The Sun.
London, England, 1842-10-29 00:00:00

you to mendicity or the poor-house. And now, that
we have proved our love to you by first obtaining the
bread that perishes, we beseech you to give an equal
credit for sincere zeal for your welfare in urging you
to seek the better and abiding substance which is in
heaven.—(Cheers.) Would such effects, backed by
sm h serv:ces, be without effect ?—(" No, no.") In
some cases they would, for man is not only wicked,
but ungrateful ; hit in many instances I am con-
fident that untold results of goodness would follow
the labours of the ministers in the cause of hu-
manity, not to say religion, too.—(Great applause.)
And what can be a finer theme for any man
placed in society in this world than the morality of
government. The theory of law is but an elaboration
of the principles of justice applied to society. But
the practice of law is, for the most part, tyranny and
fraud—supported by the wealth of the factious, and
the ignorance and imbecility of the people.—(Cheers.)
Whence come wars and rumours of wars, but from
an invasion somewhere of the rights of political jus-
tice ? Whence the wide-spread cruelties and oppres-
sions of India—the horrors of the slave-trade—the
wicked assaults on China—the perfidious aggressions
at Caubul—but from the same cause ? if one nation,
and that Great Britain, could be brought to feel the
importance of making morality and politics synoni-
'nous, what would he the influence throughout the
world ? Then, indeed, our missionaries would not be
thought satirists of their own nation—our statutes
and the Bible would he but different parts of the
same body of truth.—(Hear, hear.) Our literature
would be purged of much of its pollution, of false-
hoods; and the halls of justice, which are now too
often clothed with tales and proofs of might over-
coming truth, would be redolent of another spirit, and
to them the persecuted and the poor would turn with
an eagerness similar to that with which the homicide
sought the safety bench in the oities of refuge of old.
—(Applause.) I have spoken, and spoken freely,
of ministers of religion. I have spoken with
unfeigned reverence for their office, and have
rather thought to exalt it than debase it
by the reference I have made to its duties, its obliges
gations, and its power. But, if we turn our thoughts
from the ministers of religion to those for whose sake
they minister, what should we say to the moral sta-
tistics which have been produced by the late over-
whelming commercial distresses of our country ?
Who can tell the number of persons who were serious
and devout five years ago, who have returned to the
mire " through the cares f this life?" In how many
instances has the amended character and type of the
members of Christian churches been deteriorated by
the ever recurring question—" What shall we eat,
and what shall we drink, and wherewithal shall we
be clothed ?" How many persons could be found
whose religious education this hour has been neu-
tralised by the depression of trade ? How many
thousands of religious minds have been driven to
emigrate, nosmallportion of whom, it is to be feared,
will renounce by the act their native country and
their sacred vows ? What number of Sabbath teachers
have disappeared from our schools through want of
decent clothing? What proportien of the various
religious societies have felt the pressure, and though
they have exhibited no material subsidence of income,
yet to what acts have they been forced, to meet their
current liabilities?—(Hear.) What proportion of seat-
holders have given up their pews from incapacity to pay
the petty subscription for the salaries of the minister'?
How many thousands have been compelled to pawn or
sell their bibles and their psalm-books from the same
cause, and having once overcome the anguish of part-
ing with such hallowed companions, have been made
callous by repeated sufferings, to their re-possession.
—(Hear.) I might ask a hundred kindred questions,
and the only reply of the loaded heart would be--
" Oh, Lord, thou knowest." I boldly say that the
cases of deterioration amid ruin from drunkenness and.
