y sweat, sickness, and fever,
Education and Instruction and Religion to the young creatures who
delight him who is starving for their sakes, resting with gratitude on
that day, whose return is ever like a fresh fountain to his exhausted
and weary heart, and preserving a profound and high sense of his own
immortality among all the earth-born toils and troubles that would in
vain chain him down to the dust;--when we see all this, and think of all
this, we feel indeed how rich may be the poorest of the poor, and learn
to respect the moral being of man in its triumphs over the power of his
physical nature. But we do not learn to doubt or deny the wisdom of the
Creator. We do not learn from all these struggles, and all these
defeats, and all these victories, and all these triumphs, that God sent
us His creatures into this life to starve, because the air, the earth,
and the waters have not wherewithal to feed the mouths that gape for
food through all the elements! Nor do we learn that want is a crime, and
poverty a sin--and that they who _would_ toil, but cannot, and they who
_can_ toil, but have no work set before them, are intruders at Nature's
table, and must be driven, by those who are able to pay for their seats,
to famine, starvation, and death--almost denied a burial!--Finis. Amen.

Often has it been our lot, by our conversational powers to set the table
on a snore. The more stirring the theme, the more soporific the sound of
our silver voice. Look there, we beseech you! In a small spot of
"stationary sunshine"--lie Hamish, and Surefoot, and O'Bronte, and
Ponto, and Piro, and Basta, all sound asleep! Dogs are troubled
sleepers--but these four are now like the dreamless dead. Horses, too,
seem often to be witch-ridden in their sleep. But at this moment
Surefoot is stretched more like a stone than a shelty in the land of
Nod. As for Hamish, were he to lie so braxy-like by himself on the hill,
he would be awakened by the bill of the raven digging into his sockets.
We are Morpheus and Orpheus in one incarnation--the very Pink of
Poppy--the true spirit of Opium--of Laudanum the concentrated
Essence--of the black Drop the Gnome.

Indeed, gentlemen, you have reason to be ashamed of yourselves--but
where is the awkward squad? Clean gone. They have stolen a march on us,
and while we have been preaching they have been poaching--_sans_ mandate
of the Marquess and Monzie. We may catch them ere close of day; and, if
they have a sm