4, 5, 8. And the disciples answered him, From whence
can a man satisfy these men with bread here in the wilderness? . . .
How many loaves have ye? And they said, Seven. . . . so they did
eat and were filled; and they took up of the broken meat that was
left seven baskets.

I think that I can take no better text for the subject on which I am
about to preach, than that which the Gospel for this day gives me.

For is not such a great city as this London, at least in its present
amorphous, unorganised state, having grown up, and growing still,
any how and any whither, by the accidental necessities of private
commerce, private speculation, private luxury--is it not, I say,
literally a wilderness?

I do not mean a wilderness in the sense of a place of want and
misery; on the contrary, it is a place of plenty and of comfort. I
think that we clergymen, and those good people who help our labours,
are too apt exclusively to forget London labour, in our first and
necessary attention to the London poor; to fix our eyes and minds on
London want and misery, till we almost ignore the fact of London
wealth and comfort. We must remember, if we are to be just to God,
and just to our great nation, that there is not only more wealth in
London, but that that wealth is more equitably and generally
diffused through all classes, from the highest to the lowest, than
ever has been the case in any city in the world. We must remember
that there is collected together here a greater number of free human
beings than were ever settled on the same space of earth, earning an
honest, independent, and sufficient livelihood, and enjoying the
fruits of their labour in health and cheapness, freedom and
security, such as the world never saw before. There is want and
misery. I know it too well. There are great confusions to be
organised, great anomalies to be suppressed. But remember, that if
want and misery, confusion and anomaly were _the rule_ of London,
and not (as they are) the exception, then London, instead of
increasing at its present extraordinary pace, would decay; London
work, instead of being better and better done, would be worse and
worse done, till it stopped short in some such fearful convulsion as
that of Paris in 1793. No, my friends; compare London with any city
on the Continent; compare her with the old Greek and Roman cities;
with Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople, with that Imperial Rome
itself, which was like London in n