g 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.

In making religion the basis of education, no inference can be drawn, that
the temporal interests and rights of mankind are to be neglected. Man, born
to sorrow, having but a short time to live, is assuredly more concerned in
securing an eternal than a temporal happiness; but he is sufficiently long
in his transit to render his situation on earth of importance, and the ease
and contentment of every individual should be the object of all
governments: for this are communities formed, for this are laws made, for
this does the sovereign execute the laws, and for this are individuals
required to bear and to forbear. Evil must arise, and afflictions must be
borne, but that government is the best imagined, and the most wisely
administered, {255} by which the large mass of the people are enabled to
pass through the years of probation with the greatest comfort, and are
presented with opportunities of bettering their conditions and promoting
their families. But I do not mean to interweave, here, an essay upon
government and civil rights; the contemplation of the admirable system of
education among the Jesuits led to these observations on the systems of
general education, and in concluding them with expressly stating my opinion
of the grand object of national community my view is, to leave no room for
attributing the sentiments of loyalty and of religion, which, in such a
work as this, have naturally fallen from my pen, to servility or bigotry.

My subject is now come to its close: it is not to be denied, that the
restoration of the order of Jesuits has excited alarm; for we already see a
new conspiracy formed against it, possessing all the malignity, if not all
the talent, or power, of the old one. But who are the persons alarmed?
{256} They can be such only as have a similarity of spirit and of views to
those of the former enemies of the society (sir John Hippisley nev