their unparalleled prosperity they sank into corruption and effeminacy, until, at the death of the wisest of men and of monarchs, the polity of Israel became dismembered, lost its grandeur and prestige, and gradually died away. Inattention to social evils was the cause of their national disaster. It is true that these were intimately connected with their declension from piety and purity of worship; but religion was an integral part of their social system, and their temporal prosperity was dependent on its faithful cultivation. Their internal health did not bear a proportion to their outward greatness, and the explosion of the commonwealth was the ruinous and melancholy result. It was the same with the powers of paganism. The Persians were a race inured to toil, unconscious of defeat, and had acquired in their mountains a courage that feared no difficulty. When Cyrus, with enlarged intelligence and improved observation, rose to their command, they reached, in conjunction with the Medes, the chief sovereignty of the world, and made imperial Babylon their metropolis. But the Medo-Persian empire had its culminating point in Cyrus. Babylonian manners did for a season elevate and polish them, but Babylonian luxury was too much for the temperate sons of Elam. Though possessed of extensive territory, a vast army, and many millions of people, corruption and vice lay beneath their boasting, and the time came that three hundred Greeks did not fear to meet the million-peopled army of Xerxes at Thermopylæ, and Greece, with its comparatively small states and few troops, left thousands of Persians on the field of Marathon and by the rock of Salamis, and under Alexander the Great laid prostrate one of the mightiest empires of antiquity. Social disorganisation enervated and paralysed them. It was the same with Greece. Spartan bravery and Athenian genius had made that small country rival and outstrip greater and more imposing powers. Warfare can never furnish more illustrious examples of martial skill and bravery than those recorded in classic story. Art flourished to its height, for never has architecture or sculpture attained similar perfection. The works of Greece are models to the moderns. Literature had then its grandest development. The Athenian schools, besides being unrivalled in their day, have sent forth volumes of wisdom which have been the study of sages for the last two thousand years, and which are as worthy of renown and research as ever. The Grecian colonies were what ours are now-the reproduction of the mother country in rival commonwealths. To Greece the ardent student, the rising statesman, and the busy merchant resorted to perfect their education, to improve their manners, and promote their commerce. But at the period of most national glory Greece was degenerating by means of social diseases; and nowhere have we Social Decline and Fall of Empires. 3 we such affecting monuments of a nation's fall as among the ruins of ancient art and on the fields of matchless renown where we find one of the basest of European kingdoms. 'Tis Greece, but living Greece no more. No theme on which the muse might soar When man was worthy of thy clime. Now crawl, from cradle to the grave, It was the same with Rome. From small beginnings, and by means of a hard struggle, did that state arise to a place among Italian powers. By a zeal that nothing could quench, an ardour that nothing could chill, and a courage that ever realised a victory, did the Romans make progress in civilisation and power. Under the emperors they reached their zenith, when their arts and literature bore the palm next to the Grecian models, their civil polity was perfected to become the text-book for modern times, and their empire stretched from Britain to the rising of the sun, and from Germany beyond the Pillars of Hercules. Under the Cæsars, the intellectual refinement, political aggrandisement, and world-wide influence of Rome, were unparalleled in history. But what a decline and fall were hers Gibbon has told us in his history. At the period referred to, the scenes of revelry and dissipation were most unblushing and debasing, the corruption of the people general, slavery extensive, and the social health blighted. Inattentive to internal necessities and reforms, all was sacrificed to eternal pomp and pride and luxury, the condition of the masses grew worse and worse, and the barbarous nations of the north overthrew with little loss or difficulty the worn-out Romans. Just as the boiling lava from Vesuvius overwhelmed Herculaneum and Pompeii, leaving them ruins for the gaze of travellers, so have its own social convulsions left Rome. Its modern inhabitants reside amidst the debris of a mightier city, and seem to exist only to show to admiring strangers what manner of men the sires of such unworthy sons were of yore. 'Where is Rome? She lives but in the tale of other times; B 2 Now Now faintly echo to the pilgrim's feet Who comes to muse in solitude, and trace The doom of ruin; cities numberless, Tyre, Sidon, Carthage, Babylon, and Troy, Half razed from memory, and their very name With their political advancement, these proud and potent nations of antiquity allowed inward sores to fester which eventually destroyed them. Their history is a lesson to all subsequent time. It is the practical philosophy which statesmen have to study; but it is instruction which Christian states have been slow to learn, and which, amidst our many privileges in this land of liberty and religion, we have too seldom remembered. Social evils have been growing with our greatness, and are out of all proportion to the civil and religious advantages which we possess. The greatness of this empire surpasses all antiquity. Science has attained among us its richest discoveries and its greatest powers. Our machinery has been developed to a very great extent, and made the handmaid of every species of industry. Our commerce spreads its ships over every sea. Our colonies and dependencies never behold the setting sun. Our wealth is enormous, and has been rated by economists at eight hundred millions a year. Our liberties are the birthright and possession of every man: they give every one a title to justice, and afford an asylum for the exiles of the world. Our literature is vast and varied, and accessible to the poorest. Our civilisation is high and real, not starched as in the days of Elizabeth and James I., nor hypocritical as in the eighteenth century, but honest and honourable. Never were more upright men in power, or more integrity in public offices. Patronage is more discreetly administered, and judges are superior to bribes. Our religion is practical and expansive, has