t that improvements of the
utmost value have been made, in the most important concerns: but I deny
that the melioration has been general; and insist, on the contrary, that
a considerable portion of the people are in a state, which, as relates to
their physical condition, is greatly worsened, and, as touching their
intellectual nature, is assuredly not improved. Look, for example, at
the great mass of your populace in town and country--a tremendous
proportion of the whole community! Are their bodily wants better, or
more easily supplied? Are they subject to fewer calamities? Are they
happier in childhood, youth, and manhood, and more comfortably or
carefully provided for in old age, than when the land was unenclosed, and
half covered with woods? With regard to their moral and intellectual
capacity, you well know how little of the light of knowledge and of
revelation has reached them. They are still in darkness, and in the
shadow of death!

_Montesinos_.--I perceive your drift: and perceive also that when we
understand each other there is likely to be little difference between us.
And I beseech you, do not suppose that I am disputing for the sake of
disputation; with that pernicious habit I was never infected, and I have
seen too many mournful proofs of its perilous consequences. Towards any
person it is injudicious and offensive; towards you it would be
irreverent. Your position is undeniable. Were society to be stationary
at its present point, the bulk of the people would, on the whole, have
lost rather than gained by the alterations which have taken place during
the last thousand years. Yet this must be remembered, that in common
with all ranks they are exempted from those dreadful visitations of war,
pestilence, and famine by which these kingdoms were so frequently
afflicted of old.

The countenance of my companion changed upon this, to an expression of
judicial severity which struck me with awe. "Exempted from these
visitations!" he exclaimed; "mortal man! creature of a day, what art
thou, that thou shouldst presume upon any such exemption! Is it from a
trust in your own deserts, or a reliance upon the forbearance and long-
suffering of the Almighty, that this vain confidence arises?"

I was silent.

"My friend," he resumed, in a milder tone, but with a melancholy manner,
"your own individual health and happiness are scarcely more precarious
than this fancied security. By the mercy of God, twice duri