The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1819-05-17 00:00:00

Lord EOSIN GTON. in risitig to propene the second
Iteseilsition, expressive of gratitude to their Royal
Highnesses the Prince Regent, and the Dukes of
Kent and Sussex, for their steady samosa of this
Society, felt his inability to do iniecitirte justice to
the merit of so essential a Residuttint. After the
eloquent and impressive address of their Rot ad
Chairman, followed eii and tisforced by the elo-
quence of two other elite men, it would he great
presumption if hr were to attempt to trespass upon
the Meeting by any 161111•1011, to the great merit of
this Society, and iv% influence upon• the morals of
the people. • It was their pride to feel that through
their means that greatest blessing under Heaven,
education, had brim spread not only in this king-
dont. but iii every quarter of the habitable glebe.
From an humble origin this great blesring sprung,
and its wide diffusion afterwards fully impressed
the world with the great truth which had by twine
been presumptuously denied, that the education of
the lower classes (firmed the basis of public order
and of peace.— j Appluese.l—The career of this
Society, brilliant as it was, was hitherto short, they
had therefore a full remembrance of the cloud of
prejudice which obscured their early efforts—they
must well remember the efforts of !hoer, some of
them well-intentioned, others ill-intentioned melt,
who strenuously impeded their march, but they had
the consolstion also to recollect the protecting hand
which in that hoar of peril preserved theist from the
ruin which otherwise might have befallen them.
They all remembered that the first Personage in
the Slide extended to them a helping hand tit the
midst of that prejudice, in the height of that oblo-
quy which otherwise might have everpowered their
effiris.—/ Load and continued aprlnate.)—ln the
midst of all the attacks which detraction then made
upon their motives, they had the consul tem') of
knowing. that their venerable Sovereign war their
patron and friend—that lie continued to bestow
upon them his unabated protection. They must
• also experience the reflection of the gratification
which that benign Monarch must experience when
it shall please Providence to disclose to him the
success of this Society, and that his high example
was followed in the days of his affliction by his sons
• with such admirable constancy and powerful effect.
—( Loud and continued plaudits.)—They must
all acknowledge the princely liberality with which
his Royal Highness the Prince Regent continued
to the Society the annual bounty of their venerable
Monarch. It would be superfluous to allude to
the important services of their Royal Highilesres
the Dukes of Kent and Sussex. for what mail in
the couutry was there who could be summed to be
ignorant of them I—(Great applause.)
, The Hon. and Rev. GLEARD NOEL rose to
second this Resolution. lie assured the Meeting
how sensible he was that the object of this admira-
ble Institution went home to the heart of every
good man. There was something so affecting and
appalline, in the state of a human being utterly des-
titute of education, that no reflecting mind could
contemplate it without the deepest emotion. It
was impossible for him, therefore, not to rejoice at
the success of a Society which went to dispel Igo°.
mice, and which, after all the efforts of national
and private benevolence, found so much undone in
the education of the poor. He repeated that he
rejoiced at the wide-spreading success of an lion-
' nitwit which embraced all classes of society, and
laid before them those sources of light and know-
ledge which imparted happiness to them here, and
the grounds of it hereafter.—(Appiatire.)—lt was
important to give the utmost possible effect to a
plat' which war so well calculated in its result to lift
man above the disordered and sickening propensities
of his corruptible liature, and make him a reasoning
and mural being. Whet but religion formed the
ties of peaceable society, and suppressed the as-
cendancy of animal 'missions ? What else coenected
man with the nobler sentiments of mind which
elevated his conceptions beyond those of the brute
creation, and made hint a superior being I Eng-
liskmen could never forget the great expressimi
of the honoured father of their Royal Citatretim,
that he wished every child in his tionnitions
eon'd rend the Bible.—/Greut applause.)--
They left that their revered Monarch was impressed
with the proper means of improving the sate of so-
cloy, and determined to give full effect to au insti-
llation like ibis by his high example. He knew
that the crown which adorned his brow, or rather
which he adorned—(Applause)—was corruptible,
and that the only solid basis upon which it could re.
pose, was that which the Bible taught and could
alone inculcate. The venerable Monarch knew the
mutability of human affiiirs, and the evanescent na-
ture of human enjoyments, he therefore sought in
the recotd of the sacred volume those lessons of
truth, the believer in which must possess eternal
happiness. The Honourable and Reverend Gen-
tleman. in the most eloquent manner, invoked the
blessings of Heaven upon every Society like this,
which placed the Bible in the hands of the people,
and taught them the value of its divine truths.
