settled, when the dinner-horn sounded. That evening a carriage full of friends arrived from the city to pass a week with us, and thus ended mamma's experiment in teaching.
Our summers were usually passed at Springland, a pine-settlement, where about twenty families resorted at that season of the year. We were fortunate to find a French lady already engaged in teaching, from whom I took lessons on the piano-forte and guitar. The summer passed swiftly away. Papa was delighted with my facility in French, in which my brothers were also engaged, and we were happy to retain Madame d'Anville in our own family, on our return to Roseland.
In the middle of November a stranger was announced to papa, and a young man of very prepossessing appearance entered with a letter. It proved to be from our teacher, Mr. Bates. The contents were as follows:-- "_Respected Sir._--I now sit down to write to you, to inform you that I am well, as also are Sir and Mar'm, my sister Nancy, and all the rest of our folks except aunt Patty, who is but poorly, having attacks of the rheumatiz, and shortness of breath. I should add, that Mrs. Prudence Bates, (who after the regular publishment on the church-doors for three Sundays, was united to me in the holy bands of wedlock, by our minister Mr. Ezekiel Duncan,) is in a good state of health, at this present, though her uncle, by her father's side, has been sick of jaundice, a complaint that has been off and on with him for a considerable spell.
"The bearer of this epistle is Parson Duncan's son, by name Mr. Charles Duncan, a very likely young man, but poorly in health, and Dr. Hincks says, going down to Charleston may set him up. I have the candour to say, that I think him, on some accounts, a more proper teacher than your humble servant, having served his time at a regular college edication.
* * * * * * "I have writ a much longer letter than I thought on, but somehow it makes me chirpy to think of Roseland, though the young folks were obstreperous.
"Give my love nevertheless to them, and Miss Wilton, and all the little ones, as also I would not forget Daddy Jacque, whom I consider, notwithstanding his colour, as a very respectable person. I cannot say as much for Jim, who was an eternal thorn in my side, by reason of his quickness at mischief, and his slowness at waiting upon me; and I take this opportunity of testifying, that I believe if he had been in New England, he would have had his deserts before this; but you Southern folks do put up with an unaccountable sight from niggers, and I hope Jim will not be allowed his full tether, if so be Mr. Charles should take my situation in your family. I often tell our folks how I used to catch up a thing and do it rather than wait for half-a-dozen on 'em to take their own time. If I lived to the age of Methusalem, I never could git that composed, quiet kind of way you Southern folks have of waiting on the niggers. I only wish they could see aunt Patty move when the rheumatiz is off--if she isn't spry, I don't know.
"Excuse all errors, "Yours to serve, "JOSEPH BATES."
I detected a gentle, half-comical smile on Mr. Duncan's mouth as he raised his splendid eyes to papa, while delivering Mr. Bates' letter; but he soon walked to the window, and asked me some questions about the Cherokee-rose hedge, and other objects in view, which were novelties to him. I felt instantly that he was a gentleman, by the atmosphere of refinement which was thrown over him, and I saw that papa sympathised with me, as with graceful courtesy he welcomed him to D.
The following is such information as I have been able to obtain respecting the public Educational provision in the United States, from the year 1830 to 1835.
_The Free States in 1830._ MAINE.--"By a law of the State, every town, however large or small, is required to raise annually, for the support of schools, a sum equal at least to _forty cents._ for each person in the town, and to distribute this sum among the several schools or districts, in proportion to the number of scholars in each. The expenditure of the sum is left principally to the direction of the town, and its committee or agents, appointed for that purpose. In the year 1825, the legislature required a report from each town in the State, respecting the situation of the At that time, the number of school districts in ten counties was, 2,499.
The number of children between 4 and 21 was 137,931 The number who usually attend schools 101,325 Dollars.
Amount required by law to be expended annually 119,334 Amount raised from taxes 132,263 Amount from the income of permanent funds 5,614 Total annual expenditure 137,878 The number of incorporated academies in the State was 31; 4 of which were for girls: the amount of funds varying from 2,000 to 22,000 dollars a-year.
