The Sun.
London, England, 1859-10-28 00:00:00

zards, glory at all costs; glory will be cheaply pur- •
chased by the blood of thousands and the wretched-
ness of millions !" (Cheers.) Will our neighbours
listen to the Tempter ? lam sure the rational and
respectable part of them—the great bulk of the
people—will turn with indignation from his words,
and will not give ear. Even those he singles out,
the weaker part of them whom he has chosen as
most likely to be his victims and his dupes, the
mobs, armed and unarmed both, even that part of
the community I really do not think will be tempted
by him; but of this I am quite sure, that whether
of not the Tempter's wiles may succeed in this case,
I know where he will fall. When he spreads his
murky wings, and takes his inauspicious flight
across the Channel, when he tries his arts on us,
there he will fail to obtain audience for his words.
(Cheers.) He will not come over here in a warlike
garb ; he will leave his laurel behind him. (A
laugh.) He'll come to us as a respectable, prudent,
well-conducted counsellor of gain and of trade. He
will say, " The first of all objects is gain. Gain is
worth all the glories that ever were fancied in the
world. Study gain." And so he tempts them with
the golden apple, not with the laurel. (Hear, hear,
and cheers.) " Study gain," he says. " Let gain be
your first object. National independence may be a
very good thing in its way, but it may cost too dear.
You cannot be much worse off, happen what will."
But I believe the meanest-spirited individual in the
whole British Empire to whom he addresses these in-
fernal words—(loud cheers)—will answer, " Avaunt,
Satan !" and refuse to listen to him for another word.
• But he is unabashed. He is of infinite perseverance,
and never despairs. He is of infinite pertinacity,
and of infinite resources also, so he tries another

tack. " What are you afraid of ?"—and I wish we
may be so certain of his having no listeners in this
—" What are you afraid of? Nobody is going to
attack you—there is no chance of any attack. Why
should you spend so much of your substance in
making preparations for your defence ? (Applause.)
These preparations are costly and they are use•
less." I fear some of you may listen to that. But
the great body of the people of this country, high
and low, rich and poor, of all ranks, of all parties,
of all descriptions, of all sects, must know and feel
to the heart's core, that that is the most dangerous
of all the Tempter's wiles—(loud cheers)—that it is
the most perilous of all the fiend's devices, and that
there is but one safety for this country, and that is
to be prepared by sea and by land, in every way in
,a hich an attack is possible, however unlikely such
attack may be, and prepared in such a way as to
make it utterly impossible not only that the attack
shouldsucceed, but that it should be even attempted.
(Loud cheers.) And I firmly believe there never
was a more universal feeling of assent in this coun-
try to any one doctrine than to this, that we don't
distrust our neighbours—very far from that, we
trust them, but we trust ourselves still more.
And we do the best and kindest thing for these
neighbours and for ourselves in being completely and
absolutely prepared for whatever may happen.
(Cheers.) Once more I must return you my hearty
thanks for this reception you have given me, which
I shall never cease to regard as the highest honour
—as I before said, there is only one other honour
to which 1 could compare it—of my whole exist-
ence. And once more I heartily thank you,
fist, for this invitation, and next, for the reception
you have given me, and, last of all, for having so
patiently listened to what I have now said. (As
the noble lord sat down the whole company rose up
and loudly cheered him.)
Mr. MONCREIFF, Lord Advocate, in proposing
" The Education of the People," said—Although,
my lord, as you have very truly said, there are few
topics in the wide range of statesmanship, philoso•
phy, or letters with which the name of our distin-
guished guest is not honourably associatedthrough-
out Europe, there is one question which 1 have been
asked to make the subject of the toast which I am
about to propose which I think every one here will
feel to be peculiarly appropriate on the present oc-
casion. It has been the rare fortune of Lord
Brougham to hold the front rank with the greatest
of our statesmen, our writers, our philosophers, and
our men of letters. But I suppose that no man has
thought or written or acted or laboured in the great
cause of the education of the people for the last 30
years without turning instinctively, as to his great
master and preceptor, with pride, with gratitude,
and admiration, to the name and to the labours of
Henry Lord Brougham. (Cheers.) It was on this
field that I think he won his greatest, and I believe
I may truly say, his most undying laurels ; all the
more honourably won that the ground was all bat
untrodden when he first commenced his career, and
that it did not lie directly in his path, either in the
pursuit of an arduous profession, or as the leader of
a great political party in Parliament. The noble
lord has told us to-night that he has survived many
things—some to be regretted, some whichhe gladly
has seen vanish ; but I believe his country will
never forget, and I believe posterity will never for-
get, the mantul battle which he waged single-
handed in the cause of the education of the people.
