MORAL STATE OF CIVILIZED NATIONS. 



151 



practices, among creatures originally formed 

 after the divine image, if they were not so com 

 mon, would be viewed by every one in svhose 

 breast the least spark of virtue resides, with feel 

 ings of indignation and horror. 



The great body of our youth, habituated to 

 such dispositions and practices, after having left 

 school at the age of fourteen or fifteen a period 

 when head-strong passions and vicious propen 

 sities begin to operate with still greater violence 

 have access to no other seminaries, in which 

 their lawless passions may be counteracted and 

 controlled, and in which they may be carried for 

 ward in the path of moral and intellectual im 

 provement. Throughout the whole of the civi 

 lized world, I am not aware that there exist any 

 regular institutions exclusively appropriated for 

 the instruction of young persons, from the age of 

 fifteen to the age of twenty-five or upwards, on 

 moral, religious, and scientific subjects ; in order 

 to expand their intellectual capacities, and to di 

 rect their moral powers in the path of universal 

 benevolence. Yet, without such institutions, all 

 the knowledge and instructions they may have 

 previously acquired, in the great majority of in 

 stances, are rendered almost useless and ineffi 

 cient for promoting the great end of their exist 

 ence. From the age of fifteen to the age of 

 twenty-five, is the most important period of hu- 

 ma.ilife ; and, for want of proper instruction and 

 direction, during this period, and of rational ob 

 jects to employ the attention at leisure hours, 

 many a hopeful young man has been left to glide 

 insensibly into the mire of vice and corruption, 



that country, and to the superintendents of its public 

 seminaries. That pugilistic contests between grown 

 up savages in a civilized shape, should be publicly 

 advertised, and described in our newspapers, and 

 the arena of such contests resortea to by so many 

 thousands of the middling and higher classes of 

 society, is a striking proof that the spirit of folly and 

 of malignity still prevails to a great extent, and that 

 the spirit of Christianity has made little progress, 

 even within the limits of the British empire. The 

 following late occurrence shows the fatal effects with 

 which such practices are sometimes attended. &quot; On 

 Monday, February 48, is-25, two of the scholars at 

 Eton, the Hon. F. A. Cooper, the son of the Earl of 

 Shiflcsbury, and Mr. Wood, the son of Colonel 

 Wood, arid nephew to the Marquis of Londonderry, 

 in consequence of a very warm altercation on the 

 play-ground, on the preceding day, met, for the pur 

 pose of settling the unhappy quarrel by a pugilistia 

 encounter a prevalent practice at Eton and all our 

 public scMols. Almost the whole school assembled 

 to witness the spectacle The inexperienced youth 

 commenced fighting at four o clock, and partly by 

 their o .vn energy, and partly by the criminal excite 

 ment of others, continued the fatal contest till with 

 in a little of six, when, mournful to relate, the Earl 

 of Shaftesbury s son fell very heavily upon his head, 

 ami never spoke afterwards. He was carried off to 

 his lodgings, where he expired in a few hours On 

 the coroner s inquest it came out, that brandy had 

 been administered very freely, and that no decisive 

 effort had been made to discontinue a contest pro- 

 .onged beyond all due limits. About forty years a^o 

 a similar cause led to a similar result at the same 

 establishment. The survivor is a clergyman of 

 great respectability.&quot; See the Public Prints for Feb 

 and Evan. Mag. fur April, 1325. 



and to become a pest to his friends, and to general 

 society. Our streets and highways are infested, 

 and our jails and bridewells filled with young per 

 sons of this age, who, by means of rational and 

 religious training, might have been rendered a 

 comfort to their friends, blessings to society, and 

 ornaments of the Christian Church. 



It would be inconsistent with the limited plan 

 of this work, to attempt to trace the principle of 

 malignity through all the scenes of social, com 

 mercial, and domestic life. Were I to enter 

 into details of filial impiety, ingratitude, and re 

 bellion of faithless friendships of the aliena 

 tions of affection, and of the unnatural conten 

 tions between brothers and sisters of the abo 

 minable selfishness which appears in the general 

 conduct and transactions of mankind of the bit 

 terness, the fraud, and the perjury, with which 

 law-suits are commenced and prosecuted of the 

 hatred, malice, and resentment, manifested for 

 injuries real or supposed of the frauds daily 

 committed in every department of the commer 

 cial world of the shufflings and base deceptions 

 which are practised in cases of bankruptcy of 

 the slanders, the caballing, and the falsehood, 

 which attend electioneering contests of the 

 envy, malice, and resentment displayed between 

 competitors for office and power of the haugh 

 tiness and insolence displayed by petty tyrants 

 both in church and state of the selfishness and 

 injustice of corporate bodies, and the little regard 

 they show for the interests of those M&quot;*io are op 

 pressed, and deprived of their rewards of the 

 gluttony, drunkenness, and prodigality, which so 

 generally prevail of the brawlings, fightings, 

 and contentions, which are daily presented to the 

 view in taverns, ale-houses, and dram-shops, 

 and the low slang and vulgar abuse with which 

 such scenes are intermingled of the seductions 

 accomplished by insidious artfulness and outra 

 geous perjury of the multiplied falsehoods ol 

 all descriptions which are uttered in courts, in 

 camps, and in private dwellings of the unblush 

 ing lies of public newspapers, and the perjuries 

 of office of the systematic frauds arid robberies 

 by which a large portion of the community are 

 cheated out of their property and their rights 

 of the pride, haughtiness, and oppression of the 

 rich, and of the malice, envy, and discontentment 

 of the poor such pictures of malignity might 

 be presented to the view, as would fill the mind 

 of the reader with astonishment and horror, and 

 which would require a series of volumes to re 

 cord the revolting details. 



There is one very general characteristic ot 

 civilized, and even of Christian society, that 

 bears the stamp of malignity, which may parti 

 cularly be noticed ; and that is, the pleasure with 

 which men expatiate on the faults and delin 

 quencies of their neighbours, and the eagerness 

 with which they circulate scandalous reports 

 through every portion of the community. Almost 