NEW HAMPSHIRE.--"From the year 1808 to 1818, there were raised in New Hampshire 70,000 dollars annually by law, for the support of common schools. This amount was raised by a separate tax, levied throughout the State, in the ratio of taxation for the State Tax. Since 1818, the yearly amount of the sum raised has been 90,000 dollars. This is the amount required by law, but a few towns raise more than they are required. The legislature assumes no control over the immediate appropriation, but leaves this to each town."
The State had also, in 1830, an annual income of 9,000 dollars, and a literary fund of 64,000 dollars, raised by a tax of a half per cent. on the capital of the banks; both to be, from that time, annually divided among the towns, in the ratio of taxation.
Some of the towns had separate school funds.
The white population of New Hampshire at this time was 268,721 The coloured population 607 VERMONT.--An act was passed in 1827 to provide for the support of common schools. About 100,000 dollars was raised in 1830. A fund was also accumulating, which was to be applied whenever its income would support a common free-school in every district of the State, for two months in the year.
There were about 20 incorporated academies in the State, where young men were fitted for college. The number of students was supposed to average 40 at each.
MASSACHUSETTS.--"By the returns from 131 towns, presented to the legislature, it appears that the amount annually paid in these towns for public schools, is 177,206 dollars.
"The number of scholars receiving instruction 70,599 The number of pupils attending private schools in those towns 12,393 At an expense of 170,342 dollars.
"The number of persons in those towns, between the ages of 14 and 21, unable to read and write, is 58.
"In the town of Hancock, in Berkshire county, there are only 3 persons between 14 and 21 who cannot read and write; and they are RHODE ISLAND.--"In January, 1828, the legislature appropriated 10,000 dollars annually for the support of public schools, to be divided among the several towns, in proportion to the population, with authority for each town to raise, by annual tax, double the amount received from the Treasury, as its proportion of the 10,000 dollars.
"There has been as yet no report of the number of school establishments under the act, but it is thought that they may safely be put down at 60, as all the towns have availed themselves of its provisions. The whole number of schools in the State now probably exceeds 650."--_American Almanack._ The white population in 1830 93,621 The coloured 3,578 CONNECTICUT.--The revenue derived from the school fund amounted to 80,243 dollars. The State is divided into 208 school societies, which contained in the aggregate 84,899 children, between the ages of 4 and 16.
The white population in 1830 289,603 The coloured 8,072 NEW YORK.
The number of school districts was 8,609 Number of children between 5 and 15 449,113 Number of children taught in the schools 468,205 This estimate does not include the scholars instructed in the two great cities, New York and Albany.
Dollars.
Amount paid to the districts 232,343 Of this, there came out of the Treasury 100,000 Raised by tax upon the towns 119,209 From a local fund 13,133 Voluntary tax by the towns 19,209 PENNSYLVANIA.--This State was in the rear. Not above 9,000 children were educated at the public charge, of about 16,000 dollars.
The white population in 1830 1,309,900 The coloured 38,333 NEW JERSEY.--A fund of 222,000 dollars being realised, a system of Common School education was about to be put in action; an appropriation of 20,000 dollars per annum being ordered to be distributed among the towns for that purpose.
OHIO.--In Cincinnati, the first anniversary of free-schools was kept in 1830. Three thousand pupils belonged to the free-schools of Cincinnati.
The amount of the school-tax was about 10,000 dollars.
INDIANA.--A committee of the legislature was appointed to consider and report upon the expediency of adopting the Common School system.
The white population in 1830 339,399 The coloured 3,632 ILLINOIS contained less than 160,000 persons in 1830, and had no public schools.
_The Slave States in 1830._ MARYLAND.--Provision was made for the establishment of Primary Schools throughout the State. One was opened in Baltimore in 1829.
There were 8 or 10 academies, which received annually from 400 to 600 dollars from the Treasury of the State.
