^I^gimthtft Books -.;,_¦ fcj- the faJGujiSig if a CoUtgt i/uiAjfCoieny'1 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE RICHARD S. FELLOWES FUND dttntenarg 35oition SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC Social Classes in a Republic BY THEODORE PARKER EDITED WITH NOTES BY SAMUEL A. ELIOT BOSTON AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION 25 Beacon Street EDITOR'S PREFACE In " Past and Present " Carlyle had a pungent word about the function of preaching. " This speaking man," he said, " whom have we to compare with him? . . . The Speaking Function, this of Truth, coming to us with a living voice, nay, in a living shape, and as a concrete practical exemplar; this, with all our Writing and Printing Functions, has a perennial place. . . . Will he discover our new real Satan, whom he has to fight; or go on droning through his nose-spectacles about old extinct Satans, and never see the real one, till he feel him at his own throat and ours ? That is the question." Theodore Parker's conception and use of the office of the preacher gives the answer to that question. No powerful pulpit can ever hold aloof from the moral life of the community. A sermon is a poor, untimely thing if, when clear decisions about right and wrong are needed or when sordid selfishness and mean pas sions control men's actions, it has no clarifying or re buking word. The " sweet reasonableness," which Matthew Arnold commended but did not always prac tise, will not do all of the work of reform or insure moral growth and progress. To destroy the idols of the market place, to drive the money-changers from the temple, to break up the traditional usages that block the way of freedom and justice and truth, — that is a task which needs something more than soft words or gentle protests. Theodore Parker was keenly interested in the re formatory movements of his time. While by taste and EDITOR'S PREFACE temperament a scholar he never tried to seclude him self in a cloistered life of learned retirement. In the noisy clamor and strife of trade or politics he tried to pierce the dust of the arena and to point out the deeper issues. His naming zeal for the anti-slavery cause left him, indeed, but little time for other in terests, but he found opportunity to say his strong word about the problems of education, temperance, des titution, penal legislation, philanthropy and social ethics. Often in his journals and letters he complained that his anti-slavery work took so much of his strength that he could do but little for the other reforms or charities which enlisted his ardent sympathy. The sermons and essays collected in this volume deal with the application of Parker's religious principles to certain practical problems of social organization. They are, in a measure, local and provincial, but none the less, to an extraordinary degree, contemporaneous and universal. They reveal at least three aspects of Parker's many-sided nature. The sermons on the du ties and perils of the mercantile, the laboring and the criminal classes, display Parker as the censor of the public morals. Their message is one of rebuke to the self-seeking and half-hearted. The sermon on old age discloses a bit of the imaginative and poetic side of his character. The sermons on the material, moral and spiritual condition of his own neighborhood reveal the student delving into abstruse facts, reveling in columns of » statistics, and reasoning from them to rational con clusions. All the sermons share the characteristic note of resolute courage, earnestness and utter sincerity. They ring with assertive challenge. They are often recklessly defiant. The sword is literally two edged, threatening friends almost as often as foes. By his EDITOR'S PREFACE partisanship Parker too often deprived himself of the judicial influence which is the strength of a disinter ested critic, and by his unnecessary and unjust denun ciation of individuals he lost the respect of too many men who were at heart his allies and who were working in different ways for the same great causes. Parker's task as a social reformer was primarily that of a stimulator of the public conscience. It was his function to set forth dark facts, to detect and expose errors, to break up traditional prejudices and conven tional habits of thought and conduct. He was not as successful in constructive reform as in destructive as sault, yet his audacity of criticism never became cyni cism and never descended to a sneer. Parker never lost his faith in men's nobler instincts. He knew the power of ideas to leaven and lift. He profoundly believed and persistently urged ideals of goodness and honor, and in spite of the degradation or indifference which he so roundly denounced, he was highly assured of the large destiny of the land he loved. However they may fail in constructive suggestion, these sermons are still immensely quickening and en lightening. They compel one to test and try his pre conceived opinions, to adjure merely artificial habits, and to scorn sham morality and shallow patriotism, and if sometimes the preacher's irony knows no mercy or he mocks at convictions as honest as his own or rails at conditions for which he can suggest no practical im provement, yet we recognize that even his travesties of beliefs conscientiously held or good works left incom plete are dictated by an overpowering passion for freedom and truth and by a sincerity as closely in touch with the reality of things as the structure of the individual mind and heart will allow. EDITOR'S PREFACE Two characteristics of these sermons deserve to be emphasized, for in these respects they present a perti nent warning and alluring example for social re formers of the present day. It is noteworthy, first, that the message that rings through these addresses is not so much of rights as of duties. The appeal to men to claim their rights is not to the noblest elements in human nature. It may be a call to selfish passion, or violence or hatred. The call to duty is nobler be cause the appeal must be to the unselfish nature and the spirit of self-sacrifice. And, second, the appeal was ultimately based on permanent motives and rela tionships. Parker found the source of his ethical prin ciples in his confidence that God reigns and that al] men are his children. To a knowledge of facts and a prophetic interpretation of the spirit of the times he added a sense of fellowship with the spirit of truth which gave to his utterances enduring significance and vitality. [He allied the strong and widely diffused in terest in social reforms with the spiritual aspirations of people.! He not only recognized and utilized, but consecrated the beneficent impulses of his fellow- workers. He might well have used as his own the words of the contemporary reformer and patriot, Maz- zini, " We must convince men that they are all sons of one sole God and bound to fulfil one sole law here on earth; that each of them is bound to live, not for him self, but for others; that the aim of existence is not to be more or less happy, but to make themselves and others more virtuous ; that to struggle against injustice and error, wherever they exist, in the name and for the benefit of their brothers, is not only a right but a duty ; a duty which may not be neglected without sin, the duty of their whole life." Samuel A. Eliot. CONTENTS Page I. The Mercantile Classes 1 II. The Laboring Classes 42 III. The Education of the Laboring Classes 72 IV. The Perishing Classes 103 V. The Dangerous Classes 137 VI. The Aged 180 VII. Material Conditions 203 VIII. Moral Conditions 253 IX. Spiritual Conditions 292 Notes 385 THE MERCANTILE CLASSES As a nail sticketh fast between the joinings of the stones; so doth sin stick close between buying and selling. — Eccxus. xxvii, 2. I ask jour attention to a " Sermon of Merchants : their Position, Temptations, Opportunities, Influence, and Duty.v For the present purpose, men may be dis tributed into four classes. I. Men who create new material for human use, ei ther by digging it out of mines and quarries, fishing it out of the sea, or raising it out of the land. These are direct producers. II. Men who apply their head and hands to this ma terial, and transform it into other shapes, fitting it for human use; men that make grain into flour and bread, cotton into cloth, iron into needles or knives, and the like. These are indirect producers ; they create not the material, but its fitness, use, or beauty. They are manufacturers . LTI. Men who simply use these things, when thus produced and manufactured. They are consumers. LV. Men who buy and sell : who buy to sell, and sell to buy the more. They fetch and carry between the other classes. These are distributors; they are the merchants. Under this name I include the whole class who live by buying and selling, and not merely those conventionally called merchants, to distinguish them from small dealers. This term comprises traders be hind counters, traders behind desks, and traders behind neither counters nor desks. 2 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC There are various grades of merchants. They might be classed and symbolized according as they use a bas ket, a wheelbarrow, a cart, a stall, a booth, a shop, a warehouse, counting-room, or bank. Still all are the same thing — men who live by buying and selling. A ship is only a large basket, a warehouse a costly stall. Your peddler is a small merchant going round from house to house with his basket to mediate between per sons ; your merchant only a great peddler sending round from land to land with his ships to mediate between na tions. The Israelitish woman who sits behind a bench in her stall on the Rialto at Venice, changing gold into silver and copper, or loaning money to him who leaves hat, coat, and other collaterals in pledge, is a small banker. The Israelitish man who sits at Frankf ort-on- the-Main,1 changes drafts into specie, and lends mil lions to men who leave in pledge a mortgage on the states of the Church, Austria or Russia — is a pawn broker and money-changer on a large scale. By this arithmetic, for present convenience, all grades of mer chants are reduced to one denomination — men who live by buying and selling. All these four classes run into one another. The same man may belong to all at the same time. All are needed. At home a merchant is a mediator to go be tween the producer and the manufacturer ; between both and the consumer. On a large scale he is a mediator who goes between continents, between producing and manufacturing states, between both and consuming countries. The calling is founded in the state of so ciety, as that in a compromise between man's perma nent nature and transient condition. So long as there are producers and consumers, there must be distributors. The value of the calling depends on its importance; THE MERCANTILE CLASSES 3 its' usefulness is the measure of its respectability. The most useful calling must be the noblest. If it is difficult, demanding great ability and self-sacrifice, it is yet more noble. A useless calling is disgraceful; one that injures mankind — infamous. Tried by this standard, the producers seem nobler than the distrib utors ; they than the mere consumers. This may not be the popular judgment now, but must one day, be come so, for mankind is slowly learning "to judge by the natural law published by Jesus — that he who would be greatest of all, must be most effectively the servant of all. There are some who do not seem to belong to any of the active classes, who are yet producers, manufac turers, and distributors by their head, more than their hand ; men who have fertile heads, producers, manufac turers, and distributors of thought — active in the most creative way. Here, however, the common rule is in verted ; the producers are few — men of genius ; the manufacturers many — men of talent ; the distributors — men of tact, men who remember, and talk with tongue or pen, their name is legion. I will not stop to distribute them into their classes, but return to the merchant. The calling of the merchant acquires a new impor tance in modern times. Once nations were cooped up, each in its own country and language. Then war was the only mediator between them. They met but on the battle-field, or in solemn embassies to treat for peace. Now trade is the mediator. They meet on the ex change. To the merchant, no man who can trade is a foreigner. His wares prove him a citizen. Gold and silver are cosmopolitan. Once, in some of the old gov ernments, the magistrates swore, "I will be evil-minded 4 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC towards the people, and will devise against them the worst thing I can." Now they swear to keep the laws which the people have made. Once the great question was, How large is the standing army? Now, What is the amount of the national earnings? Statesmen ask less about the ships of the line than about the ships of trade. They fear an over-importation oftener than a war, and settle their difficulties in gold and silver, — not as before, with iron. All ancient states were mili tary ; the modern mercantile. War is getting out of favor as property increases and men get their eyes open. Once every man feared death, captivity, or at least robbery in war; now the worst fear is of bank ruptcy and pauperism. This is a wonderful change. Look at some of the signs thereof. Once castles and forts were the finest buildings; now exchanges, shops, custom-houses, and banks. Once men built a Chinese wall to keep out the strangers — for stranger and foe were the same ; now men build railroads and steamships to bring them in. England was once a stronghold of robbers, her four seas but so many castle-moats ; now she is a great har bor with four ship-channels. Once her chief must be a bold, cunning fighter ; now a good steward and finan cier. Not to strike a hard blow, but to make a good bargain is the thing. Formerly the most enterprising and hopeful young men sought fame and fortune in deeds of arms; now an army is only a common sewer, and most of those who go to the war, if they never re turn, " have left their country for their country's good." In days gone by, constructive art could build nothing better than hanging gardens and the pyramids — foolishly sublime ; now it makes docks, canals, iron roads, and magnetic telegraphs. St. Louis, in his old THE MERCANTILE CLASSES 5 age, got up a crusade, and saw his soldiers die of the fever at Tunis ; now the* king of the French sets up a factory, and will clothe his people in his own cottons and woolens. The old Douglas and Percy were clad in iron, and harried the land on both sides of the Tweed ; their descendants now are civil-suited men who keep the peace. No girl trembles, though " all the blue bonnets are over the border." The warrior has become a shop keeper. "Lord Stafford mines for coal and salt; The Duke of Norfolk deals in malt; The Douglas in red herrings; And noble name and cultured land, Palace and park, and vassal band, Are powerless to the notes of hand Of Rothschild or the Barings." Of merchants there are three classes. I. Merchant-producers, who deal in labor applied to the direct creation of new material. They buy, labor and land, to sell them in corn, cotton, coal, timber, salt, and iron. II. Merchant-manufacturers, who deal in labor ap plied to transforming that material. They buy labor, wool, cotton, silk, water-privileges, and steam-power, to sell them all in finished cloth. III. Merchant-traders, who simply distribute the article raised or manufactured. These three divisions I shall speak of as one body. Property is accumulated labor ; wealth or riches a great deal of accumulated la bor. As a general rule, merchants are the only men who become what we call rich. There are exceptions, but they are rare, and do not affect the reiharks which are to follow. It is seldom that a man becomes rich' by his own labor employed in producing or manufac- 6 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC turing. It is only by using other men's labor that anyone becomes rich. A man's hands will give him sus tenance, not affluence. In the present condition of so ciety this is unavoidable ; I do not say in a normal con dition, but in the present condition. s Here in America the position of this class is the most powerful and commanding in society. They own most of the property of the nation. The wealthy men are of this class ; in practical skill, administrative talent, in power to make use of the labor of other men, they sur pass all others. Now, wealth is power, and skill is power — both to a degree unknown before. TlnV skill and wealth are more powerful with us than any other people, for there is no privileged caste, priest, king, or noble, to balance against them. The strong hand has given way to the able and accomplished head. Once head armor was worn on the outside, and of brass ; now it is internal, and of brains. To this class belongs the power both of skill and of wealth, and all the advantages which they brings It was never so before in the whole history of man. It is more so in the United States than in any other place, I know the high position of the merchants in Venice, Pisa, Florence, Nuremberg, and Basel, in the Middle Ages and since. Those cities were gardens in a wilder ness, but a fringe of soldiers hung round their turreted walls; the trader was dependent on the fighter, and though their merchants became princes, they were yet indebted to the sword, and not entirely to their calling, for defense. Their palaces were half castles, and their ships full of armed men. Besides those were little states. Here the merchant's power is wholly in his gold and skill. Rome is the city of priests ; Vienna for nobles ; Berlin for scholars ; the American cities for merchants. THE MERCANTILE CLASSES 7 In Italy the roads are poor, the banking-houses hum ble ; the cots of the laborers mean and bare, but churches and palaces are beautiful and rich. God is painted as a pope. Generally, in Europe, the clergy, the soldiers, and the nobles are the controlling class. The finest works of art belong to them, represent them, and have come from the corporation of priests, or the corpora tion of fighters. Here a new era is getting symbolized in our works of art. They are banks, exchanges, cus tom-houses, factories, railroads. These come of the corporation of merchants; trade is the great thing. Nobody tries to secure the favor of the army or navy — but of the merchants. Once there was a permanent class of fighters. Their influence was supreme. They