dvantage, of which, if you will glance at the last
paragraph of the first chapter of 'Munera Pulveris,' you will see I
should be the last person to propose depriving them. This great
difference in final condition involves necessarily much complexity in
the system and application of general laws; but it in no wise
abrogates,--on the contrary, it renders yet more imperative,--the
necessity for the firm ordinance of such laws, which, marking the due
limits of independent agency, may enable it to exist in full energy,
not only without becoming injurious, but so as more variously and
perfectly to promote the entire interests of the commonwealth.

I will address myself therefore in my next letter to the statement of
some of these necessary laws.

LETTER XIII.

THE PROPER OFFICES OF THE BISHOP AND DUKE; OR, "OVERSEER" AND
"LEADER."

_March 21, 1867._

69. I see, by your last letter, for which I heartily thank you, that
you would not sympathize with me in my sorrow for the desertion of his
own work by George Cruikshank, that he may fight in the front of the
temperance ranks. But you do not know what work he has left undone,
nor how much richer inheritance you might have received from his hand.
It was no more _his_ business to etch diagrams of drunkenness than it
is mine at this moment to be writing these letters against anarchy. It
is "the first mild day of March" (high time, I think, that it should
be!), and by rights I ought to be out among the budding banks and
hedges, outlining sprays of hawthorn and clusters of primrose. That is
_my_ right work; and it is not, in the inner gist and truth of it,
right nor good, for you, or for anybody else, that Cruikshank with his
great gift, and I with my weak, but yet thoroughly clear and definite
one, should both of us be tormented by agony of indignation and
compassion, till we are forced to give up our peace, and pleasure, and
power; and rush down into the streets and lanes of the city, to do the
little that is in the strength of our single hands against their
uncleanliness and iniquity. But, as in a sorely besieged town, every
man must to the ramparts, whatsoever business he leaves, so neither he
nor I have had any choice but to leave our household stuff, and go on
crusade, such as we are called to; not that I mean, if Fate may be
anywise resisted, to give up the strength of my life, as he has given
his; for I think he