Grants to the University of Maryland 5,000 dollars.
Grants to Colleges, Academies, and Schools 13,000 DELAWARE.--A law ordaining the establishment of a Common School system was passed in 1829, and the counties were being divided into districts in 1830.
NORTH CAROLINA had a literary fund of 70,000 dollars; but nothing had yet been done towards applying it.
SOUTH CAROLINA.--"It appeared by a Report of a Committee on Schools, that the number of public schools established in the State was 513, wherein 5,361 scholars were educated at the annual expense of 35,310 dollars."
"The benefit derived from this appropriation," says the governor, "is partial, founded on no principle, and arbitrarily dispensed by the Commissioners. If the fund could be so managed as to educate thoroughly a given number of young men, and to require them afterwards to teach for a limited time, as an equivalent, the effects would soon be seen and The white population in 1830 257,863 The coloured 323,322 GEORGIA.--The appropriations for county academies amounted to 14,302 dollars: and the poor school fund, 742 dollars.
The white population in 1830 296,806 The coloured 220,017 ALABAMA.--No schools.
MISSISSIPPI.--No schools.
MISSOURI.--No schools.
LOUISIANA.--Instead of schools, a law making imprisonment the punishment of teaching a slave to read.
TENNESSEE.--A fund is set to accumulate for the purpose of hereafter encouraging schools, colleges, and academies.
KENTUCKY.--The Common School system was established by law, and provisions made for the division of the counties into districts, and the levying of the poll and property taxes for the purpose.
"The Louisville Advertiser announces the establishment by that city of a school at the public expense, stated to be the first south of the Ohio.
It is opened to the children of all the citizens. The number of pupils entered is 300."--_American Annual Register._ _The Free States in 1833 to 1835._ MAINE, 1835.
Annual expenditure for free-schools 156,000 dollars.
Aggregate number of pupils 106,000 Academies, 12; Colleges, 2.
NEW HAMPSHIRE, 1835.--Amount expended on primary schools, 101,000 dollars.
MASSACHUSETTS, 1834.--Returns not received from 44 towns out of 261.
Boys, between 4 and 16 years, attending school 67,499 Girls, of the same age 63,728 Number of persons, between 16 and 21, unable to read and write 158 Number of male teachers 1,967 Number of female teachers 2,388 Amount of school-money raised by tax 310,178 dollars.
Amount of school-money raised by contribution 15,141 Average number of scholars attending academies and private schools 24,749 Estimated amount paid for tuition in academies and private schools 276,575 dollars.
RHODE ISLAND, 1835.
Revenue from school tax 10,000 dollars.
Permanent school fund 50,000 Amount raised by the towns besides 11,490 Public Schools in the State (in 1832) 324 Children educated in them 17,114 Private schools 220 Scholars in them 8,007 Estimated expense of private schools 81,375 dollars.
CONNECTICUT.--The capital of the School Fund on the 1st of April, 1833, amounted to 1,929,738 dollars: and the dividend, in 1834, was at the rate of one dollar to each child in the State, between the ages of 4 and 16. Number of such children, under the returns,--83,912.
NEW YORK, 1835.
School-houses 9,580 Public school money 316,153 dollars.
Paid besides to teachers 398,137 Number of children receiving instruction in the Common Schools, 534,002, being 50 to 51 of the whole population.
PENNSYLVANIA.--There had been difficulties about putting the act in operation; and no returns had been made in 1835.
OHIO.--"Our system of Common Schools has not advanced with the rapidity that was anticipated. It was at first unpopular with the people in some parts of the State; but it has gradually become more and more in favour with them. Its utility is now acknowledged."--_Governor's Message_, Dec.
6, 1834.
Nothing more done in the Slave States.
The Reports of the Sunday School Union up to May, 1835, show that there are, or have been, connected with it, (besides a large number of unassociated schools,) upwards of 16,000 schools, 115,000 teachers, and 799,000 pupils. The officers and managers are all laymen.
