Then follow me,' the old monk said, "The monk then strode across the heath The miller followed too; Till they came to a green hill-side, The monk bade ope that iron gate, I love those tales of ancientry, Those tales to fancy true! "Then to the miller, turning round, now, Has been well tried in fight; By Merlin's power they here are laid, I love those tales of ancientry, "When England's troubles painful And foemen cause her grief, Then Arthur and these noble knights "The monk passed through that And then with deeds of chivalry iron gate The miller passed likewise; All England will resound; And none so worthy as these knights They scarce were through when closed Will in the land be found! it was, With a loud and fearful noise; And they were there within that hill, And much the miller was amazed "And first the monk the took To a cavern large and wide, For they are England's Paladins, "Then onwards to another cave And by each horse a serving man ;- miller To see that band of gallant steeds, In which lay twice ten thousand men And they were cas'd in armour all, And each man's faulchion near him lay, Quite ready for the fight. And when the miller's horse came He fell and slumber'd too"— "That horse is mine!' the old man A shield and lance, too, each man had; A noble price I'll pay : Ten thousand twice in view"- "And as the monk pass'd slowly on It is not time!-it is not time!' I love those tales of ancientry, VOL. XLV. NO. CCLXXX, Thou see'st he's mine, for now thou canst Not move him hence away ! He'll good King Arthur's war-steed And bear him bravely forth, I love those tales of ancientry, "Then forth that old monk led the way To a cave of smaller size; But who can tell the sight that met As though too mean for them! I love those tales of ancientry, "And it was said that ancient monk "And there the miller saw huge And, certes, he look'd grave, heaps Of gold in coin and ore: The monk he bade the miller take, Take what thou wilt-take what thou I stint thee not,' said he : The miller thought of his tolling dish, I love those tales of ancientry, "The monk then led him forth the To the open heath again; And once thy back is tow'rds it Thou'lt see it there no more! In peace pass on-thy way lies there— I love those tales of ancientry, "The miller look'd-the monk was And he stood there alone! The miller lived a prosp'rous man, When ask'd what things the monk reveal'd, Or what reward he gave. But years, long years, have pass'd and Since he gave death his due"- "And since his day full many a man Has sought that iron gate; But still the gate is kept from view, But no man knows when that will be- I love those tales of ancientry, Such was a tale my grandame told, For oft what has beguiled the child SECULAR AND RELIGIOUS EDUCATION. WE understand that it is the intention of Government, in the ensuing session of Parliament, to introduce a general system of education detached from religious instruction. Such a project, in the estimation of the Liberal party, has many circumstances to recommend it. It professes to effect a great reformation in the social state of the people, without allying itself to any political party; to promote the best interests of the poor, by raising their moral character and improving their intellectual powers; and to lay the only true foundation for the security and the advancement of society, by elevating at once, and in the same proportion, all the classes in the state. These views have long been entertained by the majority of the philanthropic and highly-educated classes in the empire; and this is perhaps the only subject on which Whigs and Tories have for long been unanimous in their opinions. It is hard to say whether the schools in connexion with the Church, which are supported by the Conservatives, have been most the objects of enthusiastic and philanthropic exertion, or the mechanics' institutes, and Lancasterian schools, and other establishments, which profess to give the means of instruction only, without inculcating the doctrines of any church whatever. While we rejoice to know that there is much benevolence on all sides in this great experiment, and that the great bulk of the supporters of both the se cular and religious systems of education have been actuated by pure and philanthropic motives, yet it has now become apparent that a sinister object has been in view throughout, with many of the leaders of the "Agitation," and that it is not so much as an instrument of social amelioration, than as an engine of political power, that intellectual education has been so earnestly pressed upon all classes of the people. It was early foreseen by them that a people educated on their principles would be much more difficult to manage than an uneducated one; and that, when once the "masses" were devoted to newspapers and political discussions, a very large share would soon be imperiously demanded by them in the direct control of the legislature." On the other hand, the Conservative party have discovered, that, in lending their support to this outcry for intellectual education and univer sal instruction, apart from moral discipline or religious tuition, they have put a dangerous weapon into the hands of the Destructives. While the wide extension of the power of reading has opened the doors of superficial information to all, the physical