1818 March 28

Parl. Ref. Bill

Reasons

{III} Electors - Who

Reading Qualification

Reason

2

2

Even in the present state of the press - even under the present disadvantages /difficulties, natural and factitious /mischievously and maliciously/ together/ under which that matchless instrument of communication between mind and mind labours at present, so it is that in so far as perusal without permanent possession suffices scarcely can that individual how indigent so ever be found but that in /to/ a considerable degree, by the kindness of friendly [...?] minds of /on/ his own level the means of forming to a degree of sensation little short of adequate are or might be if they are not already placed within his reach.

But a sorry state of things, be it what it may, in which any such plan of reform as the present is in other respects should /shall/ have obtained establishment, these means could not fail to be brought within the reach of all hands whatsoever not excepting the most indigent those whose misfortune it is at the very time to be struggling /labouring/ under the pressure of the extremest /most pressing/ indigence. In the eyes of the religionist no hand that has an eye belonging to it / that can read/ is too mean to receive to receive, and with the book itself the hope of profiting by it - the Bible. But, for /to/ the purpose of instructing a man in that which in respect of the management of the temporal part of stable[?] affairs at this present time is his interest strange indeed it were if books could not now be written such as /the number of which/ shall be at least as near to the level of ordinary conceptions, as the matter of that second volume at ever so extensive /copious/, and so replete with mysteries no less abstruse and recondite[?] than awful and tremendous /formidable/.

[Marginal note:]  there indicate the topics?

In relation to every branch of government without exception {the hand /person/ by which this present work is penned} /a man might at that time of day/ well even with the fullness of assurance venture to undertake for the rendering /conveying/ to every man or reader[?] a conception of what will be most conducive to his share in the universal interest a conception more nearly approximating to an adequate one than any conception which the same man can reasonably be expected to frame to himself in relation to his everlasting interest from the book of Revelations and the Epistles of Saint Paul put together, whether naked text alone, or text and comments of all sorts be taken into the account.