had the power of strong arms, of disciplined valor, and carried all before them. They made the law and broke it. Men complained, grumbling in their beard, but got no redress. They it was that possessed the wealth of the land. The pro ducer, the manufacturer, the distributor, could not get rich: only the soldier, the armed thief, the robber. With wealth they got its power; by practice gained knowledge, and so the power thereof; or, when that failed, bought it of the clergy, tbe only class possessing literary and scientific skill. They made their calling " noble," and founded the aristocracy of soldiers. Young men of talent took to arms. Trade was de spised and labor was menial. Their science is at this day the science of kings. When graziers travel they look at cattle ; weavers at factories ; philanthropists at hospitals; dandies at their equals and coadjutors; and kings at armies. Those fighters made the world think that soldiers were our first men, and murder of their brothers the noblest craft in the world ; the only, hon- 8 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC orable and manly calling. The butcher of swine and oxen was counted vulgar — the butcher of men and women great and honorable. Foolish men of the past think so now; hence their terror at orations against war: hence their admiration for a red coat; their zeal for some symbol of blood in their family arms ; hence their ambition for military titles when abroad. Most foolish men are more proud of their ambiguous Nor man ancestor who fought at the battle of Hastings — or fought not — than of all the honest mechanics and farmers who have since ripened on the family tree. The day of the soldiers is well-nigh over. The calling brings low wages and no honor.2 It opens with us no field for ambition. A passage of arms is a passage that leads to nothing. That class did their duty at that time. They founded the aristocracy of soldiers — their symbol the sword. Mankind would not stop there. Then came a milder age and established the aristocracy of birth — its symbol the cradle ; for the only merit of that sort of nobility, and so its only dis tinction, is to have been born. But mankind who stopped not at the sword, delays but little longer at the cradle; leaping forward, it founds a third order of nobility, the aristocracy of gold, its symbol the purse. We have got no further on. Shall we stop there? There comes a to-morrow after every to-day, and no child of time is just like the last. The aristocracy of gold has faults enough, no doubt, this feudalism of the nineteenth century. But it is the best thing of its kind we have had yet ; the wisest, the most human. We are going forward, and not back. God only knows when we shall stop, and where. Surely not now, nor here. Now the merchants in America occupy the place THE MERCANTILE CLASSES 9 which was once held by the fighters, and next by the nobles. In our country we have balanced into harmony the centripetal power of the government, and the cen trifugal power of the people: so have national unity of action, and individual variety of action — personal freedom. Therefore a vast amount of talent is active here which lies latent in other countries, because that harmony is not established there. Here the army and navy offer few inducements to able and aspiring young men. They are fled to as the last resort of the des perate, or else sought for their traditional glory, not their present value. In Europe, the army, the navy, the parliament or the court, the church and the learned professions, offer brilliant prizes to ambitious men. Thither flock the able and the daring. Here such men go into trade. It is better for a man to have set up a mill than to have won a battle. I deny not the excep tions. I speak only of the general rule. Commerce and manufactures offer the most brilliant rewards — wealth, and all it brings. Accordingly, the ablest men go into the class of merchants. The strongest men in Boston, taken as a body, are not lawyers, doctors, clergymen, book-wrights, but merchants. I deny not the presence of distinguished ability in each of those professions ; I am now again only speaking of the gen eral rule. I deny not the presence of very weak men, exceedingly weak, in this class ; their money their only source of power. The merchants, then, are the prominent class; the most respectable, the most powerful. They know their power, but are not yet fully aware of their formidable and noble position at the head of the nation. Hence they are often ashamed of their call ing; while their calling is the source of their wealth, 10 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC their knowledge, and their power, and should be their boast and their glory. You see signs of this igno rance and this shame. There must not be shops under your Athenaeunu it would not be in good taste. You may store tobacco, cider, rum, under the churches, out of sight, you must have no shop there; it would be vulgar. It is not thought needful, perhaps not proper, for the merchant's wife and daughter to under stand business, it would not be becoming. Many are ashamed of their calling, and, becoming rich, paint on the doors of their coach, and engrave on their seal, some lion, griffin, or unicorn, with partisans and maces to suit; arms they have no right to, perhaps have stolen out of some book of heraldry. No man paints thereon a box of sugar, or figs, or candles couchant; a bale of cotton rampant; an ax, a lap- stone, or a shoe hammer saltant. Yet these would be noble, and Christian withal. The fighters gloried in their horrid craft, and so made it pass for noble, but with us a great many men would be thought " the tenth transmitter of a foolish face," 3 rather than hon est artists of their own fortune; prouder of being born than of having lived never so manfully. |_In virtue of its strength and position, this class is the controlling one in politics. It mainly enacts the laws of this State and the nation; makes them serve its turn. Acting consciously or without con sciousness, it buys up legislators when they are in the market; breeds them when the market is bare. It can manufacture governors, senators, judges to suit its purposes, as easily as it can make cotton cloth. It pays them money and honors ; pays them for doing its work, not another's. It is fairly and faithfully represented by them. Our popular legislators are THE MERCANTILE CLASSES 11 made in its image; represent its wisdom, foresight, patriotism and conscience. Your Congress is its mir ror. / This class is the controlling one in the churches, none the less, for with us fortunately the churches have no existence independent of the wealth and knowl edge of the people. In the same way it buys up the clergymen, hunting them out all over the land; the clergymen who will do its work, putting them in com fortable places. It drives off such as interfere with its work, saying, " Go starve, you and your children ! " It raises or manufactures others to suit its taste. The merchants build mainly the churches, endow theolog ical schools; they furnish the material sinews of the church. Hence the metropolitan churches are, in gen eral, as much commercial as the shops. ]_Now, from this position, there come certain peculiar temptations. One is to an extravagant desire of wealth. They see that money is power, the most con densed and flexible form thereof. It is always ready; it will turn any way. They see that it gives advan tages to their children which nothing else will givej The poor man's son, however well born, struggling for a superior education, obtains his culture at a monstrous cost; with the sacrifice of pleasure, comfort, the joys of youth, often of eyesight and health. He must do two men's work at once — learn and teach at the same time.4 He learns all by his soul, nothing from his circumstances. If he have not an iron body as well as an iron head, he dies in that experiment of the cross. The land is full of poor men who have attained a superior culture, but carry a crippled body through all their life. The rich man's son needs not that ter- 12 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC rible trial. He learns from his circumstances, not his soul. The air about him contains a diffused element of thought. He learns without knowing it. Colleges open their doors; accomplished teachers stand ready; science and art, music and literature, come at the rich man's call. All the outward means of educating, re fining, elevating a child, are to be had for money, and for money alone. I Then, too, wealth gives men a social position, which nothing else save the rarest genius can obtain, and which that, in the majority of cases lacking the com mercial conscience, is sure not to get. Many men prize this social rank above everything else, even above justice and a life unstained. / Since it thus gives power, culture for one's children, and a distinguished social position, rank amongst men, for the man and his child after him, there is a tempta tion to regard money as the great object of life, not a means but an end ; the thing a man is to get, even at the risk of getting nothing else. " It answereth all things." Here and there you find a man who has got nothing else. Men say of such a one, " He is worth a million ! " There is a terrible sarcasm in common speech, which all do not see. He is " worth a million," and that is all ; not worth truth, goodness, piety ; not worth a man. I must say, I cannot but think there are many such amongst us. Most rich men, I am told, have mainly gained wealth by skill, foresight, industry, economy, by honorable painstaking, not by trick. It may be so. I hope it is. Still) there is a temptation to count wealth the object of life — the thing to be had if they have nothing elsej [The next temptation is to think any means justifi able which leads to that end, — the temptation to fraud, THE MERCANTILE CLASSES 13 deceit, to lying in its various forms, active and passive ; the temptation to abuse the power of this natural strength, or acquired position, to tyrannize over the weak, to get and not give an equivalent for what they get. j If a man get from the world more than he gives an equivalent for, to that extent he is a beggar and gets charity, or a thief and steals; at any rate, the rest of the world is so much the poorer for him. The temptation to fraud of this sort, in some of its many forms, is very great. I do not believe that all trade must be gambling or trickery, the merchant a knave or a gambler. I know some men say so. But I do not believe it. I know it is not so now; all actual trade, and profitable too, is not knavery. [I know some be come rich by deceit. I cannot but think these are the exceptions ; that the most successful have had the aver age honesty and benevolence, 'with more than the aver age industry, foresight, prudence, and skill. A man foresees future wants of his fellows, and provides for them; sees new resources hitherto undeveloped, antici pates new habits and wants; turns wood, stone, iron, coal, rivers and mountains to human use, and honestly earns what he takes. I am told, by some of their number, that the merchants of this place rank high as men of integrity and honor, above mean cunning, but enterprising, industrious, and far-sighted. In com parison with some other places, I suppose it is true. Still I must admit the temptation to fraud is a great one: that it is often yielded to. Few go to a great extreme of deceit — they are known and exposed; but many to a considerable degree. He that makes haste to be rich is seldom innocent. Young men say it is hard to be honest; to do by others as you would wish them to do by you. I know it need not be so. (Would 14 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC not a reputation for uprightness and truth be a good capital for any man, old or young? [This class owns the machinery of society, in great measure, — the ships, factories, shops, water-privileges, houses, and the like. This brings into their employ ment large masses of working men, with no capital but muscles or skill. The law leaves the employed at the employer's mercy. Perhaps this is unavoidable. One wishes to sell his work dear, the other to get it cheap as he can. It seems to me no law can regulate this matter, only conscience, reason, the Christianity of the two parties. One class is strong, the other weak. In all encounters_of these two, on the field of battle, or in the market-place, we know the result; the weaker is driven to the wall. When the earthen and iron vessel strike together, we know beforehand which will go to pieces. The weaker class can seldom tell their tale, so their story gets often suppressed in the world's litera ture, and told only in outEreaEs~and revolutions, f Still EBe~DoT3" men who wrbfe"tn^BibTe7Wd Testament and New, have told truths on this theme which others dared not tell — terrible words which it will take ages of Christianity, to expunge from the world's'memory. There is a strong temptation to use one's power of nature or position to the disadvantage of the weak. This may be done consciously or unconsciously. There are examples enough of both. Here the merchant deals in the labor of men. This is a legitimate article of traffic, and dealing in it is quite indispensable in the present condition of affairs. J In the Southern States, the merchant, whether producer, manufacturer, or trader, owns men and deals in their labor, or their bodies. He uses their labor, giving them just enough of the result of that labor to keep their bodies in the THE MERCANTILE CLASSES 15 most profitable working state; the rest of that result he steals for his own use, and by that residue becomes rich and famous. He owns their persons and gets their labor by direct violence, though sanctioned by law. That is slavery. He steals the man and his labor. Here it is possible to do a similar thing: I mean it is possible to employ men and give them just enough of the result of their labor to keep up a miserable life, and yourself take all the rest of the result of that labor. This may be done consciously or otherwise, but legally, without direct violence, and without owning the person. This is not slavery, though only one remove from it. This is the tyranny of the strong over the weak; tbe feudalism of money; stealing a man's work, and not his person. The merchants as a class are exposed to this very temptation. Sometimes it is yielded to.J Some large fortunes have been made in this way. Let me mention some extreme cases ; one from abroad, one near at home. In Belgium the average wages of men in manufactories is less than twenty-seven cents a day. The most skilful women in that calling can earn only twenty cents a day, and many very much less. In that country almost every seventh man receives charity from the public: the mortality of operatives, in some of the cities is ten per cent, a year! Perhaps that is the worst case which you can find on a large scale, even in Europe. How much better off are many women in Boston who gain their bread by the needle? yes, a large class of women in all our great cities? The ministers of the poor can answer that; your police can tell of the direful crime to which necessity sometimes drives women whom honest labor cannot feed ! I know it will be said, " Buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest ; get work at the lowest wages." 16 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC Still there is another view of the case, andjl am speak ing to men whose professed religion declares that all are brothers, and demands that the strong help the weak. Oppression of this sort is one fertile source of pauperism and crime. How much there is of it I know not, but I think men seldom cry unless they are hurt. When men are gathered together in large masses, as in the manufacturing towns, if there is any oppression of this sort, it is sure to get told of, especially in New England. But when a small number are employed, and they isolated from one another, the case is much harder. Perhaps no class of laborers in New England is worse treated than the hired help of small propri etors. [Then, too, there is a temptation to abuse their po litical power to the injury of the nation, to make laws which seem good for themselves, but are baneful to the people ; to control the churches, so that they shall not dare rebuke the actual sins of the nation, or the sins of trade, and so the churches be made apologizers for lowness, practicing infidelity as their sacrament, but in the name of Christ and God. The ruling power in England once published a volume of sermons, as well as a book of prayers which the clergy were com manded to preach.5 What sort of a gospel got recom mended therein, you may easily guess; and what is recommended by the class of merchants in New Eng land, you may as easily hear. (But if their temptations are great, the opportunities of this class for doing good are greater still. Their power is more readily useful for good than ill, as all power is. In their calling they direct and control the machinery, the capital, and thereby the productive la bor of the whole community. They can as easily direct THE MERCANTILE CLASSES 17 that well as ill ; for the benefit of all, easier than to the injury of any one. They can discover new sources of wealth for themselves, and so for the nation ; they can set on foot new enterprises, which shall increase the comfort and welfare of man to a vast degree ; and not only that, but enlarge also the number of men, for that always greatens in a nation, as the means of living are made easy. They can bind the rivers, teaching them to weave and spimj The introduction of manufactures into England, and the application of machinery to that purpose, I doubt not, has added some millions of new lives to her population in the *present century — millions that otherwise would never have lived at all. The introduction of manufactures into the United States, the application of water-power and steam-power to human work, the construction of canals and rail roads, has vastly increased the comforts of the living. It helps civilize, educate, and refine men ; yes, leads to an increase of the number of lives. There are men to whom the public owes a debt which no money could pay, for it is a debt of life. What adequate sum of gold, or what honors could mankind give to Columbus, to Faustus, to Fulton, for their works? He that did the greatest service ever done to mankind got from his age a bad name, and a cross for his reward. There are men whom. mankind are to thank for thousands