With respect to the principle of this Society, lie
avowed himself to be sue of those who thought it
quite possible for a man to entertain an honest at.
technic lit to his own conscientious principle., and
yet to be able to hold out a helping hand to those
who differed from him in scruples, to those who
weir. he knew. wrecked in the saute storm, sod
were to he saved by the same liand.—(App/ause./
He, as a Motion: of the Gospel, professing, moat
sincerely, the ritual of the Established Church,
and meowing (Oneself to be the last wan in Politely
to telerate that latitude of principle which wiiiil:l
lay prostrate all principle, did not hesitate to ex-
press his gratification at the success of a system
that tended to make connnunities friends on earth,
as fie trusted they would eventually be friend' in
fleaveit.—(Appkiete.)—fle lamented .that there
should, at the origin of this Society, have existed
any jealousy among Ministers of Religion respect-
iug its,
S object. When the Clergy saw their vene-
rable Sovereign, who was at the head of ecclesiare
licel affairs, extend a protecting hand to this So-
ciety, they might have mil/Nosed that that which
had his sanction wasentitled to their support. To
the wimples of that revered Sovereign. drawn
from the divine 'unlace of the Bible, the country
owed much of its salvation in times of distress amid
cud comesation ; it was the example of his great
charm...ter that made time throne of this realm re-
spected, and steered it through the tempestuous
course of boisterous times.— (App/intse.)— He
would reap the harvext of so good a life--and when
he was called to soother life, be would, like all

Gorki men, enjoy the reward of 'cowl acts. The
anal Res.Gentleiniiii concluded by paying on
eloquent tribute to the efforts of their Royal !high-
nesses the Dukes of Kent and Su.sex. for their tit:-
tire support of the interests of thin Society.
The second Resolution Wa4 then cmiiril by ac-
clamation.

The ROYAL. CHAIRMAN, in retnrniriti thank.,
said that his (eeliogs were too strum in a u ntt of his
giving utterance to the giatilicatton he f.lt at this
mark of their favour, Ile eulogised the cOothiet
of his Royal Highness the Prince R?gesid, in con-
tinuing to the Societe the bounty of ist. Royal Fa-
ther, and apologised for the absence of his Royal
Ilightie.4 the Duke of StistwX. Who was only
pre-
vented from being present oil this 0,1%1•414111 by the
st..te of his health, and an oppreltell.:1011 that the
fitigue of being lucre would render it impossible for
him to attt•iiil an evening engagement for a charit:i.
hie purpose elsewhere. —(.4pplanse.)— Fur himself
lie could only assure them, that he would never
cease to itt,e, his best efforts to promote the emir of
this Inititution.—/Area/ applause.)
M r. BERN ETT. in propping the third Resolution
of thanks to the Duke of Bedford, &c. sic(' he
eta. aware of the disadvantage he laboured outler
from ri.niv, to address them after the eloquent
speeches they had braid, but he was in some mea-
sure consoled wi!h the re flt,ctititi. that the intitosic
merit of the Resi.liition he had to propose would
sufficiently enforce its value without the aid of any
advocacy
which he could offer. Connected, as he
had the honour to be, with the Duke of Bedford'
in ties of relationship, but still more in the ties of
public and private principle --1 pploosej—lie felt
it would he both unbecoming and useless were he to
attempt to etilogitte the character of a man whose
whole life hail been before the public, and whet h
exhibited one uniform course of purity end prin-
ciple—who had employed the whole of his time
and a large portion of hit princely fortJue in im-
proving the als nod condition of the people—
Olpp/ousei—utiel who would hare Steen present
this day were it not for the effects of an accident
which he had lately endured. The Honourable
Gentlemen then adverted to the character of Mr.
William Allen, who was aliment from their Meet-
ing this day, lint whose name was never absent
from their hearts. —(Applarse.) —He had for years
known the benevolence of that good man,
whose life and fortune were devoted to the amelio-
ration of the si ore of mankind ; he was now
traversing the north of Europe, extending the
blessings of education among the people. He was
Nowli.; the steps of that great man, who was
called she Philanthropic Howard ; and it might be
said of him what was said by Burke of Howard,
that " his life was spent in taking the gauge
and dimensions of human misery, in performing a
voyage of discovery, a circuinnaviption of charity,
it; thratqh other States, not for pur-
poses of idle curiosity, but in order to instruct the
ignorant, to visit the oppressed and the afflicted,
and to relieve the needy, of whatever colour, of
whatever clime."—(Applorse.)—Mr. Allen was
now employed in the same ennobling pursuit—he
was conveying to foreign and distant States the
lights which had been struck in England ; and it
must be gratifying to his friends to know, that at
Stockholm and St. Petersburgh he had been re•
ceived in the manner in which they themselves
would wish to receive him. and that success was
every where attending Isis efforts. (A pplause.)—
The Hon. Member then briefly alluded to the
plan of the Society. He described its peculiar ad-
vantages to be, that it boood its follower• to no
test, it imposed no fetters upon their conscience—
the Catholic, the Protestant, the Jew, and the
Pagan, were alike the objects of its bounty—it
inculcated the purest doctrines of morality and re-
ligion, and bade the subjects of every country live
in peace and amity with each other, and honour
the King and obey the laws.—(Applause.)
