no longer suffer our voice to roll across the Atlantic in empty warnings and fruitless orders. Tell me not of rights-talk not of the property of the planter in his slaves. I deny the right-I acknowledge not the property. The principles, the feelings of our common nature rise in rebellion against it. Be the appeal made to the understanding, or to the heart, the sentence is the same that rejects it. In vain you tell me of laws that sanction such a crime! There is a law above all the enactments of human codes-the same throughout the world-the same in all times-such as it was before the daring genius of Columbus pierced the night of ages, and opened to one world the sources of power, wealth, and knowledge; to another, all unutterable woes; such as it is at this day. It is the law written by the finger of God on the heart of man; and by that law unchangeable and eternal, while men despise fraud, and loathe rapine, and abhor blood, they will reject with indignation the wild and guilty fantasy, that man can hold property in man! In vain you appeal to treaties, to covenants between nations: the Covenants of the Almighty, whether the Old Covenant or the New, denounce such unholy pretensions. To those laws did they of old refer, who maintained the African trade. Such treaties did they cite, and not untruly; for by one shameful compact you bartered the glories of Blenheim for the traffic in blood. Yet, despite of law and of treaty, that infernal traffic is now destroyed, and its votaries put to death like other pirates. How came this change to pass? Not, assuredly, by Parliament leading the way; but the country at length awoke; the indignation of the people was kindled; it descended in thunder, and smote the traffic, and scattered its guilty profits to the winds. Now, then, let the planters bewarelet their assemblies beware-let the government at home bewarelet the Parliament beware! The same country is once more awake -awake to the condition of negro slavery; the same indignation kindles in the bosom of the same people; the same cloud is gathering that annihilated the slave-trade; and, if it shall descend again, they on whom its crash may fall will not be destroyed before I have warned them. But I pray that their destruction may turn away from us the more terrible judgments of God!

From his Speech, in July, 1830.

HAPPY EFFECTS OF EDUCATION.

The tendency of knowledge is, and the tendency of its diffusion undoubtedly is, to improve the habits of the people, to better their principles, and to amend all that which we call their characters; for there are a host of principles and feelings which go together to make up what we call, in the common acceptation of the words, the human character. How does this diffusion operate? To increase habits of reflection, to enlarge the sphere of the mind, to render it

more capable of receiving pleasurable emotions, and of taking an interest in other and in higher and better matters than mere sensual gratification. It tends to improve the feelings, as well as to increase the reflective habits; and it tends, therefore, to the attainment of that which in itself tends immediately and directly to improve the character and conduct of a nation.

It tends to incrcase prudence and prudential habits, and to amend and improve the human feelings. The ancients have described the effects of education in far better language, and much more happily than I can do" emollit mores nec sinit esse feros."

RAILROADS versus WAR.

When I saw the difficulties of space and time, as it were, overcome when I beheld a kind of miracle exhibited before my astonished eyes-when I surveyed mosses pierced through on which it was before hardly possible for man or beast to plant the sole of the foot, and now covered with a road and bearing heavy waggons, laden not only with innumerable passengers, but with merchandise of the largest bulk and weight-when I saw valleys made practicable by bridges of ample height and length, which spanned them-saw the steam railway traversing the surface of the water at a distance of sixty or seventy feet in perpendicular height-saw the rocks excavated, and the gigantic power of man penetrating through miles of the solid mass, and gaining a great, a lasting, an almost perennial conquest over the powers of nature by his skill and industry -when I contemplated all this, was it possible for me to avoid the reflections which crowded into my mind-not in praise of man's great deeds-not in admiration of the genius and perseverance which he had displayed, or even of the courage which he had shown in setting himself against the obstacles which matter had opposed to his course-no, but the melancholy reflection that whilst all these prodigious efforts of the human race, so fruitful of praise, but so much more fruitful in lasting blessings to mankind, and which never could have forced a tear from any eye, but for that unhappy casualty which deprived me of a friend and you of a representative,1 a cause of mourning which there began and there ended; when I reflected that this peaceful, and guiltless, and useful triumph over the elements and over nature herself had cost a million only of money, whilst fifteen hundred millions had been squandered on cruelty and crime, in naturalizing barbarism over the world-shrouding the nations in darkness -making bloodshed tinge the earth of every country under the sunin one horrid and comprehensive word, WAR-the greatest curse of the human race, and the greatest crime, because it involves every other crime within its execrable name, and all with the wretched,

Hon. Wm. Huskisson, who was accidentally killed at the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, Sept. 15, 1830.

and, thank God, I may now say, the utterly frustrated, as it always was the utterly vain, attempt to crush the liberties of the people? (Here the company rose simultaneously, and greeted this sentiment with deafening cheers.) I look backwards with shame, with regret unspeakable with indignation to which I should in vain attempt to give utterance, upon that course of policy which we are now happily too well informed and too well intentioned ever to allow again whilst we live-when I think that, if one hundred, and but one hundred of those fifteen hundred millions, had been employed in promoting the arts of peace, and the progress of civilization, and of wealth, and prosperity amongst us, instead of that other employment which is too hateful to think of, and almost, now-a-days, too disgusting to speak of (and I hope to live to see the day when such things will be incredible-when looking back we shall find it impossible to believe that they ever happened)—instead of being burdened with eight hundred millions of debt, borrowed after spending seven hundred millions, borrowed when we had no more to spend -we should have seen the whole country covered with such works as now unite Manchester and Liverpool, and should have enjoyed peace uninterrupted during the last forty years, with all the blessings which an industrious and a virtuous people deserve, and which peace profusely sheds upon their lot.

