wherein its evil effects consist, there is scope for the utmost force of illustration, in order to bring the considerations that belong to the subject to bear upon the prejudices which still maintain their hold upon the public mind. This appears to have been more particularly Mr. Foster's aim in the present Essay. Its design is, to rouse the sensibility to a perception of the momentous fact, that the people are being "destroyed for lack of knowledge;" to present it with graphical vividness, in every point of view that may be adapted to lay hold of the imagination or the conscience; to shew that ignorance is emphatically destruction; and that all that has been done, or that is doing, to rescue the population from intellectual and moral debasement, falls very short of what is required to be done in order to the discharge of individual and national duty. The general cast of the Essay is that of an address: it in fact grew out of a Sermon delivered at a public meeting of the Bristol Auxiliary British and Foreign School Society. The field for expatiation naturally widened as the Writer advanced in the discussion of his fertile topic, and as the evil in question disclosed itself to him in all its gigantic dimensions, till the Essay swelled to its present form. Some deficiency in point of distribution and arrangement may be detected, arising out of the circumstances attending the composition; and for this the Author bespeaks his reader's indulgence. We are inclined, however, to complain far less of any real want of method, than of the absence of the usual formal indications of it, and the extreme faintness of the lines by which the distinct topics and trains of thought are marked out. Mr. Foster has done quite well to avoid the technicalities of first place, and second place, and so forth; but the reader's eye, after travelling through one score of pages after another, without finding a resting place, not so much as a milestone or a finger-post, begins to be wearied with the unbroken and measureless continuity. It therefore behoved the Author to supply at least some marginal indication of the commencement and end of each section, if not to present a map of the general plan. No one can reasonably be expected to read the whole Essay at a sitting: it would require an effort fairly beyond the average power of sustained mental exertion. But if so, it would seem to be the more necessary that the convenience of the reader's memory should have been consulted by the introduction of seasonable breaks. In our judgement, the work would, with advantage, admit of being distributed into chapters.

What would in that case claim to be the first chapter, comprises an historical review of the prevailing condition of the great mass of mankind in an intellectual respect, at different periods, and under the various moral predicaments of Judaism, Heathenism, Popery, and Reformed Christianity. This review extends to the first ninety-six pages. Mr. Foster introduces it by ad

verting to the inaptitude of the mind to take the due impression of any adequate representation of human misery and destruction; such, for instance, as is conveyed in the striking language of his scriptural motto: "My people are destroyed for lack of know"ledge." This habitual insensibility he seems to think mainly referrible to a sort of instinctive selfish policy, by which the mind excludes whatever would disturb its tranquillity and ease. It is no doubt connected, in most cases, with a criminal callousness of feeling, with what the Scripture denominates hardness of heart; but yet, something must be allowed for the operation of the general law by which our feelings are regulated, it being with the individual only, not with the species, that we sympathize. The sensitiveness of our emotions, too, is very far from affording a criterion of the strength of the moral habit in which those emotions are designed to terminate. Real benevolence, active benevolence, is often found, on the one hand, the eminent characteristic of persons whose feelings are by no means very acute. On the other hand, there have been individuals whose personal happiness has been through life sensibly diminished by a keen perception of the evil and wretchedness around them, without its inspiring a benevolent effort, or perhaps a devout aspiration. The holy and happy beings who ceaselessly minister to the heir of salvation, behold the scenes of this evil world, we may be well assured, with infinite composure: in the discharge of their benevolent errands, it is not conceivable that they should suffer any interruption of their joy, although that joy may be susceptible of increase. Yet to them, the whole extent of the grand calamity that has befallen the human race, is distinctly visible; and their not being implicated in that calamity, supplies no reason that they should feel less benevolently than mortals towards the victims of moral destruction. There must, then, be a holy sensibility, that is perfectly consistent with an undisturbed stillness and serenity of mind, in the prospect of surrounding calamities; and this sensibility would seem to be of a kind wholly different from that which consists in a susceptibility of pleasing or painful emotions. It is but natural and inevitable that small things affecting ourselves, should produce a more vivid impression than great things relating to others. The evil and the crime consist in excluding from our attention and feelings altogether, those great things, respecting which to feel adequately were impossible, and only to feel were unavailing.

