That the whole human race is one family, that the people of every colour, clime, language, government, and faith, are one brotherhood, and that the same law of love which is the bond of the union, strength, and happiness of a single family, is equally binding on the universal family of mankind, are the fundamental and distinguishing principles of our religion; and in proportion to our conformity in our private and public life to the spirit of these divine principles, advancement in civilization is certain; relapse into barbarism is impossible. But as yet there is no such conformity. We neglect the education of the people, quarrelling about the mode, and postponing the thing. We devote to a life of absorbing labour the child and the youth ungrounded in the elements of knowledge, untrained to habits of self-restraint, thereby dooming the man to the blankness and turbulence of ignorance and intemperance. We equally neglect the sanitary condition of the people. We make no provision for securing to the humblest classes, and they can make none for themselves, the conditions that are essential to their physical health, the loss of which to them involves and includes every other. We thus neglect body and mind, and then the disorders and vices which necessarily follow we endeavour to repress by punishments that harden but never reform, neither trusting nor trying the influence of gentleness, which our religion teaches us is stronger than ignorance, stronger than crime, and can master both. It is this state of things that places in danger the ark of civilization. Lastly, we see the first step that must be taken to elevate the people: nay, even to bring them within the pale of the civilization already attained. We must improve their sanitary condition. Until this is done, no civilizing influence can touch them. The schoolmaster will labour in vain; the minister of religion will labour in vain; neither can make any progress in the fulfilment of their mission in a den of filth. Moral purity is incompatible with bodily impurity. Moral degradation is indissolubly united with physical squalor. The depression and discomfort of the hovel produce and foster obtuseness of mind, hardness of heart, selfish and sensual indulgence, violence, and crime. It is the Home that makes the man; it is the home that educates the family. It is the distinction and the curse of Barbarism that it is without a home: it is the distinction and the blessing of Civilization that it prepares a home in which Christianity may abide, and guide, and govern. [The foregoing is from the Edinburgh Lectures. See Introduction. ED.] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ QUARANTINE AND CONTAGION. [From First and Second Reports on Quarantine. See Introduction. ED.]