century, a more glorious pile of structures devoted to religious and
lofty objects, than London, Paris, and St Petersburg united can now
boast. The Decapolis was a small and remote mountain district of
Palestine, not larger in proportion to the Roman than Morayshire is in
proportion to the British empire; yet it contained, as its name
indicates, and as their remains still attest, _ten cities_, the least
considerable of which, Gebora, contains, as Buckingham tells us in his
_Travels beyond the Jordan_, the ruins of more sumptuous edifices than
any city in the British islands, London itself not excepted, can now
boast. It was the same all over the East, and in all the southern
provinces of the Roman empire. Whence has arisen this astonishing
disproportion between the great things done by the citizens in ancient
and in modern times, when in the latter the means of enlarged
cultivation have been so immeasurably extended? It is in vain to say, it
is because we have more social and domestic happiness, and our wealth is
devoted to these objects, not external embellishment. Social and
domestic happiness are in the direct, not in the inverse ratio of
general refinement and the spread of intellectual intelligence. The
domestic duties are better nourished in the temple than in the gin-shop;
the admirers of sculpture will make better fathers and husbands than the
lovers of whisky. Is it that we want funds for such undertakings? Why,
London is richer than ever Rome was; the commerce of the world, not of
the eastern caravans, flows through its bosom. The sums annually
squandered in Manchester and Glasgow on intoxicating liquors, would soon
make them rival the eternal structures of Tadmor and Palmyra. Is it that
the great bulk of our people are unavoidably chained by their character
and climate to gross and degrading enjoyments? Is it that the spreading
of knowledge, intelligence, and free institutions, only confirms the
sway of sensual gratification, and that a pure and spiritual religion
tends only to strengthen the fetters of passion and selfishness? Is it
that the inherent depravity of the human heart appears the more clearly
as man is emancipated from the fetters of authority? Must we go back to
early ages for noble and elevated motives of action: is the spread of
freedom but another word for the extension of brutality? God forbid that
so melancholy a doctrine should have any foundation in human nature! We
mention the facts, and l