Non Sum Qua Us Eram. 79 



on the subject. It behoves us, therefore* as we are desirous to uphold 

 the credit and ascendancy of our churchy to put ourselves forward in the 

 work of education ; for, if we do not, the dissenters certainly will. What- 

 ever may be our private judgment as to the expediency of the general 

 measure, we must yield to unavoidable circumstances, and avail ourselves 

 of our station to preoccupy the direction of the youthful mind. Thus 

 may we hope, by zeal and watchfulness, to check the infusion into it, 

 under the mask of education, of principles subversive of religion, 

 order, &c. &c. &c." 



Now, does not, we ask, the fact of such having been the wary and 

 prudential character of conservativeness fifteen years ago, tend to support 

 the general truth, that those things which conservatives especially desire 

 to preserve are, beyond the power of human prevention, doomed and 

 destined to be taken from them ? Does not this fact help our present 

 argument, that high aristocratic pretension has well nigh numbered its 

 days within this realm of England ? That the humpty-dumpty of nobility 

 has almost lost its balance, is about to fall from the eminence on which 

 it has been squatting, while we simpletons have been gaping and gazing 

 at it in senseless admiration ? And that, on that lofty wall, 

 " Not all the king's horses and all the king's men, 

 Can set humpty-dumpty up again ?" 



We have lately witnessed striking examples of the admirable singleness 

 of purpose, and dogged determination, with which conservative energies 

 are exerted to effect their ends. Can it be supposed, that the party have 

 not, ever since the period of the instance, as above, aye, and for ages 

 before it, been watching to prevent, defeat, destroy ? Can it be supposed 

 that their lynx-eyed vigilance has ever missed an opportunity of mischief, 

 that they have ever failed in promptitude to seize on an opportunity ? 

 No, no ; they have all along been acting up to their true designation, 

 children of this world: they have beat us out and out in mere tactics, in 

 unity of design, and unbaffled resources of manoeuvre. But the elements of 

 truth have fought for us, and who shall stand against them ? By these 

 have their politics been confounded, their knavish f ricks frustrated, their 

 battle-array scattered. We deserve no credit for having defeated them. 

 If it had not been decreed that they should not prosper, their own cun- 

 ning and their own right hand would have achieved success. We have 

 always been remiss. We have never seconded the Controller of events 

 with the zeal and devotion which was due from us. We can, at the most, 

 only claim the negative merit of not having shut our hearts to the dictates 

 of an awful and inscrutable, yet beneficent Providence. We can only 

 urge for ourselves, that we have not rebelled against the fiats of that 

 benign dispensation, by which proud and luxurious classes of men are 

 being gradually brought down to a due sense of their essential insigni- 

 ficance ; through which he who runs may now read, that the ignorant, 

 abject, and needy classes are destined to be raised to comparative com- 

 petence and content. 



The more we reflect upon the unquestionable si^gacity, prudence, 

 unanimity and energetic promptitude of the conservative party, the more 

 we feel assured, that nothing short of providential necessity could have 

 reduced them to their present state of depreciation. But we know that 

 this is only the first grand shock of a series, which they must, for huma- 

 nity's sake, be made to feel. 