impossibility, on the part of the great majority of the working classes, of making themselves masters of any subject except that in which they are actually engaged, has increased an unparalleled amount of prejudice and misinformation. What the effects of such a state of things must be upon a people undergoing the crisis of a social change, and recently exposed to the whole consequences of a great political revolution, might easily have been anticipated. It at once opened the door to every species of deception called a new world of social empirics and political quacks into existence and exposed the masses to sources of error, greater even than can ever spring from mere ignorance itself. So the societies in which the principles of the mere communication of the power of reading, without a sedulous attention to the habits acquired, the principles formed, and the tastes indulged, by those in whose hands the intellectual lever is placed, expose the community to the most imminent dangers. Experience has proved that the human mind, if left to itself, without religious tuition, speedily runs riot; and all the efforts of pride to emancipate itself from the restraints of religion, are evidently and palpably inducing an awful confirmation of the truths unfolded in Revelation. The Liberal party are not insensible to these dangers, although they No one saw this more clearly than Lord Brougham; and he accordingly said, ten years ago, that "the Schoolmaster was abroad, and it would soon be found that he was more than a match for the Marshal's baton." are reluctant to admit them in their full extent, and are willing to run their hazard for the sake of the immediate advantages which the power of rousing an educated, but superficial and prejudiced, people must always give to popular agitators. They rely, as an antidote to all such evils, on the influence of intellectual cultivation. They profess to think, that mechanics' institutes, labourers' societies, and weekly reading rooms, will come to supersede entirely the ale-house and the gin-vault; that cotton-spinners, after twelve hours incessant toil in heated rooms, will no longer think of whisky or porter, but of Euclid or astronomy; that colliers, emerging from the scene of their subterraneous toil, instead of repairing to the alehouse or spirit-shop, would hasten to the reading-rooms and begin " to read Bacon;" and that the mechanic, worn out with the attention which his skilled labour requires, will find a delightful recreation in the study of the works of the "lights of the world and demigods of yore." Intellectual pursuits are no antidote, with the great mass of the people, either to dangerous political associa tion or sensual and degrading individual habits. Read the evidence given before the Combination Committee of the House of Commons last session of Parliament, where it is proved, by the agent for the Glasgow Cotton-spinners' Association, that SIXTY of that body who were engaged in the wicked conspiracy which formed the subject of the celebrated trial at Edinburgh last year, were members of mechanics' institutes at Glasgow, and that two of the committee who were convicted, and are now suffering the punishment of transportation, had received or given prizes in that institution. Rightly judging that the only power which was capable of contending with the antagonist forces of sin was religious faith, and that no good, but great evil, would follow the multiplication of schools without churches, wiser philanthropists have made the most strenuous exertions to multiply places of worship in all parts of the island. The important truth has now been generally perceived that, during twenty years' excitement of war, and twenty more of delusive security of peace, the population of the empire had so far outgrown the means of religious in struction, as to have nursed up in the bosom of the state a race of men, strangers to the religion, the principles, and the practices of their fathers. It is upon them that the forces of Christian philanthropy are now assiduously directed. M. Coussins, to whom the cause of education owes so much, has said, "that instruction, if not based on religious tuition, is worse than useless ;" and every day's experience is adding additional confirmation to the eternal truth. The Almighty has decreed that man shall not, with impunity, forget his Maker, and that no amount of intellectual cultivation-no degree of skill in the mechanical arts-not all the splendours of riches or the triumphs of civilisation, shall compensate for the want or neglect of this fundamental condition of human happiness. The proofs of this great truth are overwhelming, universal; they crowd in from all quarters, and the only difficulty is to select from the mass of important evidence that which bears most materially upon the question at issue. Is is to no purpose to refer to the case of despotic states in which a great degree of general instruction prevails, and no social or political evils have yet been found to arise from its extension. It may be perfectly true that in Prussia, one in ten, and in Austria, one in twelve, are at the schools of primary instruction, and, nevertheless, that neither of these countries has been disturbed by political convulsions, or exhibited any alarming increase of social depravity. The real