schools and in the standard of instruction. What should encourage this
movement in this country is, that nothing is wanting here to the
intellectual elevation of the laboring class but that a spring should
be given to the child, and that the art of thinking justly and strongly
should be formed in early life; for, this preparation being made, the
circumstances of future life will almost of themselves carry on the
work of improvement. It is one of the inestimable benefits of free
institutions, that they are constant stimulants to the intellect; that
they furnish, in rapid succession, quickening subjects of thought and
discussion. A whole people at the same moment are moved to reflect,
reason, judge, and act on matters of deep and universal concern; and
where the capacity of thought has received wise culture, the intellect,
unconsciously, by an almost irresistible sympathy, is kept perpetually
alive. The mind, like the body, depends on the climate it lives in, on
the air it breathes; and the air of freedom is bracing, exhilarating,
expanding, to a degree not dreamed of under a despotism. This stimulus
of liberty, however, avails little, except where the mind has learned
to think for the acquisition of truth. The unthinking and passionate
are hurried by it into ruinous excess.

The last ground of hope for the elevation of the laborer, and the chief
and the most sustaining, is the clearer development of the principles
of Christianity. The future influences of this religion are not to be
judged from the past. Up to this time it has been made a political
engine, and in other ways perverted. But its true spirit, the spirit
of brotherhood and freedom, is beginning to be understood, and this
will undo the work which opposite principles have been carrying on for
ages. Christianity is the only effectual remedy for the fearful evils
of modern civilization,--a system which teaches its members to grasp at
everything, and to rise above everybody, as the great aims of life. Of
such a civilization the natural fruits are, contempt of others' rights,
fraud, oppression, a gambling spirit in trade, reckless adventure, and
commercial convulsions, all tending to impoverish the laborer and to
render every condition insecure. Relief is to come, and can only come,
from the new application of Christian principles, of universal justice
and universal love, to social institutions, to commerce, to business,
to active life. This applicatio