Page:Dr Stiggins, His Views and Principles.pdf/59

 technique of coining or of forgery, and I have yet to learn that the Newgate Calendar is an indispensable volume in our Sunday School Libraries. Then why should we insist on these little vessels being defiled with tales which are even more flagitious and disgraceful to our common humanity? Why should books be placed within reach of the young which can only minister poison? Why should their minds, at the most impressionable age, be forced to batten on such horrors as Crécy, Poitiers, Agincourt, Trafalgar and Waterloo, on the (probably imaginary) achievements of the Black Prince and the Duke of Wellington? Why should we stain their imaginations with accounts of the landing of Augustine and his gang of idolatrous monks? You talk of the love of country; we know only too well what a chapter of iniquities that phrase covers, and for my part I heartily wish that the phrase and all that it implies could be forgotten. It may be necessary, as I say, that, later on, they should acquire some knowledge of these things; some wise and tender friend,