ocean. And, no doubt, the writer on the Influence of Morals would revolt at the shocking idea of erasing from the human constitution its intellectual powers. Why then pursue such a course towards it, as is calculated to dry up its energies? It is a law of nature impressed upon every created thing, that it should be cultivated and improved, if man ever wants to make it subservient to his happiness. The earth must be dressed; the herb of the field must receive the culture of the husbandman; and the moral feelings must be trained up to a course of virtue. Why are the mental faculties to be suffered to run wild? Why are they to remain uncultivated and unexpanded? It would be in vain to search the annals of the human race for a single example of any good resulting from the prostration of the human intellect. It has ever been an expedient, by which tyrants and oppressors have forced submission to their cruel schemes. Ambitious and aspiring men have often taken advantge of the ignorance of the people, to enable them to fulfil their unholy purposes. What else enabled Mahomet to establish his system of religion, which has for ages held in bondage multitudes of human beings? Europe was sunk in the most profound ignorance and superstition; the people committed the most horrid crimes and disorders; and the ecclesiastics had gained the greatest ascendency over the human mind; when the crusaders precipitated themselves upon Asia, and blackened the pages of history still deeper with the records of crimes and sufferings. Many of the greatest calamities that have befallen the world, have been perpetrated by the arts of delusion. The sentiments which nations have entertained of man, and of all the mysteries of his nature, of the world and all its wonderful phenomena, as well as of its more ordinary and less surprising works, have uniformly been found to exert a great and lasting influence on their moral conduct, either for good or evil, according as these sentiments have been correct or erroneous. The importance of every duty which we have to perform, is heightened by a knowledge of the laws of the material universe, which are continually operating around us. From the meanest insect on which we tread, up to the planets revolving in their appointed orbits, we have full illustrations of the wisdom and utility of our duties. Objects of sense always surround us; and the mind is kept in a great degree under the influence of external things. If, therefore, we have wrong conceptions of their characters and their importance, the influence will be felt in shaping our conduct. Hence sprang the wild and injurious theories of astrology. The most obvious impression of men, in a state of barbarism, would be, that the blue expanse was an arch of immeasurable dimensions, studded with brilliant spots, and erected as an ornament of our world. But, as the ignorant always ascribe motion to the immediate impulse given by some living being, this idea would soon be overturned; and as the easiest and simplest solution of the difficulty involved in every such appearance, they suppose life to be inherent in the body which moves. The dialect of every nation bears traces of this belief. Every motion of the air has been conceived to be the breathing of a spirit. To every stream, and glen, and hill, and to every shrub or tree, which the spring has clothed in beauty, has been allotted the vigil of a nymph. The naiad and the fawn have not only been honored with the poet's dream, but the ignorant peasants have offered them many a lamb or kid, with libations of wine and honey. It was easy to observe, that the sun exerted a great power over the variations in the temperature and gravity of the atmosphere, and the fertility of the earth. Why should the planetary bodies be excluded from a share of the same dominion? or why not conceive that their influence is as great over the bodies and minds, the actions and fortunes of men, as the rule of the greater lights is over the vast kingdoms of the ocean, the air, and the earth? And as they have no apparent connection with the great changes, it may be their exclusive province to preside over the incidents which occur in the minuter portions of the world. The heavens, the ignorant have often considered as a divine volume, in whose lucid characters the skilful may read the various occurrences of human life. And this propensity to form wrong conceptions of external objects, which is so strong with the ignorant and unlettered, has drawn thousands off from the rightful performance of some of their most important duties; whilst, if they had sifted true knowledge of its dross, light would have been thrown around their path and dispelled the mists of error. Improvement of the mental energies, and the cultivation of knowledge, necessarily opens a wide field, not only of enjoyment, but of incessant toil and labor also. It affords a boundless field of active and ceaseless employment. And the history of man shows, that when his reasoning and thinking faculties are suffered to remain idle, when his talents are unemployed, he is not only unable to give a good account of his stewardship, but also the animal feelings usurp control, and he comes under the dominion of the vilest and most unruly passions: for, man is an active being. He cannot remain stationary. He