SECTION VII.
CONDITION OF THE POOR NOT HAPPY.
Authors and preachers frequently inculcate to the poor, in their writings and sermons, contentment and submission to the dispensations of Providence—such they pretend their hardships and depressed state to be; thus attributing the works of man to the beneficent Creator. They assert that the measure of happiness is much the same in all conditions, and nearly equal. Not to mention that such doctrine as this would suit every kind of oppression and tyranny, I believe it contrary to fact, and that from considerations drawn from the constitution of the human frame.[1] I shall say nothing as to the destitute condition of their minds, which must deprive them of every consolation from thence. The sensations and feelings of their bodies must subject them to correspondent ones of the mind, and rob them of such satisfaction as it is asserted they do enjoy.
- ↑ An old author says—Οὐδὲν πενίας βαρύτερόν ἐστιν φορτίον.
and then to punish them for crimes which originated from bad habits, has the appearance of a cruelty not less severe than any which is exercised under the most despotic government.—Treatise on Police, &c., by P. Colquhoun, LL.D.
