benevolence, and good men of all communions should deprecate the evil, and resolve to avert it by the establishment of schools where the principal objects of education should be the principal things attended to, that the secondary ones may be made subservent to them; where, while the duties of man to God, to himself, and to society, are inculcated, the scholar may exercise his powers with books and pens to advantage, and without danger to the state. Nor, without previous oral instruction, should the Bible itself be put into the hands of readers, whether children or ignorant adults. Bible societies, consisting, beyond all doubt, of pious {252} men, will diffuse good or evil over the world according to the prudence with which the sacred volumes are distributed. In theology, as in natural philosophy, the uninformed mind cannot, of itself, embrace even the most incontrovertible truths: the raising of the dead and the rotation of the earth are alike incomprehensible; what is not immediately intelligible is not impressive, but when once we have been taught to observe the motion of the heavenly bodies, and are made sensible, that the power, which could assign certainty of operation to nature, must be equal to the suspension of it, astronomy and religion open upon us, and we fly to Newton and the Testament; and, seeing truths unfold themselves, we willingly take much on trust in both; certain that books, where we find so many demonstrations, are not intended to deceive us in any one point, and the resurrection of our Saviour becomes sooner solved than the precession of the equinox. It is impossible to contemplate the {253} advantages arising to our fellow creatures and to society from Dr. Bell's system of education for the poor, without delight and without grateful feelings to the author, and, I may add, the still active director of it. Thousands upon thousands will bless him, while he yet lives, and a perpetual series of millions will revere his memory after he shall have joined the myriads of spirits from whom he shall himself learn the celestial allelujahs, and those things which it has not entered the mind of man to conceive. It would be unjust not to pay a tribute of praise, also, to the founders of an institution, who, though dissenting in tenets, have adopted Dr. Bell's plan for a religious education, according to their principles: I allude to the Fitzroy free school for the instruction of six hundred children. Catholic schools, on a similar plan, have also been established, for the education of the poor children of catholic parents. These are {254} superintended by zealous priests, who give religious instruction gratuitously to the pupils. All such establishments merit encouragement, not only from members of their own communion, but from all, who by influence or wealth are able to aid them.