must either advance in virtue and improvement, or he must retrograde. And where knowledge is slighted, vicious habits will be formed, to fill up the vacant hours that should have been devoted to useful and innocent thoughts. And it is only by giving right directions to the mental energies, that the moral principles can recover that authority, which, amid the contests of passions, had been obscured or lost; or that each act of the life, and each emotion of the heart, is seen in its relations to the great dictates of truth, and each pursuit of mortals, in its real bearing on the great concerns of a moral being. Virtue and correct morals are the essentials of human happiness. Without them, man's proudest achievements are nothing; and all of his works will wither up like the herb of the field, pass away like dew on the mountain, and fade from remembrance like the minions of change and chance. But when they are based upon virtue, they are throned above the fleeting things of time, above the bubbles of error and ignorance, and the flower that perishes; above the moon that waxes and then waneth in her course, or the stars which glitter and dazzle and then vanisheth! Where the light of reason is obscured, nations have ever been found wandering down to the dark and unfathomable abysses of crime. The lessons of the past teach nothing else. Of all the rations of antiquity, those only have left us any models of moral excellence worthy of imitation, who have held up high the torch of knowledge. Thousands have passed away, and no bright page is to be found in all their annals. And the only token they have left, | self-approving deeds of superstition and error-and by which future times were to know that they have countenance for a single moment the belief, that the been, were the traces of enormous crimes. No mark light of knowledge would not greatly stay the mad of intellectual or moral worth is to be seen in all their career of crime? Every where, among ignorant and borders. To what cemetery of the nations of anti-unlettered nations, we can find examples of the same quity do you go to drop a tear over illustrious merit? torch lighting the altar, and firing the stake of persecu Only to that of the people who cultivated knowledge. tion. Knowledge enables us to understand the precepts It is there that you find the peaceful tomb of the patriot of virtue, and to read the pages of religion. Without a and the philanthropist. We look to the birth-places of discriminating and investigating mind, how are we, the arts and sciences, and philosophy-to the lands of amidst the conflicting religious notions of the world, to Socrates and Plato, of Solon and Aristides-to the tell truth from falsehood? It requires the refiner's furcountry of Seneca, Brutus and of Tully, not only for nace to separate the precious metal from the dross. the monuments of learning and intellectual achieve- The virgin ore lies buried beneath heaps of rubbish. ments, but also for those of moral greatness. The lite- Without skill and labor it is lost. Are we to have masrature of these countries constitutes the greenest spot ters, whose business it shall be to instruct us in the way that can be found in the dreary history of the past. It in which we should walk? Ah! the world has known teaches many an instructive lesson, and gives a right enough of this sort of bondage. The mind has been direction to many a wandering thought. The spirit it chained, and the thoughts have been fettered. And breathes infuses vigor and life into many a desponding where is the good that resulted? Can we find its hisfeeling, and inspires many languid imaginations. Pre- tory in legend, or in song? Where can you find one cepts of virtue and morality are clothed in the divinest single trophy that it achieved for virtue, humanity, or beauties of poesy, nursing those resplendent visions and religion, amidst its thousand bloody and cruel triumphs sublime aspirings, that are so fit to lift us from sense over the exertions of the patriot, and the aspirations of and clay. If the disciples of Roman and Grecian phi-hope? Intellectual bondage never gathered one green losophy did not carry their labors far enough to pre-laurel to weave in the chaplet of religion, but has fosserve them from the follies of life, they were greatly tered error, superstition, and bigotry, and given a powdeterred from its vices. If their speculations did not erful sway to men who have dishonored the cause of enable them always to arrive at truth, they imparted morality, who have thrown a foul stain upon the pages much wholesome instruction, and inculcated many an which record the history of the human heart, and have excellent moral. If the feeble glimmerings of human given a desolating impulse to the wave of licentiousreason have been unable to scatter all the mists of error ness. Nor does ignorance teach humility. None are and prejudice, they have been an important guide to so presumptuous as the ignorant. It is the narrow conadventurous man. And where now would be many a tracted mind that is unable to soar above the clods which proud and glorious memento of human greatness and surround it, or to comprehend the great bearing of truth, worth, of which humanity has often boasted, if all the and that seizes hold of false notions and dangerous docnations, that