THE Rev. J. Porter from Belfast, is settled with the Congregation of Unitarian Christians assembling in the Park Chapel, Liverpool. THE Unitarian Congregation at Taunton, have lately subscribed about six hundred pounds to repair and beautify their Chapel, and to erect an organ. They have also determined to engage a second Minister, and to have a regular Sunday-evening service, when the Chapel is re-opened. MANY hundred Petitions from Congregations of Protestant Dissenters in Great Britain, have this Session been presented to Parliament for the Repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. This is as it should be. These remnants of intolerance may not at present be swept away from the statute-book which they have too long disgraced, but the time must come when they will be doomed to oblivion. The Dissenters have themselves to blame that they have so long been branded as aliens from the commonwealth. They might wait for ever in expectation that ignorance and bigotry would renounce the power with which they have been invested in bygone ages. It is only the man who claims his rights, and proves his fitness for their possession, by his enlightened and upright conduct, that ever will obtain, or that deserves to enjoy their blessings. We regret to observe, that the motion for the repeal has been postponed to another session. In a question of justice and of right we know nothing of political expediency. Conscience ought not to be trammelled, nor the holy ordinance of the Saviour profaned, even for an hour, to suit the intrigues of any party, or to humour the ignorant fancies of aspirants of office. We deprecate all such time-serving pleas. Let the Dissenters be true to themselves, and they must eventually conquer every prejudice which now oppresses them. In desiring the repeal of these unrighteous Acts, we say, in the spirit of the language of the Rev. R. Aspland, at the meeting of the British and Foreign Unitarian Association, we have in view no sectarian purpose. Our fondest wish and most earnest prayer is, that the doors of the temple of freedom may be thrown wide open to all denominations of Britons; and that Roman Catholic and Protestant Dissenters may enter hand in hand, and there sit down beside the Churchman, to consult, not on the means of annoying one another, but, on those of serving their country, the burial-place of their fathers, and the birth-place of their children. THE General Synod of Ulster assembled at Strabane on Tuesday last. We hope to give an account of the proceedings in our next Number. CHRISTIAN PIONEER. No. 12. AUGUST, 1827. Vol. I. On Education.-No. 3. (Concluded from page 375.) THE peculiar glory of the age, which will constitute it a splendid era in the page of history, is to be found in the exertions now making from one end of the kingdom to the other, to diffuse knowledge and intelligence by the education of the people. "As evidence of the vast progress which we have made in right thinking upon this subject, we cannot help remarking, that even Milton and Locke, though both men of great benevolence toward the larger family of mankind, and both men whose sentiments were democratical, yet seem, in their writings on education, to have had in view no education but that of the gentleman. It had not presented itself, even to their minds, that education was a blessing in which the indigent orders could be made to partake."* Vast, therefore, are the advances we have made, and mighty is the revolution which has taken place in opinion; "In every class of the community knowledge has extended, and is extending itself to a degree, which half a century ago, would have been deemed perfectly impossible."+ But the principle is now fearlessly advocated by senators, philosophers, and professors. The times of regeneration are indeed arrived, when a cabinet minister expressly avows, that "when the people are instructed in what is really for their good-when they are correctly informed as to what that good is, they will abstain from using any means that will be prejudicial in their operations, either in opposing any measure which they dislike, or in obtaining any acquisition which they may desire to possess. I am, therefore," continues the right honourable speaker, "a sincere friend to the diffusion of knowledge amongst mankind; and I agree entirely in the truth of that maxim, a maxim despised by some individuals, that 'knowledge is power." Nor is this a solitary * Mill's Essays. † Right Hon. F. Robinson, Chancellor of Exchequer, now Viscount Goderich. testimony. The late Home Secretary declares it to be his opinion, that "where knowledge was extensively diffused throughout the population of a country, a mob (i. e. an unthinking assembly) could never acquire any permanent ascendancy." And he is supported by an authority of the highest order, who affirms it to be "highly useful to the community, that the true principles of the constitution, ecclesiastical and civil, should be well understood by every man who lives under it." When the dissemination even of political information, is thus advocated-when Chancellors and Secretaries enrol themselves partizans of the holy cause, what becomes of divine right and legitimacy, and passive obedience, and non-resistance, doctrines formerly had in such reverence? Priests and bigots, theological or political, may vainly attempt to stem the current of improvement; but, alas! for them, their occupation's gone. Glori ous are the signs of the times, for "those are past and gone, when bigots could persuade mankind that the lights of philosophy were to be extinguished, as dangerous to religion; and when tyrants could proscribe the instructors of the people, as enemies to their power."