indigence, is still in great part
undischarged, and that till it is taken up and put on a proper footing
_by the state_, it never can be completely liquidated;--still, more has
been done to discharge it during the last thirty years, than in the
whole previous centuries which have elapsed since the Reformation. The
churches of England and Scotland, during that period, have improved to
an astonishing degree in vigour and efficiency: new life, a warmer
spirit, a holier ambition, has been breathed into the Establishment; the
dissenters of all denominations have vied with them in zeal and
effort; churches and chapels have been built and opened in every
direction; and though they have by no means, in the manufacturing
districts, kept pace with the increase of population, yet they have
advanced with a rapidity hitherto unheard of in British history. The
laity of all denominations have made extraordinary efforts to promote
the cause of education. In this great and good work, persons of all
descriptions have, though from very different motives, laboured
together; but much remains to be done. We well know how many tens and
hundreds of thousands, in the manufacturing districts, are now wandering
in worse than heathen darkness in the midst of a Christian land;--we
well know what insurmountable obstacles mere voluntary zeal and exertion
meet with in the most praiseworthy efforts, from the selfish resistance
of property and the reckless dissipation of indigence. But still, no one
acquainted with the subject can deny, that during the last thirty years,
incomparably more has been done to promote education among the poor than
in the preceding three centuries. Yet this period of anxious solicitude,
awakened fear, and general effort to stem, by all the known methods, the
deluge of profligacy and depravity with which the country has been
flooded, has been characterized by an increase of crime, and a general
loosening of morals among the labouring classes, hitherto unprecedented
in the country--certainly not equaled during the same period in any
other European state, and, so far as we know, without an example in the
previous history of mankind.

Struck with astonishment at this extraordinary and painful phenomenon,
and wholly at a loss to explain it on any of the principles to which
they have been accustomed to give credit, the Liberals have generally
endeavoured to deny its existence. They say that the returns of
commitments do not afford