Imatges de pàgina
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EVERY MAN MUST SUBSIST.

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the rising generation will be preserved from growing up in such deep misery, ignorance, and corruption, as the present is involved in. And although this may require, in the first instance, perhaps a greater outlay, it will so amply repay itself in the end, that even on the mere ground economy, such a course would recommend itself. For it is a great delusion to think, that society has the choice, whether or not, it will provide for all its members; each individual that grows up in it, must find a livelihood somehow or other; if he be not put in the way to earn it in ́ a lawful manner, he will seek it by unlawful means; if he be not taught to lead a sober life, he will lead a life of dissipation, but still he will live; if society refuse to take notice of him, as an object of its care and protection, he will force it to notice him, as an object of its self-defence and its vengeance. Thus then it is clear, that society can neither avoid giving a livelihood, to whomsoever Providence has chosen to place in its bosom ; nor can it help devoting some attention, and incurring some expense, for those whom the circumstances, in which they are placed by birth, render dependant on public assistance. Would it not, then, be infinitely wiser that society should give that attention, and incur that expense willingly, at a time when it has it in its power, to make them available for the proper education of the individual to an honest and sober life, and to a useful participation in the labours, which the maintenance of society requires, than, in the vain hope of evading that sacrifice, to leave the individual in a condition, in which he will infallibly become an enemy? Would it not be wiser, at an early period, to attach him to society by the ties of gratitude, than to punish him, when it is too late, for an alienation, which was but the natural consequence of his destitution?

But if, as a mere question of policy, it cannot be denied that the present system is unwise in the extreme, what aspect will this subject assume, when we bring it to the test of Christian principles ? Christian, did I say?

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OUR LAWS ANTI-CHRISTIAN.

Truly, I should feel satisfied, if, as a first step towards improvement, we could mould our criminal laws upon the much calumniated principles of the Jewish legislation. Short as they fall of that moral sublimity, which characterizes the Christian dispensation, they are infinitely superior to those inhuman and irreligious, those perfectly Pagan principles, upon which our present laws are founded, however much we may boast of our Christian state, and its Christian institutions. We use, or rather abuse, Christ's gospel, it is true, in a manner which savours more of superstition than of religion, more of blasphemy than of reverence, as a check upon smugglers, as a guarantee for the correctness of custom-house transactions. As far as we can make the name of Christ a tool, for the better administration of Mammon, so far, it is true, we are Christians, but no farther! Open that book, the leather cover of which is, by force of the law, kissed millions of times for pecuniary and other temporal purposes, and read one of its chief commands,-that which was declared by our Saviour to be the second, and like unto the first: "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself;"-read its practical explanation: "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them;"-and, taking the condition of a child, which is born in one of the haunts of vice and misery, in which every town in this kingdom abounds, ask yourselves:-Where is the man in this Christian state,from the highest that sitteth upon the throne, down to the lowest that beareth the staff of his powerfrom the primate that weareth the mitre, and proclaimeth the law to the congregation, down to the meanest parish clerk, who thoughtlessly echoes, "Lord, incline our hearts to keep this law !"-where, I ask, is the man among them all, who, if he were, as by God's providence he might be, in the place of that child, would wish to be done unto, as that child is done unto, by virtue of our laws and institutions; who would not wish to be rescued from his dangerous situation, and brought under the care of Christian

CASE OF A DESTITUTE CHILD.

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benevolence, and under the influence of Christian education; and yet where is the man to be found, that will do, or cause to be done, unto the child, that which he would clearly wish to be done unto him, if he were in its place? What are the few paltry, and yet so much trumpeted exertions, which are now and then made for the supply of a partial and utterly inadequate remedy, when measured by this simple standard of our duty? And yet happy would it be for us, if we had no other sins to answer for, than these sins of omission!