COLLEGES.
Colleges in the United States 79 The number of students varying from 15 to 523.
THEOLOGICAL SEMINARIES.
Theological Seminaries in the United States 31 Number of students varying from 1 to 152.
MEDICAL SCHOOLS.
Medical Schools in the United States 23 Number of students varying from 18 to 392.
LAW SCHOOLS.
Law Schools in the United States 9 Number of students varying from 6 to 36.
E.
DISCOURSE ON THE WANTS OF THE TIMES.
* * * * * The age, and especially the country, in which we live, are peculiar.
They, therefore, require a peculiar kind of instruction, and, I may say, a peculiar mode of dispensing christian truth. They are unlike any which have preceded us. They are new, and consequently demand what I have called a new Dispensation of Christianity, a dispensation in perfect harmony with the new order of things which has sprung into existence.
Yet of this fact we seem not to have been generally aware. The character of our religious institutions, the style of our preaching, the means we rely upon for the production of the christian virtues, are such as were adopted in a distant age, and fitted to wants which no longer exist, or which exist only in a greatly modified shape.
It is to this fact that I attribute that _other_ fact, of which I have heretofore spoken, that our churches are far from being filled, and that a large and an increasing portion of our community take very little interest in religious institutions, and manifest a most perfect indifference to religious instruction. These persons do not stay away from our churches because they have no wish to be religious, no desire to meet and commune in the solemn Temple with their fellow men, and with the Great and Good Spirit which reigns everywhere around and within them. It is not because they do not value this communion, that they do not come into our churches, but because they do not find it in our churches. They cannot find, under the costume of our institutions, and our instructions, the Father-God, to love and adore, with whom to hold sweet and invigorating communings; they are unable to find that sympathy of man with man which they crave--to obtain that response to the warm affections of the heart, which would make them love to assemble together and bow together before one common altar.
* * * * * * But were this difficulty obviated, were seats easily obtained by all, and so obtained as to imply on the part of no one an assumption of superiority, or a confession of inferiority, the preaching which is most common is far from being satisfactory, and the wants of the times would by no means be met. I say the preaching which is most common is far from being satisfactory; but not because it is not true. I accuse no preacher of not preaching the truth. The truth is, I believe, preached in all churches, of all denominations, to a certain extent at least; but not the right kind of truth, or not truth under the aspects demanded by the wants of the age and country. All truth is valuable, but all truths are not equally valuable; and all aspects of the same truths are not at all times, in all places, equally attractive. The fault I find with preaching in general is, that it is not on the right kind of topics to interest the masses in this age and country. The topics usually discussed may once have been of the highest importance; they may now be very interesting to the scholar, or to the student in his closet, or with his fellow-students; but they are, to a great extent, matters of perfect indifference to the many. The many care nothing about the meaning of a Greek particle, or the settling of a various reading; nothing about the meaning of dogmas long since deprived of life, about the manners and customs of a people of whom they may have heard, but in whose destiny they feel no peculiar interest; they are not fed by descriptions of a Jewish marriage-feast, a reiteration of Jewish threatenings, nor with beautiful essays, and rounded periods, on some petty duty, or some insignificant point in theology. They want strong language, stirring discourses on great principles, which go deep into the universal mind, and strike a chord which vibrates through the universal heart. They want to be directed to the deep things of God and humanity, and enlightened and warmed on matters with which they every day come in contact, and which will be to them matters of kindling thought and strong feeling through eternity.
That our religious institutions, or our modes of dispensing christian truth, are not in harmony with the wants of the times, is evinced by the increase of infidelity, and the success infidels have in their exertions to collect societies and organise opposition to Christianity. There is sustained in this city a society of infidels: free inquirers, I believe they call themselves. Why has this society been collected? Not, I will venture to say, because their leader is an infidel. People do not go to hear him because he advocates atheistical or pantheistical doctrines; not because he denies Christianity, rejects the bible, and indulges in various witticisms at the expense of members of the clerical profession; but because he opposes the aristocracy of our churches, and vindicates the rights of the mind. He succeeds, not because he is an infidel, but because he has hitherto shown himself a democrat.