of lives ; yet men who hold no lofty niche in the temple of fame. [By their control of the legislature the merchants can fashion more wisely the institutions of the land, pro mote the freedom of all, break off traditionary yokes, help forward the public education of the people by the establishment of public schools, public academies, and public colleges. They can frame particular statutes VII— 2 18 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC which help and encourage the humble and the weak, laws which prevent the causes of poverty and crime, which facilitate for the poor man the acquisition of property, enabling him to invest his earnings in the most profitable stocksj-j- laws which bless the living, and so increase the number of lives. They can thus help organize society after the Christian idea, and promote the kingdom of heaven. J They can make our jails institutions which really render their inmates bet ter, and send them out whole men, safe and sound. We have seen them do this with lunatics, why not with those poor wretches whom now we murder? They too can found houses of cure for drunkards, and men yet more unfortunate, when released from our prisons. |By their control of the churches, and all our sem inaries, public and private, they can encourage free dom of thought; can promote the public morals by urging the clergy to point out and rebuke the sins of the nation, of society, [the actual sins of men now liv ing; can encourage them to separate theology from mythology, religion from theology, and then apply that religion to the State, to society, and the individual ; can urge them to preach both parts of religion — morality, the love of man, and piety, the love of God, setting off both by an appeal to that great soul who was Christianity in one person. In this way they have an opportunity of enlarging tenfold the practical value of the churches, and helping weed licentiousness, in temperance, want, and ignorance and sin, clean out of men's garden here. With their encouragement, the clergy would form a noble army contending for the welfare of men — the church militant, but preparing to be soon triumphant. Thus laboring, they can put an end to slavery, abolish war, and turn all the nation's THE MERCANTILE CLASSES 19 creative energies to production — their legitimate work. [Then they can promote the advance of science, of literature, of the arts — the useful and the beautiful. J We see what their famed progenitors did in this way at Venice, Florence, Genoa. I know men say that art cannot thrive in a republic. An opportunity is of fered now to prove the falsehood of that speech, to adorn our strength with beauty. A great amount of creative, artistic talent is rising here, and seeks em ployment. [They can endow hospitals, colleges, normal schools; found libraries, and establish lectures for the welfare of all.J He that has the wealth of a king may spend it like a king, not for ostentation, but for use. They can set before men examples of industry, economy, truth, justice, honesty, charity, of religion at her daily work of manliness in life — all this as no other men. Their charities need not stare you in the face; like violets, their fragrance may reach you before you see them. The bare mention of these things recalls the long list of benefactors, names familiar to you all — for there is one thing which the city was once more famous for than her enterprise, and that is her charity — the charity which flows in public ; — the noiseless stream that shows itself only in the greener growth which marks its path. Such are the position, temptations, opportunities of l this class. What is their practical influence on Church and State — on the economy of mankind? what are they doing in the nation? I must judge them by the highest standard that I know, the standard of justice, of absolute religion, not out of my own caprice. Bear with me while I attempt to tell the truth which I have seen. If I see it not, pity me, and seek better instruc- 20 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC tion where you can find it. But if I see a needed truth, and for my own sake refuse to speak, bear with me no more. Bid me then repent. I am speaking of men, strong men too, and shall not spare the truth. There is always a conservative element in society; yes, an element which resists the further application of Christianity to public affairs. Once the fighters and their children were uppermost, and represented that element. Then the merchants were reformatory, radical in collision with the nobles. They were " Whigs " — the nobles were " Tories." The mer chants formed themselves into companies, and got power from the crown to protect themselves against the nobles, whom the crown also feared. It is so in England now. The great revolution in the laws of trade lately effected there, was brought about by the merchants though opposed by the lords.6 The anti- corn-law league was a trades' union of merchants con tending against the owners of the soil. There the lord of land, and by birth, is slowly giving way to the lord of money, who is powerful by his knowledge or his wealth. There will always be such an element in society. Here I think it is represented by the mer chants. They are backward in all reforms, excepting such as their own interest demands. Thus they are blind to the evils of slavery, at least silent about them. How few commercial or political newspapers in the land ever seriously oppose this great national wicked ness ! Nay, how many of them favor its extension and preservation! A few years ago, in this very city, a mob of men, mainly from this class, it is said, insulted honest women peaceably met to consult for the welfare of Christian slaves in a Christian land — met to pray for them ! A merchant of this city says publicly, that THE MERCANTILE CLASSES 21 a large majority of his* brethren would kidnap a fugi tive slave in Boston ; says it with no blush and without contradiction. It was men of this class who opposed the abolition of the slave-trade, and had it guaranteed them for twenty years after the formation of the Con stitution ; through their instigation that this foul blot was left to defile the republic and gather blackness from age to age ; through their means that the nation stands before the world pledged to maintain it. They could end slavery at once, at least could end the na tional connection with it, but it is through their sup port that it continues: that it acquires new strength, new boldness, new territory, darkens the nation's fame and hope, delays all other reformations in Church and State and the mass of the people. Yes, it is through their influence that the chivalry, the wisdom, patriot ism, eloquence, — yea, religion of the free States, — are all silent when the word slavery is pronounced. The Senate of Massachusetts represents this more than any other class. But all last winter it could not say one word against the wickedness of this sin, al lowed to live and grow greater in the land. Just be fore the last election something could be said! Do speech and silence mean the same thing? This class opposed abolishing imprisonment for debt, thinking it endangered trade. They now oppose the progress of temperance and the abolition of the gallows. They see the evils of war; they cannot see its sin; will sustain men who help plunge the nation into its present disgraceful and cowardly conflict ; will encourage foolish young men to go and fight in this wicked war.7 A great man said, or is reported to have said, that perhaps it is not an American habit to con sider the natural justice of a war, but to count its 22 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC cost. A terrible saying that ! 'There is a Power which considers its justice, and will demand of us the blood we have wickedly poured out; blood of Americans, blood of the Mexicans. They favor indirect taxation, which is taxing the poor for the benefit of the rich; they continue to support the causes of poverty ; as a class they are blind to this great evil of popular igno rance — the more terrible evils of licentiousness, drunkenness and crime. They can enrich themselves by demoralizing their brothers. I wish it was an American habit to count the cost of that. Some " fa natic " will consider its justice. If they see these evils they look not for their cause; at least strive not to remove that cause. They have long known that every year more money is paid in Boston for poison drink to be swallowed on the spot, a drink which does no man any good, which fills your asylums with paupers, your jails with criminals, and houses with unutterable misery in father, mother, wife and child, — more money every year than it would take to build your new aqueduct and bring abundance of water fresh to every house.8 If they have not known it, why, it was their fault, for the fact was there crying to heaven against us all. As they are the most powerful class, the elder brothers — American nobles, if you will — it was their duty to look out for their weaker brother. No man has strength for himself alone. To use it for one's self alone, that is a sin. I do not think they are conscious of tbe evil they do, or the evils they allow. I speak not of motives, only of facts. This class controls the State. The effects of that control appear in our legislation. I know there are some noble men in political life, who have gone there with the loftiest motives, men that ask only after what THE MERCANTILE CLASSES 23 is right. I honor such men — honor them all the more because they seem exceptions to a general rule; men far above the spirit of any class. I must speak of what commonly takes place. Our politics are chiefly mercantile, politics in which money is preferred, and man postponed. When the two come into collision, the man goes to the wall and the street is left clear for the dollars. A few years ago, in monarchical France, a report was made of the condition of the working population in the large manufacturing towns — a truthful report, but painful to read, for it told of strong men oppressing the weak.9 I do not believe that such an undisguised statement of the good and ill could be tolerated in democratic America ; no, not of the con dition of men in New England; and what would be thought of a book setting forth the condition of the laboring men and women of the South? I know very well what is thought of the few men who attempt to tell the truth on this subject. I think there is no nation in Europe, except Russia and Turkey, which cares so little for the class which reaps down its har vests and does the hard work. When you protect the rights of all, you protect also the property of each, and by that very act. To begin the other way is quite contrary to nature. But our politicians cannot say too little for men, nor too much for money. Take the politicians most famous and honored at this day, and what have they done? They have labored for a tariff, or for free trade ; but what have they done for man? — nay, what have they attempted? — to restore natural rights to men notoriously deprived of them; progressively to elevate their material, moral, social condition? I think no one pretends it. Even in proc lamations for thanksgiving and days of prayer, it is 24 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC not the most needy we are bid remember. Public sins are not pointed out to be repented of. Slaveholding States shut up in their jails our colored seamen as soon as they arrive in a Southern port. A few years ago, at a time of considerable excitement here on the slavery question, a petition was sent from this place by some merchants and others, to one of our senators, praying Congress to abate that evil. For a long time that senator could find no opportunity to present the peti tion. You know how much was said and what was done. Had the South demanded every tenth or twen tieth bale of " domestics " coming from the North ; had a petition relative to that grievance been sent to Congress, and a senator unreasonably delayed to pre sent it, how much more would have been said and done ! When he came back he would have been hustled out of Boston. When South Carolina and Louisiana sent home our messengers — ¦ driving them off with reproach, insult, and danger of their lives — little is said and nothing done.10 But if the barbarous natives of Su matra interfere with our commerce, why, we send a ship and lay their towns in ruins, and murder the men and women. We all know that for some years Con gress refused to receive petitions relative to slavery; and we know how tamely that was borne by the class who commonly control political affairs. What if Con gress had refused to receive petitions relative to a tariff, or free trade, to the shipping interest, or the manufacturing interest? When the rights of men were concerned, three million men, only the " fanatics " complained. The political newspapers said, " Hush ! " [The merchant-manufacturers want a protective tar iff; the merchant-importers, free trade; and so the national politics hinges upon that question. When THE MERCANTILE CLASSES 25 Massachusetts was a carrying State, she wanted free trade ; now a manufacturing State, she desires pro tection. That is all natural enough; men wish to protect their interests, whatsoever they may be. But no talk is made about protecting the labor of the rude man who has no capital, nor skill, nothing but his natural force of muscles. The foreigner underbids him, monopolizing most of the brute labor of our large towns and internal improvementsj There is no pro tection, no talk of protection for the carpenter or the bricklayer. I do not complain of that. I rejoice to see the poor wretches of the old world finding a home where our fathers found one before. Yet, if we cared for men more than for money, and were consistent with our principles of protection, why, we should exclude all foreign workmen, as well as their work, and so raise the wages of the native hands. That would doubtless be very foolish legislation — but perhaps not, on that account, very strange. I know we are told that without protection, our handworker, whose capital is his skill, cannot compete with the operative of Man chester and Brussels, because that operative is paid but little. I know not if it be true, or a mistake. But who ever told us such men could not compete with the slave of South Carolina who is paid nothing? We have legislation to protect our own capital against foreign capital; perhaps our own labor against the " pauper of Europe ;" why not against the slave labor of the Southern States? Because the controlling class prefers money and postpones man. Yet the slave- breeder is protected. He has, I think, the only real monopoly in the land. No importer can legally spoil his market, for the foreign slave is contraband. If I understand the matter, the importation of slaves was %Q SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC allowed, until such men as pleased could accumulate their stock. The reason why it was afterwards for bidden I think was chiefly a mercantile reason : the slave- breeder wanted a monopoly,11 for God knows and you know that it is no worse to steal grown men in Africa than to steal new-born babies in Maryland, to have them born for the sake of stealing them. Free labor may be imported, for it helps the merchant-producer and the merchant-manufacturer. Slave labor is de clared contraband, for the merchant slave-breeders want a monopoly. This same preference of money over men appears in many, special statutes. In most of our manufactur ing companies the capital is divided into shares so large that a poor man cannot invest therein. This could easily be avoided. A man steals a candlestick out of a church, and goes to the State prison for a year and a day. Another quarrels with a man, maims him for life, and is sent to the common j ail for six months. A bounty is paid, or was until lately, on every_ gallon of intoxicating drink manufactured here and sent out of the country. If we begin with taking care of the rights of man, it seems easy to take care of the rights of labor and of capital. To begin the other way is quite another thing. A nation making laws for a na tion is a noble sight. The government of all, by all, and for all, is a democracy.12 When that government follows the eternal laws of God, it is founding what Christ called the kingdom of heaven. But thejpre- dominating class making laws not for TJieiiation's good,_but only for its own, is a sad spectacle.; no rea- sonjng^can make it other than a sorry sight. To see able men prostituting their talents to siicha work, that is one of the saddest sights ! I know all other nations THE MERCANTILE CLASSES 27 have set us the example, yet it is painful to see it fol lowed, and here. /Our politics, being mainly controlled by this class, are chiefly mercantile, the politics of peddlers. So po litical management often becomes a trick.J Hence we have many politicians, and raise a harvest of them every year, that crop never failing, party-men who can legis late for a class ; but we have scarce one great statesman who can step before his class, beyond his age, and legis late for a whole nation, leading the people and giving us new ideas to incarnate in the multitude, his word becoming flesh. We have not planters, but trimmers. A great statesman never came of mercantile politics, only of politics considered as the national application of religion to life. Our political morals, you all know what they are, the morals of a huckster. This is no new thing; the same game was played long ago in Venice, Pisa, Florence, and the result is well known. A merely mercantile politician is very sharp-sighted, and perhaps far-sighted; but a dollar will cover the whole field of his vision, and he can never see through it. The number of slaves in the United States is con siderably greater than our whole population when we declared independence, yet how much talk will a tariff make, or a public dinner: how little the welfare of three million men ! Said I not truly, our most famous poli ticians are, in the general way, only mercantile party- men ? Which of these men has shown the most interest in those three million slaves? The man who in the Senate of a Christian republic valued them at twelve hundred million dollars! Shall respectable men say, " We do not care what sort of a government the people have, so long as we get our dividends " ? Some say so ; many men do not say that, but think so, and act 28 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC accordingly. The