Many of the early reports, charters and organic acts express such a purpose, and speak of the "lonely and cheerless condition" of the deaf, and the hope to "restore them to the ranks of their species." In the preamble of an "Address to the Inhabitants of Pennsylvania," prepared by the society to establish the school in this state,[204] the deaf are said to be in "entire and invincible separation from the vast stores of knowledge which human talent has accumulated--ignorant of the truths of Revelation, her glorious assurances and unspeakable consolations," all being "among the bitter ingredients which fill up the vast measure of the affliction to the deaf and dumb;" and that "among the various efforts of philanthropy and learning to enlarge the circle of human happiness and knowledge, none should perhaps rank higher than those which have been directed to the discovery and application of means for the instruction of the deaf and dumb." In language glowing and impassioned the condition of the deaf without education is described. Almost universally they are thought of as abiding in impenetrable silence and deep darkness. In an address delivered before the New York Forum in behalf of the New York Institution[205] in its early days, it is asserted that the deaf dwell in "silence, solitude and darkness," and in the second report of this school[206] they are declared to be "wrapt in impenetrable gloom of silence, sorrow and despair." In an Ohio report[207] they are said to be in "intellectual and moral midnight;" and in a Michigan report[208] to be "groping in thick darkness." In a Louisiana report[209] they are called "sorrow-stricken children of silence;" and in a Kentucky report[210] their lives are described as "dark, dreary and comfortless." The _Southern Literary Messenger_[211] of Richmond, Virginia, characterizes their existence as "intellectual night." The New York _Commercial Advertiser_[212] in the year the first school was opened affirms that "their intellectual faculties ... are ... locked in the darkness of night and shrouded in silence." In an address delivered shortly after the opening of the Tennessee School[213] they are referred to as "entombed in a prison." The _Albany Argus_ and _Daily City Gazette_[214] points to the deaf man as "abandoned to his hard fate, to wander in darkness, the pitiable object of dismal despair." In an address delivered in the Capitol in Washington[215] the deaf are said to be "doomed to wear out their lives in intellectual darkness."