Let not our attention be diverted for the present by those palliatives, those substitutes of Christian education, on the efficacy of which we place too much reliance, and the merits of which, I hope, we shall have another opportunity of discussing. But let us keep in view, on one hand, what society, as a Christian institution, owes to every child, as one who has a claim to, as well as a capacity for, the reception of all the blessings of Christianity, and of Christian civilization-as one who is born into this world for the express purpose of being made holy, and, through holiness, everlastingly happy; and let us examine, on the other hand, what society does for those destitute children, who, having no visible advocate, able or willing to prefer their claims, are comprehended in that powerful appeal of our Lord to every one that professeth his name: "Whoso shall receive one such little child in my name, receiveth me." To form a correct estimate of the influence which such a child receives from society, we must, however, not merely cast a glance upon the more marked periods of his life, when his transgressions bring him under the arm of human justice, but we must view the whole of his existence from the beginning; we must transfer ourselves into his circumstances, and follow the course of his life through its different stages. Let us, then, lose sight for a moment of all the advantages which we have enjoyed from our earliest infancy, and by which that state of feeling, and those habits of thinking, have been developed in us, which

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CASE OF A DESTITUTE CHILD.

lead us, in many cases unconsciously, and frequently even without any moral exertion on our part, to fulfil the common duties of life, and to maintain an upright character, at least in the worldly sense of the word; let us fancy ourselves in the condition of a child, born of vicious and criminal parents, in one of those lanes or alleys, in which the physical and the moral atmosphere are equally corrupt. What will be the lot of such a child? The tender and unconscious look of the suckling is never met by an eye, from which it may drink the gladdening rays of love ; never does the soothing influence of parental tenderness calm its soul in the moment of irritation; the brutal glare of sensual satiety is the loveliest object it ever beholds ; the irritations of its nature are many, in consequence of the neglect which it suffers, and which must inevitably be productive both of bodily disease and of mental indisposition, whilst every manifestation of those fretful feelings, which arise from a want of all that is wholesome to the body and to the soul, is repressed, or rather provoked at an increased rate, by rude severity or wild passion. As soon as he is able to use his limbs, he is cast off by the unnatural mother, who hates his existence as an interruption to the full indulgence of her vicious habits; and a new epoch of his life begins, during which he passes his time chiefly in the streets, with associates more advanced in age, and more deeply initiated in the mysteries of sin; and the filth with which his body is covered, is but a faint analogy to the moral filth, which is thus gathering up in his soul, at that period of life when the mind and feelings of man are first expanding, to receive with consciousness the impressions of the surrounding world, and when, from the susceptibility of his whole being, the nature of those impressions is almost finally decisive, at least for this life, of his character and pursuits. The parental influence during that period is almost entirely confined to daily brutality towards the child, which increases, in proportion as the child acquires more power to provoke and

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to resist it; and it is but a sad compensation for this habitual barbarity, that the child is occasionally dragged along by his parent to the public-house, and allowed to partake of that enervating and brutalizing dram, of which a Christian government encourages the extensive consumption, bartering away for two millions of revenue the health of a whole population, and the morality, not to say the salvation, of millions of souls. In this manner the child may grow up to the age of seven or eight years, without ever coming into immediate contact with, or falling under the direct notice of, any one else but the associates of his parents and their offspring; and if it should so happen, that a parish or a police-officer penetrates into that world of misery and vice in which the child lives, for the purpose of a seizure, an ejection, or an apprehension, the effect which his appearance will produce upon the child's imagination, is not calculated to impress him with the better state of that other world, from which he is an emissary, or to awaken in his mind the idea or feeling of any thing more lovely, more benevolent, more holy. A ghastly fear of the delegates of some mysterious power, which is to all that know it, an object of hatred and terror, is the only trace that such an event can leave behind in the child's heart. But the time is fast approaching, when he will have an opportunity afforded him, by his own experience, of conceiving a more distinct notion of that power. He has now attained sufficient strength of body, and, as a practical consequence of his mode of education, a sufficient facility of disguise, and readiness for lying, to be trusted into the world. The time is come for him when he must earn his own bread, if he have not already been turned to account, by being let on hire to beggars, or sent out on begging errands himself. He is encouraged in his first pilfering expedition by his older associates, whose boldness, adroitness, and good luck, excite at once his admiration, his envy, and his emulation-or, perhaps, introduced in a less buoyant manner to a career, the close of which is so

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