The Sun.
London, England, 1853-06-08 00:00:00

purified and sanctified, and led to a higher end. than the
mere attainment of worldly advantages. According
as that knowledge is applied, it depends whether the great
society of whom we are members is composed of men
formed after the image of God, and in his likeness, and
purified by his Holy Spirit, or whether society imbued
with knowledge not so sanctified, and not so purified, is
not like unto that monster Frankenstein—a monster of
incredible beauty and power, but whose beauty and
power are only the more terrible because unguided and
unsanctified by a holier power and spirit. Its beauty,
its abilities, its strength, and its power, lead, or make
itself only the more fitting instrument of bringing de-
struction on itself and those around. (Hear, hear, and
applause.) Again, in early times the wisdom of our
forefathers, according to the lights and acquirements of
their ages, made great and liberal provision for the dif-
fusion of such education as was then obtainable. I need
not point to the noble university with which I have now
the honour of being connected—l need not point to the
sister University of Cambridge, to the various halls and
colleges, to the schools of royal and noble foundation at
Eton, Winchester, and Westminster—but throughout
the land, for the humbler as well as the higher classes of
the community, there were established, chiefly under the
control and direction of the national clergy, a vast amount
of educational establishments, partaking all of them of
the religious, and, in some degree, eleemosynary charac-
ter, for the purpose of training up in the fear of God, and
in such literature as the times allowed, the children
alike of the higher, the middle, and the lower classes ;
and through the medium of these institutions—though
many of them have been perverted from their original
purpose—l say, yet through the medium of these insti-
tutions, in the universities there is many an instance of
persons in an humble position of life—persons in whom
but for them, to use the words of the poet
" Chill penury repressed their noble rage
To thrill the genial current of their souls;"

but who, introduced by these institutions into places
where they had the best opportunities of acquiring the
best aids of science, and applying to them laborious and
self-denying diligence, have found their rich reward in
taking their place amongst the master spirits of the age
—the places due more especially to those who combine
with genius, early self-exertion, and indefatigable self-
denial, and who knew that no great object can be at-
tabled without study and persevering exertion ; and who
have sought, and nobly succeeded in availing themselves
to the utmost, of those advantages which the piety and
wisdom of our forefathers had placed at their disposal.
(Applause.) But these institutions, as I have stated,
were most suited for ,the advancemiit of the age in
which education, properly speaking, was confined to
those who were Ostined for the service of the Church,
or those few who intended to devote themselves exclu-

sively to literary studies. For a very considerable time
after the Reformation, and even to a comparatively recent
period, there were many who held that it was dangerous
to educate the humbler classes of this country, and all that
they required was to be able to read so as to enable them,
without difficulty, to spell out a chapter in the Bible.
Gentlemen, lam afraid that we cannot conceal from
ourselves that during the last century, especially that
period, all classes of the community—and .1 am afraid I
cannot except from them the clergy of the Church of
England —had sunk into a state of considerable apathy
with regard to the discharge of those duties which ap-
pertained to the education of the people. In those days,
the population of the rural parishes confined by the ab-
sence of all facilities for locomotion within the narrow
spaces in which they were born, and in which they died,
successive generations were born and vegetated, and
died in contented ignorance, little cared for by the care-
less
and apathetic discharge of a very small portion of
clerical duties ; but, unhappily, as was sure to be the
case, " while men slept the enemy sowed tares," and in
the country parishes infidelity and vice were the sure '
and certain progeny of spiritual and of intellectual
ignorance. lint besides them rose up a new element,
beyond, perhaps, the power even of a body more de- '
voted to their duties than at that day. (Hear, hear.)
God be praised, the case is very different now of pa-
rochial clergymen of the Established Church. (Ap-
plause.) Great towns begin to rise into importance,
and populations brought together have more opportu-
nities of comparing mind with mind, and of discussion,
and of reason, and shrewd, hard-headed, hard-working,
intelligent, ambitious workmen, anxious to place them-
selves forward in life, have outgrown the parochial sys-
tem, and, consequently, in their ignorance of higher and
spiritual things, but have little desire except that of ob-
taining for themselvs s and for their children, that amount
of knowledge which they say would be powerful to th eir ad-
vancement in the material concerns of every-day life,
but their knowledge does not extend beyond that. (Hear
and applause.) There arose also in the towns another
and an inferior class—a class labouring for their daily
bread, or perhaps earning it by less creditable means,
having little care beyond the mere satisfaction of gratify-
ing their animal passions where they had the means of
gratifying the sottish intemperate habits of their nature
wherever an opportunity presents. God forbid, gentle-
men, that this is a general picture—an universal picture
of the great towns and of the great manufacturing dis-
tricts of this country. God forbid that what I say shall
still further make this a corect description of the moral
population of this great empire • but I fear that, in the
great towns, and the rural villages also, there are too
many of our population who answer to the melancholy
description which I have given, and who are creating a
plague and canker in the whole of our social system.
(Hear, hear.) Again, the feelings of .the country are
aroused, and extensively excited; -but I doubt whether
the country is equally aroused, and equally sensible of
the danger—which I hold to be not less than the danger
of brutal ignorance—l mean the danger of instructed
and enlightened infidelity. (Hear.) And it is against
both these that, if we would save our common country
from the inevitable consequences of two such concurrent
plagues, it is against these that our efforts are to be di-
rected. We all know that the virtues, the morals, aswell as
the knowledge of a people, are the surest safeguards for the
welfare of a country, and that without it no country can
prosper, and no country in the face and in the absence
of God, can hope to prosper. Gentlemen, by whom
then is it that the efforts are to be made to encounter
these gigantic evils ? How are we to apply ourselves to
deal with that which, if not checked, not controlled, not
remedied, must lead to consequences day by day more
pernicious, more destructive. On whom then does the
duty devolve ? It devolves on you—it devolves on me
—it devolves upon all those who have a human heart in
their bosom—it devolves upon all those who can feel for
the sufferings of their neighbours and of their country.
men, and can feel for their distresses and calamities, and
that feel also that there can be no distress and no cala-
mity which should demand so much of pity, which should
look so much for aid, as the combined evils of infidelity
and ignorance. (Applause.) Gentlemen, another duty,
the universal demand for knowledge, the universal desire
for instruction, has led to the formation of many estab-
lishments, and many means of promoting the instruction
of the middle classes ; popular lectures, mechanics' in-
stitutions, and various appliances of science, in order to
give an easy high road to science. These are popular
among the middle classes—these are what many of them
most desire, and the demand has regulated and procured
the supply. But that for which there is not the same
amount of demand, because unhappily it is a portion of
our nature, that there where we least feel our wants
there will not be the same demand—is the provision of
a well-ordered, religious, moral education. (A p-
plause.) I believe that there is a great portion of this
country, I am happy to believe that the vast majority
of this country in opposition to a small section of it, are
of opinion that no education is in itself desirable or
valuable which does not combine religious with secular
instruction. (Applause.) lam certain upon that prin-
ciple the great majority in Parliament is disposed to
proceed, and I believe that Parliament represents the
sense of the great majority of the country. Parliament
r re sensible bflreo
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fathers ; and within recent years, constantly
grants have been offered by the Legislature, increasing
purpose of superseding—God forbid !—but ,f nroth or the
pose of aiding, stimulating, and exciting locale e Fir-
by labour, by aid, by money amongst - all classes
of the
community in support of a strictly a
religious education.
But, gentlemen, among the various
classes into which