures and death by the hope of final triumph. Those
heroic confessors who in our own land resisted papal
superstition, those whose bones hâve long since rotted in
their native Alpine valleys, and they who earlier still
were thrown to lions in the Roman amphithéâtre, how
could they hâve dared the conflict with sovéreign
wickedness if there had been no firm assurance of a
better time both for the world and for themselves?
The Christian martyr, otherwise overwhelmed with a
sense of absolute evil, took refuge in the thought that
he had cast his bread upon the waters, that he had
scattered the incorruptible seed in the rugged soil, and
that at some future day it would bring forth a glorious
harvest. His soûl, superior to time, hovered over the
world’s brief history, and saw, towards its close, a
brilliant sunset, when the errors of mankind would be
cleared away, and eternal principles, awhile discarded,
again résumé their reign—when, ennobled with the
blessings of réconciliation and repentance for the failings
of the past, the world would gratefully hail for its
guiding star the truths for which they then suffered
and bled.
The character of this contest is changed, but the con-
test itself is still going on. The continuance of the
struggle during eighteen centuries has confronted the
church of Christ with different foes, but the struggle is
still the same ; ignorance, selfishness, and superstition,﻿OF BRITAIN
227
arrayed in a different garb, are still the principles with
which love and truth contend. Constancy and self-
sacrifice were never more requisite in the Christian pro-
fessor, and never were they subjected to more trying
tests. Satan now play s his part by persuasion rather
than by force, tempts with wealth, and ease, and
worldly réputation, instead of terrifying with the prison
and the stake. If at ail faithful to our trust, we hâve
a fellowship with the sufferings and the i^esponsibilities
of our brethren of other âges, and are also entitled
to appropriate to ourselves the consolations by which
they were sustained. Every department of Christian
effort is a section of the same great scheme ; a scheme
which takes its place among the highest purposes of
Providence, which is the offspring of redeeming love,
and for the success of which we hâve the oath of God.
The evils which oppress the world are the product
of ignorance and sin, the fruit of that bondage of cor-
ruption into which the fall lias thrown mankind ; full
deliverance from them is the rédemption for which the
whole création longs, and the point towards which
every .pious act incessantly tends. In this work not a
tear is shed in vain ; not a prayer is wafted to heaven in
vain ; no effort, however obscurely exerted, is suffered to
abide without its fruit. A hidden link connects every
sacrifice with its glorious issue. As surely as the morn-
ing succeeds to night, as surely as the sheaves of autumn
follow the rains of spring and the rays of summer, so
surely “ he that goeth forth and weepeth, beaiing pre-
cious seed, shall doubtless corne again with rejoicing,
bringing his sheaves with him.” The world’s progress
cannot fail ; God, by the agency of man, secures its per-﻿223
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
manency. Ail things join invisibly to aid it; treachery
discord, the violence of human passions, révolutions,
silent reactions, avowed opposition, ail are the secret
springs by which it continu ally moves forward. Ail
who oppose it, or stand aloof from it, will be crushed by
its advancing forces ; ail who identify themselves with it
are sure of a final triumph.
The immortality of our nature enables us to turn the
most distant prospects into présent motives. Assured
that the hopes inspired by philanthropy and religion
will some day be fulfilled, we can also rest assured that
we shall behold their fulfilment. It cannot be that
while our existence shall continue, ail the links of sym-
pathy which connect us with this world will be severed.
Wherever our home may be when we close our earthly
sojourn, memory and hope, ineradicable forces of the
soûl, will bind us indissolubly to its past and future
destinies. We shall be no strangers to it when with-
drawn from its actual scenes, our citizenship will be held
in reserve to give us a share in the transactions which
will distinguish the great gathering-day of the human
race. God will then give with his own hand the
finishing stroke of rétribution, give a welcome to those
who in this life worked for him, a public récognition of
the cause which they espoused, a justification of their
hopes, their labours, their tears, their sufferings, and
their blood. Then shall the efforts and sacrifices of good
men be brought out of their obscurity, cleansed from
every imperfection, and emblazoned in the purified
splendour of those principles which produced them.
The sigh which never smote the eat* of man, and the
tear which never moved his sympathy, humbly offered﻿OF BRITAIN.
