"What shameful ignorance," I hear you exclaim! Ignorance of letters it surely is, but not shameful. You, in England, can be sure of giving your poor a religious education. We cannot! but some of our peasants _act_ the Bible, which their priests will not allow them to read; and what benefit would these derive from the pennyworth of sedition or impurity which they might be permitted to purchase, and instructed to peruse? With what fresh delight have I sometimes returned to this dear desert, after having visited some of the districts _said_ to be civilized when compared with our neighbourhood!--Oh it is a great mistake to imagine that _reading_ is a cure for every evil, unless the Bible be allowed to offer its blessed promises, and hold forth its bright meed of reward for patience in adversity, and resignation under privations, which all other learning is calculated to reveal in the strongest light, without affording any means to remedy. The will of God has made inequality the very essence of every social scheme. No spread of knowledge can improve the lot of him who must till the ground in the sweat of his brow, if that knowledge be not of a nature to make him _better_, and therefore happier; and I never pass by our smith's forge, which is the parish coffee-house, without hearing expressions, and seeing looks that mark a murmuring spirit. The other day I asked an aged peasant, who lives on the lands of Lisfarne, about fairies; "Did you ever see the _Luracawn_," said I, "of which people say, that it is a sort of fairy that lives always by the sea-side, and carries a purse such as we often find on the strand with strings to it?" "No, miss, I never did _myself_; but in ould times they used to be seen plenty enough." "Then," answered I, "perhaps the truth may be, that the people now are grown too wise to believe the stories which were swallowed in old times." The old man replied, "Miss, there's a great dael o' larning that is'nt knowledge, and there's more of it than is good, I can assure you. The people now gets hould o'books, and cares very little about their parents, who were better folk than many o'_them_ that are going now a' days." "Then you don't approve of learning Andrew."--"Why, miss, you might as well say I don't approve o'my fellow craitures. There's two kinds o'one as of the other.--Good men and good books, bad men and bad books. I likes the two first, and I don't like the two last, and when people gets hould o'larning, the're vastly fonder o'the bad than the good."