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stigmatised by the brand of poverty ? Gentlemen, these are 

 wanting ; but we have, instead, the gin palace, decked out in 

 meretricious ornaments, unblushingly protruding itself on the 

 public gaze ; we have the horse race and the gambling stall ; 

 the brutalities of the ring, and the annual execution at the jail. 

 " But it will be said, and unquestionably said with truth, 

 that if such libraries and galleries of art, museums and 

 lectures, exhibitions of paintings or of sculpture were, by the 

 munificence of private individuals, or by the just liberality of 

 the Corporation, provided, they would not be frequented, or 

 that, when the novelty which attended their opening had 

 passed away, they would be, comparatively speaking, deserted. 

 Now this is precisely the strongest argument in favour of the 

 views I advocate. It is not the defrauding a living taste or 

 an intellectual appetite of its appropriate nutriment that we 

 complain of; for intellectual, like bodily hunger, will soon 

 find the means of satisfying itself; it is the want of this appe- 

 tite, the absence of those desires, that is really to be regretted. 

 It has been said, Why build churches in localities where the 

 people express no desire to have them, and regret not the 

 want of them ? Why, this is, of all, the most cogent reason 

 for erecting such ; because, were they anxiously desired, 

 were there overflowing congregations ready to pour into them, 

 this very fact would show that they were then not so much 

 required ; it would go far to prove that the spirit, if not the 

 body of religion, was there present, and that they had made 

 the first step heaven-ward, conscious of their own short- 

 comings and imperfections. So, in like manner, it is not so 

 much the lack of the means of gratifying wholesome tastes 

 and rational desires that is to be lamented, as the absence in 

 the great mass of the population of that education, that 

 reasonable and religious cultivation of mind, which qualifies 

 them to take an interest and a pleasure in worthy pursuits 

 and rational enjoyment. 