government, therefore, must be so arranged that they get their dividends. This class of men buys up legislators, consciously or not, and pays them for value received. Yes, so great is its daring and its conscious power, that we have recently seen our most famous politician bought up,13 the stoutest understanding that one finds now ex tant in this whole nineteenth century, perhaps the ablest head since Napoleon. None can deny his greatness, his pubhc services in times past, nor his awful power of intellect. I say we have seen him, a senator of the United States, pensioned by this class, or a portion thereof, and thereby put mainly in their hands ! When a whole nation rises up and publicly throws its treas ures at the feet of a great man who has stood forth manfully contending for the nation, and bids him take their honors and their gold as a poor pay for noble works, why, that. sight is beautiful, the multitude shout ing hosanna to their king, and spreading their gar ments underneath his feet ! Man is loyal, and such honors so paid, and to such, are doubly gracious ; be coming alike to him that takes and those who give. Yes, when a single, class, to whom some man has done a great service, goes openly and makes a memorial thereof in gold and honors paid to him, why, that also is noble and beautiful. But when a single class, in a country where political doings are more public than elsewhere in the whole world, secretly buys up a man, in high place and world-famous, giving him a retain ing fee for life, why, the deed is one I do not wish to call by name. Could such men do this without a secret shame? I will never believe it of my country men. A gift blinds a wise man's eyes, perverts the words even of the righteous, stopping his mouth with THE MERCANTILE CLASSES 29 gold so that he cannot reprove a wrong. But there is an absolute justice which is neither bought nor sold. I know other nations have done the same, and with like effect. " Fight with silver weapons," said the Delphic oracle, " and you'll conquer all." It has always been the craft of despots to buy up aspiring talent; some with a title, some with gold. Allegiance to the sov ereign is the same thing on both sides of the water, whether the sovereign be an eagle or a guinea. Some American, it is said, wrote the Lord's Prayer on one side of a dime, and the Ten Commandments on the other. The Constitution and a considerable commen tary might perhaps be written on the two sides of a dollar ! This class controls the churches, as the State. Let me show the effect of that control. I am not to try men in a narrow way, by my own theological standard, but by the standard of manliness and Christianity. jAs a general rule, the clergy are on the side of power. All history proves this, our own most abundantly. The clergy also are unconsciously bought up, their speech paid for, or their silence. As a class, did they ever denounce a public sin? a popular sin? Perhaps they have. Do they do it now and here ? Take Boston for the last ten years, and I think there has been more clerical preaching against the abolitionists than against slavery; perhaps more preaching against the temper ance movement than in its favor. J With the exception of disbelieving the popular theology, your evangelical alliance knows no sin but " original sin," unless indeed it be " organic sins," which no one is to blame for ; no sinner but Adam and the devil ; no saving righteousness but the " imputed." I know there are exceptions, and I would go far to do them honor, pious men who lift 30 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC up a warning — yes, bear Christian testimony against pubhc sins. I am speaking of the mass of the clergy. Christ said the priests of his time had made a den of thieves out of God's house of prayer. Now they con form to the public sins, and apologize for popular crime. It is a good thing to forgive an offense: who does not need that favor and often? But to forgive the theory of crime, to have a theory which does that, is quite another thing. Large cities are alike the court and camp of the mercantile class, and what I have just said is more eminently true of the clergy in such towns. Let me give an example. Not long ago the Unitarian clergy published a protest against American slavery.14 It was moderate, but firm and manly. Almost all the clergy in the country, signed it. In the large towns few: they mainly young men and in the least consid erable churches. The young men seemed not to under stand their contract, for the essential part of an eccle siastical contract is sometimes written between the lines and in sympathetic ink. Is a steamboat burned or lost on the waters, how many preach on that affliction ! Yet how few preached against the war ! A preacher may say he hates it as a man, no words could describe his loathing at it; but as a minister of Christ, he dares not say a word. What clergymen tell of the sins of Boston, — of intemperance, licentiousness? who of the ignorance of the people? who of them lays bare our public sin as Christ of old? who tells the causes of pov erty, and thousand-handed crime? who aims to apply Christianity to business, to legislation, politics, to all the nation's life? Once the Church was the bride of Christ, living by his creative, animating love ; her chil dren were apostles, prophets, men by the same spirit, variously inspired with power to heal, to help, to guide THE MERCANTILE CLASSES 31 mankind. Now she seems the widow of Christ, poorly living on the dower of other times. Nay, the Christ is not dead, and it is her alimony, not her dower. Her children — no such heroic sons gather about her table as before. In her dotage she blindly shoves them off, not counting men as sons of Christ. Is her day gone by? The clergy answer the end they were bred for, paid for. Will they say, " We should lose our influ ence were we to tell of this and do these things ? " It is not true. Their ancient influence is already gone! Who asks, " What do the clergy think of the tariff, or free trade; of annexation, or the war; of slavery, or the education movement?" Why, no man. It is sad to say these things. Would God they were not true. Look round you, and if you can, come tell me they are false. We are not singular in this. In all lands the clergy favors the controlling class. Bossuet would make the monarchy swallow up all other institutions, as in his tory he sacrificed all nations to the Jews. In England the established clergy favors the nobility, the crown, not the people; opposes all freedom of trade, all free dom in rehgion, all generous education of the people ; its gospel is the gospel for a class, not Christ's gospel for mankind. Here also the sovereign is the head of the church, it favors the prevailing power, represents the morahty, the piety which chances to be popular, nor less nor more ; the Christianity of the street, not of Christ. Here trade takes the place of the army, navy, and court in other lands. That is well, but it takes also the place in great measure of science, art, and litera ture. So we become vulgar, and have little but trade to show. The rich man's son seldom devotes himself 32 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC to literature, science, or art; only to getting more money, or to hving in idleness on what he has inher ited. When money is the end, what need to look for anything more? He degenerates into the class of con sumers, and thinks it an honor. He is ashamed of his father's blood, proud of his gold. A. good deal of scientific labor meets with no reward but itself. In our country this falls almost wholly upon poor men. Literature, science, and art are mainly in their hands, yet are controlled by the prevalent spirit of the na tion. Here and there an exceptional man differs from that, but the mass of writers conform. In England, the national literature favors the church, the crown, the nobility, the prevailing class. .Another literature is rising, but is not yet national, still less canonized. We have no American literature which is permanent. Our scholarly books are only an imitation of a foreign type ; they do not reflect our morals, manners, politics, or religion, not even our rivers, mountains, sky.16 They have not the smell of our ground in their breath. The real American literature is found only in newspapers and speeches, perhaps in some novel, hot, passionate, but poor and extemporaneous. That is our national literature. Does that favor man — represent man? Certainly not. All is the reflection of this most power ful class. The truths that are told are for them, and the lies. Therein the prevailing sentiment is getting into the form of thought. Politics represent the mor als of the controlling class, the morals and manners of rich Peter and David on a large scale. Look at that index, you would sometimes think you were not in the Senate of a great nation, but in a board of brokers, angry and higgling about stocks. Once, in the nation's loftiest hour, she rose inspired, and said: THE MERCANTILE CLASSES 33 " All men are born equal, each with unalienable rights ; that is self-evident." Now she repents her of the vi sion and the saying. It does not appear in her liter ature, nor Church, nor State. Instead of that, through this controlling class, the nation says : " All dollars are equal, however got; each has unalienable rights. Let no man question that ! " This appears in literature and legislation, Church and State. The morals of a nation, of its controlling class, always get summed up in its pohtical action. That is the barom eter of the moral weather. The voters are always fairly represented. The wicked baron, bad of heart, and bloody of hand, has passed off with the ages which gave birth to such a brood, but the bad merchant still lives. He cheats in his trade; sometimes against the law, commonly with it. His truth is never wholly true, nor his lie wholly false. He overreaches the ignorant; makes hard bar gains with men in their trouble, for he knows that a falling man will catch at red-hot iron. He takes the pound of flesh, though that bring away all the life- blood with it. He loves private contracts, digging through walls in secret. No interest is illegal if he can get it. He cheats the nation with false invoices, and swears lies at the custom-house ; will not pay his taxes, but moves out of town on the last of April. He op presses the men who sail his ships, forcing them to be temperate, only that he may consume the value of their drink. He provides for them unsuitable bread and meat. He would not engage in the African slave- trade, for he might lose his ships, and perhaps more; hut he is always ready to engage in the American slave-trade, and calls you a " fanatic " if you tell him it is the worse of the two. He cares not whether he VII— 3 34 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC sells cotton or the man who wears it, if he only gets the money; cotton or negro, it is the same to him. He would not keep a drink-hole in Ann Street,16 only own and rent it. He will bring or make whole cargoes of the poison that deals " damnation round the land." He thinks it vulgar to carry rum about in a jug, re spectable in a ship. He makes paupers, and leaves oth ers to support them. Tell not him of the misery of the poor, he knows better; nor of our paltry way of deahng with public crime, he wants more jails, and a speedier gallows. You see his character in letting his houses, his houses for the poor. I He is a stone in the lame man's shoe. J He is the poor man's devil. The Hebrew devil that so worried Job is gone ; so is the brutal devil that awed our fathers. Nobody fears them ; they vanish before cock-crowing. But this devil of the nineteenth century is still extant. He has gone into trade, and advertises in the papers; his name is " good " in the street. He " makes money ;" the world is poorer by his wealth. He spends it as he made it, like a devil, on himself, his family alone, or worse yet, for show. He can build a church out of his gains, to have his morality, his Christianity preached in it, and call that the gospel, as Aaron called a calf God. He sends rum and missionaries to the same barbarians, the one to damn, the other to " save ;" both for his own advantage, for his patron saint is Judas, the first saint who made money out of Christ. Ask not him to do a good deed in private, " men would not know it," and " the example would be lost ;" so he never lets a dollar slip out between his thumb and finger without leaving his mark on both sides of it. He is not forecasting to discern effects in causes, nor skilful to create new wealth, only spry in the scramble for what others have THE MERCANTILE CLASSES 35 made. It is easy to make a bargain with him, hard to settle. In pohtics he wants a government that will insure his dividends ; so asks what is good for him, but ill for the rest. He knows no right, only power; no man but self; no God but his calf of gold. What effect has he on young men? They had bet ter touch poison. If he takes you to his heart, he takes you in. What influence on society? To taint and corrupt it all round. He contaminates trade ; cor rupts pohtics, making abusive laws, not asking for justice, but only dividends. To the church he is the antichrist. Yes, the very devil, and frightens the poor minister into shameful silence, or, more shameless yet, into an apology for crime; makes him pardon the theory of crime. Let us look on that monster — look and pass by, not without prayer. The good merchant tells the truth, and thrives by that ; is upright and downright ; his word good as his Bible oath. He pays for all he takes ; though never so rich he owns no wicked dollar ; all is openly, honestly, manfully earned, and a full equivalent paid for it. He owns money and is worth a man. He is just in business with the strong ; charitable in dealing with the weak. His counting-room or his shop is the sanctuary of fairness, justice, a school of uprightness as well as thrift. Industry and honor go hand in hand with him. He gets rich by industry and forecast, not by slight of hand and shuffling his cards to another's loss, ifo men become the poorer because he is jach- He would sooner hurt himself than wrong another, for he is a man, not a fox. He entraps no man with hes, active or passive. His honesty is better capital than a sharp er's cunning. Yet he makes no more talk about justice and honesty than the sun talks of light and heat^; they 36 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC do their own talking. His profession of religion is all practice. He knows that a good man is just as near heaven in his shop as in his church, at work as at prayer; so he makes all work sacramental: he com munes with God and man in buying and selhng — communion in both kinds. He consecrates his week day and his work. Christianity appears more divine in this man's deed than in the holiest words of apostle or saint. He treats every man as he wishes all to treat him, and thinks no more of that than of carrying one for every ten. It is the rule of his arithmetic. You know this man is a saint, not by his creed, but by the letting of his houses, his treatment of all that depend on him. He is a father to defend the weak, not a pirate to rob them. He looks out for the welfare of all that he employs; if they are his help he is theirs, and as he is the strongest so the greater help. His private prayer appears in his public work, for in his devotion he does not apologize for his sin, but asking to outgrow that, challenges himself to new worship and more piety. He sets on foot new enterprises which develop the nation's wealth and help others while they help him.. He wants laws that take care of man's rights, knowing that then he can take care of himself and of his own, but hurt no man by so doing. He asks laws for the weak, not against them. He would not take vengeance on the wicked, but correct them. His justice tastes of charity. He tries to remove the causes of poverty, licentiousness, of all crime, and thinks that is alike the duty of Church and State. Ask not him to make a statesman a party-man, or the churches an apology for his lowness. He knows bet ter; he calls that infidelity. He helps the weak help themselves. He is a moral educator, a church of Christ THE MERCANTILE CLASSES 37 gone into business, a saint in trade. The Catholic saint who stood on a pillar's top, or shut himself into a den and fed on grass, is gone to his place — that Christian Nebuchadnezzar. He got fame in his day. No man honors him now; nobody even imitates him. But the saint of the nineteenth century is the good merchant; he is wisdom for the foohsh, strength for the weak, warning to the wicked, and a blessing to all. Build him a shrine in bank and church, in the market and the exchange, or build it not, no saint stands higher than this saint of trade. There, are such men, rich and poor, young and old; such men in Boston. I have known more than one such, and far greater and better than I have told of, for I purposely under color this poor sketch. They need no word of mine for encouragement or sympathy. Have they not Christ and God to aid and bless them? Would that some word of mine might stir the heart of others to be such; your hearts, young men. They rise there clean amid the dust of commerce and the mechanic's busy hfe, and stand there hke great square pyramids in the desert amongst the Arabians' shifting tents. Look at them, ye young men, and be healed of your folly. It is not the calling which corrupts the man, but the men the calling. The most experienced will tell you so. I know it demands manliness to make a man, but God sent you here to do that work. I The duty of this class is quite plain. They control the wealth, the physical strength, the intellectual vigor of the nation. They now display an energy new and startling. No ocean is safe from their canvas; they fill the valleys; they level the hills; they chain the rivers; they urge the willing soil to double harvests. Nature opens all her stores to them; hke the fabled 38 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC dust of Egypt, her fertile bosom teems with new wonders, new forces to toil for man. No race of men in times of peace ever displayed so manly an enter prise, an energy so vigorous as this class here in America. Nothing seems impossible to them. The instinct of production was never so strong and crea tive before. They are proving that peace can stimu late more than war.J Would that my words could reach all of this class. Think not I love to speak hard words, and