(Cheers.) We owe it to him, in conjunction with
other great labourers in the field, that we shall no
longer have to discuss the question whether the
slave is fit for freedom. (Hear.) We owe it to the
labour of his own right hand that our descen-
dants will never have to discuss whether man is fit
for knowledge. (Cheers.) The battle has been fought
with unexampled power and courage by the noble
lord. The time has gone by, and the victory has
been won ; or, to borrow perhaps from the words of
the peroration of one of the noble lord's most magni-
ficent orations, he can say he " found knowledge
the inheritance of the rich, and he has left it the
patrimony of the poor." (Cheers.) And glad are
we to find, after so long a life of labour in that
glorious cause, that the standard he has planted
with his own hand amid the gloom and clouds of
despondency, he still holds with his accustomed
vigour, waving it over the scene of his triumph, and
holding it there still to show to the second and third
generation how the battlefield of educasion was won.
(Cheers.) But how has the victory been improved?
The battle has been won, and the education of the
people is now a cause in which all interested in the
welfare of the country are exerting themselves.
But how has the victory been improved? There
are persons who rather reverse the motto of the
ancient Roman, and think it right always to de-
spair of the republic, and whom you hear speaking
of the scarcity of fruit which so much good seed
has produced, the meagre results of so many bril-
liant hopes and expectations. I cannot say that I
sympathise with any of these sentiments. It seems
to me that, looking back on the period since the
noble lord's exertions on education first began, that
a close observer may see in the whole state of
society little short of a social revolution. No doubt,
you cannot place your finger here and there, and
Sa y that this and that result is attributable to the
education of the people. But I think it is plain that
the tide of intelligence has rolled over this country,
that the population now is no more in its habits, in
its modes of thinking, and in its style of thought
the population of 1819 thanit is the population of
1745. 'There is a humanising element that has per-
vaded the whole mass, from that assembly, of which
the noble lord is so great an ornament, down to
the humblest in the empire. You see it in the
Peers, you see it in the Commons, you see it in
the press, and in every institution in the land ;
you see it here to-night ; it is that element
which, beginning as it did, as I have already said,
amid much discouragement, has gone on until now
we are able to discuss with temper, with modera-
tion, and with yielding to each other questions
which in former days it was impossible to discuss,
excepting at the risk of very considerable difference
of opinion. (Cheers.) Now, I say that this is the
first result I would point to. But people say,
" Look at the statistics, and you will find that
there is more whisky consumed; you will find
it all ends in whisky and the statistics of crime
being increased." (A laugh.) What are you to
say for your education, according to these philo-
sophers, but that the noble lord ought to be re-
penting from the bottom of his heart the miseries
he has brought on the land ? (Laughter.) But I
think these are but shallow truths. Statistics will
never show you the effects of these efforts. Sta-
tistics may indeed tell you the aggregate and pro-
portion of crime and intemperance, but is it not
plain, in the first place, that by a natural law,
which it is impossible to withstand in this sub-
lunary state of things, we do produce both sweet
fruit and bitter ? No tree planted by human hand
can do otherwise. Knowledge brings enterprise,
enterprise brings prosperity, prosperity congre-
gates large masses in our great towns, and men
when congregated are prone to crime. So it is as
fruitless to point to the statistics of crime as afford-
ing any indication of the results of education, as it
would be to compare the social condition of Glas-
gow at the beginning of this century with that
great Queen of the West who spreads her tendrils
month by month and year by year over green fields
and growing corn, comprehending within hc.r
hounds a population drawn from all parts of the
empire, outgrowing the old means of control, and
calling loudly for new exertions. (Loud cheers.)
But I tell you where the results of education are to
be found. Don't look to statistics or blue-books,
but tell me how many a man has had his heart
warmed and cheered, has had his mind elevated—
as he has sat amid scenes of useful industry—how
many a man at the loom, in the shop, and down in
the lowly mine, has had inspired into him the
noble feelings of mankind, and by dint of stern in-
dustry, like your Stephensons and men of that de
seription, have walked, step by step, up the lad•ler
of fame, and mounted it, till at last, beginning at
the very b Atom, they have found themselves at the
very head of it; or, not even to take these, how
many a man has been able to bring himself up from
small beginnings to a much lower station, but still