disorders. An instructed and intelligent people,
besides, are always more decent and orderly
than an ignorant and stupid one. They
feel themselves, each individually, more respectable,
and more likely to obtain the respect
of their lawful superiors, and they are,
therefore, more disposed to respect those superiors.
They are more disposed to examine,
and more capable of seeing through, the interested
complaints of faction and sedition;
and they are, upon that account, less apt to
be misled into any wanton or unnecessary opposition
to the measures of government. In
free countries, where the safety of government
depends very much upon the favourable
judgment which the people may form
of its conduct, it must surely be of the highest
importance, that they should not be disposed
to judge rashly or capriciously concerning it.
ART. III.—Of the Expense of the Institutions
for the Instruction of People of all Ages.
The institutions for the instruction of people
of all ages, are chiefly those for religious
instruction. This is a species of instruction,
which the object is not so much to render
the people good citizens in this world, as to
prepare them for another and a better world
in the life to come. The teachers of the
doctrine which contains this instruction, in
the same manner as other teachers, may either
depend altogether for their subsistence upon
the voluntary contributions of their hearers;
or they may derive it from some other fund,
to which the law of their country may entitle
them; such as a landed estate, a tythe or
land tax, an established salary or stipend.
Their exertion, their zeal and industry, are
likely to be much greater in the former situation
than in the latter. In this respect, the
teachers of a new religion have always had a
considerable advantage in attacking these ancient
and established systems, of which the
clergy, reposing themselves upon their benefices,
had neglected to keep up the fervour of
faith and devotion in the great body of the
people; and having given themselves up to
indolence, were become altogether incapable
of making any vigorous exertion in defence
even of their own establishment. The clergy
of an established and well endowed religion
frequently become men of learning and elegance,
who possess all the virtues of gentlemen,
or which can recommend them to the
esteem of gentlemen; but they are apt gradually
to lose the qualities, both good and
bad, which gave them authority and influence
with the inferior ranks of people, and which
had perhaps been the original causes of the
success and establishment of their religion.
Such a clergy, when attacked by a set of popular
and bold, though perhaps stupid and
ignorant enthusiasts, feel themselves as perfectly
defenceless as the indolent, effeminate, and
full fed nations of the southern parts of Asia,
when they were invaded by the active, hardy,
and hungry Tartars of the north. Such a
clergy, upon such an emergency, have commonly
no other resource than to call upon the
civil magistrate to persecute, destroy, or
drive out their adversaries, as disturbers of
the public peace. It was thus that the Roman
catholic clergy called upon the civil
magistrate to persecute the protestants, and
the church of England to persecute the dissenters;
and that in general every religious
sect, when it has once enjoyed, for a century
or two, the security of a legal establishment,
has found itself incapable of making any
vigorous defence against any new sect which
chose to attack its doctrine or discipline.
Upon such occasions, the advantage, in point
of learning and good writing, may sometimes
be on the side of the established church.
But the arts of popularity, all the arts of
gaining proselytes, are constantly on the side
of its adversaries. In England, those arts
have been long neglected by the well endowed
clergy of the established church, and are
at present chiefly cultivated by the dissenters
and by the methodists. The independent
provisions, however, which in many places
have been made for dissenting teachers, by
means of voluntary subscriptions, of trust
rights, and other evasions of the law, seem
very much to have abated the zeal and activity
of those teachers. They have many of
them become very learned, ingenious, and
respectable men; but they have in general
ceased to be very popular preachers. The
methodists, without half the learning of the
dissenters, are much more in vogue.
In the church of Rome the industry and
zeal of the inferior clergy are kept more alive
by the powerful motive of self-interest, than
perhaps in any established protestant church.
The parochial clergy derive many of them, a
very considerable part of their subsistence
from the voluntary oblations of the people;
a source of revenue, which confession gives
them many opportunities of improving. The
mendicant orders derive their whole subsistence
from such oblations. It is with them
as with the hussars and light infantry of some
armies; no plunder, no pay. The parochial
clergy are like those teachers whose reward
depends partly upon their salary, and partly
upon the fees or honoraries which they get
from their pupils; and these must always depend,
more or less, upon their industry and
reputation. The mendicant orders are like
those teachers whose subsistence depends
altogether upon their industry. They are
obliged, therefore, to use every art which can
animate the devotion of the common people.
The establishment of the two great mendicant
orders of St. Dominic and St. Francis, it is