so often; I say not that I am setting the poor against the rich. xt is no such thing. I am trying to set the strong in favor of the weak. I speak for man. Are you not all brothers, rich or poor? I am here to gratify no vul gar ambition, but in religion's name to tell their duty to the most powerful class in all this land. I I must speak the truth I know, though I may recoil with trembling at the words I speak; yes, though their flame should scorch my own lips. I Some of the evils I complain of are your misfortune, not your fault. Perhaps the best hearts in the land, no less than the ablest heads, are yours. If the evils be done uncon sciously, then it will be greatness to be higher than society, and with your good overcome its evil. All men see your energy, your honor, your disciplined in tellect. Let them see your goodness, justice, Chris- tianity.J The age demands of you a development of religion proportionate with the vigor of your mind and arms. [Trade is silently making a wonderful revolu tion. We live in the midst of it, and therefore see it not. All property has become movable, and therefore power departs from the family of the first-born,# and comes to the family of mankind. God only controls this revolution, but you can help it forward, or retard THE MERCANTILE CLASSES 39 it. The freedom of labor, and the freedom of trade, will work wonders httle dreamed of yet ; one is now uniting ah men of the same nation; the other, some day, will weave all tribes together into one mighty family J Then who shall dare break its peace? I cannot now stop to tell half the proud achievements I foresee resulting from the fierce energy that ani mates your yet unconscious hearts. Men live faster than ever before. (_Life, like money, like mechanical power, is getting intensified and condensed. \ The ap plication of science to the arts, the use of wind, water, steam, electricity, for human works, is a wonderful fact, far greater than the fables of old time. The modern Cadmus has yoked fire and water in an iron bond. The new Prometheus sends the fire of heaven from town to town to run his errands. We talk by lightning. Even now these new achievements have greatly multiplied the powers of men. They belong to no class ; hke air and water, they are the property of mankind. It is for you, who own the machinery of society, to see that no class appropriates to itself what God meant for ah. Remember, it is as easy to tyrannize by machinery as by armies, and as wicked; that it is greater now to bless mankind thereby, than it was of old to conquer new realms. Let men not curse you, as the old nobility, and shake you off, smeared with blood and dust. Turn your power to goodness, its natural transfiguration, and men shall bless your name, and God bless your soul. If you control the nation's politics, then it is your duty to legislate for the nation, for man. You may develop the great na tional idea, the equality of all men ; may frame a gov ernment which shall secure man's unalienable rights. It is for you to organize the rights, of man, thus bal- 40 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC ancing into harmony the man and the many, to organ ize the rights of the hand, the head, and the heart. If this be not done, the fault is yours. If the nation play the tyrant over her weakest child, if she plunder / and rob the feeble Indian, the feebler Mexican, the negro, feebler yet, why the blame is yours. Remem ber there is a God who deals justly with strong and weak. The poor and the weak have loitered behind in j the march of man ; our cities yet swarm with men half savage. It is for you, ye elder brothers, to lead forth the weak and poor ! If you do the national duty that devolves on you, then are you the saviours of your coun try, and shall bless not that alone, but all the thousand million sons of men. Toil, then, for that. If the Church is in your hands, then make it preach the Christian truth. Let it help the free development of religion in the self -consciousness of man, with Jesus for its pattern. It is for you to watch over this work, promote it, not retard. Help build the American Church. The Roman Church has been ; we know what it was, and what men it bore ; the English Church yet stands ; we know what it is. But the Church of Amer ica — which shall represent American vigor aspiring to realize the ideas of Christianity, of absolute religion, — that is not yet. No man has come with pious genius fit to conceive its litany, to chant its mighty creed, and sing its beauteous psalm. The Church of America, the Church of freedom, of absolute religion, the Church of mankind, where Truth, Goodness, Piety, form one trinity of beauty, strength, and grace — when shall it come? Soon as we will. It is yours to help it come. For these great works you may labor; yes, you are laboring, when you help forward justice, industry, when you promote the education of the people ; when THE MERCANTILE CLASSES 41 you practise, public and private, the virtues of a Christian man; when you hinder these seemingly little things, you hinder also the great. [You are the na tion's head, and if the head be wilful and wicked, what shall its members do and be ? To this class let me say : Remember your position at the head of the nation ; use it not as pirates, but Americans, Christians, men. Re member your temptations, and be warned in time. Re member your opportunities - — such as no men ever had before. God and man ahke call on you to do your duty. Elevate your calling still more; let its noble ness appear in you. Scorn a mean thing. Give the world more than you take. You are to serve the na tion, not it you ; to build the Church, not to make it a den of thieves, nor allow it to apologize for your crime or sloth.! Try this experiment and see what comes of it. In all things govern yourselves by the eternal law of right. You shall build up not a military. despotism, nor a mercantile oligarchy, but a State, where the government is of all, by all, and for all ; you shall found not a feudal theocracy, nor a beggarly sect, but the Church of mankind; and that Christ, which is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, will dwell in it, to guide, to warn, to inspire, and to bless all men. And you, my brethren, what shall you be come? Not tyrants, to be feared while living, and buried at last amid popular hate ; but men, who thrive best by justice, reason, conscience, and have now the blessedness of just men making themselves perfect. II THE LABORING CLASSES " God has given each man a back to be clothed, a mouth to be filled, and a pair of hands to work with." And since wherever a mouth and a back are created, a pair of hands also is provided, the inference is unavoid able, that the hands are to be used to supply the needs of the mouth and the back. Now as there is one mouth to each pair of hands, and each mouth must be filled, it follows quite naturally, that if a single pair of hands refuses to do its work, then the mouth goes hungry, or, which is worse, the work is done by other hands. In the one case, the supply failing, an inconvenience is suffered, and the man dies; in the other he eats and wears the earnest of another man's work, and so a wrong is inflicted. The law of nature is this, " If a man will not work, neither shall he eat." Still further, God has so beautifully woven together the web of life, with its warp of fate, and its woof of freewill, that in addition to the result of a man's duty, when faithfully done, there is a satisfaction and recompense in the very discharge thereof. In a rational state of things, Duty and Delight travel the same road, sometimes hand in hand. Labor has an agreeable end, in the result we gain; but the means also are agreeable, for there are pleasures in the work itself. These unexpected com pensations, the gratuities and stray gifts of Heaven, are scattered abundantly in life. Thus the kindness of our friends, the love of our children, is of itself worth a thousand times all the pains we take on their ac count. Labor, in like manner, has a reflective action, 42 THE LABORING CLASSES 43 and gives the working man a blessing over and above the natural result which he looked for. The duty of labor is written on a man's body; in the stout muscle of the arm and the delicate machinery of the hand. That it is congenial to our nature, appears from the alacrity with which children apply themselves to it, and find pleasure in the work itself, without regard to its use. The young duck does not more naturally be take itself to the water, than the boy to the work which goes on around him. There is some work, which even the village sluggard and the city fop love to do, and that only can they do well. These two latter facts show that labor, in some degree, is no less a pleasure than a duty, and prove, that man is not by nature a lazy animal who is forced by hunger to dig and spin. Yet there are some who count labor a curse and a punishment. They regard the necessity of work as the greatest evil brought on us by the " fall ;" as a curse that will cling to our last sand. Many submit to this yoke, and toil, and save, in hope to leave their posterity out of the reach of this primitive curse. Others, still more foolish, regard it as a disgrace. Young men, — the children of honest parents, who hv ing by their manly and toil-hardened hands, bear up the burden of the world on their shoulders, and eat with thankful hearts their daily bread, won in the sweat of their face, — are ashamed of their fathers' occupation, and forsaking the plough, the chisel, or the forge, seek a livelihood in what is sometimes named a more respectable and genteel vocation; that is, in a calhng which demands less of the hands than their fathers' hardy craft, and quite often less of the head likewise; for that imbecility which drives men to those callings has its seat mostly in a higher region than 44 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC the hands. Affianced damsels beg their lovers to dis cover (or invent) some ancestor in buckram who did not work. The sophomore in a small college is ashamed of his father who wears a blue frock, and his dusty brother who toils with the saw and the ax. These men, after they have wiped off the dirt and the soot of their early life, sometimes become arrant cox combs, and standing like the heads of Hermes without hands, having only a mouth, make faces at such as continue to serve the state by plain handiwork. Some one relates an anecdote, which illustrates quite plainly this foolish desire of young men to live without work. It happened in one of our large towns, that a shop keeper and a blacksmith, both living in the same street, advertised for an apprentice on the same day. In a given time fifty beardless youngsters applied to the haberdasher, and not one to the smith. But that story has a terrible moral, namely, that forty-and-nine out of the fifty were disappointed at the outset. It were to be wished that this notion of labor being disgraceful was confined to vain young men, and giddy maidens of idle habits and weak heads, for then it would be looked upon as one of the diseases of early life, which we know must come, and rejoice when our young friends have happily passed through it, know ing it is one of " the ills that flesh is heir to," but is not very grievous, and comes but once in the lifetime. This aversion to labor, this notion that it is a curse and a disgrace, this selfish desire to escape from the general and natural lot of man, is the sacramental sin of " the better class " in our great cities. The children of the poor pray to be rid of work ; and what son of a rich man learns a trade, or tills the soil with his own hands ? Many men look on the abihty to be idle as the THE LABORING CLASSES 45 most desirable and honorable ability. They glory in being the mouth that consumes, not the hand that works. Yet one would suppose a man of useless hands and idle head, in the midst of God's world, where each thing works for all, in the midst of the toil and sweat of the human race, must needs make an apology for his sloth, and would ask pardon for violating the com mon law, and withdrawing his neck from the general yoke of humanity. Still more does he need an apology, if he is active only in getting into his hands the result of others' work. But it is not so. The man who is rich enough to be idle, values himself on his leisure; and what is worse, others value him for it. Active men must make a shamefaced excuse for being busy, and working men for their toil, as if business and toil were not the duty of all, and the support of the world. In certain countries men are divided horizontally into two classes, the men who work and the men who rule, and the latter despise the employment of the former as mean and degrading. It is the slave's duty to plough, said a heathen poet, and a freeman's business to enjoy at leisure the fruit of that ploughing. This same fool ish notion finds favor with many here. It is a remnant of those barbarous times when all labor was performed by serfs and bondsmen, and exemption from toil was the exclusive sign of the freeborn. But this notion, that labor is disgraceful, conflicts as sharply with our pohtical institutions, as it does with common sense, and the law God has writ on man. An old author, cen turies before Christ, was so far enlightened on this point, as to see the true dignity of manual work, and to say, " God is well pleased with honest works ; He suffers the laboring man, who ploughs the earth by night and day, to call his hfe most noble. If he is 46 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC good and true, he offers continual sacrifice to God, and is not so lustrous in his dress as in his heart." Manual labor is a blessing and a dignity. But to state the case on its least favorable issue, admit it were both a disgrace and a curse, would a true man desire to escape it for himself, and leave the curse to fall on other men? Certainly not. The generous soldier fronts death, and charges in the cannon's mouth ; it is the coward who lingers behind. If labor were hateful, as the proud would have us beheve, then they who bear its burdens, and feed and clothe the human race, and fetch and carry for them, should be honored as those have always been who defend society in war. If it be glorious, as the world fancies, to repel a human foe, how much more is he to be honored who stands up when Want comes upon us, like an armed man, and puts him to rout! One would fancy the world was mad, when it bowed in reverence to those who by supe rior cunning possessed themselves of the earnings of others, while it made wide- the mouth and drew out the tongue at such as do the world's work. " Without these," said an ancient, " cannot a city be inhabited, but they shall not be sought for in public council, nor sit high in the congregation ;" and those few men and women who are misnamed the World, in their wisdom have confirmed the saying. Thus they honor those who sit in idleness and ease ; they extol such as defend a state with arms, or those who collect in their hands the result of Asiatic or American industry; but pass by with contempt the men who rear corn and cattle, and weave and spin, and fish and build for the whole human race. Yet, if the state of labor were so hard and disgraceful as some fancy, the sluggard in fine raiment, and that trim figure — which, like the lilies THE LABORING CLASSES 47 in the Scripture, neither toils nor spins, and is yet clothed in more glory than Solomon — would both bow down before colliers and farmers, and bless them as the benefactors of the race. Christianity has gone still farther, and makes a man's greatness consist in the amount of service he renders to the world. Certainly he is the most honorable who, by his head or his hand, does the greatest and best work for his race. The noblest soul the world ever saw appeared not in the ranks of the indolent, but " took on him the form of a servant ;" and when he washed his disciples' feet, meant something not very generally understood, perhaps, in the nineteenth century. Now, manual labor, though an unavoidable duty, though designed as a blessing, and naturally both a pleasure and a dignity, is often abused, till, by its ter rible excess, it becomes really a punishment and a curse. It is only a proper amount of work that is a blessing. Too much of it wears out the body before its time, cripples the mind, debases the soul, blunts the senses, and chills the affections. It makes a man a spinning-jenny, or a ploughing-machine, and not " a being of a large discourse, that looks before and after;" He ceases to be a man, and becomes a thing. In a rational and natural state of society, — that is, one in which every man went .forward towards the true end he was designed to reach; towards perfection in the use of all his senses ; towards_perf ection in wisdom, virtue, affection, and- rehgion, — labor would never in terfere with the culture of what is best in each man. His daily business would be a school tp aid in develop ing the whole man, body and soul, because he would then do what nature fitted him to do. Then his busi ness would be really his calhng. The diversity of gifts 48 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC is quite equal to the diversity of work to be done. [There is some one thing which each man can do with pleasure, and better than any other man; because he was born to do it. Then all men would labor, each at his proper vocation J and an excellent farmer would not be spoiled to make a poor lawyer, a blundering physician, or a preacher who puts the world asleep. [Then a small body of men would not be pampered in indolence, to grow up into gouty worthlessness, and die of inertia; nor would the large part of men be worn down as now by excessive toil before half their life is spent. They would not be so severely tasked as to have no time to read, think, and converse. When he walked abroad, the laboring man would not be forced to catch mere transient glimpses of the flowers by the way-side, or the stars over his head, as the dogs, it is said, drink the waters of the Nile, running while they drink, afraid the crocodiles should seize them if they stop. When he looked from his window at the landscape, Distress need not stare at him from every bush. He would then have leisure to cultivate his mind and heart no less than to do the world's work J In labor, as in all things beside, moderation is the law. If a man transgresses and becomes intemperate in his work, and does nothing but toil with the hand, he must