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permit its glory to depart as the sun of Truth advances upward toward a meridian of splendor? Is it not amazing that the "straight and narrow way" should be travelled by so few, and those few become less and less as intelligence and virtue increase? And yet this Church sits in sullen pride and in scorn condemns to endless suffering threefourths of the human family. From her ten thousand domes, she summons' the people to judgment; and while the saints all decked with gold and silver and jewels and costly apparrel, sit under the quiet assurance that all is well-that Heaven will open to receive them, angels smile at their approach, and seraphims strike up a welcome, lo! one of the holy flock, a brother in the Lord, is pining with hunger in a filthy hovel within hearing of the church-going bell! While they repose in cushioned pews, bolted against the lowly of the earth, and drink in the consolation that their money purchases from the minister, lo! a widow in a no distant garret is reposing upon her pallet of straw to recover the vitality she has lost during the week, in midnight toil, to support her orphans! There was a Church in ancient times, of which Decius, a Roman persecutor, demanded its treasures; and they brought the poor, the blind, the lame, the widow and the orphan. The contrast of this with the Churches of the present day needs no comment.

There is, then, something wrong in the Church-the fault is not in the Truth. That is "mighty and will prevail." As certain as the springtime appears, and the freshness and fragrance of nature fills the air, so certain will the Truth triumph. This world is not without purpose-and that purpose is a mighty one. All humanity is to be restored to the freedom of God, and every son and daughter of man admitted to a full fruition of the bounties of the Creator. shall sighing and sorrow cease, peace and plenty abound, and the Truth shall triumph in the gladness that shall fill the hearts of all mankind, unmocked by a single victim of degradation and poverty, and unembittered by a single moan from an oppressed heart!

Then

NOTE.-It is proper to state that the statistics of some of the denominations are brought down to 1848 by the reports to which we had access, while we calculated the gain or loss of others from 1847, and 1848 from the gain or less of previous reports.

forfeited the faith he had plighted to his benefactor! But why comment? It seems as if words expended upon facts like these weakened their force. If all the truth that beats in the bosom of God could be made known at once on this subject, it would not be more potent than the simple experience of this Philanthropist.

Mr. Edwards once admonished a prisoner that he should have better thoughts, and the emphatic reply was," where shall I get them." Yes, where shall the people, and especially the criminals, get good thoughts and feelings? They must be inculcated by those who have them—or, more correctly speaking, their faculties should be so developed that good thoughts and pure feelings will come unbidden-those holy influxes from the Great Centre of truth and goodness.

It is development that the people want-development that will elevate the base above their vileness, and enable them to appreciate their true character as human beings. As a general rule the externals of an individual are a reflex of the internal; disorder in the former surely indicates disorder in the latter. Set in order the soul and surrounding confusion will cease. Force an angel into a state of degradation, and time will transform her into a demon. Bring a vile youth out of the filth, profanity and vice with which multitudes are enveloped, and he will gradually rise to a higher plane and feel himself a being of too much consideration to be dishonored and degraded by immorality. On this point some facts reported by the Commissioners appointed by the English government to look into the condition of the poor, will be instructive. Sir, John McNeil was examined before Lord Devons, Commissioner, and the following answer obtained to the question

"Do you find that there is an improvement in their habits corresponding with the improvement in their condition ?"

"Yes, decidedly so, as far as I am able to judge; and they improve in their moral habits. As soon as an Irishman gets a little better in his circumstances, and gets out of the state of misery they are generally in, they commence to get clothes a little better than they have been accustomed to; and when they get tolerably well dressed they become totally different characters, and they are men you can trust and depend upon. There are, when this takes place, few quarrels among them!"

"Is it your opinion" Lord Brougham, asked Sergeant Adams, "that whatever increases the self respect of persons, is wholesome as a moral discipline also?"

"I have not the slightest doubt of it," replied the learned Sergeant.

In these facts we see the secret of human redemption. Place all in such a situation that they will understand themselves, the great fact of life, and the object of existence, and crime will be banished from the land. But as long as children are trained up where every thing fair is laughed at as silly cant, where virtue is prostituted and where theiving is popular and taught as a profession, we must expect society to reap the fruits of such neglect. In one of the English ragged schools, of fifty boys, sixteen were professed thieves, and twenty-seven beggars and hawkers.

Some kind of education the people will have, either good or bad. When society does not establish the good, the evil will prevail. Locke said that, " of all men we meet, nine parts in ten are what they are, good or bad, useful or not, by their education. But we need not prolong.

What is here said is sufficient to impress the infinite importance of educating every child, and the infinite wrong of neglect in this behalf. In the light of these facts, who, let me ask you, are the greatest sinners, those who fail to educate the young, or those who have grown up with their rights violated, and acted out the legitimate consequences of ignorance and mis-development? Let, therefore, the fault be charged upon the responsible agents. Let us look to the right source for virtue-to the discipline of the young, and not to the uneducated mind which, in this wicked world, must necessarily be wicked. Let us no longer despise and laugh at the drunkard in the gutter, for we now know what would have made him temperate, industrious and virtuous-and to this he had a right, but this right was violated. Let us no longer turn away with indifference when we see a criminal thrown upon a dray, lashed to its knotty timbers, and drawn ruthlessly over the pavement to the Mayor's office, the watchhouse or the jail; for he would not have disturbed the peace of society had society provided favorable circumstances for his appearance into the world and for his good education in youth. Had his rights been defended

he would have led a dignified, virtuous and happy life. But being so grossly wronged in youth, he grew up a curse to himself and others, and now that he has committed a crime, society seeks to revenge upon him the error she has herself committed!

We conclude by stating some propositions.

1. No one is responsible for the circumstances of his birth.

2. Being brought into the world, every one has rights which grow out of the necessities of his nature.

3. Those necessities have reference to happiness, which depends entirely upon the truthfulness of the mind's development and the extent to which it is instructed in the laws of their mental and physical organizations, and in the knowledge of external nature.

4. Every one, therefore, has a right to a thorough education, and if this right be violated, and he becomes a criminal, he is the great sufferer while the injury to society is merely incidental.

5. The criminal being such from the violation of his rights, is not the really guilty one, but only the instrument which society has sharpened to cut its own throat.

6. The criminal, therefore, should rather move us to tears of pity than to feelings of contempt, hate and revenge.

7. Society should provide for the thorough education of every child without delay.

8. Society cannot consistently hold a subject accountable for crime until she has discharged her duty to him.

9. The great business of government is to educate the people-for government has to do with the mind as its first object.

ART. XXII.-MISSION OF DEMOCRACY.

America compared with England. The respective local effects of the American and English systems of Government and Legislation; and the Mission of Democracy. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. London, 1848. pp. 289.

THIS is a radical book written and published in London by an Englishman who has spent several years in Cincinnati. It is designed to meet the growing spirit of reform in the English mind, which has been so much accelerated by the revolutionary events of the past year. Its object seems to be two-fold, to show the people of the "fast-anchored isle" what better laws have done for their brethren in America, and inspire a hope of improving their own political institutions; and to set forth the author's peculiar views of social progress-the comparison between England and America being made the pretext for getting his own reformatory notions before the public.

It is calculated better than any other book we know of, to give Englishmen a true idea of their own institutions, by contrasting them with those of the United States, within the compass of a few pages. The author proves himself familiar with the institutions of both countries, and indeed his education-that of a lawyer-has given him every advantage in his researches.

The book has not been published in America, and we merely call the attention of publishers to it, as one which will be profitable to them and of great advantage to its readers, both for the information it contains and the thought it will excite on all the great questions of the age-those relating to the universal diffusion of knowledge, plenty and happiness.

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