229
at tlie shrine of truth, shall then be rewarded with in-
effable joys. That unobtrusive philantbropy whicb chose
as the scene of its labours the abodes of poverty and
sickness, which strove, neglected or unknown, to en-
lighten ignorance, rebuke impiety, and lead the thonghts
of men to their Creator, shall then be deemed a title to
the highest honours. Not even in this life shall the
names of good men be forgotten. The clonds of
obloqny which hâve hitherto obscured them will pass
away ; in the better âge which is rapidly dawning there
will be a résurrection of everything which has been
truly great in history. The world is beginning to dis-
cern its true friends and its genuine heroes ; famé is
laying the foundations of a new temple in the hearts of
regenerated men ; and while parchments and marbles
are fast decaying under the moth and tooth of time,
spiritual trophies are preparing to grâce its walls, which
will shine with increasi'ng lustre throughout eternity.
By how many motives is the Christian urged to con-
secrate himself to the temporal and spiritual welfare of
the masses of the people, how many incitements beam
upon him from every quarter to attempt their rescue
from the shackles of ignorance and vice ! The Saviour’s
example, the obligations which spring from spéculative
and practical consistency, the assurance that such con-
duct would silence the cavils of irréligion and increase
the aggressive resources of the church of Christ, and
the encouragements afforded by the prospect of futurity.
Such motives seem to preclude the possibility of inac-
tion; when every doctrine and precept of religion is vocal
with inducements to effort, how can piety refuse to
buckle on the armour ? The sphere of effort which the
x﻿230
THE GLORY AND THE SHAME
church of Christ is invited to enter should be made her
own. She should seek the largest extent of doing good
which a spirit of disinterested sacrifice can secure. A
shame and pity will it be if with so many additional
motives the world is suffered to éclipsé her, and con-
sidérations of expediency prove a more effectuai stimulus
to self-devotedness than the workings of Christian love.
The masses cannot remain stationary. If not quickly
raised they will sink lower. They cannot be raised
without religion; every other remedy will prove a mere
palliative and not a cure. Religion can only be spread
by those who know and value it. Let the church of
Christ take up the work; she has power amazing power,
let it be wielded with a vigorous arm, and the work is
done. Let a new crusade be proclaimed, inspired by
principle and not by fanaticism ; a crusade of knowledge
against ignorance, of truth against error, of piety against
irréligion, of ail the éléments of social happiness and
order against wretchedness, dégradation, and ruin ; a
crusade to which the voice of God emphatically summons
us, just, beneficent, and infallibly certain of success.
Christian employers! address yourselves to the work;
thousands look up to y ou for guidance; wliat power is
there in a master’s word whenkindly spoken! how many
opportunities of promoting the welfare of your work-
people are offered exclusively to you ! Their personal
condition during the hours of labour, the State of their
homes, their personal character and habits,—how much
might be done for their improvement in these respects
without trenching upon the most sensitive independence !
Christian women ! the task is yours; work, as in a sacred
vocation, for the élévation of your own sex ; make friend-﻿OP BRITAIN.
231
ships in those cottage-homes where your presence would
be hailed as that of a ministering angel. You can
yenture everywhere; the tendemess of your nature
clothes you in the safest panoply, the furious passions of
man grow calmer in your presence, and vice itself is
never more anxious to borrow for a while the garb of
yirtue than when beheld by woman. Go, it is your
mission, into the haunts of wretchedness, stand by the
bed of sickness, discourse the heart to penitence, guide
its relenting anxieties to the only Saviour, and cheer the
hitherto desolate abode with the holy light of Christian
love. Such efforts will be repaid in gratitude’s costliest
coin, and by the consciousness that you are helping to
raise to a higher status of domestic worth a neglected
section of the noble sisterhood of Britain. Young men !