difficulty emerges for the first time, when an uncontrolled press, liberal institutions, and a redundant population co-exist with a generally educated people. It is then that the antagonist powers of good and evil, which are ever at work in humanity, are really brought into collision, and the experiment is made whether the human mind, gifted with the power of knowledge and left to itself, would take the right or the wrong direction. From the earliest times, the experiment had been made upon the widest scale, of the influence of education upon a certain portion of society, without its ever having been found capable either of arresting the progress of national degradation or stopping the corruptions of the very classes among whom it prevailed. The higher classes among the Greeks and Romans were not only well, but highly educated; the higher orders corrupted the lower; and long before the ignorant masses were contaminated, corruption, sensuality, and every species of profligacy had utterly poisoned all the sources of public welfare in the higher classes of society. The same fact is exemplified in every page of European history. With whom did the corruptions, which brought about the French Revolution, originate? Was it among the millions of ignorant, laborious men who toiled in humble life, not one in fifty of whom could read; or among the thousands of the privileged class, who were all highly educated, refined, and cultivated? No person will say that their education was based upon religion; for they were, probably, the most infidel generation that ever existed upon the face of the carth, and we have seen to what their intellectual cultivation led. If any person would wish to know to what, in a highly civilized and opulent community, the general extension of simply intellectual cultivation will lead, he has only to look at the books found at Pompeii, ninety-nine hundreds of which relate exclusively to subjects of gastronomy or obscenity; or to the present novels and dramatic literature of France, in which all the efforts of genius and all the powers of fancy are employed only to heighten the desires, prolong the excitement, and throw a romantic cover over the gratification of the senses. But these, say the advocates of secular education, are its effects among the great and the affluent-among those whom ambition has misled, opulence enervated, and idleness corrupted. No such result need be apprehended, say they, from the extension of knowledge to the masses of mankind, who are doomed by necessity to a life of labour, and equally removed from the dangers of idleness, the dazzling of ambition, or the seduction of wealth. Experience, however, the great test of truth, here again steps in, and tells us in language which cannot be misunderstood, that human nature in all ranks is the same; that knowledge is power to all, but wisdom only to those who use it rightly; and that, so far from mere secular education being an antidote to evil, or a preservative against the progress of social corruption, it has the greatest possible tendency to increase both, if not restrained by the force of moral precept, and sanctified by the simultaneous spread of religious instruction. Scotland is the great example to which the advocates of secular education constantly pointed, as illustrating the effect of intellectual culti vation upon the character of mankind; and boundless have been the eulogiums pronounced upon the moral virtues, steady character, and provident habits of that most intellectual portion of the European population. Doubtless, as long as Scotland was an agricultural pastoral country, and education was based upon religion-when the schoolhouse stood beside the church, and both trained up the same population who afterwards were to repose in the neighbouring churchyard, Scotland was a virtuous country, and its population deservedly stood high in the scale of European morality. But since manufactures have overspread its great towns, and a population has grown up in certain places-educated, indeed, but without the means of religious instruction, and almost totally destitute of religious principle-the character of the nation, in this respect, has entirely changed; and it is a melancholy fact, that the progress of crime has been more rapid in that part of the British dominions, during the last thirty years, than in any other state in Europe. It appears from the evidence laid before the Combination Committee, last Session of Parliament, that the progress of felonies and serious crimes in Glasgow, during the last sixteen years, has been, beyond all precedent, alarming, the population having, during that period, advanced about seventy per cent, while serious crime has increased SIX HUNDRED per cent. Crime over the whole country is advancing at a very rapid rate, and far beyond the increase of the population. In England, the committals which, in 1813, were 7164, had risen in 1836 to 20,984, and, in 1837, to 23,612-that is to say, they had tripled in twentyfour years. This advance will probably be considered by most persons as sufficiently alarming in the neighbouring kingdom, but it is small compared to the progress made by Scotland during the same period, where serious crimes have advanced from 89, in 1813, to 2,922; in 1836, and in 1837, 3126; being an increase, in |