u know that the bosom _can_ ache beneath
diamond brooches, and how many blithe hearts dance under coarse wool.
But I do not allude merely to these accidental contrasts. I mean that
about equal measures of trial, equal measures of what men call good and
evil, are allotted to all; enough, at least, to prove the identity of
our humanity, and to show that we are all subjects of the same great
plan. You say that the poor man who passes yonder, carrying his burden,
has a hard lot of it, and it may be he has; but the rich man who brushes
by him has a hard lot of it too--just as hard for _him_, just as well
fitted to discipline him for the great ends of life. He has his money
to take care of; a pleasant occupation, you may think; but, after all,
an _occupation_, with all the strain and anxiety of labor, making more
hard work for him, day and night, perhaps, than his neighbor has who
digs ditches or thumps a lapstone. And it is quite likely that he feels
poorer than the poor man, and, if he ever becomes self-conscious, has
great reason to feel meaner. And then, he has his rivalries, his
competitions, his troubles of caste and etiquette, so that the merchant,
in his sumptuous apartments, comes to the same essential point, "sweats,
and bears fardels," as well as his brother in the garret; tosses on his
bed with surfeit, or perplexity, while the other is wrapped in peaceful
slumber; and, if he is one who recognizes the moral ends of life, finds
himself called upon to contend with his own heart, and to fight with
peculiar temptations. And thus the rich man and the poor man, who seem
so unequal in the street, would find but a thin partition between them,
could they, as they might, detect one another kneeling on the same
platform of spiritual endeavor, and sending up the same prayers to the
same eternal throne.

But, say you, "here is one who is returning to a home of destitution, of
misery; where the light of the natural day is almost shut out, but in
which brood the deeper shadows of despair." And yet, in many a splendid
mansion you will find a more fearful destitution, a dearth of
affections, killed by envy, jealousy, distrust; stifled by glittering
formalities; a brood of evil passions that mock the splendor, and darken
the magnificent walls. The measure of joy, too, is distributed with the
same impartiality as the measure of woe. The child's grief throbs
against the round of its little heart as heavily as the man's sorrow;
and th