crime, so lamentably frequent in our country during
some years past, lie at the doors of our rulers and
legislators.—(l-lear.) On them fall the accumulated
maledictions of those beggared wretches with each
setting sun and morning light. They know the re-
medy as well as we. The history of such men is not
yet written—l neither envy its contents, nor desire to
share its responsibility.—(llear.) It is an affecting
thought that the youth who are now twenty, were,
when these distresses commenced, only fifteen years
of age. The interim is decidedly the most important
period in our being—(Hear)—and yet all the youth
of the labouring population have passed through it,
under the pernicious and withering influence of com-
mercial and trading distress. What an education
The effects, however, will never be worn off.—(Hear,
hear.) Many a promising youth was taken from
school to bolster the sinking fortunes of his
family—(llear, hear)—and at length, by the same
cause, was driven from the shop too, and now
he is walking the fields and lanes around the
city, a fugitive without vocation, if not a vagabond_
without principle.—(Cheers.) Some that were in-
tended for the professions have been compelled_ to
avert their thoughts to humbler trades, and c.;,hers,
designed for trades, are now beggars, or what *ss worse-
-soldiers—(Applause)—and some even have com-
mitted crimes to procure a gaol home. Such as have
remained at school, have been reduced to the cheaper
classes, and with great difficulty the ilaYments of their
education have been irregularly made, and in many
instances not at all. A larger number still, who, if
trade had continued good, would have received a little
education, so as to acquire at least the art of reading,
will now never be able to acquire the art of leading
through life, they are now too old to con a primer
with children; too poor to obtain private instruction„
and when trade returns they must devote every hour
to provide for the current events of the day. Ali that
they know must be traditional—(Hear, hear)--they
can test nothing by self-examination ; and they must
take even their religious knowledge on the dictum of
others.—(Hear, hear.) The urgency of animal wants
predominates, in times like these, over all questions
of self-improvement ; the battle is for life. The ri-
vals increase every hour ; the markets are uncertain ;
the next order may be the last for twelve or eighteen
months ; and, mighty as the pulsation may beat for
knowledge, the youth of our country must turn deaf
ears to her syren voice, till a more convenient time,
which will probably never arise.— (Lieu.) Here again
I pause to point out the connection between the
morals of the people and the acts of the Government;
and again I say to the friends of morality, you prune
the twigs, and leave the trunk untouched, while you
seek not to mend the laws. Now, until it can be
shown, then, that there is this connection between
knowledge and morality, oz until that connection be
oittrhseebeactmttieokieilvnyecsiaisntaotthineolneensv.il of our
destroyed, the connectioneontinues between ignorance
enavietdru,rveitchpeellied-ae nfoodmr easi,niarinticeuresc°hFers
neg-
lect, makes ignorance inevitable, must be rtaecWillkonliedt
among the abetting
causes of immorality.—(Hear,
hear) Sir,
jbueslti believe
one—that
h
hobtarins opinionat w
the
present c h now
prostration so wide lay
privatetrade,
idlaevteeroionrlyatihoandotfimpuebtloicdraanwd
a very faint and. imperfect picture, is caused by pal-
pable injustice in the Legislature of the land. When.
the property of labour is set at nought by the aristo-
cratic legislator, he teaches the labouring poor, both
by precept and example, to despise that of others ; and.
thus property at once loses its sanction, and crime its
enormity.—(Hear, hear.) The frequmcy of ruined_
tradesmen also enervates the shame of insolvency, and
when it is no longer a reproach to compound ‘tk
d
one's creditors, the solvent but unprincipled tradyi es-
mon will avail himself of the relaied detestation of
of
debt, and such as have less moral courage to sust
the struggle for a panic, give up their chances of
b _ y the,
self-
redemption before they had really losti the game.
But we are told that it is irupossibe,
wisest system of legislation, to prevent these
,e are
sea-
sons of distress
—these visitations of famine.
natural and necessary to the
healthy progress of industry as. periods of rest and
told they are collapses as
sleep to the animal system—(Laughter)—and some
will tell you that, by studious and profound calcula-
tions, they have penetrated
the mystery hidden from
vulgar eyes, and can prove by figures that the most
precious portion of a community like ours, should
partially submit to famine as a punishment for being
too too enterpris-
ing.—(Laughterindtriit is not the
usous, anda and
aoa chineegrs.)iouensihaantd
Corn-laws or other restrictions upon trade that have
entailed and worked these evils, but the genius of
Watt, and Bolton, and Arkwriglt,
men who have given employment to
that they might the bodies of millions abroad.
clothe millions at home,
—(Laughter.) These Astute• unthmeticia:ms—these
patient plodding calcuiutors of a world's wants and
a people's destiny,
Ar.lo count spindles, and measure
the power of stetur., and reckon the taxes of the po-
pulation—and
v. ho greatly love the Corn-laws—
(Laughter)_..r land
—4l.it because they happen to possess
and realize a tew extra thousands by their
.ve existenceto
—ten PP.•r , cent. on which they are willing to give
the pr
,or if you will only let them keep
the other
nirety—who love these laws simply because of their
.
'.wisdom and benificence, a-ad because Sir James
Graham loves them—(Laughter)—who once demon-
strated that they were the -most unlovely things that
ever deformed the statute book—(Cheers and
laughter)—these new lirshts, who shed their radiance
over dark intellects, will tell you that the evils we
machinery and its too productive
deplore come of
powers.—Great laughter.) They will tell you that
' the Creator had invested mind with powers
destructive
' of itself—(Cheers and. laughter)—that the more the
intellect expands, and the nearer it approaches to per-
I fection, the condition of the bulk of nations must of
' necessity become worse.—(Great laughter.) This is
the pith and marrow of the famous argument of " over
production. '—(Cheers.) The calculations of out'
modern Ca.a.sios, who consume the midnight oil when
hungry children have wept themselves to sleep, bring
them to tk. conclusion that these distresses are th
consequences of the triumph of mind over matte'—
o
the causes which genius has inflicted on a na,tf the
(Hear, pea ,r)—which was happy in the days ,in
spin.
distaff, and. knew no sorrow till the mule and the

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