more on the distribution than on the amount of its wealth. In thus
speaking of the future, I do not claim any special prophetical gift.
As a general rule, no man is able to foretell distinctly the ultimate,
permanent results of any great social change. But as to the case
before us, we ought not to doubt. It is a part of religion to believe
that by nothing can a country so effectually gain happiness and lasting
prosperity as by the elevation of all classes of its citizens. To
question this seems an approach to crime.

"If this fail,
The pillar'd firmament is rottenness,
And earth's base built on stubble."

I am aware that, in reply to all that has been said in favor of the
possibility of uniting self-improvement with labor, discouraging facts
may be brought forward from our daily experience. It may be said that
in this country, under advantages unknown in other lands, there is a
considerable number on whom the burden of toil presses very heavily,
who can scarcely live with all their efforts, and who are cut off by
their hard condition from the means of intellectual culture; and if
this take place now, what are we to expect hereafter in a more crowded
population? I acknowledge that we have a number of depressed laborers,
whose state is exceedingly unpropitious to the education of the mind;
but this argument will lose much of its power when we inquire into the
causes of this evil. We shall then see that it comes, not from outward
necessity, not from the irresistible obstacles abroad, but chiefly from
the fault or ignorance of the sufferers themselves; so that the
elevation of the mind and character of the laborer tends directly to
reduce, if not remove, the evil. Of consequence, this elevation finds
support in what is urged against it. In confirmation of these views,
allow me just to hint at the causes of that depression of many laborers
which is said to show that labor and self-improvement cannot go on
together.

First, how much of this depression is to be traced to intemperance?
What a great amount of time, and strength, and money, might multitudes
gain for self-improvement, by a strict sobriety! That cheap remedy,
pure water, would cure the chief evils in very many families of the
ignorant and poor. Were the sums which are still lavished on ardent
spirits appropriated wisely to the elevation of the people, what a new
world we should live in! Intemperance not only wastes the earnings,
but