Men are never infidels for the sake of infidelity. Infidelity--I use not the term reproachfully--has no charms of its own. There is no charm in looking around on our fellow men as mere plants that spring up in the morning, wither and die ere it is night. It is not pleasant to look up into the heavens, brilliant with their sapphire gems, and see no spirit shining there--over the rich and flowering earth, and see no spirit blooming there--abroad upon a world of mute, dead matter, and feel ourselves--alone. It is not pleasant to look upon the heavens as dispeopled of the Gods, and the earth of men, to feel ourselves in the centre of a universal blank, with no soul to love, no spirit with which to commune. I know well what is that sense of loneliness which comes over the unbeliever, the desolateness of soul under which he is oppressed: but I will not attempt to describe it.
I say, then, it is not infidelity that gives the leader of the infidel party success. It is his defence of free inquiry and of democracy. In vindicating his own right to disbelieve Christianity, he has vindicated the rights of the mind, proved that all have a right to inquire fully into all subjects, and to abide by the honest convictions of their own understandings. In doing this he has met the wants of a large portion of the community, and met them as no church has ever yet been able to meet them. I say not that he himself is a free inquirer, but he proclaims free inquiry as one of the rights of man; and in doing this, he has proclaimed what thousands feel, though they may not generally dare own it. The want to inquire, to ascertain what is truth, what and wherefore we believe, is becoming more and more urgent; we may disown, unchurch, anathematise it, but suppress it we cannot. It is too late to stay the progress of free inquiry. The dams and dykes we construct to keep back its swelling tide are but mere resting-places, from which it may break forth in renovated power, and with redoubled fury. It is sweeping on; and, I say, let it sweep on, let it sweep on; the truth has nothing to fear.
Next to the want to inquire, to philosophise, the age is distinguished by its tendency to democracy, and its craving for social reform. Be pleased or displeased as we may, the age is unquestionably tending to democracy; the democratic spirit is triumphing. The millions awake. The masses appear, and every day is more and more disclosed "The might that slumbers in a peasant's arm."
The voice of the awakened millions rising into new and undreamed-of importance, crying out for popular institutions, comes to us on every breeze, and mingles in every sound. All over the christian world a contest is going on, not as in former times between monarchs and nobles, but between the people and their masters, between the many and the few, the privileged and the unprivileged--and victory, though here and there seeming at first view doubtful, everywhere inclines to the party of the many. Old distinctions are losing their value; titles are becoming less and less able to confer dignity; simple tastes, simple habits, simple manners are becoming fashionable; the simple dignity of man is more and more coveted, and with the discerning it has already become more honourable to call one simply a MAN than a gentleman.
Now it is to this democratic spirit that the leader of the infidel party appeals, and in which he finds a powerful element of his success.
Correspondents of his paper attempt even to identify atheism and democracy. I myself once firmly believed that there could be no social progress, that man could not rise to his true dignity without the destruction of religion; I really believed that religious institutions, tastes, and beliefs were the greatest, almost the sole, barrier to human improvement: and what I once honestly believed, is now as honestly believed by thousands, who would identify the progress of humanity with the progress of infidelity.
It is, I own, a new state of things, for infidelity to profess to be a democrat. Hobbes, one of the fathers, if not the father, of modern infidelity, had no sympathy with the masses; Hume and Gibbon dreamed of very little social progress, and manifested no desire to elevate the low, and loosen the chains of the bound. Before Thomas Paine, no infidel writer in our language, to my knowledge, was a democrat, or thought of giving infidelity a democratic tendency. Since his times, the infidel has been fond of calling himself a democrat, and he has pretty generally claimed to be the friend of the masses, and the advocate of progress. He now labours to prove the church aristocratic, to prove that it has no regard for the melioration of man's earthly mode of being. Unhappily, in proportion as he succeeds, the church furnishes him with new instruments of success. In proportion as he seems to identify his infidelity and the democratic spirit, the church disowns that spirit, and declares it wholly opposed to the faith. When, some years since, the thought passed through my head, that there were things in society which needed mending, and I dreamed of being a social reformer I found my bitterest opponents, clergyman as I was among the clergy, and those who were most zealous for the faith. That I erred in the inference I drew from this fact, as unbelievers now err in theirs, I am willing to own; but the fact itself _has_ the appearance of proving that religion and religion's advocates are unfriendly to social progress.