suffer. We educate and improve only the faculties we employ, and cultivate most what we use the oftenest. But if some men are placed in such cir cumstances that they can use only their hands, who is to be blamed if they are ignorant, vicious, and, in a measure, without God? Certainly not they. Now it is a fact, notorious as the sun at noon-day, that such are the circumstances of many men. As society advances in refinement, more labor is needed to supply its de- THE LABORING CLASSES 49 mands; for houses, food, apparel, and other things, must be refined and luxurious. It requires more work, therefore, to fill the mouth and clothe the back than in simpler times. To aggravate the difficulty, some es cape from their share of this labor by superior in telligence, shrewdness, and cunning ; others by fraud and lies, or by inheriting the result of these qualities in their ancestors. So their share of the' common bur den, thus increased, must be borne by other hands, which are laden already with more than enough. StiU further, this class of mouths, forgetting how hard it is to work, and not having their desires for the result of labor checked by the sweat necessary to satisfy them, but hving vicariously by other men's hands, re fuse to be content with the simple gratification of their natural appetites. So Caprice takes the place of Na ture, and must also be satisfied. Natural wants are few ; but to artificial desires there is no end. When each man must pay the natural price, and so earn what he gets, the hands stop the mouth, and the soreness of the toil corrects the excess of desire ; and if it do not, none has cause of complaint, for the man's desire is al layed by his own work. Thus if Absalom wishes for sweet cakes, the trouble of providing them checks his extravagant or unnatural appetite. But when the mouth and hand are on different bodies, and Absalom can coax his sister, or bribe his friend, or compel his slave, to furnish him dainties, the natural restraint is taken from appetite, and it runs to excess. Fancy must be appeased ; peevishness must be quieted ; and so a world of work is needed to bear the burdens which those men bind and lay on men's shoulders, but will not move with one of their fingers. The class of mouths thus commits a sin, which the class of hands must expiate. VII--4 50 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC Thus, by the treachery of one part of society in avoiding their share of the work, by their tyranny in increasing the burden of the world, an evil is pro duced quite unknown in a simpler state of life, and a man of but common capacities not born to wealth, in order to ensure a subsistence for himself and his fam ily, must work with his hands so large a part of his time, that nothing is left for intellectual, moral, esthetic, and religious improvement. He cannot look at the world, talk with his wife, read his Bible, nor pray to God, but Poverty knocks at the door, and hurries him to his work. He is rude in mind before he begins his work, and his work does not refine him. Men have attempted long enough to wink this matter out of sight, but it will not be put down. It may be worse in other countries, but it is bad enough in New England, as all men know who have made the experi ment. [There must be a great sin somewhere in that state of society which allows one man to waste day and night in sluggishness or riot, consuming the bread of whole families, while from others, equally well-gifted ancLfaithful, it demands twelve, or sixteen, or even eighteen hours of hard work out of the twenty-four, and then leaves the man so weary and worn, that he is capable of nothing but sleep, — sleep that is broken by no dream. Still worse is it when this life of work begins so early, that the man has no fund of acquired knowledge on which to draw for mental support in his hours of toil. To this man the blessed night is for nothing but work and sleep, and the Sabbath day sim ply what Moses commanded, a day of bodily rest for man, as for his ox and his ass. Man was sent into this world to use his best faculties in the best way, and thus reach the high end of a man. How can he do this THE LABORING CLASSES 51 while so large a part of his time is spent in unmiti gated work? Truly he cannot. I Hence we see, that while, in all other departments of nature, each animal lives up to the measure of his organization, and with very rare exceptions becomes perfect after his kind, the greater part of men are debased and belittled; shortened of half their days, and half their excellence, so that you are surprised to find a man well educated whose whole hfe is hard work. Thus what is the ex ception in nature, through our perveijpty becomes the rule with man. Every blackbird is a blackbird just as God designs ; but how many men are only bodies ! If a man is placed in such circumstances that he can use only his hands, they only become broad and strong. If no pains be taken to obtain dominion over the flesh, the man loses his birthright, and dies a victim to the sin of society. No doubt there are men, born under the worst of circumstances, who have redeemed them selves from them, and obtained an excellence of intel lectual growth which is worthy of wonder; but these are exceptions to the general rule, men gifted at birth with a power almost superhuman. It is not from ex ceptions we are to frame the law. Now to put forward the worst possible aspect of the case. Suppose that the present work of the world can only be performed at this sacrifice, which is the best, that the work should be done, as now, and seven-tenths of men and women should, as the unavoidable result of their toil, be cursed with extremity of labor, and igno rance, and rudeness, and unmanly life; or that less of this work be done, and, for the sake of a widespread and generous culture, we sleep less softly, dine on humbler food, dwell in mean houses, and wear leather, like George Fox? There is no doubt what answer 52 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC common sense, reason, and Christianity would give to this question ; for wisdom, virtue, and manhood, are as much better than sumptuous dinners, fine apparel, and splendid houses, as the soul is better than the senses. But as yet we are slaves. The senses overlay the soul. We serve brass, and mahogany, and beef, and porter. The class of mouths oppresses the class of hands, for the strongest and most cunning of the latter are con tinually pressing into the ranks of the former, and while they increase the demand for work, leave their own share of it to be done by others. Men and women of humble prospects in life, while building the connu bial nest that is to shelter them and their children, prove plainly enough their thraldom to the senses, when such an outlay of upholstery and joiners' work is demanded, and so little is required that appeals to reason, imagination, and faith. Yet when the mind demands little besides time, why prepare so pompously for the senses, that she cannot have this, but must be cheated of her due? One might fancy he heard the stones cry out of the wall, in many a house, and say to the foolish people who tenant the dwelling, — '' 0 ye fools, is it from the work of the joiner, and the craft of those who are cunning in stucco and paint, and are skilful to weave and to spin, and work in marble and mortar, that ye expect satisfaction and rest for your souls, while ye make no provision for what is noblest and immortal within you? But ye also have your re ward!" The present state of things, in respect to this matter, has no such excellencies that it should not be changed. It is no law of God, that when Sin gets a footing in the world it should hold on for ever, nor can Folly keep its dominion over society simply by right of " adverse possession." It were better the body THE LABORING CLASSES 53 went bare and hungry, rather than the soul should starve. Certainly the life is more than the meat, though it would not weigh so much in the butcher's scales. There are remedies at hand. It is true a certain amount of labor must be performed, in order that so ciety be fed and clothed, warmed and comforted, re lieved when sick, and buried when dead. If this is wisely distributed, if each performs his just portion, the burden is slight, and crushes no one. Here, as elsewhere, the closer we keep to nature, the safer we are. It is not under the burdens of nature that society groans ; but the work of caprice, of ostentation, of contemptible vanity, of luxury, which is never satis fied, — these oppress the world. If these latter are given up, and each performs what is due from him, and strives to diminish the general burden and not add to it, then no man is oppressed; there is time enough for each man to cultivate what is noblest in him, and be all that his nature allows. It is doubtless right that one man should use the service of another; but only when both parties are benefited by the relation. The smith may use the service of the collier, the grocer, and the grazier, for he does them a service in return. He who heals the body deserves a compensation at the hands of whomsoever he serves. If the painter, the preacher, the statesman, is doing a great work for mankind, he has a right to their service in return. His fellowman may do for him what otherwise he ought to do for himself. Thus is he repaid, and is at hberty to devote the undivided energy of his genius to the work. But on what ground an idle man, who does nothing for society, or an active man, whose work is wholly selfish, can use the services of others, and call them to feed 54 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC and comfort him, who repays no equivalent in kind, it yet remains for reason to discover. The only equiva lent for service is a service in return. If Hercules is stronger, Solon wiser, and Job richer, than the rest of men, it is not that they may demand more of their fellows, but may do more for them. " We that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak," says a good man. In respect, however, to the matter of personal service, this seems to be the rule ; that no one, whatever be his station, wants, attainments, or riches, has any right to receive from another any service which degrades the servant in his own eyes, or the eyes of the public, or in the eyes of him who re ceives the service. It is surely unmanly to receive a favor which you would not give. If it debases David to do a menial service for Ahud, then it debases Ahud just as much to do the same to David. The difference between king and slave vanishes when both are ex amined from the height of their common humanity, just as the difference between the west and northwest side of a hair on the surface of the earth is inconsider able to an eye that looks down from the sun, and takes in the whole system, though it might appear stupen dous to the motes that swim uncounted in a drop of dew. But no work, useful or ornamental to human life, needs be debasing. It is the lasting disgrace of society, that the most useful employments are called " low." There is implied in this very term, the tacit confession on the part of the employer, that he has wronged and subjugated the person who serves him; for when these same actions are performed by the mother for her child, or the son for his father, and are done for love and not money, they are counted not as low, but rather ennobling. THE LABORING CLASSES 55 The law of nature is, that work and the enjoyment of that work go together. Thus God has given each animal the power of self-help, and all necessary organs. The same robin builds the nest and lives in it. Each hon has claws and teeth, and kills his own meat. Every beaver has prudence and plastic skill, and so builds for himself. In those classes of animals where there is a division of labor, one brings the wax, another builds the comb, and a third collects the honey, but each one is at work. The drones are expelled when they work no more. Even the ruler of the colony is the most active member of the state, and really the mother of the whole people. She is only " happy as a king," because she does the most work. Hence she has a di vine right to her eminent station. She never eats the bread of sin. She is queen of the workers. Here each labors for the good of all, and not solely for his own benefit. StiU less is any one an injury to the others. In nature, those animals that cannot work are provided for by love. Thus the young lion is fed by the par ent, and the old stork by its children.. Were a full- grown hon so foolish that he would not hunt, the result is plain — he must starve. Now this is a foreshadow ing of man's estate. God has given ten fingers for every two lips. Each is to use the ability he has for himself and for others. Who, that is able, wiU not return to society, with his head or his hand, an equiva lent for what it received? Only the sluggard and the robber. These two, the drones and pirates of society, represent; a large class. It is the plain duty of each, so far as he is able, to render an equivalent for what he receives, and thus to work for the good of all; but each in his own way; Dorcas the seamstress at her craft, and Moses and Paul at theirs. If one cannot 56 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC work through weakness, or infancy, or age, or sickness, — love works for him ; and he too is fed. If one will not work, though he can — the law of nature should have its effect. He ought to starve. If one insist sim ply upon getting into his hands the earnings of others, and adding nothing to the common stock, he is a rob ber, and should properly meet with the contempt and the stout resistance of society. There is in the whole world but a certain amount of value, out of which each one is to have a subsistence while here; for we are all but life-tenants of the earth, which we hold in com mon. We brought nothing into it; we carry nothing out of it. No man, therefore, has a natural right to any more than he earns or can usej1 He who adds anything to the common stock and inheritance of the next age, though it be but a sheaf of wheat, or cocoon of silk he has produced, a napkin, or a brown loaf he has made, is a benefactor to his race, so far as that goes. But he who gets into his hands, by force, cun ning, or deceit, more than he earns, does thereby force his fellow-mortal to accept less than his true share. So far as that goes, he is a curse to mankind. [There are three ways of getting wealth: First, by seizing with violence what is already in existence, and appropriating it to yourself. This is the method of the old Romans; of robbers and pirates, from Sciron to Captain Kidd. Second, by getting possession of goods in the way of traffic, or by some similar process. Here the agent is cunning, and not force; the instru ment is a gold coin, and not an iron sword, ,as in the former case. This method is called trade, as the other is named robbery. But in both cases wealth is ac quired by one party, and lost* by the other. In tbe first case there is a loss of positive value ; in the latter THE LABORING CLASSES 57 there is no increase. The world gains nothing new by either. The third method is the application of labor and skill to the earth, or the productions of nature. Here is a positive increase of value. J We have a dozen potatoes for the one that was planted, or an elegant dress instead of a handful of wool and flax. Such as try the two former ways consume much, but produce nothing. Of these the Roman says, " fruges consum- ere nati," — they are born to eat up the corn. /Yet in all ages they have been set in high places. The world dishonors its workmen; stones its prophets; crucifies its Saviour ; but bows down its neck before wealth, how ever won, and shouts till the welkin rings again, Long hve violence and fraud. The world has always been partial to its oppressors. Many men fancy themselves an ornament to the world, whose presence in it is a disgrace and a burden to the ground they stand on. The man who does nothing for the race, but sits at his ease, and fares daintily, because wealth has fallen into his hands, is a burden to the world. He may be a polished gentleman, a scholar, the master of elegant accomplishments, but so long as he takes no pains to work for man, with his head or his hands, what claim has he to respect, or even a sub sistence? The rough-handed woman, who, with a salt fish and a basket of vegetables, provides substantial food for a dozen working men, and washes their ap parel, and makes them comfortable and happy, is a blessing to the land, though she have no education, while this fop with his culture and wealth is a curse. She does her duty so far as she sees it, and so deserves the thanks of man. But every oyster or berry that fop has eaten, has performed his duty better than he. " It was made to support nature, and it has done so," 58 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC while he is but a consumer of food and clothing. That public opinion tolerates such men is no small marvel. The productive classes of the world are those who bless it by their work or their thought. He who in vents a machine does no less a service than he who toils all day with his hands. Thus the inventors of the plough, the loom, and the ship, were deservedly placed amongst those whom society was to honor. But they also who teach men moral and religious truth; who give them dominion over the world; instruct them to think, to live together in peace, to love one another, and pass good lives enlightened by wisdom, charmed by goodness, and enchanted by religion ; they who build up a loftier population, making man more manly, — are the greatest benefactors of the world. They speak to the deepest wants of the soul, and give men the water of life and the true bread from Heaven. They are loaded with contumely in their hfe, and come to a violent end. But their influence passes like morning from land to land, and village and city grow glad in their light. That is a poor economy, common as it is, which overlooks these men. It is a very vulgar mind, that would rather Paul had continued a tentmaker, and Jesus a carpenter. Now the remedy for the hard service that is laid upon the human race consists partly in lessening the number of unproductive classes, and increasing the workers and thinkers, as well as in giving up the work of ostentation and folly and sin. It has been asserted on high authority, that if all men and women capable of work would toil diligently but two hours out of the twenty-four, the work of the world would be