ek, the third in four hours. Its influence was
traceable in the abandonment of many of the customs which it
attacked.[837] In 1790 a sort of sequel appeared, entitled 'An Estimate
of the Religion of the Fashionable World,' which was bought up and read
as eagerly as its predecessor. Nine years later another work on a
kindred subject, entitled 'Strictures on Female Education,' was equally
successful. Nor was it only on the subject of the higher classes that
Hannah More was an effective writer. The wild licence of the French
Revolution, while it filled sober, respectable people with perhaps an
extravagant alarm, seemed at one time not unlikely to spread its
contagion among the disaffected classes in England. One result was, the
dissemination among the multitude of cheap literature full of
speculative infidelity, as well as of abuse of the constituted
authorities in this country. To furnish an antidote, Hannah More
published, in 1792, a popular work entitled 'Village Politics, by Will
Chip,' the object of which was to check the spread of French
revolutionary principles among the lower classes. So great was the
effect of this work that it was said by some, with a little
exaggeration, no doubt, to have contributed essentially to prevent a
revolution in England. Her success in this department of literature
encouraged her to write a series of tracts which she published
periodically, until 1798, under the title of the 'Cheap Repository
Tracts.' Hannah More was well fitted for this latter work by her
practical experience among the poor. Like most of the Evangelicals, she
was a thorough worker. The spiritual destitution of Cheddar and the
neighbourhood so affected her, that she formed the benevolent design of
establishing schools for the children and religious instruction for the
grown-up. Such efforts are happily so common at the present day, that it
is difficult to realise the moral courage and self-denial which the
carrying out of such a plan involved, or the difficulties with which the
projector had to grapple. Some parents objected to their children
attending the schools, lest Miss More should acquire legal control over
them and sell them as slaves. Others would not allow the children to go
unless they were paid for it. Of course, the cuckoo-cry of Methodism was
raised. The farmers were bitterly opposed to the education of their
labourers, and the clergy, though generally favourable, were not always
so. But Miss More was not w