Section II.

Brief review of the ignorance prevailing through the ages subsequent to
those of ancient history.--State of the popular mind in Christendom
during the complete reign of Popery.--Supposed reflections of a
Protestant in one of our ancient splendid structures for ecclesiastical
use.--Slow progress of the Reformation, in its effects on the
understandings of the people.--Their barbarous ignorance even in the
time of Elizabeth, notwithstanding the intellectual and literary glories
of this country in that period.--Sunk in ignorance still in what has
often been called our Augustan age.--Strange insensibility of the
cultivated part of the nation with regard to the mental and moral
condition of the rest.--Almost heathen ignorance of religion at the time
when Whitefield and Wesley began to excite the attention of the
multitude to that subject.--Signs and means of a change for the better
in recent times.


Section III.

Great ignorance and debasement still manifest in various features of the
popular character.--Entire want, in early life, of any idea of a general
and comprehensive purpose to be pursued--Gratification of the senses
the chief good.--Cruelty a subsidiary resource.--Disposition to cruelty
displayed and confirmed by common practices.--Confirmed especially by
the manner of slaughtering animals destined for food.--Displayed in the
abuse of the laboring animals.--General characteristic of the people an
indistinct and faint sense of right and wrong.--Various