done, and all would be as comfortably fed and clothed, as well educated and housed, and provided for in general, as THE LABORING CLASSES 59 they now are, even admitting they all went to sleep the other twenty-two hours of the day and night. If this were done, we should hear nothing of the sickness of sedentary and rich men. Exercise for the sake of health would be heard of no more. One class would not be crushed by hard work; nor another oppressed by indolence, and condemned, in order to resist the just vengeance nature takes on them, to consume nau seous drugs, and resort to artificial and hateful meth ods to preserve a life that is not worth the keeping, because it is useless and ignominious. Now men may work at the least three or four times this necessary i amount each day, and yet find their labor a pastime, a dignity, and a blessing, and find likewise abundant op portunity for study, for social intercourse, and recrea tion. Then if a man's calling were to think and write, he would not injure the world by even excessive devo tion to his favorite pursuit, for the general burden would stiU be slight. Another remedy is this — the mind does the body's ^ work. The head saves the hands. It invents machines, which, doing the work of many hands, will at last set free a large portion of human time from slavery to the elements. The brute forces of nature lie waiting man's command, and ready to serve him. At the voice of Genius, the river consents to turn his wheel, and weave and spin for the antipodes. The mine sends him iron vassals, to toil in cold and heat. Fire and water embrace at his bidding, and a new servant is born, which will fetch and carry at his command; wiU face down aU the storms of the Atlantic ; will forge anchors, and spin gossamer threads, and run of errands up and down the continent with men and women on his back. This last child of Science, though yet a stripling and 60 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC in leading strings, is already a stout giant. The fable of Orpheus is a true story in our times. There are four stages of progress in regard to labor, which are observable in the history of man. First, he does his own work by his hands. Adam tills the ground in the sweat of his own face, and Noah builds an ark in many years of toil. Next he forces his fellow-mortal to work for him, and Canaan becomes a servant to his brother, and Job is made rich by the sweat of his great household of slaves. Then he seizes on the beasts, and the bull and the horse drag the plough of Castor and Pollux. At last he sets free his brother ; works with his own hands ; commands the beasts, and makes the brute force of the elements also toil for him. Then he has dominion over the earth, and enjoys his birthright. [Man, however, is stiU in bondage to the elements; and since the beastly maxim is even now prevalent, that the strong should take care of themselves, and use the weak as their tools, though to the manifest injury of the weak, the use of machinery has hitherto been but a trifling boon in comparison with what it may be. In the village of Humdrum, its thousand able-bodied men and women, without machinery, and having no inter course with the rest of the world, must work fourteen hours out of the twenty-four, that they may all be housed, fed, and clothed, warmed, instructed, and made happy. Some ingenious hands invent water-mills, which saw, plane, thrash, grind, Spin, weave, and do many other things, so that these thousand people need work but five hours in the day to obtain the result of fourteen by the old process. Here then a vast amount of time — nine hours in the day — is set free from toil. It may be spent in study, social improvement, the pur- THE LABORING CLASSES 61 suit of a favorite art, and leave room for amusement also. But the longest heads at Humdrum have not Christian but only selfish hearts beating in their bosoms, and sending hfe into the brain. So these calculators think the men of Humdrum shall work fourteen hours a day as before. " It would be dangerous," say they, "to set free so much time. The deluded creatures would soon learn to he and steal, and would speedily end by eating one another up. It would not be Christian to leave them to this fate. Leisure is very good for us, but would be ruinous to them." So the wise men of Humdrum persuade their neighbors to work the old fourteen hours. More is produced than is consumed. So they send off the superfluities of the village, and in return bring back tea and porcelain, rich wines, and showy gewgaws, and contemptible fashions that change every month. The strong-headed men grow rich; hve in palaces ; their daughters do not work, nor their sons dirty their hands. They fare sumptuously every day ; are clothed in purple and fine linen. Meanwhile the common people of Humdrum work as long as before the machines were invented, and a httle harder. They also are blest by the " improvement." The young women have red ribbons on their bonnets, French gloves on their hands, and shawls of India on their shoulders, and " tinkling ornaments " in their ears. The young man of Humdrum is better off than his father who fought through the Revolution, for he wears a beaver hat, and a coat of English cloth, and has a Birmingham whit tle, and a watch in his pocket. When he marries he wUl buy red curtains to his windows, and a showy mirror to hang on his waU. For these valuable con siderations he parts with the nine hours a day, which machinery has saved, but has no more bread than be- 62 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC fore. For these blessings he will make his body a slave, and leave his mind all uncultivated. He is con tent to grow up a body — nothing but a body. So that if you look therein for his understanding, imag ination, reason, you will find them like three grains of wheat in three bushels of chaff. You shall seek them aU day before you find them, and at last they are not worth your search. At Humdrum, nature begins to re volt at the factitious inequality of condition, and thinks it scarce right for bread to come fastest into hands that add nothing to the general stock. So many grow restless and a few pilfer. In a ruder state crimes are few; — the result of violent passions. At Humdrum they are numerous ; — the result of want, indolence, or neglected education; they are in great measure crimes against property. To remedy this new and unnatural evil, there rises a court-house and a jail, which must be paid for in work ; then judges and lawyers and jailers are needed likewise in this artificial state, and add to the common burden. The old Athenians sent yearly seven beautiful youths and virgins ; — a tribute to the Mino taur. The wise men of Humdrum shut up in a jail a larger number; a sacrifice to the spirit of modern cupidity; unfortunate wretches, who were the victims not the foes of society ; men so weak in head or heart, that their bad character was formed for them through circumstances, far more than it was formed by them through their own free will. Still further, the men who violate the law of the body, using the mouth much and the hand little, or in the opposite way, soon find nature taking vengeance for the offense. Then unnatural remedies must oppose the artificial disease. In the old time every sickly dunce was cured " with motherwort and tansey," which grew by the road-side, suited all - THE LABORING CLASSES 63 complaints, and was administered by each mother in the village. Now Humdrum has its " medical faculty," with their conflicting systems, homoeopathic and allo pathic, but no more health than before. Thus the burden is increased to little purpose. The strong men of Humdrum have grown rich and become edu cated. If one of the laboring men is stronger than his fellows, he also will become rich, and educate his chil dren. He becomes rich, not by his own work, but by using the hands of others whom his cunning over reaches. Yet he is not more avaricious than they. He has perhaps the average share of selfishness, but su perior adroitness to gratify that selfishness. So he gets and--saves, and takes care of himself, a part of their duty which the strong have always known how to perform ; though the more difficult part, how to take care of others, to think for them, and help them to think for themselves, they have yet to learn, at least to prac tice. Alas, we are stiU in bondage to the elements, and so long as two of the " enlightened " nations of the earth, England and America, insist on weaving the gar ments for aU the rest of the world, — not because they would clothe the naked, but that their strong men might live in fine houses, wear gay apparel, dine on costly food, and their mouths be served by other men's hands, — we must expect that seven-tenths of mankind will be degraded, and will hug their chains, and count ma chinery an evil. Is not the only remedy for all the evils at Humdrum in the Christian idea of wealth, and the Christian idea of work? There is a melancholy background to the success and splendid achievements of modern society. You see it in rural villages, but more plainly in large cities, where the amount of poverty and wealth is summed up 64 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC as in a table of statistics, and stands in two parallel columns. The wretchedness of a destitute mother con trasts sadly with a warehouse, whence she is excluded by a single pane of glass, as cold as popular charity and nearly as thin. The comfortless hutch of the poor, who works, though with shiftless hands and foolish bead, is a dark background to the costly stable of the rich man, who does nothing for the world but gather its treasures, and whose horses are better fed, housed, trained up, and cared for, than his brother. It is a strange contrast to the church of God, that, with thick granite waUs, towers up to heaven near by. One can not but think, in view of the suffering there is in the world, that most of it is the fault of some one; that God, who made men's bodies, is no bankrupt, and does not pay off a penny of satisfaction for a pound of want, but has made enough and to spare for all his creatures, if they will use it wisely. Who does not sometimes remember that saying, " Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of the least of these, ye did it not to me?" [The world no doubt grows better; comfort is in creased from age to age. What is a luxury in one generation, scarce attainable by the wealthy, becomes at last the possession of most men. Solomon with aU his wealth had no carpet on his chamber floor ; no glass in his windows ; no shirt to his back. But as the world goes, the increase of comforts does not fall chiefly into the hands of those who create them by their work. The mechanic cannot use the costly furniture he makes. This, however, is of small consequence; but he has not always the more valuable consideration, time to grow wiser and better in. As society advances, the standard of poverty rises. A man in New England is called THE LABORING CLASSES 65 poor at this day, who would have been rich a hundred and fifty years ago ; but as it rises, the number that falls beneath that standard becomes a greater part of the whole population. Of course the comfort of a few is purchased by the loss of the many. The world has grown rich and refined, but chiefly by the efforts of those who themselves continue poor and ignorant. So the ass, while he carried wood and spices to the Roman bath, contributed to the happiness of the state, but was himself always dirty and overworked. It is easy to see these evils, and weep for them. It is com mon also to censure some one class of men — the rich or the educated, the manufacturers, the merchants, or the politicians, for example — as if the sin rested solely with them, while it belongs to society at large. But the world yet waits for some one to heal these dreadful evils, by devising some new remedy, or applying the old. Who shall apply for us Christianity to social lifePj But God orders aU things wisely. Perhaps it is best that man should toil on some centuries more be fore the race becomes of age, and capable of receiving its birthright. Every wrong must at last be righted, and he who has borne the burden of society in this ephemeral hfe, and tested none of its rewards, and he also who has eaten its loaves and fishes and yet earned nothing, will no doubt find an equivalent at last in the scales of divine justice. Doubtless the time will come when labor will be a pleasant pastime; when the sour sweat and tears of hfe shall be wiped away from many faces; when the few shall not be advanced at the ex pense of the many; when ten pairs of female hands shall not be deformed to nurse a single pair into pre ternatural delicacy, but when all men shall eat bread VII— 5 66 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC in the sweat of their face, and yet find leisure to cul tivate what is best and divinest in their souls, to a de gree we do not dream of as yet; when the strong man who wishes to be a mouth and not a hand, cr to gain the treasures of society by violence or cunning, and not by paying their honest price, wiU be looked upon with the same horror we feel for pirates and robbers, and the guardians who steal the inheritance of their wards, and leave them to want and die. No doubt it is a good thing that four or five men out of the thou sand should find time, exemption from labor, and wealth likewise, to obtain a generous education of their head and heart and soul ; but it is a better thing, it is alone consistent with God's law, that the world shaU be managed so that each man shall have a chance to obtain the best education society can give him, and while he toils, to become the best and greatest his na ture is capable of being in this terrene sphere. Things never will come to their proper level so long as thought with the head, and work with the hands, are considered incompatible : never till aU men f oUow the calling they are designed for by nature, and it becomes as common for a rich man's son to follow a trade, as now it is happily for a poor man's to be rich. Labor wiU al ways be unattractive and disgraceful, so long as wealth unjustly obtained is a distinction, and so long as the best cultivation of a man is thought inconsistent with the hfe of the farmer and the tailor. As things now are, men desert a laborious occupation for which they are fitted, and have a natural fondness, and seek bread and honor in the " learned professions," for which they have neither ability nor taste, solely because they seek a generous education, which is thought inconsistent with a life of hard work. Thus strong heads desert THE LABORING CLASSES 67 the plough and the anvil, to come into a profession which they dislike, and then to find their duty pointing one way and their desire traveling another. Thus they attempt to hve two lives at the same time, and fail of both, as he who would walk eastward and westward at the same time makes no progress. Now the best education and the highest culture, in a rational state of society, does not seem inconsistent with a hfe of hard work. It is not a figure of speech, but a plain fact, that a man is educated by his trade, or daily calling. Indirectly, labor ministers to the wise man intellectual, moral, and spiritual instruction, just as it gives him directly his daily bread. Under its le gitimate influence, the frame acquires its due propor tions and proper strength. To speak more particu larly, the work of a farmer, for example, is a school of mental discipline. He must watch the elements ; must understand the nature of the soil he tiUs, the character and habits of the plants he rears, the character and disposition of each animal that serves him as a living instrument. Each day makes large claims on him for knowledge, and sound judgment. He is to apply good sense to the soil. Now these demands tend to foster the habit of observing and judging justly, to increase thought, and elevate the man. The same may be said of almost all trades. The sailor must watch the ele ments, and have all his knowledge and faculties at command, for his life often depends on having " the right thought at the right time." Judgment and de cision are thus called forth. The education men derive from their trade is so striking, that craftsmen can express almost any truth, be it never so deep and high, in the technical terms of the " shop." The humblest business may thus develop the noblest power of think- 68 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC ing. So a trade may be to the man, in some measure, what the school and the college are to the scholar. The wise man learns more from his corn and cattle than the stupid pedant from all the folios of the Vatican. The habit of thinking, thus acquired, is of more value than the greatest number of thoughts learned by rote and labeled for use. But an objection may readily be brought to this view, and it may be asked, why then are not the farm ers, as a class, so well instructed as the class of lawyers ? Certainly there may be found farmers who are most highly educated; men of but little acquaintance with books, yet men of thought, observation, and sound judgment. Scholars are ashamed before them when they meet, and blush at the homely wisdom, the acute analysis, the depth of insight, and breadth of view, dis played by laborers in blue frocks. But these cases are exceptions. These men are geniuses of no mean or der, and would be great under any circumstances. It must be admitted, that, as a general rule, the man who works is not so well educated as the lawyer. But the difference between them rises not so much from any difference in the two callings, as from this circum stance, that the lawyer enters his profession with a large fund of knowledge, and the habits of intellectual discipline, which the farmer has not. He therefore has the advantage so long as he lives. If two young men, of the same age and equal capacity, were to re ceive the same education tiU they were twenty years old, both taking proper physical exercise at the same time, and one of them should then spend three years in learning the science of the law, the other in the science of the farm, and then both should enter the full prac tice of their two callings, each having access to books THE LABORING CLASSES 69 if he wished for them, and educated men and women, can any one doubt that the farmer, at the age of forty, would be the better educated man of the two? The trade teaches as much as the profession, and it is as well known that almost every farmer