have flourished and decayed, had acted trines, becomes elated and arrogant, and scorns to be upon the humiliating maxim, that it was unsafe for our taught, and thus never comes under that gentle and moral character and condition to impart strength and soothing influence of knowledge, which would expand vigor to the intellect? What other incentive, than the the thoughts, refine the feeelings, and inculcate sentiimprovement of our rational and intellectual enjoy-ments of liberality. ments, could ever have aroused the little spark of virtue Untutored men have often been blessed with transwhich remained unsmothered in our ignorant and bar-cendent virtues. Around the cottage of the poor and barous state into a bright flame, that will cast its light | unlearned, have bloomed the sweet and pure flowers of down to the remotest ages, and be forever the admira- morality. David's harp breathed soft and heavenly tion of the world? Where would be the memory of melodies. It was strung by the finger of heaven, and Greece and Rome, if they had despised the cultivation the holiest inspiration swept over every chord. The of the reasoning faculties? There would be nought to peasant king was blessed above common mortals. And tell that they had been. Nay! no song would ever the circumstances of his life reflect not the smallest dishave been sung of the blessings of these ancient repub. paragement upon the importance of education. And lics. Why this declamation against reason? It is no where do you find so many examples of ignorant men enemy of humane and liberal institutions. It is not a being virtuous and useful citizens, as amongst enlighdangerous instrument to truth. It is no corrupter of tened and refined nations? Although they do not exgood morals. It is the only means of unlocking the perience the direct, they do the indirect influences of treasures of religion. Without it, we can never reap knowledge. Here is its power. Here is one grand the rich harvests of true virtue. What tongue can secret of that mighty charm which it possesses, and recount the dark and hideous crimes which are now exerts over the happiness of the world. One exalted perpetrated by many nations of the earth under the and enlightened intellect is clothed with power that false and delusive hope, that they are rendering accep- can tell upon the fortunes and destinies of myriads; and table homage to virtue. Ignorance is the cause; and it is capable of wielding a sceptre over error and all of its has ever been the handmaid of vice. Ignorance is the evil attendants, and of laying those wholesome restraints opposite of knowledge. One is light, the other is dark- upon the thoughts of men, which will save them from ness. Error is the twin-sister of bigotry. Who can wandering amidst the creations of an impure and unculstand on the bloody banks of the Ganges, amidst the tivated imagination, where all is ignorance, where there human bones which whiten on its shores-now witness-is no landmark to guide to the pure waters of virtue and ing the cries of innocent sufferers, then appalled by the useful instruction, and where the thirsty and craving appetites of mortals can only be allayed by tasting of | may excite the passions of those who have loose and the muddy and putrid streams of vice and licentious- unsettled principles, and who are ever eager to find out ness. Many have converted knowledge into an instrument of evil. They have cultivated their faculties merely that they might be invested with power. They have sought only for the means of gratifying a wild and ruinous ambition. Self-aggrandizement was the sole object of all their labors. Their feelings were hardened against all the gentler influences of mental improvement, and they appear upon the pages of history as notable conquerors, or as vile and usurping despots. A corrupt heart urges them on in despite of every motive which is addressed to it. Virtue, religion, humanity, pleads in vain. The holy precepts of christianity are scorned. Nothing that is regarded as worthy of the admiration of intelligent beings, gives gratification to their corrupt and depraved propensities. something that will administer gratification to their The evil is not to be attributed to the culture of the reasoning powers of man. The air we breathe often carries disease and death concealed in its bosom. There is no good that may not be perverted, no blessing that may not become an engine of incalculable mischief and evil. If the refinements and advantages of education were entirely unknown, the bad effects which flow from the conduct of wicked men would be the same as they are now. Nay, the power of shrewd and mischievous men, though unrefined and uncultivated, in communities as ignorant as themselves, is far greater in swaying the multitude to their purposes, than the power of any set of men can possibly be in enlightened communities. The cultivation of letters makes a thinking and reflecting people. It creates a spirit of investigation. Every action is scanned. The motives which produced it are analized. And the consequences which will flow from them are seen and estimated; and, if necessary, guarded against, long before the danger is inevitable. An ignorant people are almost sure to invest their heroes or aspiring men with the qualities of enchantment