the work is preeminently yours. Acquire knowledge
that you may impart it; let each make himself com-
panions in piety; gather round you the children of the
poor, instruct them, watch over them, unfold to them
the nature and requirements of Christianity, seek by
conversation and prayer to instil into their mind the
spiritual essence of religion, and enlist them as they rise
to manhood in the same divine employ. Ministers of
religion! Christians of every name ! what object can com-
pare in attractiveness and grandeur with the conversion
of the people ! In its presence how do the animosities
and petty ends of contending parties dwindle into the
veriest littleness ! Let charity minister at home. Her
task is everywhere the same, her object is one, and in
promoting it every section of the church may realize a
practical oneness. Such efforts would raise us ail into
the highest and holiest région of the Christian life and﻿232 THE GLORY AND THE SHAME OF BRITAIN.
teach us to find a common abode above the mists of
préjudice and the din of controversy. No ordinary
difficulties beset our path ; the object aimed at is as
arduous as it is sublime; the perfection of communities,
as of individuals, is a prize reserved to recompense the
most strenuous effort. We hâve to break the material
fetters which centuries hâve slowly forged, to conciliate
the harshest préjudices, assail the strongest habits, and
resuscitate the flame of spiritual life from embers almost
dead. And y et there is no occasion for despair. Only
let ail classes act as the présent crisis demands, and we
may rest confidently assnred that ere long the fairest
hopes of patriotism will bloom, that the rags of phvsical
wretchedness will be eschanged for the garb of beauty,
that vice and ignorance, superstition and unbelief, will
finally be banished from our midst, and that we shall
add to the enjoyment of every eartlily good, the nobler
privilège of being “ a people whose God is the Lord.*”
THE END.
THE ïtELlGIOl'S TRACT SOCIETS-.﻿A BRIEF STATEMENT
OF
THE PLANS AND OPERATIONS
Plan op Society and Extent op Circulation.—The Society
was forrned to promote the circulation of religious books and
treatises in foreign countries, as well as throughout the
British dominions ; and is conducted by a Committee, com-
posed of an equal portion of members of the Established
Church, and of Protestant Dissenters, annually elected at a
public .meeting of the Institution, in the month of May,
among whom the greatest union happily exists.—The first
year’s circulation amounted onlyto 200,000 Tracts, in one
language, and its total receipts were about £460. The Society
has now either printed, or assisted in the publication of
Tracts and Books in about One Hundred and Ten Lan-
guages. Its annual circulation, including the issues from
various foreign Societies, amounts to about Twenty-four
Millions ; its receipts to £62,000 ; and its total distribution,
to March 1851, to about Five Hundred and Forty-nine
Millions of copies of its publications.
OF THE
RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY.
Instituted 1799.
Treasurer—JOHN GURNEY HOARE, Esa.
Rev. W. W. CHAMPNEYS, m.a.
Rev. EBENEZER HENDERSON, d.d.﻿2
RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY.
Yariety and Cheapness op Publications.—There are now
about 4,743 publications on the Society’s Catalogue. These
Works, commencing with the little Handbill, extend to a
Commentary upon the Holy Scriptures, and even to a com-
plété édition of the Bible itself, and are as varied in size and
contents as the characters of those for whose spiritual good
they areprepared. They include publications suitable for ail
classes of people, from the child of penury to the richest
noble in the land.
The Society’s Great Rule.—In the préparation of the
Society’s works, it is a fundamental principle, that every
tract and book shall contain a clear statement of the method
of a sinner’s recovery from guilt and misery, by the atone-
ment and grâce of the Redeemer ; so that, if a person were to
read a tract, even of the smallest size, and should never hâve
an opportunity of seeing another, he might be plainly taught
that, in order to salvation, he must be born again of the Holy
Spirit, and justified by faith in the perfect obedience unto
death of our Lord and Saviour Jésus Christ.
Doctrines published by the Society.—To prevent the pos-
sibility of any misunderstanding respecting the nature of the
Society’s works, the Committee feel it necessary to state, that
they clearly and fully set forth the important truth, that “ we
are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our
Lord and Saviour Jésus Christ, by faith, and not for our own
works or deservings that being “ justified freely, we are
made the sons of God by adoption ; ruade like the image of
his only-begotten Son, Jésus Christ ; we walk religiously in
good works, and at length, by God’s mercy, we attain to ever-
lasting felicity.” In publishing the truths of the gospel, the
Committee adhéré to the Holy Scriptures as the only, but
sufficient standard of faith.
