one of the most forcible speeches he ever delivered. He said:

"We believe that if you could erect a system which should present to
mankind all branches of knowledge save the one that is essential, you
would only be building up a Tower of Babel, which, when you had
completed it, would be the more signal in its fall, and which would bury
those who had raised it in its ruins. We believe that if you can take a
human being in his youth, and if you can make him an accomplished man in
natural philosophy, in mathematics, or in the knowledge necessary for
the profession of a merchant, a lawyer, or a physician; that if in any
or all of these endowments you could form his mind--yes, if you could
endow him with the science and power of a Newton, and so send him
forth--and if you had concealed from him, or, rather, had not given him
a knowledge and love of the Christian faith--he would go forth into the
world, able indeed with reference to those purposes of science,
successful with the accumulation of wealth for the multiplication of
more, but 'poor, and miserable, and blind, and naked' with reference to
everything that constitutes the true and sovereign purposes of our
existence--nay, worse, worse--with respect to the sovereign purpose--
than if he had still remained in the ignorance which we all commiserate,
and which it is the object of this institution to assist in removing."

It was admitted on all hands that great fiscal reforms had been
conceived and executed; and speaking of the session of 1842, a writer,
not favorable to the Tories, wrote: "The nation saw and felt that its
business was understood and accomplished, and the House of Commons was
no longer like a sleeper under a nightmare. The long session was a busy
one. The Queen wore a cheerful air when she thanked Parliament for their
effectual labors. The Opposition was such as could no longer impede the
operations of the next session. The condition of the country was fearful