only imprisoned for two years; but that such incautious conduct would, fifty years ago, have cost him his life. In some recent cases of mockery, and such like, the inquisition and the priests have relaxed in their severity, requiring the offender only to ask pardon for his transgression. I shall not enter into the praises or demerits of the Catholic religion; but it appears, that the attachment of the adherents to this faith partakes more of "the outward visible sign" than "of the inward spiritual grace;" for it seems that their excessive shew of piety, serves but as a veil to their want of virtue. The counting their beads, the sprinkling and crassing their faces, and their masses, are performed rather mechanically than religiously; and the great body of the people only appear to practise what the priests require them to undertake. The liberty of conscience is out of the question, the exercise of reason is forbidden, and the Catholic rehearses his creed without being permitted to question its truth: superstition and ig. norance go hand in hand. I had a proof of this one day in conversation with a shopkeeper, who was very inquisitive about the English; and, among other questions, he foolishly asked, whether our king ever went to mass? On my explaining to him that the Protestants had a sacrament similar to their mass, and that the king attended it at certain times; he said, that "the English nation was certainly deserving the gratitude of the Spaniards, but that the king was not a good man because he was not a Catholic." But while the Protestants are degradingly called heretics, and looked on with jealousy, they may consider themselves highly favoured in this country; since a Jew is not permitted to reside here. It is but a few years ago, that one of the tribe of Israel came out with merchandize, and he was not long in Cadiz before the priests scented him; his friends heard of it, and advised him to quit the place without delay, but he did not listen to them: the poor Jew was hunted down, compelled to fly, and with such precipitation that he left his affairs unsettled, and he has not since been heard of by those who are at this moment indebted to him. He probably perished in prison, as it was next to impossible for him to shelter himself in the country, if he even got outside the barriers of Cadiz. The church sometimes affords a sanc tuary to the Catholic, even in cases of the greatest crimes, if he can only get within its walls; there he may live unmolested by justice, or until the injured party may forgive him. I heard of a man who had comunitted murder, and ran into a church for safety, where he remained some years, and was daily seen by his accusers, who dared not to touch him; they would not pardon him, and at length they hit on an expedient to entice him outside the door; accordingly, the alguacils, or police-officers, went in disguise to the church, and among them was one in the dress of a lady of fashion; they conversed freely with him, and, on parting, the lady designedly dropped her fan while stepping into the coach; the politeness of the criminal induced him to go forward to take it from the ground, (which was exactly what was intended); he went just outside the door, was thus unexpectedly seized, and afterwards punished according to his crime. I have wished to purchase a small Bible in the Spanish language, but the Abbé tells me, that it is not to be had; Bibles are generally in Latin or French, excepting one edition only, which is in fifteen volumes octavo, containing the old and new testaments; he has shewn me his copy of it, which is beautifully, printed with English types, and orna mented with well-executed engravings. The translation was made by Father. Philip Scio de San Miguel, who has illustrated it with notes, and dedicated it to the Prince of Asturias (now Ferdinand VII.) to whom he was tutor; and in the frontispiece are their likenesses, representing the pupil and the tutor in their study. The cost of this work is upwards of ten pounds sterling; and as no other edition of the Bible in Spanish is extant, a recourse by the lower orders of the people to the sacred writings is not to be obtained. In this instance are upwards of eleven millions of people kept in ignorance: but the priests are sufficiently numerous to instruct them in religion, did they at the same time correct their morals. You may judge how the clergy swarm in this coun try, since it appears that when the last census was made twenty years ago, there were nine thousand in Madrid, which contained not quite one hundred and sixty thousand inhabitants. If the same proportion held good throughout Spain, nearly one-sixteenth of the population would belong to the clerical order, Του You will conclude with me, that one need not wonder much at seeing many of the priests and friars in poverty. In this place, numbers are so poor, that they solicit charity daily from house to house, where a regular provision is made for them, either in money or food; and the poor wretches, old and young, carry a bag of bread, &c. on their shoulders, like the most common mendicant, some of them with a cassock on their back, both ragged and filthy. to a favoured island, still preserve a relic of the old world, and maintain inviolate our laws, our country, and our prince! But how is this to be effected?