Appropriation op Subscriptions, Donations, etc.—By a
carefully arranged system in the concems of the Depository,
the sale of the publications is made to cover ail the expenses
of producing them, and of the necessary establishment of the﻿BRIEF STATEMENT.	3
Society. Thus the whole of the subscriptions, donations, and
contributions, is applied to the gratuitous circulation of its
publications, without any déduction or charge whatever. The
subscriptions to the Benevolent Fund of the Society in
1850-51 amounted to about £6,487, while its grants during
that period were £8,563, being more than £2,000 beyond
the receipts.
Religious Circulating Libraries.—The Committee hâve
supplied 3,421 Libraries, at half price, to National, British,
Parochial, Day and Sunday Schools, which were unable to
pay the full amount. One hundred volumes hâve been
selected for a School Library, which may be obtained by
Schools ofthe above description for 405being about half the
regular price of the books. Libraries of fifty volumes hâve
also been selected. Of these Select Libraries 540 hâve been
voted. The total grants of Libraries amount to 6,767.
FACT0RY LIBRARIES.
It is computed that nearly two hundred thousand males,
and more than that number of females, are engaged in the
cotton, wool, flax, and silk factories of our country, besides
those employed in other manufactures. As the larger por-
tion- of these hands are children and young persons under
twenty years of âge, who are thus withdrawn from the full
benefits of school instruction, and exposed to many unfavour-
able influences connected with an early contact with the
world, it is of the highest importance that efforts should be
made for their moral and religious well-being. Among the
means adapted for their good are small Libraries. That such
is the conviction of many manufacturers, is évident from the
fact, that sélections of books are placed by them in their mills
and warehouses, for the benefit of those in their employ. It
is, however, believed that many hâve been deterred from such
a course from the want of a small and well-selected collection﻿4
RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY.
of books prepared for the purpose. With a view of obviating
this difficulty, and extending in general an important means
of doing good, the Committee hâve provided two sets of
books—one adapted for males, the other for females—which
they offer at the low price of One Pound each set, inclosed
in a neat Case. They may be obtained at the Depository,
56, Paternoster Row, and through the Booksellers.
LIBRARY FOR MEN AND BOYS.
1.	Alexander’s Evidences ef Reli-
gion.
2.	Considérations for Young Men.
3.	Bunyan’s Life.
4.	Cranfield’s Life.
5.	Dick’s, Dr., Solar System.
6.	French Révolution.
7.	Lads of the Factory.
8.	Mirage of Life.
9.	New Testament Pocket Com-
mentary.
| 10. Philosophy of Common Things.
i 11. Pious Mechanic.—Macdonald.
! 12. Redford’s Great Change.
1 13. Prize Essays on the Sabbath,
by Working Men.
14.	Robert Dawson.
15.	Self-Improvement.
16.	Sherman’s Guide to Acquaint-
ance with God.
17.	A Volume of Tracts.
LIBRARY FOR WOMEN AND GIRLS.
1.	Althan’s, Mrs., Life.
2.	Anecdotes—Social Life.
3.	Fireside ; or, Family Religion.
4.	Happy Restorations.
5.	Hints to Girls on Dress.—Mo-
therless Family.
6.	James’s Anxious Inquirer.
7.	Jane Hudson; or, Exert Your-
self.
8.	Jésus showing Mercy.
9.	Judson’s, Mrs., Life.
10.	Martin’s, Sarah, Life.
11.	Mary in Service.
12.	Miracles of Christ.
13.	New Testament Pocket Com-
mentary.
14.	Richmond’s Annals.
15.	Working Man’s Wife.
16.	Young Women of the Factory.
17.	A Volume of Tracts.
The Catalogue of the Society contains a large assortaient
of Books suitable for Factory Libraries, from which the fore-
going Lists may be considerably extended, to meet the wants
of Mills, etc., in which large numbers of work-people are
employed.﻿WORKS FOR LIBRARIES.
5
The following Works are selected as suitable additions to
Factory Libraries, many of which will also be found valuable
appendages to the Libraries of Mechanics’ Institutes, etc. :—
PRIZE ESSAY.
