The Poison Of
These Dismal Haunts Creates A Craving For Stimulants, Which Constantly
Tends To Break Over And Evade Law.
LETTER XXIX.
DEAR FATHER: -
I wish in this letter to give you a brief view of the movements in
this country for the religious instruction and general education of
the masses. If we compare the tone of feeling now prevalent with that
existing but a few years back, we notice a striking change. No longer
ago than in the time of Lady Huntington we find a lady of quality
ingenuously confessing that her chief source of scepticism in regard
to Christianity was, that it actually seemed to imply that the
educated, the refined, the noble, must needs be saved by the same
Savior and the same gospel with the ignorant and debased working
classes. Traces of a similar style of feeling are discernible in the
letters of the polished correspondents of Hannah More. Robert Walpole
gayly intimates himself somewhat shocked at the idea that the nobility
and the vulgar should be equally subject to the restraints of the
Sabbath and the law of God - equally exposed to the sanctions of
endless retribution. And Young makes his high-born dame inquire,
"Shall pleasures of a short duration chain
A _lady's_ soul in everlasting pain?"
In broad contrast to this, all the modern popular movements in England
are based upon the recognition of the equal value of every human soul.
The Times, the most aristocratic paper in England, publishes letters
from needlewomen and dressmakers' apprentices, and reads grave
lectures to duchesses and countesses on their duties to their poor
sisters.
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