Page:The Moral and Religious Bearings of the Corn Law.djvu/20

20 deep and desperate suffering. The finer affections of our nature may be softened and refined by certain measures of grief, but if it be too intense and lasting, they are overwhelmed. The means are not possessed of cultivating benevolence in outward exercises, the pressure of misery checks its flowings forth, and the sense of others' neglect and injustice as its chief cause tends to the restraint of generosity. A cold selfishness is thus generated in hearts which should breathe a free and noble love. Nor is it improbable that the conviction that human wickedness is a main cause of the felt distress should beget hard thoughts, and cherish dispositions of distrust, hatred, and all uncharitableness.

And if you look at religion the case is not relieved. To say nothing of the diminished power of supplying religious truth, (and "money answereth all things" here, as elsewhere,) it is not easy for men who cannot purchase food to provide the means of an attendance on the sanctuary, and it is not in their minds to pay a cool and candid attention to the claims of godliness. It is easy to sermonize on the blessings of poverty, and to congratulate the poor on their peculiar privileges, but it is mockery. The testimony of all whose experience qualifies them to bear it is, that in proportion to the keenness of want are men unfitted for the exercises of religion. It is vain to attempt spiritually to bless those who are struggling against the horrors of starvation. Poverty may no doubt be sanctified, but to the irreligious it is far more frequently a curse than a blessing. It sours and exasperates the soul. And it is further to be remembered, that the efforts of Christians will scarcely be received with the cordial gladness they deserve, when Christian legislation has caused so much of the prevailing distress. Christianity is sorely "wounded in the house" of its own professed "friends."