There can, however, be no question that the prevailing insensibility, with regard to the moral circumstances in which the greater part of our fellow creatures are involved, has its origin in a supine selfishness, or a heart-withering scepticism. Is it possible,' inquires Mr. Foster, to conceive that beings put in one place, so near together, so much alike, and under such a

complication of connexions and dependencies, can yet really be so insulated, as that some of them may, without any thing wrong in feeling, behold, with unmoved composure, innumerable companies of the rest in such a condition, that it had been better for them not to have existed?' To such a condition a vast multititude, he remarks, have been consigned by "the lack of know"ledge;" and that this has been the especial cause, he then proceeds to illustrate by a series of observations descriptive of the wretchedness inseparable from prevailing ignorance in the people. The Jews are first cited, as furnishing a most melancholy instance of the denounced effects of their inexcusable igno

rance.

The prophets had their exalted privilege of dwelling amidst the illuminations of heaven, effectually countervailed by the daily spectacle of the grossest manifestations and mischiefs of ignorance, among the very people for whose instruction they were under the prophetic vocation. One of the most striking of the characteristics by which their writings so forcibly seize the imagination, is that strange fluctuating visionary light and gloom, caused by the continual intermingling and contrast of the emanations from the Spirit of infinite wisdom, with the disclosures from the dark debased souls of the people. We are tempted to pronounce that nation not only the most perverse, but the most unintelligent and stupid of all human tribes. The revealed law of God in the midst of them; the prophets and other organs and modes of oracular communication; religious ordinances and emblems; facts, made and expressly intended to embody truths, in long and various series; the whole system of their super-human government, constituted as a school-all these were ineffectual to create so much just thought in their minds, as to save them from the vainest and the vilest fancies, delusions, and superstitions.

'But, indeed, this very circumstance, that knowledge shone on them from Him that knows all things, may, in part, account for a stupidity that appears so peculiar and marvellous. The nature of man is in such a moral condition, that any thing is the less acceptable for coming directly from God; it being quite consistent, that the state of mind which is declared to be "enmity against him," should have a dislike to his coming so near, as to impart his communications as it were, by his immediate act, and bearing on them the fresh and sacred impression of his hand. The supplies for man's temporal being are conveyed to him through an extended medium, through a long process of nature and art, which seems to place the great first Cause at a commodious distance; and those gifts are, on that account, more welcome, on the whole, than if they were sent like the manna. The manna itself would not, probably, have been so soon loathed, had it been produced in what we call the regular course of nature. And with respect to the intellectual communications which were given to constitute the light of knowledge in their souls, there can, on the same principle, be no doubt that they would more willingly have opened their minds to receive them, and exercised their faculties upon them, if they could have appeared as something originating in human wisdom, or at least

as something which had been long surrendered by the Divine Revealer, to maintain itself in the world on much the same terms as the doctrines worked out from mere human speculation. But truth declared to them, and inculcated on them, through a continual immediate manifestation of the Sovereign Intelligence, had a glow of Divinity (if we may so express it) that was unspeakably offensive to their minds, which therefore receded with instinctive avoidance. They were averse to look toward that which they could not see without seeing God; and thus they were hardened in ignorance, through a re-action of human depravity against the too luminous approach of the Divine presence to give them wisdom.'

6

The absence of knowledge is likely, remarks Mr. Foster, to be something worse than simple ignorance: false notions, crude indeed and incoherent, will nevertheless acquire consistency enough to spread to all the points left unoccupied with truth. It is,' he adds, frightful to see what a space in an ignorant mind, one 'false notion can fill, so as to be virtually the reverse of a great number of distinct truths that are wanting there.' And not only is the absence of right apprehensions practically equivalent to wrong ones, but that small portion of knowledge which an 'ignorant people might really possess, could be of very little ' avail.'