These are the principal reasons why infidelity succeeds. Its advocates meet two great wants, that of free inquiry, and that of social progress--two wants which are at the present time, and in this country, quite urgent--and meet them better than they are met by any of our churches. We need not, then, ascribe their success to any peculiar depravity of the heart, nor to an peculiar obtuseness of the understanding. They are right in their vindication of the rights of the mind, and in advocating social progress. They are wrong only in supposing that free inquiry and the progress of society are elements of infidelity, when they are only, in fact, its accidents. They constitute, in reality, two important elements of religion; as such I own them, accept them, and assure the religious everywhere that they too must accept them, or see religion for a time wholly obscured, and infidelity triumphant.
Infidels are wrong in pretending that infidelity can effect the progress of mankind. Infidelity has no element of progress. The purest morality it enjoins is selfishness. It does not pretend to offer man any higher motives of action than that of self-interest. But self-interest can make no man a reformer. No great reforms are ever effected without sacrifice.
In labouring for the benefit of others, we are often obliged to forget ourselves, to expose ourselves, without fear and without regret, to the loss of property, ease, reputation, and sometimes of life itself. He who consults only his own interest will never consent to be so exposed. Or admitting that we could convince men, that to labour for a universal regeneration of mankind is for the greatest ultimate good of each one, the experience of every day proves that no one will do it, when a small, immediate good intervenes which it is necessary to abandon. A small, immediate, present good always outbalances the vastly greater, but distant good. The only principle of reform on which we can rely is love. We must love the human race in order to be able to devote ourselves to their greatest good, to be able to do and to dare everything for their progress. But we cannot love what does not appear to us _loveable_. We cannot love mankind unless we see something in them which is worthy to be loved. But infidelity strips man of every quality which we can love. In the view of the infidel, man is nothing more than an animal, born to propagate his species and die. It is religion that discloses man's true dignity, reveals the soul, unveils the immortality within us, and presents in every man the incarnate God, before whom he may stand in awe, whom he may love and adore. Infidelity cannot, then, effect what its friends assert that it can. It cannot make us love mankind: and not being able to make us love them, it is not able to make us labour for their amelioration.
But I say this, without meaning to reproach infidels. I do and must condemn infidelity; but I have taught myself to recognise in the infidel a man, an equal, a brother, one for whom Jesus died, and for whom I, too, if need were, should be willing to die. I have no right to reproach the infidel, no right to censure him for his speculative opinions. If those opinions are wrong, as I most assuredly believe they are, it is my duty to count them his misfortune, not his crime, and to do all in my power to aid him to correct them. We wrong our brother, when we refuse him the same tolerance for his opinions which we would have him extend to ours. We wrong Christianity, whenever we censure, ridicule, or treat with the least possible disrespect any man for his honest opinions, be they what they may. We have often done violence to the gospel in our treatment of those who have, in our opinion, misinterpreted or disowned it. We have not always treated their opinions, as we ask them to treat ours. We have not always been scrupulous to yield to others the rights we claim for ourselves. We have been unjust, and our injustice has brought, as it always must, reproach upon the opinions we avow, and the cause we profess. There was, there is, no need of being unjust, nor uncharitable to unbelievers. We believe we have the truth. Let us not so wrong the truth we advocate as to fear it can suffer by any encounter with falsehood. Let us adopt one rule for judging all men, infidels and all; not that of their speculative opinions, but their real moral characters.