The OPERATIYE CLASSES of GREAT BRITAIN:
their Existing State and its Improvement ; being the Essay
which obtained a Premium of Fifty Pounds, offered by the
Religious Tract Society for the second best Essay on the
Présent State of the Manufacturing and Working Class.
Royal 18mo. 25. extra cloth boards.
LECTURES TO YOUNG ME Y, complété in One
Yolume. Delivered before the Young Men’s Christian
Association, in Exeter Hall. By the Revs. H. M'Neile,
D.D. ; J. CüMMING, D.D. ; R. BlCKERSTETH, A.M. ; W. BrOCK ;
H. Stowell, m.a. ; J. A. James ; T. Archer, d.d. ; W.
Arthur; Hon. and Rev. B. Noël, a.m.; T. Raffles, d.d.;
S. Martin ; and T. Binney. 35. boards.
LETTERS TO YOUNG MEN ; Eounded on the
History of Joseph. By William B. Sprague, d.d., of Albany,
America. 18mo.	15. cloth ; 25. half-bound.
FRATERNAL APPEALS TO YOUNG MEN. By
W. Brock. 32mo. 8d. boards.
THE YOUNG WORKING-MAN. 18mo. Is. cloth.
THE YOUNG TRADESMAN. 18mo. 2s. boards;
35. half-bound.
FRIENDLY HINTS TO TRADESMEN’S ASSIST-
ANTS, on their Duties, Dangers, Difficultés and Encou-
ragements. 32mo. 8d. boards; 15. half-bound.﻿6
PUBLICATIONS OP THE •
THE EXCELLENT WOMAN, as described in the
Book of Proverbs, ckapter xxxi. 16mo square. Witli 24
Steel Engravings. 3s. cloth boards, gilt.
A PRESENT FOR SERVANTS; containing various
Narratives of Facts suitable for Examples or Warnings for
Servants. 32mo.	8d. boards ; 1 s. half-bound.
FEMALE EXCELLENCE. 18mo. 2s. boards, 3s.
half-bound. 32mo.	1 s. §d. boards ; 2s. half-bound.
ISABEL ; or Influence. 18mo. with Engravings,
ls. cloth boards.
THE CAREFUL NURSEMAID. 18mo. ls. cloth.
THE YOUNG WIFE. 18mo. ls. cloth.
THE YOUNG MOTHER. 18mo. ls. cloth.
LETTERS TO A DAUGHTER. B7 Dr. Sprague.
2s. cloth ; 2s. 6d. half-bound ; 5s. calf.
THE ROYAL EXCHANGE AND THE PALACE
OF INDUSTRY ; or, the Possible Future of Europe and
the World. Foolscap 8vo. 2s. extra cloth boards.
THE PALACE OF GLASS AND THE GATHER-
INGr OF THE PEOPLE. A Book for the Exhibition.
Foolscap 8vo. 2s. extra cloth boards.
VILLAGE SCIENCE ; or, the Laws of Nature Ex-
plained, etc. 18mo. With Engravings. 2s. cloth boards.
NATURE’S WONDERS ; or, God’s Care over ail
His Works. 18mo. With Engravings. 2s. cloth boards.
PEEPS AT NATURE. 18mo. With Engravings,
2s. boards.
TRADES DESCRIBED. 18mo. ls. U. cloth bds. ;
2s. half-bound.﻿RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY.
7
USEEUL LADS ; for Errand Boys, etc. 6d. cloth.
THE TWO APPRENTICES. 18mo. 1*. half-bound.
THE POCKET COMMENTARY ; compiled from
Henry, Scott, and other Writers; with numerous Expla-
natory and Illustrative Notes. 18mo. I. Genesis to
Esther. II. Job to Malachi. Each 1 s. ici. neat cloth
boards ; or 2s. 6d. bound in one volume.
THE MONTHLY VOLUMES*
Containing One Hundred and Ninety-two Pages, in a good bold Type,
and occasionally illustrated with Engravings.
Sixpence in Fancy Covers.
1.	The Life of Julius Cæsar.
2.	Glimpses of the Dark Ages,
3.	Wild Flowers of the Year.
4.	Jamaica, Enslaved and Free.
5.	Our Song Birds.
6.	The Solar System. Part I. By
Dr. Dick.
