Wages will go up with Christianity, says the Doctor; cheap corn will
follow the dissemination of cheap Bibles. "I know of no other road for the
indefinite advancement of the working classes to a far better
remuneration, and, of course, a far more liberal maintenance, in return
for their toils, than they have ever yet enjoyed--it is a _universal
Christian education_." Such are the words of Doctor CHALMERS.
We perfectly agree with the reverend doctor. Instead of shipping
Missionaries to Africa, let us keep those Christian sages at home for the
instruction of the English Aristocracy. When we consider the benighted
condition of the elegant savages of the western squares,--when we reflect
upon the dreadful scepticism abounding in Park-lane, May-fair,
Portland-place and its vicinity,--when we contemplate the abominable idols
which these unhappy natives worship in their ignorance,--when we know that
every thought, every act of their misspent life is dedicated to a false
religion, when they make hourly and daily sacrifice to that brazen
serpent,
SELF!--
when they offer up the poor man's sweat to the abomination,--when they lay
before it the crippled child of the factory,--when they take from life its
bloom and dignity, and degrading human nature to mere brute breathing,
make offering of its wretchedness as the most savoury morsel to the
perpetual craving of their insatiate god,--when we consider all the
"manifold sins and wickednesses" of the barbarians in purple and fine
linen, of those pampered savages "whose eyes are red with wine and whose
teeth white with milk,"--we do earnestly hope that the suggestion of
Doctor Chalmers will be carried into immediate practical effect, and that
Missionaries, preaching true Christianity, will be sent among the rich and
benighted people of this country,--so that the poor may believe that the
Scriptures are something more than mere printed paper, seeing their
glorious effects in the awakened hearts of those who, in the arrogance of
their old idolatry, called themselves their betters!
"A universal Christian education!" To this end, the Bench of Bishops meet
at Lambeth; and discovering that locusts and wild honey--the Baptist's
diet--may be purchased for something less than ten thousand a year,--and,
after a minute investigation of the Testament, failing to discover the
name of St.
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