levation of the laboring class. I should not, however, be true to
myself, did I not add that I have fears as well as hopes. Time is not
left me to enlarge on this point; but without a reference to it I
should not give you the whole truth. I would not disguise from myself
or others the true character of the world we live in. Human
imperfection throws an uncertainty over the future. Society, like the
natural world, holds in its bosom fearful elements. Who can hope that
the storms which have howled over past ages have spent all their force?
It is possible that the laboring classes, by their recklessness, their
passionateness, their jealousies of the more prosperous, and their
subserviency to parties and political leaders, may turn all their
bright prospects into darkness, may blight the hopes which philanthropy
now cherishes of a happier and holier social state. It is also
possible, in this mysterious state of things, that evil may come to
them from causes which are thought to promise them nothing but good.
The present anxiety and universal desire is to make the country rich,
and it is taken for granted that its growing wealth is necessarily to
benefit all conditions. But is this consequence sure? May not a
country be rich, and yet great numbers of the people be wofully
depressed? In England, the richest nation under heaven, how sad, how
degraded the state of the agricultural and manufacturing classes! It
is thought that the institutions of this country give an assurance that
growing wealth will here equally benefit and carry forward all portions
of the community. I hope so; but I am not sure. At the present time a
momentous change is taking place in our condition. The improvement in
steam navigation has half annihilated the space between Europe and
America, and by the progress of invention the two continents are to be
more and more placed side by side. We hail this triumph of the arts
with exultation. We look forward to the approaching spring, when this
metropolis is to be linked with England by a line of steamboats, as a
proud era in our history. That a great temporary excitement will be
given to industry, and that our wealth and numbers will increase,
admits no dispute; but this is a small matter. The great question is,
Will the mass of the people be permanently advanced in the comforts of
life, and, still more, in intelligence and character, in the culture of
their highest powers and affections? It is