I prefer to meet the infidel on his own ground; I freely accept whatever I find him advocating which I believe true, and just as freely oppose whatever he supports which I believe to be false and mischievous. I think him right in his vindication of free inquiry and social progress.
I accept them both, not as elements of infidelity, but as elements of Christianity. Should it now be asked, as it has been, what I mean by the new dispensation of Christianity, the new form of religion, of which I have often spoken in this place and elsewhere, I answer, I mean religious institutions, and modes of dispensing religious truth and influences, which recognise the rights of the mind, and propose social progress as one of the great ends to be obtained. In that New Church of which I have sometimes dreamed, and I hope more than dreamed, I would have the unlimited freedom of the mind unequivocally acknowledged. No interdict should be placed upon thought. To reason should be a christian, not an infidel, act. Every man should be encouraged to inquire, and to inquire not a little merely, within certain prescribed limits; but freely, fearlessly, fully, to scan heaven, air, ocean, earth, and to master God, nature, and humanity, if he can. He who inquires for truth honestly, faithfully, perseveringly, to the utmost extent of his power, does all that can be asked of him; he does God's will, and should be allowed to abide by his own conclusions, without fear of reproach from God or man.
In asserting this I am but recalling the community to Christianity.
Jesus reproved the Jews for not of themselves judging what is right, thus plainly recognising in them, and if in them in us, both the right and the power to judge for themselves. "If I do not the works of my Father," says Jesus, "believe me not;" obviously implying both man's right and ability to determine what are, and what are not, "works of the Father:" that is, in other words, what is or what is not truth. An apostle commands us to "stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free," "to prove all things," and to "hold fast that which is good." In fact, the very spirit of the gospel is that of freedom; it is called a "law of liberty," and its great end is to free the soul from all restraint, but that of its obligation to do right. They wrong it who would restrain thought, and hand-cuff inquiry; they doubt or deny its truth and power who fear to expose it to the severest scrutiny, the most searching investigation; and, were I in an accusing mood, I would bring the charge of infidelity against every one who will not or dare not inquire, who will not or dare not encourage inquiry in others.
I have said that social progress must enter into the church I would have established, as one of the ends to be gained. Social progress holds a great place in the sentiments of this age. Infidels seize upon it; find in it one of the most powerful elements of their success. I too would seize upon it, give it a religious direction, and find in it an element of the triumph of Christianity. I have a right to it. As a Christian, I am bound to rescue social progress, or if you please, the democratic spirit, from the possession of the infidel. He has no right to it; he has usurped it through the negligence of the church. It is a christian spirit. Jesus was the man, the teacher of the masses. They were fishermen, deemed the lowest of his countrymen, who were his apostles; they were the "common people," who heard him gladly; they were the Pharisee and Sadducee, the chief priest and scribe, the rich and the distinguished, in one word the aristocracy of that age, who conspired against him, and caused him to be crucified between two thieves. He himself professed to be anointed of God, _because_ he was anointed to preach the gospel to the poor, to proclaim liberty to them that are bound, and to let the captive go free. To John he expressly assigns the kindling fact, that the poor had the gospel preached unto them, as the most striking proof of his claims to the Messiahship.
And what was this gospel which was preached to the poor? Was it a gospel suited to the views of the Autocrat of the Russias, such as despots ever love? Did it command the poor, in the name of God, to submit to an order of things of which they are the victims, to be contented to pine in neglect, and die of wretchedness? No, no: Jesus preached no such tyrant-pleasing and tyrant-sustaining gospel. The gospel which he preached, was the gospel of human brotherhood. He preached the gospel, the holy evangile, good news to the poor, when he proclaimed them members of the common family of man, when he taught that we are all brethren, having one and the same Father in heaven; he preached the gospel to the poor, when he declared to the boastingly religious of his age, that even publicans and harlots would go into the kingdom of heaven sooner than they; when he declared that the poor widow, who out of her