The author's last visit to Marion — interesting conversation on the importance of public instruction — free schools shown to be a great saving to a nation.
I often went to see Marion. Our evenings were passed as might have been expected between two old friends, who had spent their better days together in scenes of honorable enterprise and danger. On the night of the last visit I ever made him, observing that the clock was going for ten, I asked him if it were not near his hour of rest.
"Oh no," said he, "we must not talk of bed yet. It is but seldom, you know, that we meet. And as this may be our last, let us take all we can of it in chat. What do you think of the times?"
"O glorious times," said I.
"Yes, thank God!" replied he. "They are glorious times indeed; and fully equal to all that we had in hope, when we drew our swords for independence. But I am afraid they won't last long."
I asked him why he thought so.
"Oh! knowledge, sir," said he, "is wanting! knowledge is wanting! Israel of old, you know, was destroyed for lack of knowledge; and all nations, all individuals, have come to naught from the same cause."
I told him I thought we were too happy to change so soon.
"Pshaw!" replied he, "that is nothing to the purpose. Happiness signifies nothing, if it be not known, and properly valued. Satan, we are told, was once an angel of light, but for want of duly considering his glorious state, he rebelled and lost all. And how many hundreds of young Carolinians have we not known, whose fathers left them all the means of happiness; elegant estates, handsome wives, and, in short, every blessing that the most luxurious could desire? Yet they could not rest, until by drinking and gambling, they had fooled away their fortunes, parted from their wives, and rendered themselves the veriest beggars and blackguards on earth.
"Now, why was all this, but for lack of knowledge? For had those silly ones but known the evils of poverty, what a vile thing it was to wear a dirty shirt, a long beard, and ragged coat; to go without a dinner, or to sponge for it among growling relations; or to be bespattered, or run over in the streets, by the sons of those who were once their fathers' overseers; I say, had those poor boobies, in the days of their prosperity, known these things as they NOW do, would they have squandered away the precious means of independence and pleasure, and have brought themselves to all this shame and sorrow? No, never, never, never.