sought to reach the degraded at home, and to extend its blessings to the nations of heathendom. Nevertheless, the condition of the masses is alarming all true patriots and philanthropists. There are social evils showing their virulence and undermining our health. Ignorance, irreligion, impurity, pauperism, crime, and intemperance, have been on the increase. Our education ranks far below some of the continental nations. The numbers who never attend a place of worship are a scandal on our Christianity. The impurity of our great cities is unblushing and vast. Our intemperance is a cancer on our industry and morals and a reproach to our nation, while it increases pauperism, disease, and crime, injures productive labour, and demoralises the masses of the people. We are all interested in the reform of these abuses, as well as of others that, owing to ignorance, pre judice, judice, or evil, may still disgrace our statute book, or injure the morals of the people. All who value and enjoy the enlightenment which is now our privilege, should be anxious to extend the blessing to those who are degraded, to reform, and educate, and christianize them. In every view of the subject it concerns the statesman, the patriot, and the Christian, to promote healthier and purer morals among the people, and medically to deal with the diseases which endanger our social welfare. Let us not be misunderstood. It cannot be denied that a great improvement in the social condition of the people has taken place during the last quarter of a century. Class is not so alienated from class. Revolutionary sentiments are not so characteristic of the manufacturing districts. Labour is not so oppressive. Ignorance is not so gross. There is a kindlier feeling among those who had given up all religious ordinances towards Christian ministers. All this may be freely admitted: but much remains to be accomplished. Seen in the light of our improved civilisation and Christianity, there are evils of deadly virus still at work which demand the earnest consideration and persevering efforts of all practical philanthropists, who, with 'Meliora' as their motto, might strive to make things better. Let us glance at some of the social evils that demand improvement. We cannot attempt a complete social nosology.. No The subject of EDUCATION is of general and commanding interest. It is the most controversial of all public themes, most difficult to agree upon, though most necessitous to the community. Amidst the din of agitation, we scarcely hear the hum of the schools. doubt, of late years education has received an improved development, and better teachers instruct in more intelligent and practical methods the children who are at school. But the proportion in attendance is sadly below a normal condition of popular education. The means in exercise are vastly below the existing ignorance. The institutions opened are not overcrowded by scholars. A demand is as necessary as supply. Though the State spends half a million a year on education, 158,000l. of which go to ten thousand auxiliary teachers as apprentices to the profession, and voluntary effort meets public grants by large contributions of money, yet the multiplication of teachers and schools have made no perceptible inroad upon the mass of ignorance in our great cities. Cheapen education, increase seminaries; but without some means of inducing or compelling the children of the lowest classes of society to attend, ignorance is not diminished. The factory competes too successfully with the school. There is a great demand for juvenile labour, and parents do not scruple to tax their tender children to enlarge the income of the household. In such centres of industry as Glasgow and Manchester this evil operates fully, and they may be taken as indices of other manufacturing towns. A recent inquiry, inquiry, conducted with great care, revealed this astounding fact, that of the youth of the educational age in Glasgow, only 1 in 14 attends school.' In Manchester, on thorough inquiry, undertaken by philanthropic individuals, and more exact and reliable than the census of 1851, there were found not at school 54,670 children belonging to the labouring classes, of which number the half, at least, ought to have been receiving instruction. These are only samples of a necessity existing in the country for more schools, and some means of securing the attendance of children. Englishmen may not like compulsory education; but good government demands that no man shall be allowed to rear his family a burden, a nuisance, and a danger to the community.' It may be difficult to make the policeman aid the schoolmaster, as is done in Prussia; but it is surely practicable, expedient, and right that education should be made a passport to all employment, and that the Factory Act should be amended to this beneficent extent. We are not concerned at present with any of the controverted schemes of Popular Education, but with the fearful amount of ignorance that demands the attention of all interested in social reform. What may be the result of the Parliamentary Commission ap pointed to inquire into the state of education it is too early to predict; but we trust that it will be the suggestion of some practical Meliora. SPIRITUAL DESTITUTION is another existing disease of our social condition. The census returns of 1851 revealed an amount of this quite appalling. The population of England and Wales was then about 18,000,000. The number of sittings in places of public worship necessary, according to the proportion of 58 per cent. suggested by the late Dr. Chalmers, and adopted by Mr. Horace Mann, is 10,398,013. The actual number was then 10,212,563. But this fails to represent the true state of matters. In towns containing a population of 100,000 and upwards, the proportion is only 34 per cent. Thus Birmingham lacked about 70,000 sittings, Manchester 80,000, Liverpool 90,000, Glasgow 70,000, and London nearly 700,000! But what was the actual attendance then? There were open on the census Sunday, 8,498,520 sittings for morning service, attended by 4,647,482. The other portions of the day presented a proportion somewhat similar. Here then we have, allowing for persons present at one service and not at another, a very great proportion of the people who are neglecting public worship altogether. Mr. Mann estimates the number throughout England and Wales at upwards of five millions. No one professing the Christian faith can regard this otherwise than as a great social evil. Mr. Mann endeavours to account for it by the following causes: social distinctions,' 'indifference of the ministers to the social condition of the poor,' ' misconception |