text:  He is decidedly of opinion that this tendency is to the last degree disastrous; that it is it which is the cause of the continued depression of industry degradation of character and increase of depravity and crime among the people; and that so great and alarming are these causes of evil that unless they are arrested by a change of opinion among the influential classes of society or the good providence of God they will infallibly destroy the whole fabric of European civilization as they did that of the ancient world