The Rev. CHRISTOPHER ANDURsON. of Edin-
burgh, in seconding thus motioti, said, that as Se-
cretary of the Gaelic Schools in Scotland, it had
fallen to his lot to see the belt l's of the plan of
this School iii the heath-covered mountains of Ca-
ledonia. It had beets frequently said, that educa-
tion in Scotland was universal, hut he assured the
Meeting that that assertion must be received with
some qualifications, for that Scotland, like other
countries, had its contracted spots of light and
darkness in the Lowlands and Highlands. The
Rev. Gentleman then described the state of the
population scattered over the igloo& in the north
of Scotland, their distance in many places from a
church, and from the clergyman, wl.o was their only
instructor. The Gaelic Society took this extensive
population mulct its care, and, to the first instance
resolved that no professor of any religion should
be a teacher in the schools formed for their educa-
tion. This rule regulation actually saved the So-
ciety, and gave II full and comprehensive effect to
it. work. The cousequence was, that the spirit of
education was generally diffused among the Celtic
tribes, and adults and children were alike seen un-
bibiog instruction. The prejudice which existed
respecting the competency of adults to learn with
facility was at length shamed away by the roc.
tical result. The nurses with children in their
arms have been reading alternately the verses of
their Bible, and he knew an instance of' a wo-
man bringing her infant in its cradle to the
school, that she might be able to mind it and learn
herself to read at the same time.—(Applause mad
/dueller.) —He could not help mentioning another
circumstance, which decided the question among
the prejudiced, as to the competency ofathilts to
receive instruction. There was a man in the High-
lands who had attained the great age of 116 years—
he had enlisted in the year 1715 in the army, but
had never in early life learned to read and write,
and just one hundred years afterwards, he sat down
in the Gaelic School, to learn his A B C, and soon
acquired a knowledge of reading and writing. The
school presented an interesting spectacle, fur their
pupils consisted of infants in the cradle, sod per.
sons of all sexes, from the Ist to the 117th year of
theirage,ilpplawse.)—lt was delightful to see
the effect which the education of the Gaelic chil-
dren had upon their parents—the improved morals
of the young rice were followed and adopted by the
old, and the whole face of society become aotelio.
rated. It was impossible to say too much of a plan
which embraced so many classes, and conferred so
mach good.—/Applause./
Mr. WILIIRRFORCE rose to propose the fourth
Resolution, which was complimentary to her Royal

nighlien the Ditches!' of Kent. tie commenced by
expressing the oratirude whirl he was persuaded
the Cfmirtily 1. It at the retort' of their Royal
Chairman to pro ticiiiite in their labours, and to see
the success a traword all their efforts in the
cause id' Niue loom, They hail seow to congratulate
ear Is oilier loom the rr aaaaa 1/141 of those prejudices
which mice existed against the call- alum of the
lower elesses. They had heard of the excellent
effect produced by education in Scotland awl Ire.
land. By education Lad this Wool of (;ini been
diffused, and yet there had been ihn3r 'vim would
deny this education to their fellow-creator... 6. ;Mil
who would reduce them below the
.014 the
human species. They could now triiiiiipli liter
such prtjudices, and give the practical answer of
facts to the urguments of their opponents. They
could present au improved and improving !mould.
