sect. FIT* THE COUNTY OF FIFE. 329 



lers, house-keepers, and principal farm-servants 

 be, if they could neither read nor write ? Even 

 common labourers, and common servants, in this 

 country, would often find a total ignorance 'of 

 letters a great disadvantge. And is society at 

 large to be deprived of a priyiledgc which the 

 great body of the people find so necessary in 

 the common transactions of life, merely to ob- 

 viate an ideal objection, which, had it any force, 

 can apply only to the lowest and least numerous 

 class ? 



Again, let ine ask, is not Christianity the 

 established religion of this country ? Is it not 

 the gift of Heaven to the poor as well as to the 

 rich ? Arc not all, the servant as well as the 

 master, the peasant as well as the peer, com- 

 manded to search the scriptures ? And can any 

 man, consistently with his character and profes- 

 sion as a Christian, propose to withhold educa- 

 tion from the lower ranks, and thereby render 

 them incapable of reading their Bibles, and other 

 books of religious and moral instruction, so ne- 

 cessary to their improvement in the knowledge 

 of their duty,' and their consolation under the 

 toils and hardships of their humble lot ? 



Permit me to ask further, whether the system 

 of those who hold the opinion in dispute, does 

 not tear from the British Constitution one of its 

 fairest ornaments, and destroy one of the strong- 

 est arguments, by which the attachment and ve- 

 neration of the people can be secured ? Talents, 

 abilities, and industry, are the chief distinctions 

 which it professes to acknoxvledge. These it 

 encourages and protects : and, possessed of these, 

 the meanest and most obscure are permitted to 

 Tf * 