For one thing, from its being most confined in its compass, and scanty in its particulars, there would be a vast number of things and occasions by which it would not, (as bearing no direct relation to them,) be called into exercise, and in which, therefore, the bad activities generated from ignorance would be left to have their unrestrained play. For another thing, a few notions conformable to truth cannot, in understandings left mainly in ignorance, and so given up, as we have seen, to error, maintain the clearness and power of truth for application even to the very things to which those notions are applicable. A mind holding but a little of truth will, commonly, hold that little with both a feeble apprehension, and a great liability to have it perverted to subserve the errors that occupy that same mind. The conjunction of truths is of the utmost importance for preserving the genuine tendency, and securing the efficacy, of each. It is an unhappy lack of knowledge" when there is not enough to preserve, to what there is of it, the honest beneficial quality of knowledge. How many of the follies, excesses, and crimes, in the course of the world, have taken their pretended warrant from some fragment of truth, dissevered from the connexion of truths indispensable to its right operation, and in that detached state easily perverted into coalescence with the most noxious principles, which concealed and gave effect to their malignity by the advantage of this combination.

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There was no want of exemplifications of all we have said of ignorance, in the conduct of that ancient people at present in our view. Doubtless an awful share of the iniquities which, by their necessary tendency and by the divine vindictive appointment, brought plagues and destruction upon them, were committed in violation of

what they knew. But that also it was in part from the non-admission into their minds, of the information which pressed almost in a palpable form on their very senses, that they were betrayed into crimes and consequent miseries, is evident equally from the language of the prophets, and from the surprise which they sometimes seem to have felt on finding themselves involved in retributive suffering. How could such things as these, (they have seemed to say of their conduct, with sincere unknowing amazement,) bring on us such inflictions? It seemed as if they had never so much as dreamed of such a consequence; and their monitors had to represent to them, that it had been through their own stupid inattention to divine dictates and warnings, if they did not know that such proceedings would have such a termination.

How one portion of knowledge admitted, with the exclusion of other truths equally indispensable to be known, may not only be quite unavailing, but be perverted to coincide with destructive error, is dreadfully illustrated in the final catastrophe of that favoured guilty nation. They were in possession of the one important point of knowledge, that a Messiah was to come. They held this assurance not slightly, but with strong conviction, and as a matter of the greatest interest. But then, that this knowledge might have its appropriate and happy effect, it was indispensable for them to know also the character of this Messiah, and the real nature of his great design. This they did not, because they would not, learn, and were absolutely ignorant of. Literally the whole people, with an exception awfully diminutive, had failed, or rather refused, to admit, as to that part of the subject, the inspired declarations. Now comes the fatal consequence of knowing only one thing of several that require to be inseparable in knowledge. They formed to themselves a false idea of the Messiah, according to their own vain and worldly imaginations. They extended the full assurance which they justly entertained of his coming, to this false notion of what he was to be and to accomplish when he should come. From this it was natural and inevitable that when the true Messiah should come they would not recognise him, and that their hostility would be excited against a person who, while evidently the reverse of all their favourite and confident ideas of that glorious character, demanded to be acknowledged as realizing the declarations of heaven concerning it. And thus they were placed in an incomparably worse situation for receiving him when he did appear, than if they had had no knowledge at all that a Messiah was to come. For on that supposition they might have received him as a most striking moral phenomenon, with curiosity, and wonder, and as little prejudice as it is possible in any case for depravity and ignorance to feel toward sanctity and wisdom. But this delusive preoccupation of their minds formed a direct grand cause for their rejecting Jesus Christ. And how fearful was the final consequence of this lack of knowledge!" How truly, in all senses, the people were destroyed! The violent extermination at length of multitudes of them from the earth, was but as the omen and commencement of a deeper perdition. And the terrible memorial is a perpetual admonition what a curse it is not to know. For He by the rejection of