These schools are supported by a district tax, which falls upon the property of persons well able to pay it; but avarice and bigotry are already at work, to endeavour to deprive the young of his new-found blessing. Persons grumble at having to pay this additional tax. They say, "If poor people want their children taught, let them pay for it: their instruction has no right to be forced from our earnings."
What a narrow prejudice is this--what miserable, short-sighted policy! The education of these neglected children, by making them better citizens, will in the long run prove a great protection both to life and property.
Then the priests of different persuasions lift up their voices because no particular creed is allowed to be taught in the seminaries, and exclaim--"The children will be infidels. These schools are godless and immoral in the extreme." Yes; children will be taught to love each other without any such paltry distinctions as party and creed. The rich and the poor will meet together to learn the sweet courtesies of a common humanity, and prejudice and avarice and bigotry cannot bear that.
There is a spirit abroad in the world--and an evil spirit it is--which through all ages has instigated the rich to look down with contemptuous feelings of superiority on the humble occupations and inferior circumstances of the poor. Now, that this spirit is diametrically opposed to the benevolent precepts of Christianity, the fact of our blessed Lord performing his painful mission on earth in no higher capacity than that of a working mechanic, ought sufficiently to show. What divine benevolence--what god-like humility was displayed in this heroic act! Of all the wonderful events in his wonderful history, is there one more astonishing than this--
"That Heaven's high Majesty his court should keep
In a clay cottage, by each blast controll'd,--
That Glory's self should serve our hopes and fears,
And free Eternity submit to years?"
What a noble triumph was this, over the cruel and unjust prejudices of mankind! It might truly be termed the divine philosophy of virtue. This condescension on the part of the great Creator of the universe, ought to have been sufficient to have rendered labour honourable in the minds of his followers; and we still indulge the hope, that the moral and intellectual improvement of mankind will one day restore labour to her proper pedestal in the temple of virtue.
The chosen disciples of our Great Master--those to whom he entrusted the precious code of moral laws that was destined to overthrow the kingdom of Satan, and reform a degraded world--were poor uneducated men. The most brilliant gems are often enclosed in the rudest incrustations; and He who formed the bodies and souls of men, well knew that the most powerful intellects are often concealed amidst the darkness and rubbish of uneducated minds. Such minds, enlightened and purified by his wonder-working Spirit, He sent forth to publish his message of glad tidings through the earth.