id="pgepubid00024"/>looked to those immediately around them as their body guard against sudden and violent attacks, they ventured to show as much ill-temper to those they lived with as you sometimes see them do now, when assistance of all kinds is a purchasable commodity.  Considerations of this nature are particularly applicable when addressed to persons living in a great capital like London.  All things that concern the nation, its joys, its sorrows, and its successes, are transacted in this metropolis; or, as one might more properly say, are represented in transactions in this metropolis.  But still this often happens in such a manner as would be imperceptible even to people of vast experience and observation.  The countless impulses which travel up from various directions to this absorbing centre sometimes neutralize each other, and leave a comparative calm; or they create so complex an agitation, that it may be next to impossible for us to discern and estimate the component forces.  Hence the metropolis may not at times be sufficiently susceptible in the case either of manufacturing or agricultural distress, or of any colonial perturbation.  This

metropolitan insensibility has some great advantages, but it is well for us to observe the corresponding evil, and, as far as may be, to guard our own hearts from being rendered apathetic by its influence.

I do not seek to terrify any one into a care for the labouring classes, by representing the danger to society of neglecting them.  It is certainly a fearful thing to think of large masses of men being in that state of want and misery which leaves them nothing to hazard; and who are likely to be without the slightest reverence or love for the institutions around them.  Still it is not to any fear, grounded on such considerations, that I would appeal.  The flood-gates may be strong enough to keep out the torrent for our time.  These things are not in our reckonings.  Occasionally the upheaving of the waves may frighten timid, selfish, men into concessions which they would not otherwise have made; but those whom I would seek to influence, are likely to court danger and difficulty rather than to shun it.  Nor would I even care to disturb the purely selfish man by dwelling studiously on any social dangers around us,

or labouring to discern in present disturbance or distress the seeds of inevitable revolution.  No, I would say to him, if it all ends here,

“But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,”

you may have chosen wisely.  It is true, there are sources of happiness which you now know nothing of, and which may be far beyond any selfish gratification you have ever experienced.  Indeed, it may be, that you cannot enjoy the highest delights without sharing them, that they are not things to be given out to each of us as individuals, now to this man, then to that, but that they require a community of love.  But, at any rate, I do not wish to scare you into active and useful exertion by indicating that you are, otherwise, in danger of losing any of the good things of this world.

The great motive to appeal to, is not a man’s apprehension of personal loss or suffering, but his fear of neglecting a sacred duty.  And it will be found here, I believe, as elsewhere, that the highest motives are those of the most sustained efficiency.

But little as I would counsel despair, or

encourage apathy, or seek to influence by terror, it is not that I look to the “course of events,” or any other rounded collection of words, to do anything for us.  What is this “course of events” but the continuity of human endeavour?  And giving all due weight to the influence of those general currents which attend the progress of opinions and institutions, we must still allow largely for the effect of individual character, and individual exertions.  The main direction that the stream will take is manifest enough perhaps; but it may come down upon long tracts of level ground which it will overspread quietly, or it may enter into some rocky channel which will control it; or it may meet with some ineffectual mud embankment which it will overthrow with devastation.

Putting aside then such phrases as “course of events,” and the like, let us look to men.  And whom shall we look to first but the Masters of Thought?  Surely the true poet will do something to lift the burden of his own age.  What is the use of wondrous gifts of language, if they are employed to enervate,

and not to ennoble, their hearers?  What avails it to trim the lights of history, if they are made to throw no brightness on the present, or open no track into the future?  And to employ Imagination only in the service of Vanity, or Gain, is as if an astronomer were to use his telescope to magnify the potherbs in his kitchen garden.

Think what a glorious power is that of expression: and what responsibility follows the man who possesses it.  That grace of language which can make even commonplace things beautiful, throwing robes of the poorest texture into forms of all-attractive loveliness: why does it not expend its genius on materials that would be worthy of the artist?  The great interests of Man are before it, are crying for it, can absorb all its endeavour, are, indeed, the noblest field for it.  Think of this—then think what a waste of high intellectual endowments there has been in all ages from the meanest of motives.  But what wise man would not rather have the harmless fame, which youths, on a holiday, scratch for themselves upon the leaden roof of some cathedral tower, than enjoy the undeniable

renown of those who, with whatever power, have written from slight or unworthy motives what may prove a hindrance, rather than an aid, to the well-being of their fellow-men?

But, passing from those who are often the real, though unrecognized, rulers of their own age, and the despots of the succeeding generation, let us turn to the ostensible and immediate ruling powers.  Assuredly the government may do something towards removing part of the evils we have been considering as connected with the system of labour.  It seems as if there were a want of more departments; and certainly of many more able men.  The progress of any social improvement appears to depend too much on chance and clamour.  I do not suppose, for a moment, that we can have the cut-and-dried executive, or legislative, arrangements that belong to despotic governments; and it is, in some respects, a wholesome fear that we have of the interference of government.  Still, we may recollect that England is not a small

state, nor an inactive one, where the public energies are likely to be deadened, or overridden, by activity on the part of the government, which might, perhaps, with much safety undertake more than it has been wont to do.  One thing is certain, that it may do great good, if it would but look out for men of ability to fill the offices at present in its gift.  No government need fear such a course as destructive to its party interests.  In appointing and promoting the fittest men, you are likely to ensure more gratitude than if you selected those, who being the creatures of your kindness, could never, you imagine, be otherwise than most grateful for it.  Weak people are seldom much given to gratitude: and even if they were, it is dearly that you purchase their allegiance; for there are few things which, on the long run,