with supernatural gifts-with the wand of a magician-or with any dangerous power which they may claim as belonging to their character. Let their object be the gratification of a wanton ambition, or the subversion of the liberties of their country, still they are looked upon as the great champions of human happiness; as beings commissioned by heaven to give order | to our moral chaos, and to restore man to his long lost rights. It is thus that the most profligate wretches have been deified, and monuments have arisen to perpetuate their names and their deeds to future times, and to call forth the pious act of devotion from poor, deluded human sufferers. Men who have been mighty | ciously opposed. So far then from literature's being only for evil, whose only triumphs have been bloody an engine which bad men can convert into an instruones over the sacred cause of humanity, have been ment of incalculable harm and injury, it gives the clue remembered as the stern and uncompromising friends to the dark and dangerous labyrinths of error and vice, of virtue, and human improvement. So strong have in which the ignorant, the deluded, and the abandoned, been the effects of such sentiments with some nations, may have been locked up for ages. It is the mutterthat it has required ages of improvement and intellec-ings of the volcano, giving timely warning to all to flee tual cultivation, entirely to shake them off. The his- for safety, before the long repressed and smothered fires tory of oppression sustains us in our position. shall break out, and the frightful wave of desolation Does knowledge become an evil by the power which shall sweep over the land, destroying every thing that it gives bad men of staining and corrupting the litera- is valuable in society, and leaving nothing but a barren ture of a country, and thereby polluting the fountain of waste behind. In England, until the commencement of pure morals? A Voltaire may propagate doctrines, the revolution, which ended in the beheading of Charles alike subversive of morals and religion. A Bulwer | I., there had been very little freedom of thought or of increase in reputation and usefulness, as time rolls on ; gathering fresh laurels in each successive generation; throwing around virtue a bright halo of glory; gaining for true and undefiled religion that honor and admira. tion which is so justly its due; and weaving, for the cause of oppressed humanity, a chaplet of never-fading conscience. The sudden overthrow of established customs, and the sudden breaking of restraints, which had long fettered the soarings of genius, and prevented the consciences of men from exercising their proper offices, naturally led mankind into the opposite extreme, where the wholesome boundaries erected around virtue to guard it from licentiousness, were overleaped. After the resto-reputation. ration of the monarchy, the character of Charles II. Woman is no less improved by the advancement of served greatly to corrupt the literature of his time. knowledge and letters, than man. The ignorance of From these concurrent circumstances, most of the cele- barbarism must have yielded to the refinements of edubrated writers of this age remain monuments of genius, cation, before she can be elevated to her proper station perverted by indecency and bad taste. But this in society. To calculate the immense value of the prowretched state of literature soon called into exercise the gress of education to woman, we have merely to look at chaste and splendid talents of Addison, Steele, Rowe, the history of her sufferings in all those countries wherePrior, Akenside, Thomson, Pope, and of a number of freedom of thought and inquiry have been prohibited. others, who, in every department of literature, mani- Wherever the dark and gloomy spirits of despotism fested a strong leaning towards whatever could conduce and ignorance have brooded, there the record of her to purity of sentiment and delicacy of feeling, and whose trials and hardships has been written in tears and blood. works have rendered essential service to the cause of Wherever you can trace the footsteps of oppression, virtue and religion, and gained for themselves and their | there you can find the vestiges of her wrongs and her country imperishable renown. crimes. Mental cultivation and the progress of literaSocial man owes much of his dignity and happiness ture have always refined the character of woman, and to a refined and chaste literature. Its power is more thrown around it those graces and ornaments, which wonderful, than that of kings. Its achievements are have never failed to command respect and homage. The mightier, than those of the warrior. The tokens of its high and excellent qualities which recommend her to blessings will be remembered, when the pyramids which the admiration of every rational being, which qualify stand as memorials of despotic oppression, shall have her to adorn and bless society, and countenance every crumbled into dust. The green laurels, which wave virtuous sentiment that can tend to raise human nature over the tombs of Homer and Virgil, will ever be culti-above the lowering effects of vice, which enable her to vated by an admiring world. The effects of a conque- smooth the rugged path of life, and to sooth all its sorror's triumph may be soon