nd with all their might. But with most people who use that
apology, "remaining in the station of life to which Providence has called
them" means keeping all the carriages, and all the footmen and large
houses they can possibly pay for; and, once for all, I say that if ever
Providence _did_ put them into stations of that sort,--which is not at all
a matter of certainty,--Providence is just now very distinctly calling
them out again. Levi's station in life was the receipt of custom; and
Peter's, the shore of Galilee; and Paul's, the antechambers of the High
Priest--which "station in life" each had to leave, with brief notice.

And whatever our station in life may be, at this crisis, those of us who
mean to fulfil our duty ought first, to live on as little as we can; and,
secondly, to do all the wholesome work for it we can, and to spend all we
can spare in doing all the sure good we can.

And sure good is, first in feeding people, then in dressing people, then
in lodging people, and lastly in rightly pleasing people, with arts, or
sciences, or any other subject of thought.

I say first in feeding; and, once for all, do not let yourselves be
deceived by any of the common talk of "indiscriminate charity." The order
to us is not to feed the deserving hungry, nor the industrious hungry, nor
the amiable and well-intentioned hungry, but simply to feed the hungry. It
is quite true, infallibly true, that if any man will not work, neither
should he eat--think of that, and every time you sit down to your dinner,
ladies and gentlemen, say solemnly, before you ask a blessing, "How much
work have I done to-day for my dinner?" But the proper way to enforce that
order on those below you, as well as on yourselves, is not to leave
vagabonds and honest people to starve together, but very distinctly to
discern and seize your vagabond; and shut your vagabond up out of honest
people's way, and very sternly then see that, until he has worked, he does
_not_ eat. But the first thing is to be sure you have the food to give;
and, therefore, to enforce the organization of vast activities in
agriculture and in commerce, for the production of the wholesomest food,
and proper storing and distribution of it, so that no famine shall any
more be possible among civilized beings. There is plenty of work in this
business alone, and at once, for any number of people who like to engage
in it.

Secondly, dressing people--that is to say, urging everyone withi