tom—an educated class of children among the
lower orders, who had imbibed those lessons Abell
would smooth the rugged path of life below,
and forrpore the Christiaii for future glory in nom her
state. What they had vet seen were hut the opening
fruits of their excellent system, and presented bid
the rising of that sun, the meridian of which would
blaze forth in so much brilliancy, and which would
set in so much glory.—(4opluose.)—The improved
morals of the poor, from infancy to an adult state,
had arisen from the growth of education among the
people.. It was remarked by * foreign writer (Row—
leen), who was not much In the halm of tracing the
"toe Power of the Divinity, that in the growth of
the human species might he seen the wisdom of the
Deity. The infant was not endowed wok strength,
for if he were, ins feeble and downing reeson was
vet too tender to guide his strength, and it would
perhaps, be employed either against himself or
other.. So it might be elm' of the great mass of
the people, if left unrdncetrd ; their physicist
strength merle tin at lormidahle, if not corrected
by the mor:d ferhotsz whirls education conferred,
and which prevented them from being dangerous
' or useless to one another. It was delightful to find
the good work of esinr.stion becoming universe!,
and that a brotherhood of nations had cordially
taken place respecting it. This feeling would lead
to the establishment of that great truth, that the
prosperity of one motion was not incompatible with
that of another, soul that the interchange of commerce
ought to be made conducive to the interest end hap-
piness of each Silo,. It was delightful to follow the
Report that had been read, to use Mr. Burke's
word,, through its "circumnavigation of charity,"
to follow it from country to country, from hemis-
phere to hemisphere, and to have fresh reason to
rejoice in tracing every step of its isilvaiire. To see
the success of their plan in Ireland, the very mime
of which country was calculated to awaken is the
mind of all Englishman the most humiliating re-
flections, when lie contemplated the past events of
her history and his own, and to make him now in-
deed rejoice that in that soil, which was so long
bedewed with the waters of bitterness, lie is
sowing the seeds of moral improvement and of
peace—and repaying, by acts of consideration and
kindness, the evils which bad policy had reused
and perpetuated. Surely the time bad now arrived
when men would feel the necessity of seeking
points of resemblance on which they could cor-
dially agree, rather than hunt out abodes of think-
ing upon which alone they could differ, to their
own injury and that of the public peace. From
Scotland they had heard the gratifying and inte-
resting account of the Rev. Gentleman (%Jr. An-
derson); but then they had also heard, that for
want of adespiate means, even in this great metro-
polis, there were many, many thousands of the
poor who were destitute of education. It was im-
possible to allude to the Resolution which he
held in his hand, without feeling the debt of gra-
titude they owed her Royal Highness the Diieness
of Kent, for her condescension ii becniniiii.; Pa-
troness of the Female School—(Great appbisr)—
and he hoped he might be allowed, with proverbial
English freedom, to state to their Royal Chairman,
that he must have felt that lie owed much to the
Society for his long absence, when on his return he
overpowered them with so much ohligatism.—(.Ap-
ploorse.)—There was something, it was said, in the
climate of England that often made Englishmen
dissatisfied—they were always expecting more than
they could receive. For his part, he was a little
philosophic, as it were ; he felt that there was u
good-humoured as well as an ill-humoured way of
looking at a thnio,, and he preferred rather to delight
when the sun shone, than to repine when it was
darkened; so therefore he frit his own joy redoubled
at the presence of his Royal Highness, from the
mere circumstance of the long absence which so
many had deplored. To see the Members of the
Royal Faindy employed as they were in promotitig
acts of benevolence and utility was a delightful sight.
—(.4pplause.)—Lotig, long may they thus endear
themselves to the people of this country ! The
Hon. Member concluded by an eloquent allusion
to the gratification which our venerable Sovereign
would experience when it pleased the Divine Will
to open his eyes to the success of this Institution,
and the mailer in which his sons had followed his
Royal examide in potroniziog and supportiog it.
The Rev. Dr. SCHWARE, in seconding this Rem-
lotion, declared the interest her Royal Ilighuess
had expressed in this Institution irornedietely on
her arrival in England, and the cordial anxiety she
manifested to give it all the assistance in her power.
—(Applause.)
The Royat. CHAIRMAN, in returning thanks
for the tribute of respect paid to his illustrious
Consort, assured the Meeting of the interest which
her Royal Highness had expressed for this Societe.
With respect to the allusion made to his absence
abroad, ail he should say was, that neither the
Duchess nor himself would ever be voluntarily
absent from Esiglend.—(Applause.)—She coos!.
dered herself now identified with the interests of
this country, and had the same feelings for his dear
native land as himself.—(l;reot oppbutee.)—As
much as they possibly could, they should make
England the seat of their residence as it was of their
strongest affections, and while here, their best and
most cordial assistance should ever be proffered !
to support this admirable Institution.—(Great 1
The Rev. Jotsm Tow“szwo, in an eloquent
speech, proposed the firth Resolution, which was
ably seconded by Mr. GSORGE PHILLIPS, i%J. P.
who in forcible terms 'mooed out the services which
the Ladies' Committee loud performed fur this So.. 1
ciety, mud also the necessity, which in all the pre. I