-Not by our fleets and armies alone. They, for a few months, or a few years, may keep the invader from our shores, may preserve quiet within our lands. But the time will come, when what has laid other countries at the feet of foreign despotism, must prostrate England in similar degradation. Nothing can stem the torrent of this fate, but a united people; united by the principle of virtue, as well as of self-interest. Men, who contend for their properties alone, may be bribed from their allegiance by offers of greater wealth. Ambition and avarice both have their price; and the sensualist is more easily purchased than either of the two. We see then, that nothing can give an efficient and stedfast impulse to a The income of some of the convents is considerable, and it is a few only that are reduced to this state of begging; I have not been able to obtain the particular income of any of them, and I understand that the Spaniards are very unwilling to give information stranger; it must be a work of time, and under great favour, that any statistical memoranda can be procured, and this is not the period for entering on the sub-nation, but the principle of virtue; and ject with them. From the following you may, however, form some opinion of the income of the heads of the church, and of the riches that adorn their places of worship. The archbishop of Seville received in tythes of corn only, the enormous quantity of 382,903 fanegas, or about 76,580 English quarters, in the year 1798; and during the year of scarcity in 1804, he received 56,746 fanegas, or 11,349 quarters English; the whole revenues of this cathedral producing upwards of sixty thousand pounds ster ling per annum. The gold and silver ornaments belonging to the cathedral of Seville were estimated to weigh 200,000 pounds; the tabernacle at the high altar was of massy silver, and weighed six hundred pounds. Considerable quantities of this plate has, however, been sent to the mint in the course of the last year, as a donation to the state; and the cathedral at Cadiz has supplied upwards of forty thousand dollars for the same purpose. For the Monthly Magazine. THOUGHTS on the EDUCATION of the POOR. Ta crisis in the history of mankind, A when the kingdoms of the earth ale torn from their foundations, dissolved, and lost in a flood oblivious as the deluge; when, in the place of nations and of sovereigns, which time and great ness have rendered venerable, we see new kingdoms and new dynasties spread before us; while the whole continent of Europe exhibits this fearful change, let us, in this little ark of man, this hitherto MONTHLY MAC, No. 211, that principle, to have adequate power, must be found in the people; and they cannot produce it but by means, namely, instruction in the knowledge of what is really the good of man. The poor are the most numerous class in every country; they are the sinews of its strength, or the rapid movers of its dissolution. For this reason did the Saviour of mankind preach the gospel to the poor. Profligacy and cowardice are the natural effects of ignorance, while presumption and turbulence show the tendency of a false education. When the lower ranks of life are taught to read, without the precaution of directing their attention to good subjects, mischievous advisers, and the curiosity natural to the mind, are too apt to throw in their way, and induce them to embrace, works dangerous to morals, religion, and political tranquillity. From this class come the idle and discontented demagogues of the public-house; from consequential pursuits spring the revolutionary mobs of every country. It is true, they have eaten of the tree of knowledge; but, like the first transgressors, they have received poison instead of the food of life. Thus, it may be seen, and it has been proved by the experience of ages, that education is the principle of good or evil in man. "How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard?". Man is then to be taught the doctrine of Christ by the lips of the instructor; it is also necessary for mankind to hearken unto his laws to know them; and in the perfection of this knowledge, consists E the the primary business of education. It is the foundation-stone, and the "head of the corner;" it is alpha and omega, the first and the last of our studies; in short, the all of our life; for it embraces every thought, word, and action; it is the brightener of our bliss, the soother of our sorrows, the Almighty's best gift to man, for it unites him with himself... To this end then it seems, that education, on the liberal and christian plan of Mr. Lancaster, is the most competent. It gives to the student such an acquaint. ance with the art of writing, and of accompts, as is sufficient to enable him to execute with propriety the usual business of ordinary life; it opens to him the sober use of his reason; it unfolds to him the path of knowledge; and, as the grounds of his progress, and the principle of action, places the Holy Scriptures in his hands. No commentary accompanies them; no fathers of creeds attempt to say, Believe this, Reject that: all is the word of God, and as such it is received and reverenced. We are not called by Christ to be of Paul, Cephas, or Apollos; we are com manded by him to "search the scriptures; in which are the words of eternal life." He put his divine spirit upon the apostles; they spoke his words, they wrote his words; and it is in the Gospel alone, we can be assured to find them pure from the passion-blinded interpretations of this world. The in spired followers of the Redeemer no where tell us: After times shall come, when greater teachers than even Christ and his disciples shall arise; and they shall better know the will of the Father than we do hear ye them! This is the lan guage which too many commentators on holy writ would imply; but let it speak for itself. Know that God has already cried unto us from the Heavens: "This is my beloved son, hear ye him." Then why do the professors of different