7.	Cowper’s Task, & other Poems.
8.	Sketches of the Waldenses.
9.	The Solar System, Part II. By
Dr. Dick.
10.	The Life of Luther.
11.	Blights of the Wheat. By Rev.
E. Sidney.
12.	Ancient Jérusalem. By Dr.
* Kitto.
13.	Philosophy of the Plan of Sal-
vation.
14.	Man, in his Physical, Intel-
lectual, Social, and Moral
Relations.
15.	Modem Jérusalem. By Dr.
Kitto.
16.	The Life of Cyrus.
17.	Garden Flowers of the Year.
18.	Dawn of Modem Civilization.
19.	The Life of Lady Russell.
20.	Our Domestic Fowls.
21.	Cowper’s Truth, & other Poems.
22.	The Life of Mohammed.
23.	Sketches of the French Révo-
lution.
24.	The Caves of the Earth.
Tenpence in cloth boards, gilt edges.
25.	Eminent Medical Men.
26.	The Life of Martin Boos.
27.	Self-Improvement.
28.	Comparisons of Structure in
Animais. •
29.	Protestantism in France. Pt. I.
30.	Magic, Pretended Miracles, etc.
31.	The Atmosphère. By Dr. Dick.
32.	Schools of Ancient Philosophy.
33.	The Life of Cranmer.
34.	The Origin and Progress of
Language.
35.	Our English Bible.
36.	The Tahtar Tribes. By Dr.
Kitto.
37.	Life of Napoléon Bonaparte.
38.	Protestantism in France. Pt.Il.
39.	The Arctic Régions. By Capt.
Scoresby.
40.	The Court of Persia. By Dr.
Kitto.
41.	The Northern Whale Fishery.
By Captain Scoresby.
42.	The Crusades.
43.	Life of John Kaspar Lavater.
44.	Life’s Last Hours.
45.	The People of Persia. By Dr.
Kitto.
46.	Life of Alfred the Great.
47.	Plants and Trees of Scripture.
48.	Characters, Sceues, and Inci-
dents of the Reformation.
Part I.﻿8
PUBLICATIONS OP THE
THE MONTHLY VO LUMES—continued.
49.	British Fish and Fisheries.
50.	Characters, Scenes, and Inci-
dents of the Reformation.
Part II.
51.	The Senses and the Mind.
52.	The Geography of Plants.
53.	Lives of Eminent Anglo-
Saxons. Part I.
54.	Life and Times of Léo X.
55.	The Jordan and the Dead
Sea.
56.	Good Health: the Possibility,
Duty, and Means of Obtain-
ing and Keeping it.
Of the above Sériés, the followin
Engraved Frontispiece,
Cowper’s Task, and other Poems.
Dr. Kitto’s Ancient and Modem
Jérusalem.
Dr. Dick’s Solar System.
The Flowers of the Year.
Our Domestic Fowls & Song Birds.
Dark Ages and Dawn of Civiliza-
tion.
The French Révolution and Napo-
léon Bonaparte.
57.	Iona. By a Fellow of the So-
ciety of Scotdsh Antiquaries.
58.	Lives of Eminent Anglo-
Saxons. Part II.
59.	Ancient Egypt.
60.	London in the Olden Time.
61.	ldumæa.
62.	Babylon and the Banks of the
Euphrates.
63.	Nineveh and the Tigris.
64.	Lives of the Popes. Part I.
65.	London in Modem Times.
66.	Mines and Mining.
67.	The Telescope & theMicroscope.
Double Volumes are formed, with
s. 6d. each, cloth boards.
Protestantism in France.
Arctic Régions and Northern Whale
Fishery. By Captain Scoresby.
The Court and People of Persia.
By Dr. Kitto.
Lives of Eminent Anglo-Saxons.
London in Ancient and Modem
Times.
Characters, Scenes, and Incidents
of the Reiormation.
WORKS ON ROMANISM.
HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION OF THE
SIXTEENTH CENTURY. By J. H. Merle D’Au-
bigne, d.d. Copyright Edition, printed by Messrs. Oliver
and Boyd. In four volumes. Vols. I.—III., 3s. each
volume, in neat cloth boards ; Yol. IY., 5<v.