‡ And popular education will eventually create a new agency a new influence which will produce all important effects: originating in humble Sunday schools-matured by mechanics' institutes, and public reading societiescherished and invigorated by numberless and extensively varied periodicals, it forms the basis, and gives stability and consistency, to that public opinion, to which we have before alluded. It will become a great moral lever, to raise the superincumbent classes of society in the scale of intellect. Instruct the many, and those who assume to be above them, who, from birth or adventitious circumstances, arrogate superiority, will find it necessary to maintain that superiority, by increasing their stores of knowledge, by enlarged studies and more comprehensive attainments. Thus will a wholesome emulation be excited-thus will a mighty cause be originated, influencing the education, the real education of all classes; and who can anticipate the brilliant consequences? Hon. Robert Peel. + Mr. Brougham, Brougham's Practical Observations upon the Education of the People. A pamphlet containing excellent details and illustrations of the amazing facility with which, not merely elementary education, but scientific knowledge may be disseminated. It was reserved for the present age to proclaim, that the education of the general mass of society, is an incumbent duty devolving upon those who have happily participated in favourable advantages; that the ignorance of the majority is discreditable, if not debasing, to all that man, whatever be his station in life, is endowed with capabilities by one common Creator, which no fellow-creature has a right to shackle with the bonds of ignorance, but rather to invigorate and strengthen, by the genial beams and influence of knowledge. Such opinions, eloquently advocated, and becoming daily more general, ennoble the present age; it may challenge the brightest, the most resplendent eras of antiquity; nor can even Greece or Rome contest the palm. Could those nations boast the possession of unrivalled wisdom of all the civilization, literature, and philosophy, which the world contained? But by whom possessed? Was the whole mass of the population enlightened, or were the blessings of superior knowledge confined to a favoured few? Did the sages of the porch, or the grove, instruct all their countrymen, or were not the vast majority sunk in deplorable ignorance, and its concomitant vices? Did the Roman bond-slaves receive mental culture and improvement, from the "lovers of wisdom;" or the Helots participate in the advantages of the philosophical schools? Let history reply. To educate, then, the people to make them thinkers and reasoners, is an original attempt, and one which invests our generation with a proud pre-eminence. By its means, we shall become an intellectual nation-a nation of men. Nor is this a utopian dream. The friends of truth and of man are on the alert, and are using every exertion. They have proclaimed, and it will never be forgotten, that ignorance is incompatible with man's welfare and happiness, and that all men are capable of receiving wisdom;* that the portals of wisdom's temple are open to all; that the paths of science, literature, and the arts, are free and unproscribed; and men are endowed with gifts by their Creator, without respect to classes, orders, or castes. They have proclaimed the holy truth, that the humblest in life are not beneath improvement, or impervious to instruction that poverty does not incapacitate the hewers of wood and drawers of The noble biographer of Sir William Jones, records it as a favourite opinion of that philosopher, "that all men are born with an equal capacity of improvement.' water, from receiving knowledge-that the perception of wisdom is not destroyed by the rags of destitution, or the avocations of daily toil; but that with equal means, equal facilities for acquiring information, no one class can lord it over the rest as wisdom's favourite sons. In mental vigour, and intellectual capacity, the invidious distinctions of plebeian and patrician are unknown; we find "king, slave, and lord, 'ennobled into MAN!" The acquisition of mental food is as wholesome to the poor as to the rich, and the influence is alike beneficial to both, for mind is not the heir-loom of wealth, nor high talents inseparably connected with noble blood or hereditary dignity; and as knowledge extends, -this great truth 66 Shall be confess'd-be felt by all mankind. The electric truth shall run from man to man; May the cause of education-enlightened, untrammelled education-proceed in triumph; and may that day speedily arrive, when men will have universally become informed and thinking beings, forming their own conclusions, weighing evidence, dispassionately judging, and freely embracing the result of their inquiries. Then will truth be respected for herself alone, and virtue be clothed in her pristine dignity, and honest independence raise its unpretending head; and the titled peer will obtain respect only by deserving it; and the mitred dignitary will no longer be considered sacred, but his dogmas subjected to examination, and not implicitly received if opposed to common sense; and the mystic legends and marvellous fables, with which priestcraft has fed credulity, will be exploded, and the gainful craft of priesthood be stripped of its wealth; and Christianity be freed from its corruptions, and beam forth as the benign revelation of an all-merciful Fathergiven to the world by a messenger full of grace and truth; and man will be one large family-one universal brotherhood-a fraternity of rational beings; judgment and discrimination assuming their true province, and reason be heard and submitted to as the arbiter of right, and revelation be embraced as a reasonable service; and then will: the anticipation of the poet be fulfilled: "That sense and worth o'er a' the earth, May bear the gree and a' that; For a' that, and a' that, It's coming yet for a' that: That man to man, the warld o'er, ZACCHEUS. |