sects exclaim against the plan of Lancaster, on the plea that it neglects the one thing needful, that it leaves the youth it educates without the rudder of religion! Can religion be found at a surer and purer source than in the word of God? than from the lips of him whose cup presents the ever-living water, of which, whoever drinks, shall never thirst again." "Is man more just than God?" or is the nature of the immutable altered, that he will now call earthly fire to be mingled with the heaven-lit flame on his altar? No; he has spoken once and twice, that in the Scriptures of his Revelation is deposited "the word of eternal life!" And there shall all find it in simplicity and in power. Let this sacred volume, this holy director of the ways of men, this purifier of the thoughts and intentions, be put early into the hands of youth; let them read it, study it, imprint it on their memories, and write it on their hearts; and we shall find in the scholars of Christ the only unswerving practitioners of virtue. Here, in this one little book, we find concentred the whole substance of all the large volumes which philosophers and sages and legislators ever wrote: we see before us more than all the lore of Greece and Rome, more than the wisdom of all the world; for it is the wisdom of God, "given without measure;" the wisdom of the Eternal One, who, by the tongues of former times, gave knowledge "with measure" to the learned of the earth. The great end of life is virtue (that is, righteousness); that virtue which pays to our Maker the homage due to him; that virtue which promotes the good of our fellow-creatures; that virtue which makes us happy here and hereafter; and this virtue the Holy Scripture inculcates without commentary, without need of expla nation, or any point essentially ne cessary to salvation. They speak" not as the Scribes and Pharisees, but as of one with authority." Such is their truth, such their power, that did a man find the sacred pages in a desert, amongst unlettered savages, they would be suffi◄ cient to lead him securely to salvation. Let us then hear no more that Mr. Lancaster's plan leaves his pupils without religion: "they have Moses and the Prophets," Christ and his Apostles; and surely "one" from the "dead" could not teach them more! No true Chris tian, no honest member of the Protestant church, can lay his hand on his breast, and answer, as he would before the throne of God,-that more is necessary towards the knowledge of salvation, than the study of the Holy Scriptures. Their sufficiency once granted, (and who be fore so awful a tribunal will dare deny it), the primary objection to the Lancaster scheme disappears; and little now remains for controversy, but to disprove the idea, that education is subversive of a laborious and humble disposition:-a wrong education may, but never a right. Admit the first position in my own ar gument, and it annihilates this last ob Jection. jection. If a man best learns his duty master. This industry, this submission, is taught, not in precept alone, but by example, in the plan of generous subordination used in the school of Lancaster. Boys are there elevated in proportion to their merit, to different offices, as teachers, censors, &c. over the children of less attainments. This scheme has a more comprehensive moral effect than may be at first apprehended. It infuses a lasting spirit of subordination through out the whole little fraternity; it is inspired by a practice no where else attempted, and it is maintained by a conviction of its justice. In the common methods of managing children, a boy is told to respect his parents and his The grateful tenderness of a young heart makes him easily admit the first injunction; and the second, he takes on trust. A sort of mysterious reverence binds his obedience. He never once says to himself, "I submit to my kindred and my masters, because I believe them to be wiser and better than I am:" "No, (he cries) I obey them because I am commanded to do so; and I therefore suppose it is necessary, for some reason, that I should be obedient; though I cannot but think that they are not always quite reasonable in their arbitrary will over me!" There is hardly a person who has been taught in the ordinary methods of teaching, who has not had to complain some time or other of the unjustly-exercised "brief authority" of man or woman; and, in this belief, I shall not apologize for the latter part of my young pupil's soliloquy. Time passes away; this boy emerges from under the parental eye; he leaves school; that world in which he is to become an actor is then before him; all men appear upon a par by the right of nature; short-sighted phi losophers are ready to say the same thing; rash-judging youths, his cotemporaries, are eager to swear it; and blown up with self-consequence, all degrees of rank, all pretensions to superior merit, "Who made meet his contempt. None have any But with the Lancaster plan, the have quite a contrary effect. No myshabits which the youthful mind acquires terious power is here exercised over the pupil. He is surrounded by a little world of human beings of the same juvenile standing as himself; and by these very young ones, who in other respects advised, reproved, commanded: and are his equals, he finds himself taught, why? The reply is immediately made self; they are capable of teaching him to him: they are better informed than kimgood things that he knows not. For in authority over him; a superior power these reasons, he sees his equals are put observes that they do it justly, and he reveres, submits, and obeys them. These impressions he carries with him into the general concerns