The 4 Yols. in One, demy 8vo. 6s. cloth boards ; or, 2 Yols. 7s.
LUTHER: HIS MENTAL AND SPIRITUAL
HISTORY ; with Spécial Reference to its Earlier Periods,
and the Opening Scenes of the Reformation. By Ruinas
Sears, d.d. ; 12mo. With portrait of Luther. 4s. boards.
PAPAL ERRORS : their Rise and Progress. 2s.
extra cloth boards.﻿RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY.
9
THE RELIGION OE PROTESTANTS A SAPE
WAYTO SALYATION. By William Chillingworth, m.a.
2 vols. 18mo. 5s. boards ; 7s. half-bound.
THE GOSPEL LEVER APPLIED TO THE OVER-
TURNING OF ROMANISM. By the Rev. E. Nangle, b.a.
18mo. ls. boards ; 1 s. 6d. half-bound.
POPERY UNVEILED. In Six Lectures. 18mo.
édition, 1$. 6d. boards ; 25. half-bound. 32mo édition,
la. boards.
THE COUNCIL OF TRENT. An Account of the
Proceedings of that Assembly, illustrating the Spirit and
Tendency of Popery. 18mo. 1 s. 6d. boards ; 2s, half-bound.
DIALOGUE BETWEEN A POPISH PRIEST
AND AN ENGLISH PROTESTANT. By M. Poole.
18mo. la. 6d. boards ; 2s. half-bound.
LUCILLA; or, the Reading of the Bible. By
Adolphe Monôd. Translated from the French. 32mo.
ls. 4 d. boards.
POPULAR ROMANISM EXAMINER 32mo.
ls. boards; ls. 4d. half-bound.
M'GAVIN ON « THE END OF CONTROYERSY
being Strictures on Dr. Milner’s Work in support of
Popish Errors, entitled “The End of Religious Contro-
versy.” Royal 32mo. ls. 6d. boards.
SKETCH OF POPERY. Royal 32mo. ls. 6d,
boards.
THE WILL-FORGERS ; or, The Church of Rome.
By the Rev. C. B. Tayler. ls. cloth.
THE SPIRIT OF POPERY. An Exposure of its
Origin, Character, and Results. Tn Letters from a Father to
his Children. With Embellishments. 16mo. square, 4s. 6d.
cloth, gilt edges.﻿10 PUBLICATIONS OP THS RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY.
THE LOLLARDS ; or, À short Account of the
Witnesses of the Truth in England, between 1400 and
1546. Superior Engrarings on Wood. 12mo. 3s. boards ;
4s. half-bound.
THE DAYS OF QUEEN MARY; containing an
Account of the Restoration of Romanism, and the Suffer-
ings of the Martyrs. 12mo. 3s. boards ; 4s. half-bound.
EDUCATIONAL SERIES.
THE HISTORY OF GREECE. From the Earliest
Times to a.d. 1833. 12mo. With a Map. 2s. 6d. cloth.
THE HISTORY OF ROME. From the Earliest
Times to the Fall of the Empire. 12mo. With Three
Maps. 3s. cloth boards.
LIYES OF ILLUSTRIOUS GREEKS. 12mo.
3s. cloth boards.
A UNIVERSAL GEOGRAPHY ; in Four Parts-^-
Historical, Mathematical, Physical, and Political. By the
Rev. T. Milner, m.a. f.r.g.s. Illustrated by Ten Coloured
Maps with Diagrams, by A. Petermann, f.r.g.s. 12mo.
cloth boards, 5s.
HORÆ PAULINÆ; by William Paley, d.d.
With Notes and a Supplementary Treatise, entitled
HORÆ APOSTOLICÆ. By the Rev. T. R. Birks, a.m.,
late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. With a Map.
12mo. 3s. cloth boards.
A VIEW OF THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTI-
ANITY. By William Paley, d.d. With Introduction,
Notes, and Supplément, by the Rev. T. R. Birks, a.m.
12mo. 3s. cloth boards.
depository: 56, paternoster row, and 65, st. patjl’s
CHURCHYARD.