homes dreary, comfortless, deformed with filth, such homes as poverty
alone could not make. Still less, when we gaze upon some pleasant
looking village, fair enough in outward seeming for poets' songs to
celebrate, should we expect to find scarcity of fuel, scantiness of food,
prevalence of fever, the healthy huddled together with the sick, decency
outraged, and self-respect all gone. And yet such sights, both in town
and country, if not of habitual occurrence, are at any rate sadly too
numerous for us to pass them by as rare and exceptional cases.

Is this then the inevitable nature of things? Has the boasted
civilization of the world led only to this? Do we master the powers of
nature only to let forth a new and fierce torrent of social miseries upon
us? Let not such thoughts be ours. Pagans, the slaves of destiny, might
well have held them. But we cannot doubt that the conditions of labour,
under which man holds the earth, express the mercy and the goodness, no
less than the judgment, of God.

* * * * *

Many benevolent persons feel, doubtless, very sensitively for the sad
condition of the labouring classes, and are anxiously looking about for
remedies to meet it. I would not speak slightingly of any attempt in
that direction. There are problems in political economy, in government,
and, perhaps, even in the adaptation of machinery, which may be worked
out with signal service to the great cause of suffering humanity. It is
not my intention, however, to dwell upon such topics. My object is to
show what can be done with the means that are at the present moment in
every body's power. Many a man, who is looking about for some specific,
has in his hands the immediate means of doing great good, which he would
be ready enough to employ, if he had but imagination to perceive that he
possessed them. My endeavour then will simply be to show what can be
done by the employers of labour in their individual and private capacity.

* * * * *

What an important relation is that of Master and Man! How it pervades
the world; ascending from the lowest gradation of planter and slave
through the states of master and servant, landlord and labourer,
manufacturer and artisan, till it comes to the higher degrees of rule
which one cultivated man has to exercise over another in the performance
of the greatest functions. See, throughout, what difficulties and
temp