Speech at Liverpool, on the establishment of the Mechanics' Institute.

APTITUDE OF YOUTH FOR KNOWLEDGE.

It is not the less true, because it has been oftentimes said, that the period of youth is by far the best fitted for the improvement of the mind, and the retirements of a college almost exclusively adapted to much study. At your enviable age, every thing has the lively interest of novelty and freshness; attention is perpetually sharpened by curiosity; and the memory is tenacious of the deep impressions it thus receives, to a degree unknown in after life; while the distracting cares of the world, or its beguiling pleasures, cross not the threshold of these calm retreats; its distant noise and bustle are faintly heard, making the shelter you enjoy more grateful; and the struggles of anxious mortals, embarked upon that troublous sea, are viewed from an eminence, the security of which is rendered more sweet by the prospect of the scene below. Yet a little while, and you, too, will be plunged into those waters of bitterness, and will cast an eye of regret, as now I do, upon the peaceful regions you have quitted for ever. Such is your lot as members of society; but it will be your own fault if you look back on this place with repentance or with shame; and be well assured that, whatever time -ay, every hour-you squander here on unprofitable idling, will then rise up against you, and be paid for by years of bitter but unavail

ing regrets. Study then, I beseech you, so to store your minds with the exquisite learning of former ages, that you may always possess within yourselves sources of rational and refined enjoyment, which will enable you to set at naught the grosser pleasures of sense, whereof other men are slaves; and so imbue yourselves with the sound philosophy of later days, forming yourselves to the vir tuous habits which are its legitimate offspring, that you may walk unhurt through the trials which await you, and may look down upon the ignorance and error that surround you, not with lofty and supercilious contempt, as the sages of old times, but with the vehement desire of enlightening those who wander in darkness, and who are by so much the more endeared to us by how much they want our assistance.

Address to the Glasgow Students.

PROSPECTS OF THE AGE-SNEERERS AT EDUCATION.

Let us, as well we may, heartily rejoice in the magnificent prospect which now lies before us of good government, general improvement in virtue, and the attainment of national prosperity through the restoration of the people's most unquestioned right-a cheap administration of their affairs-a substantial, effectual relief of their heavy burdens. The enemies of improvement have, indeed, of late years, confessed by their conduct the hopelessness of any further attempt to obstruct its progress; they have bent before the wave, from fear of being swept away by it; and they now have recourse to sneers and gibes at the instruction of the people. We are called schoolmasters—a title in which I glory, and never shall feel shame. Our Penny Science is ridiculed by those who have many pence and little knowledge; our lectures are laughed at, as delivered to groups of what those ignorant people in fine linen and gaudy attire call, after the poet, "lean, unwashed artificers;" a class of men that should be respected, not derided by those who, were they reduced to work for their bread, would envy the skill of the men they now look down upon. Let such proud creatures enjoy the fancied triumph of their wit; we care not for their light artillery (if, indeed, their heavy jests can so be termed) half so much as we did for their serious opposition. If they are much amused with our penny sciences, I hope, before long, to see them laugh twice as much at our penny politics; because, when the abominable taxes upon the knowledge which most concerns the people are removed-I mean the Newspaper Stamp-we shall have a universal diffusion of sound political knowledge among all classes of the community: and if lectures divert them so mightily now, I can tell them that preparation is making for affording them much more entertainment in the same kind, by a very ample extension of the present system of lecturing, and by including politics in the course.

THE SCHOOLMASTER AND THE CONQUEROR.

But there is nothing which these adversaries of improvement are more wont to make themselves merry with than what is termed the "march of intellect;" and here I will confess, that I think, as far as the phrase goes, they are in the right. It is a very absurd, because a very incorrect expression. It is little calculated to describe the operation in question. It does not picture an image at all resembling the proceedings of the true friends of mankind. It much more resembles the progress of the enemy to all improvement. The conqueror moves in a march. He stalks onward with the "pride, pomp, and circumstance of war"-banners flying shouts rending the air-guns thundering and martial music pealing, to drown the shrieks of the wounded, and the lamentations for the slain. Not thus the schoolmaster, in his peaceful vocation. He meditates and prepares in secret the plans which are to bless mankind; he slowly gathers round him those who are to further their execution--he quietly, though firmly, advances in his humble path, laboring steadily, but calmly, till he has opened to the light all the recesses of ignorance, and torn up by the roots the weeds of vice. His is a progress not to be compared with any thing like a march--but it leads to a far more brilliant triumph, and to laurels more imperishable than the destroyer of his species, the scourge of the world, ever won.

1

Such men-men deserving the glorious title of Teachers of Mankind-I have found, laboring conscientiously, though, perhaps, obscurely, in their blessed vocation, wherever I have gone. I have found them, and shared their fellowship, among the daring, the ambitious, the ardent, the indomitably active French; I have found them among the persevering, resolute, industrious Swiss; I have found them among the laborious, the warm-hearted, the enthusiastic Germans; I have found them among the high-minded, but enslaved Italians; and in our own country, God be thanked, their numbers everywhere abound, and are every day increasing. Their calling is high and holy; their fame is the property of nations; their renown will fill the earth in after ages, in proportion as it sounds not far off in their own times. Each one of those great teachers of the world, possessing his soul in peace, performs his appointed course-awaits in patience the fulfilment of the promises, and, resting from his labors, bequeaths his memory to the generation whom his works have blessed, and sleeps under the humble but not inglorious epitaph, commemorating "one in whom mankind lost a friend, and no man got rid of an enemy."