Page:The Moral and Religious Bearings of the Corn Law.djvu/19

19 to work for their own support and that of the family. The dearness of provisions and lowness of wages lead to a most pernicious engagement of children in bodily labour at an age which utterly prevents any proper education of their minds. Instead of being sent to school they are sent to the factory; they are labouring when they should be learning; and thus mind and body receive an injury which can never be destroyed.

The effect which poverty directly exerts on morals is bad. If it prevents the filling of the mind with right principles, it supplies temptations which, in their absence, are of the most dangerous kind. The straits and degradation which it occasions are unfavourable to the purity, and refinement, and generosity, and integrity of our nature. Doubtless many will plunder rather than perish. Agur prayed not to be "poor," lest he should "steal;" and it is written, "Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry." It is wrong to steal, without question; but it is too much to suppose that in all cases virtue will be strong enough to refuse so loud a call as starvation. But in other and not less evil ways must the present state of things operate. Multitudes have nothing to do, and idleness is the great nourisher of all iniquity. There is danger of the spirits of men being broken. Self-respect is seriously affected by the necessity of appearing in the world otherwise than as a man likes, or of not appearing at all; of occupying a position beneath his wont and his worth; and of receiving that as a gift which he should possess as a light; and what good and generous passion can grow and thrive in the absence of self-respect? The misery and woe of home prompts to the pursuit of relief and excitement abroad; and the gay and light assembly, the oblivion of drink, the impure and licentious association, these are but too likely to attract those whose wretched dwellings furnish only for the eye cheerless desolation and squalid forms, and for the ear the sigh and bitter plaint of hunger. The heart is closed by