Page:A moral and political lecture delivered at Bristol (IA moralpoliticalle00cole).pdf/16

 or if this prove impracticable, make them appear frightful by giving them frightful Names: For farther than Names the Vulgar enquire not. Religion and Reason are but poor Substitutes for "Church and Constitution;" and the sable-vested Instigators of the Birmingham Riots well knew, that a Syllogism could not disarm a drunken Incendiary of his Firebrand, or a demonstration helmet a Philosopher's Head against a Brickbat. But in the principles, which this Apostate has, by his emissaries, sown among a few blind zealots for Freedom, he has digged a pit into which he himself may perhaps be doomed to fall. We contemplate those principles with horror. Yet they possess a kind of wild Justice well calculated to spread them among the grosly ignorant. To uninlightened minds, there are terrible charms in the idea of Retribution, however savagely it be inculcated. The Groans of the Oppressors make fearful yet pleasant music to the ear of him, whose mind is darkness, and into whose soul the iron has entered.

This class, at present, is comparatively small—Yet soon to form an overwhelming majority, unless great and immediate efforts are used to lessen the intolerable grievances of our poorer brethren, and infuse into their sorely wounded hearts the healing qualities of knowledge. For can we wonder that men should want humanity, who want all the circumstances of life that humanize? Can we wonder that with the ignorance of Brutes they should unite their ferocity? peace and comfort be with these! But let us shudder to hear from men of dissimilar opportunities sentiments of similar re-