the poor,

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experiment, of educating the poor in the gospel, as well as in the lower parts of human learning, has been tried in many countries of Europe, to the greatest extent, and with the greatest success.-We must remember, that the question of educating is not a question between a virtuous education, and no education at all; but it is a choice between a good education, and a bad one ;-you cannot repress the inborn activity of these poor children, and render those minds stagnant, which are not pro gressive to a good point; you will have weeds to eradicate, if you have not harvests to reap. You must incur greater trouble, and expence, hereafter, in punishing their crimes, than you do now in cherishing their virtues, you must either teach them the word of Christ, and the law of everlasting life; or you must rage against them with gibbets and chains; and thrust them from the light of the world, into the torments of hell.

There are many methods in which a community is considerably benefited by the education of its poor;-a human being,

who is educated, is, for many purposes of commerce, a much more useful, and convenient instrument; and the advantage to be derived from the universal diffusion of this power, is not to be overlooked in a discussion of this nature.

The education of the poor, sifts the talents of a country, and discovers the choicest gifts of nature in the depths of solitude, and in the darkness of poverty;-for Providence often sets the grandest spirits in the lowest places, and gives to many a man a soul far better than his birth, compelling him to dig with a spade, who had better have wielded a sceptre; education searches every where for talents; sifting among the gravel for the gold, holding up every pebble to the light, and seeing whether it be the refuse of Nature, or whether the hand of art can give it brilliancy and price :--There are no bounds to the value of this sort of education: I come here to preach upon this occasion; when fourteen or fifteen youths, who have long participated of your bounty, come to return you their thanks; how do we know that there

may not be, among all these, one who shall enlarge the boundaries of human knowledge; who shall increase the power of his country by his enterprise in commerce; -watch over its safety in the most critical times, by his vigilance as a magistrate ;and consult its true happiness by his integrity, and his ability, as a senator? On all other things there is a sign, or a mark ;we know them immediately, or we can find them out; but man, we do not know; for

man differeth from another man, as Heaven differs from earth;-and the excellence that is in him, education seeks for with vigilance, and preserves with care.We might make a brilliant list of our great English characters, who have been born in cottages;-may it ever increase ;-there can be no surer sign that we are a wise, and a happy people.

I would ask those, who place such confidence in the benefits of ignorance, how far they would chuse to carry these benefits? for, if the safety of a state depends upon its ignorance, then, the more ignorance the more safety;—and we ought to wish the

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lower orders degraded to the last state of savage stupidity; and if this were done, we forget that such materials must yield to seduction, and artifice, as well as to the mandates of lawful empire ;-but the particular kind of ignorance such reasoners want, is an ignorance tranquil and submissive to its rulers; and full of active intelligence against those who would mislead it from its duty-an ignorance, which it would, by no means, be desirable to diffuse, if it were possible.

The situation of the poor, in this country, is, with a very few exceptions, perhaps, as good as human nature will permit; upon the number of understandings on which this truth can be impressed, the stability of the times essentially depends;-if, then, we have placed our happiness on the eternal foundations of justice; and if there is a rock beneath our feet, as firm as adamant, and as deep as the roots of the earth, how foolish to rest it upon the crumbling, and treacherous soil of ignorance, which every wind can disperse, and every flood can wash away.

I by no means contend, that the government which commands them can have nothing to fear from a people among whom education is widely diffused, because it is idle to say, that a government is ever completely out of all danger, from the madness of any people; but I say there is always less to fear from a people whom you have educated in the gospel, and to whom you imparted also some degree of human knowledge, than from any other people:--If such a people imagine a vain thing in their heart, they are soon called back to duty;-their repentance is speedy, and their excesses are light; but when a human being rises up against us whom we have degraded to the state of a brute, he rises up against us, as that being would to which we have likened him,-to diffuse slaughter and destruction wherever he bends his steps.

Nothing brutalises human faculties more than the extreme division of labor; and this division, invaluable to commerce, and industry, is carried to such a height in this country, that it calls, imperiously, for the corrective of education. We