effaced-the blessings it dis-rows, and which eminently fit her to encourage man to pensed soon cease to be enjoyed; whilst the immortal efforts of Newton and Locke, to elevate the reasoning faculties of man, to give a right direction to human thoughts, and to increase the sources of rational enjoyment, will be seen shaping the characters of thousands, as long as letters or knowledge shall endure. The works of corrupt men may last, until the excited passions which produced them shall have been counteracted in their evil tendencies, and shall have subsided. If mankind are allowed to think, and reflect, and to read for themselves, the literature of any age will be properly sifted; and all that is not calculated to improve the condition of humanity, and to contribute to the triumphs of truth over error, and of knowledge over ignorance and all its hurtful consequences, will be marked with the seal of reprobation. No work tending to corrupt public morals-to debase virtue, and to trample upon human nature-no matter how it may have flourished in the times when it was produced, and no matter what amount of mischief it may have effected, will meet with admiration in after ages, if the mind is left unfettered. No man, no matter how prone he is to taste the filthy waters of the streams of licentiousness, if he is left with a judgment unshackled, and capable of estimating the value of morals and social institutions, to the prosperity and happiness of his country, but will aid in consigning to oblivion every attempt to unsettle the foundations of society, and of human enjoyment. Virtue and religion are clothed in a thousand charms, which will challenge the respect and homage of every enlightened man, although the promptings of a vitiated taste and depraved moral feelings may have urged him into the whirlpool of vice. The waters of Lethe are not thus sprinkled on the works of Milton, or Locke, or Newton. They cling to every hope which will inspire the best emotions of fortitude, patriotism and religion, can only have their proper influence by the expansion of her faculties. From her very condition, when her mind is neglected, her energies are crippled, and the only power she has of winning esteem and affection becomes almost impotent. The achievements of Hannah More, Felicia Hemans, Maria Edgeworth, Miss Sedgwick, and Mrs. Sigourney, in the great causes of virtue and religion, would never have been performed, had it not been for the estimation in which literature is held by the good and reflecting portion of mankind; and the incalculable benefits, which these immortal spirits have done for the world, would never have been enjoyed. The works of these exalted women have not only gained for them a rich and precious reputation, and names that will be held in faithful remembrance as long as the memory shall perform its duty, but have also given a tone to the feelings of the female part of society, which will urge them on in a course of usefulness and honor, and operate as a beneficial check upon the licentious opinions of men, and as an encouragement to whatever can adorn the moral character. It may be, that the tendency of many literary efforts has been to lower our estimate of female virtue and dignity. If every instance of this sort, that can possibly be produced, were thoroughly investigated, we would perceive, that the literature of a country which had thus stooped from its high vocation, to injure and insult woman, had first been corrupted and polluted itself, by the powerful operation of causes which had extended their baneful influences to every human institution, poisoning every fountain of happiness, blasting every blossom of hope, leaving nothing untouched and unwithered. This opinion is strongly degraded female excellence. Woman's countenance never shines so attractively as when it is irrradiated with the light of knowledge. Her worth is only properly appreciated by such as have felt the softening and. expanding effects of education. And under the balmy influences of mental improvement, and the soothing consolations of religion, woman will shine as cherubimically, and sing as seraphically, as "any of the redeemed on earth." If female character has not always been exalted, as it should be amongst cultivated nations, it has been much less so where ignorance prevailed. And if even knowledge has not secured to her the enjoyment of her just rights and privileges, the cruel precepts of dark and barbarous ages have taken them all away. And the history of letters records not a single triumph that they ever gained over the gentler feelings of our nature, but forms one vast and splendid monument of the victories of morality and virtue over the most hurtful passions. The warmest admirers of the expansion of our mental capacities never claimed, for knowledge and human letters, all those blessings and prerogatives which it is the province of religion only to bestow. They would not, for all the treasures of the world, supplant it in the affections of the people. Its heavenly principles only are adequate to raise man to his primitive condition, to root out those jarring and conflicting lusts which have hurled him down into the gloomy abysses of supported by the events of the French revolution. For | imagination, the mischievous results. It is tracing the a long