worthy of note in the city; so, in your travels,
would you not look first for these cathedral truths, and delight to
recognize their beneficent influence wherever you may meet with anything
that is good in man?

* * * * *

And now, reader, I have come to the close of this Essay. I do not assert
that I have brought forward any specific, or even any new remedy of a
partial nature, for the evils I have enumerated. Indeed I have not
feared to reiterate hacknied truths. But you may be sure, that if you do
not find yourself recurring again and again to the most ordinary maxims,
you do not draw your observations from real life. Oh, if we could but
begin by believing and acting upon some of the veriest common places!
But it is with pain and grief that we come to understand our first
copy-book sentences. As to the facts, too, on which I have grounded my
reasonings, they are mostly well known, or might be so; for I have been
content to follow other men's steps, and so assist in wearing a pathway
for the public mind. I am well aware that I have left untouched many
matters bearing closely on the subject, more closely, perhaps, some of my
readers will think, than the topics I have taken. In the fields,
however, of politics, and political economy, there are many reapers: and
the part of the subject which I have chosen seemed to me of sufficient
importance to be considered by itself. I know that in much of what I
have said, I have touched with an unpractised hand, upon matters which
some of those who are great employers of labour will have examined and
mastered thoroughly. Still, let them remember, that it is one thing to
criticise, and another to act. Their very familiarity with the subject
may render them dull to the means of doing good which their position
affords them. We pass much of our time in thinking what we might do if
we were somewhat different from what we are; and the duties appropriate
to our present position invite our attention in vain.

* * * * *

To others I may say, there is nothing in these pages, perhaps, that will
exactly point out the path most fitting for you to take; still I cannot
but think that so many have been indicated, that you will have no
difficulty in finding some one that may lead to the main object if your
heart is set upon it. If you throw but a mite into the treasury of good
will which ought to exist between the employe