of life; and, every man in higher stations than himfrom parity of argument, he believes self to have a claim on his respect and comparing the great man's words and deférence; and he pays it cheerfully till, right, perhaps he finds him undeserving: conduct with the unalterable rule of veneration and its effects must of course wicked, the disobeyers of the laws, need thén cease; and thus, none but the fear insubordination from a pupil of the school of Lancaster. By simplifying the manner of teaching by rendering the means cheap to the the essentials in a plain education, and purchaser, a door is opened, which admits, not merely hundreds, but thousands, Small is the provision requisite to bring to the temple of Saving Knowledge. together those who " after righteousness;"" only a few barley hunger and thirst loaves:" but they will feed a multitude, broke the bread and blessed it." for the Lord is with the dispensers: "he caster, we see the infant-outcast snatched Under this beautiful plan of Mr. Lanfrom "the way that leadeth unto hell." We see the offspring of guilt and poverty taken from beggary, from vice, from premature death. The boy is taught to evil tongue; he is made to look to God pray, and to eschew the curses of his wards the ways of picking and stealing, as the rewarder of his labours; not tonot to the highway, to shop-lifting, to murder, murder, and to the gallows, as the end of all things. In every want he is to work honestly with his hands, and to trust to Providence for a decent maintenance here, and a glorious existence hereafter. The girl is removed from the temptations of squalid idleness, from theft and prostitution, from blasphemy, and all the horrors attendant on female weakness, remorse, and despair; she is rescued from all this, and given again to the world a virtuous, useful, happy, member of the family on earth, and in Heaven. My God! can any one contemplate this plan for the salvation of thy creatures, and yet reject it as dangerous! Is it dangerous to render Newgate an uninhabited place? Is it dangerous to see the brothels of London void of their unhappy victims? Such would be the effects of a general adoption of Mr. Lancaster's plan; and such is now the good which is growing up, in at least thirty thousand youthful bosoms of this empire. Thirty thousand sounds a great number; but when we compare it with the multitudes of miserably neglected children, who are in these lands, children who must, in their adult age, become members of the body politic, either to its good or mischief, we cannot but wish that there were thirty times thirty thousand; that every seminary for youth were grounded on the plan of Joseph Lan caster. Some people establish a dislike of the plan, from an idea that it was not originally Mr. Lancaster's, but that he owed the design to Dr. Bell. This is a most ridiculous objection. As well might the students of Cambridge refuse to submit to the college laws, on a plea that similar ones are made use of at Oxford. It is not for Mr. Lancaster or Dr. Bell that I 'contend, (I never had the pleasure of seeing either of them), but it is for the plan. If it be good, let it be adopted; and let the consciousness of the invention be to the bosoms of the inventors; the pupils have nothing to do with that part of the subject. Paul taught in one place, and Peter in another, but both preached of Christ, and the doctrine was received as of one. So then let it be with the parties which now contend about names. Mr. Lancaster has acknowledged in the most ingenuous manner, the part of his system he owes to Dr. Bell; and let not the friends of the latter do the venerable doctor such an injury, as to lead the world to infer that be repines at the increasing glory of his The tolerant scheme of making the Scriptures the first and only book of religious doctrine, which Lancaster puts into the hands of his youth, is the only one that would be likely to introduce a spirit of reformation amongst our Roman Catholic brethren of Ireland; and therefore to render that object no longer necessary: were schools on this plan introduced into all the towns and villages of Ireland, catholic parents might easily be influenced to send their children to so unprejudicing a seminary, and the consequences are obvious. The young mind would receive early, clear, and lasting, impressions of divine truth; and it would hardly he ever after in the power of the Catholic priesthood, to mislead their judgments. By these means, the good seed sown will gradually and peaceably bring forward the harvest, which will finally turn the sword of discontent into the sickle, and the poor reprobated rebel, into the industrious and loyal subject. These are the arms which befit a Christian legislature to use. Let then the finger of Christ touch the wounds of that bleeding country, and we shall see that it will be "whole." If then, such may be the anticipated effects in the sister kingdom, (where the Catholic priests, from their ignorance, &c. have lost all their influence,) where the people are indeed wandering about like sheep without a shepherd; let us then pray that such labourers as those we have described, may be sent amongst them; and Christ, speaking from his own Scriptures, to their hearts, will soon bring them in peace to his fold. This attention to the education of the people, is the only true ground of domestic policy; for a country can only be lastingly great, in proportion to its virtue; and its virtue is not comprised in that of a few individuals, but must comprehend the integrity of the greater mass of the people at large. It was thus Lycurgus planted the strength of Sparta; it was thus, Solon |