period the people of France had suffered the injury to the wrong cause, to contend that literature has greatest civil and ecclesiastical oppression. The arm of civil power crushed the budding of liberty, and the minions of the pope smothered all those sacred feelings which would render homage to religion. All those who dared to think and act for themselves, suffered from the sword of persecution. The principles of morality and virtue were prostituted to vice, by the church of Rome. The civil power, instead of being the shield to protect, was the sword to destroy. Religion, instead of refining the moral feelings, was made to pamper the passions of a profligate priesthood. The torments of the inquisition were followed by the most horrid massacres, until, finally Louis XIV. revoked the sacred edict of Nantes, in consequence of which the protestant churches were destroyed throughout France; the soldiery committed the most scandalous excesses, and after the loss of an almost innumerable number, 50,000 of the most valuable and industrious of her citizens were forced into exile. These bloody and disastrous occurrences redu ced nearly to nothing the number of those who inclined to the support of virtue and undefiled religion. Those who remained and who did not bow submissively to the wicked mandates of the catholic clergy, imbibed the deadliest prejudice and hatred towards religion, seeing what a wretched and corrupt thing it was, under the control and management of a vast and powerful establishment, that pretended to be the infallible guardian and keeper of the consciences and souls of men. The putrid condition of the political and religious atmospheres drove men into the gloomy labyrinths of anar-crime, filled the world with sufferings, and placed virchy and of skepticism. The contagion was not slow in tue and happiness far from the path of his sinful pilgri spreading. It soon commenced heaving asunder the mage. Pure christianity is the greatest blessing that foundations of society. Rousseau, sickened with the could have been granted to mortals. It is the pathway thraldom of ancient prejudices, inveterate abuses, and from earth to heaven. It leads from error to truth, the worst of slaveries, conceived the absurd notion of from bondage to freedom, from crime to virtue, from bettering the condition of man by throwing off the despair to hope. Before its triumphant march the restraints of civilized society. The depraved heart of works of iniquity must crumble into dust, and the Voltaire, rendered outrageously wicked by the evils of raging of human passions will become still. Religion a perverted religion, lauded the errors of infidelity. And can pour the healing balm into the corrupted heart, the policy of the government and of the catholic church and administer the sweetest consolations. No! learnhad been such, as to prevent any bold efforts being made ing does not seek to usurp the place of true devotion. to rescue the rising generation from the contagion of It bows reverently before the Bible and cries, "thou bad examples, and the influence of false principles. art worthy to receive all homage and adoration." Even France felt the loss of those valuable citizens, who had human wisdom does not teach infidelity. Whilst nabeen driven away by the tyranny of Louis XIV; and ture and all her wonders and beauties, her green valdeism and infidelity, though weak against the plain lies and her rugged mountains, the gentle ripples of doctrines of the cross and the evidences of christianity, her streamlets and the roaring of her cataracts, the were strong against the fanaticism of a bigoted, and the soft zephyr of evening and the whirling tornado, all, superstition of a corrupted church. The defence of all point to the ruling hand of infinite goodness, and religion and of social institutions fell into hands little sing the praises of their Creator, knowledge decked in capable of reaping laurels in a contest for the preserva- a thousand fascinating charms joins in the universal tion of good morals or pure christianity. They were chorus. All the power that we contend for as belongutterly unfit to contribute to such virtuous and intellec-ing to human learning is, that by giving employment tual triumphs, as had cast a bright and never-fading lus- to our restless mental faculties, it will preserve us in a tre on the names of Saurin and Massillon. In these unhallowed conflicts of infidelity and superstition, of fanaticism and bigotry, of anarchy and despotism, it was impossible for the character of woman to remain unassailed and uninjured. It would not have been otherwise, if knowledge and letters had been neglected; but the evils of ignorance superadded to the frightful workings of the worst passions of our nature, would have increased, beyond the conception of the boldest great measure from the follies and vices of life, restraining many an evil prompting, and preparing us better to appreciate the blessings of pure religion to make us more valuable citizens. Ignorance may be favorable for the growth of bigotry, superstition and fanaticism, but piety grows better in the sunshine of knowledge. And if the annals of the world are impartially examined, we will find, that the dear and costly experience of a thousand ages will teach, that it is the duty VOL. IV.-98 |