has as much time for general reading as the lawyer, and better oppor tunity for thought, since he can think of what he will when at his work, while the lawyer's work demands his thought aU the time he is in it. The farmer would probably have the more thoughts ; the lawyer the more elegant words. If there is any employment which de grades the man who is always engaged in it, cannot many bear the burden — each a short time — and so no one be crushed to the ground? Morality, likewise, is taught by a trade. The man must have deahngs with his fellows. The afflicted call for his sympathy, the oppressed for his aid. Vice sohcits his rebuke, and virtue claims his commendation. If he buys and sells, he is presented with opportunities to defraud. He may conceal a fault in his work, and thus deceive his employer. So an appeal is continually made to his sense of right. If faithful, he learns jus tice. It is only by this exposure to temptation, that virtue can be acquired. It is in the water that men learn to swim. Still more, a man does not toil for him self alone, but for those dearest to his heart; this for his father ; that for his child ; and there are those who out of the small pittance of their daily earnings, con tribute to support the needy, print Bibles for the igno rant, and preach the gospel to the poor. Here the meanest work becomes heroism. The man who toils for a principle ennobles himself by the act. StiU further, labor has a religious use. It has been weU said, " An undevout astronomer is mad." But an 70 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC undevout farmer, sailor, or mechanic, is equally mad, for the duties of each afford a school for his devotion. In respect to this influence, the farmer seems to stand on the very top of the world. The laws of nature are at work for him. For him the sun shines and the rain falls. The earth grows warm to receive his seed. The dews moisten it; the blade springs up and grows he knows not how, while all the stars come forth to keep watch over his rising corn. There is no second cause between him and the Soul of all. Everything he looks on, from the earliest flowers of spring, to the austere grandeurs of a winter's sky at night, is the work of God's hand. The great process of growth and decay, change and reproduction, are perpetually before him. Day and night, serenity and storm, visit and bless him as they move. Nature's great works are done for no one in special; yet each man receives as much of the needed rain, and the needed heat, as if aU rain and aU heat were designed for his use alone. He labors, but it is not the only fruit of his labor that he eats. No ; God's exhaustless providence works for him ; works with him. His laws warm and water the fields, replenishing the earth. Thus the husbandman, whose eye is open, walks always in the temple of God. He sees the divine goodness and wisdom in the growth of a flower or a tree ; in the nice adjustment of an insect's supplies to its demands ; in the perfect contentment found everywhere in nature — for you shall search all day for a melan choly fly and never find one. The influence of all these things in an active and instructed mind is en nobling. The man seeks daily bread for the body, and gets the bread of life for the soul. Like his corn and his trees, his heart and mind are cultivated by his toil; for as Saul seeking his father's stray cattle THE LABORING CLASSES 71 found a kingdom, as stripling David was anointed king while keeping a few sheep in the wilderness, and when sent to carry bread to his brothers in the camp, slew a giant, and became monarch; so each man who with true motives, an instructed mind, and soul of tranquil devotion, goes to his daily work, however hum ble, may slay the giant Difficulty, and be anointed with gladness and possess the kingdom of heaven. In the lowliest calling he may win the loftiest result, as you may see the stars from the deepest valley, as well as from the top of Chimborazo. But to realize this end, the man must have some culture and a large capital of information at the outset ; and then it is at a man's own option whether his work shaU be to him a blessing or a curse. Ill THE EDUCATION OF THE LABORING CLASSES It is sometimes fancied that here in New England the education of the mass of men and women, who do all the work of the world, is so near perfection that httle need be done but keep what we have got to attain the highest destination of any people. But as things are sometimes seen more clearly, by their reflection in an artificial mirror than when looked at in the natural way, let us illustrate our own condition by contrasting it with another widely different. Let us suppose we were to go to some region in the heart of the African continent, and should find a highly cultivated nation, with towns and cities, and factories and commerce, equipped with the thousand arts which diffuse comfort all over society, but should find the whole class of law yers were ignorant men. That they could scarcely read and write, and never read anything beyond the news papers, books of legal forms, and similar matters of the most trifling magnitude. That they could repeat the laws inherited from their ancestors, or enacted from time to time by their contemporaries, but never dreamed of inquiring whether these laws were right or wrong, still less of examining the principle on which they rested, or ought to rest, and then of attempting to im prove them. That they generally aimed to get on with the smallest outlay of education, the least possible expenditure of thought wherewith they could keep their sorry station of legal drudges, yet still that the nation looked to them, in some measure, for the protection of its legal rights. 72 EDUCATION FOR THE PEOPLE 73 Let us imagine also, that in our fabulous country the physicians were in the same state of ignorance with the lawyers. That they had inherited from their fa thers a few traditional rules of medical practice, which they applied mechanically to all sorts of cases, but never thought of looking into the cause or process of disease, of discovering the laws of health, of devising new remedies, or making the old more efficacious. That they took little care to get an accurate knowledge of their own profession, and no pains at all to increase their stock of general knowledge, acquire mental skill, and give a generous and healthful development to all the faculties with which God endows the race of men. That they made their calling a drudgery, which gave them daily bread, but nothing more. That their whole life was mere handicraft. That they started in their profession with a slender outfit of education, either special or general ; usually grew more and more stupid after they were five-and-twenty, and only in rare in stances made a continual and life-long progress in what becomes a man, thus growing old in being taught, and attaining in hfe a complete manhood ; but still that the pubhc depended on this class for the preservation of the general health. To go stiU further, let us fancy that the clergy also wandered in the same way of ignorance, and that class, which in some countries is the best instructed, had here the least cultivation. That, taking the advice which the devil, in a- popular legend, gives to a student of divinity, they " stuck to words, and words only." That they could repeat a few prayers, learned by rote from their predecessors; took their religion on trust from their fathers, never asking if the one were perfect, or the other true. That they both trembled and cursed 74 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC when the least innovation was made in either. That they could go through the poor mummery of the Afri can ritual with sonorous unction, by their bigotry mak ing an abomination of what should be a delight, but never attempting to understand what the service meant. That they could give official advice to the people on days of religious ceremony, which advice consisted solely of commonplace maxims of prudence, virtue, and religion, which aU but the children knew as well as they. That the mass of the clergy never dreamed of reading a book which had thought in it ; never made that " ve hement application of mind " which the great Roman called " study ;" knew little of the history of their own country, or the state of other lands ; made no scientific study of theology, which it was their duty to teach and explain. That they paid no attention to science ; knew no more of the stars or the flowers, the laws of matter or the laws of mind, than the kindred clod they trod down as they walked. That literature was a depart ment they never entered, either as host or guest. That they were ignorant of the various forms their religion had assumed, and knew httle of even the rise and prog ress of the faith they professed; sometimes taught as old what was of but few years' existence, and blasted things as new which really were of ancient days. In a word, let us fancy that they were the most ignorant part of the population ; spending their leisure (of which they had abundance) in sleep; in lounging about the resorts of the idle ; in retailing or inventing both small gossip and graver scandal ; in chattering of the last funeral or the next wedding ; in talking African politics, whereof they knew nothing but words; in smoking ; in chewing the betel-nut ; in sitting at home more dead than ahve. That when asked to improve EDUCATION FOR THE PEOPLE 75 and grow wiser, they replied, " We know enough al ready to perform our official duties. More learning, accomplishment, and skill, might make us mad, and lead to innovation ; and besides, we have no leisure to study, and could only become wise by neglecting a weU- known duty." Ignorant as they were, let us suppose the refined and cultivated African public depended on them for the support of religion. Now to make this picture of society more complete, let us imagine that these professions had fallen into disrepute, and few not born therein ever entered them, except men unfit for any other employment, who found a natural inward vocation for these as the proper busi ness of the ignorant and the stupid. That soon as a noble spirit, accidentally born in their ranks, resolved to improve himself, educate his family, and really did set his feet forward in this work, and thought for him self, and took time to study and grow wiser, urging others to do the same, that he was met with this re tort: "Why get more wisdom? Can you not eat, drink and sleep, without wisdom? Can you not, by, diligent prudence, leave your children, who shall come after you in the same craft, to eat more daintily, and drink in greater excess, and have more leisure, and sleep with more delicateness, and all this with no wisdom at all? Why, then, waste so much time and labor in this monstrous bugbear of an ' education? ' Do you not know there is something better, both for yourself and your children, than a mind, heart, and soul, perfectly cultivated as God designed them to be ? Think you an instructed soul is better than a well-fed body, or that the latter is not worth the most without the former? Besides, do you not know that all wisdom needed in the professions comes by nature, like hands and feet? Sir,, 76 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC you rebel against Providence, you are a fool, and we pity you." Suppose they sought out the wisdom of all the ancients, and demonstrated by proof irref ragable that professional men had always been the most ignorant in the land, and it had come to be a proverb that dunces and fools made the best lawyers, physicians, and clergymen, that, reasoning as some always do, they declared " What has been must be for ever," and so accused the reformers of violating the fundamental article of God's constitution, which was, that an error or a sin which had once got foothold of the earth should never be dislodged or even molested. Imagine, on the other hand, that while these three classes were sunk in the most desperate ignorance, the farmers, the butchers, the mechanics, the traders, the haberdashers of all sorts, were instructed men, who thought for themselves. That they had free schools for all ages, and that in abundance; academies and colleges, where learning lit her gentle flame, and genius shed down the light of her God-given inspiration to guide the young to wisdom and virtue. That, besides these general institutions, all supported at the public expense, they had specific establishments for each par ticular art or science. That the farmers had schools for agriculture, and the mechanics for the science of their art, and the merchants for commerce, and that all classes of the people, from the cooper to the king — except the drones of those three professions — were intelligent and instructed men; had minds well ac complished, good manners, refined amusements, and met together for the interchange of thoughts no less than words, and yearly grew up to be a nobler popu lation. Let us add still further, to put the last touch to EDUCATION FOR THE PEOPLE 77 this ideal picture, that when one was born the son of a lawyer, a physician, or a clergyman, and gifted by Heaven with better parts than the mass of men, or when by any adventure he became desirous of growth in quahties that become a man, he left the calling of his fathers, became a cooper, a fisherman, or a black smith, solely for the sake of the education he could get in the trade, which he fancied he could not get in the profession; and that he did this, even when he loved the profession he left, having a natural aptitude therefor, and hated the particular craft to which love of perfection impelled him; and that, as a natural consequence, there were men in all these trades who had httle natural taste, or even ability, for their em ployment, who longed to quit it, and were retained therein when its ranks were over-crowded, and them selves as good as useless, solely because they saw no chance to educate their better nature in any of the three professions. What should we say to this state of things ? what to the fact, that here were three classes of men, who, in stead of getting the most they could of wisdom, were content to take up the most beggarly pittance where with their drudgery could be done? Doubtless we should say it was a very sad state of affairs, most foohsh and monstrous. It was wrong that these classes should continue in ignorance, with no effort made for their liberation. It was wrong the ablest heads in Africa — who are the natural sovereigns of their land — did not take up the matter, and toil day and night to redress an evil so striking and fearful. It was doubly wrong that strong minds left a calling in which they were born, to which they were adapted by, nature and choice, to seek out of it an education 78 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC they might find in it, had they the manliness to make the search. It was false in them to desert the caUing for which nature made them, seeking to rise above it, not seeking to raise their calling to their own stature. We should thank Heaven that we had a Christian rule for the strong helping the weak, and should say, " Such evils could exist only in a heathen land," and pious men would sail in the next ship to set matters right. But we have only to change the names a little, and, instead of lawyers, physicians, and clergymen, to read " the greater part of laboring men and women," and this fabulous country is in the midst of Massachusetts, not the heart of Africa. Of us is the fable told, and on this body of men depends the ark of our political salvation. In New England the men of these three professions are generaUy the best educated men in the land. They go diligently through a long process of general training, well adapted to exercise and strengthen the memory, judgment, and imagination, and afford a variety and compass of useful knowledge. They spend years, likewise, in gaining the information and skill requisite for their peculiar craft. We have colleges for the general training, and other seminaries for the special education of these men ; for all see the advantage which accrues to the public from having educated lawyers, physicians, and clergymen in its ranks. But meantime the education of aU the others, as a general rule, is grossly neglected. But there seems little reason, if any at all, why men destined for these three professions should be better educated than farmers and mechanics. An educated lawyer, his mind stored with various information, memory, fancy, judgment, and all his faculties quick and active, with EDUCATION FOR THE PEOPLE 79 skill to turn them all to the best account in his special calling, is,, no doubt, a safeguard, an ornament, and a blessing to any country ; and he is this, not because he is a lawyer, but a free, educated man, living man-like, and would be just as useful were he a blacksmith or a carpenter ; for it is not the place a man stands in which makes him the safeguard, ornament, and blessing, but the man who stands in the place. It is time that we in New England had given up that old notion, that a man is to be educated that he may by his education serve the State, and fill a bar or a pulpit, be a captain or a constable; time we had begun to act, and in good earnest, on this principle, that a man is to be educated because he is a man, and has faculties and capabilities which God sent him into this world to develop and mature. The education of classes of men is, no doubt, a good thing, as a single loaf is something in a famished household. But the education of aU born of woman is a plain duty. If reason teaches anything, it is this. If Christianity teaches anything, it is that men serve God with their mind, heart, and soul ; and this, of course, demands an education of mind, heart, and soul, not only in law yers, physicians, and clergymen, but in all the sons and daughters of Adam. Men are to seek this for themselves; the public is to provide it, not because a man is to fill this or that station, and so needs the culture, but because he is a man, and claims the right, under the great charter whereby God created him an immortal soul. Now, it is true that we have, here and there, an in structed man, aU his faculties awake and active, a man master of himself, and thus attaining his birthright, " dominion over all flesh." But still the greater part 80 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC of men and women, even here, are ignorant. The mark they aim at is low. It is not a maxim generaUy admitted, or often acted upon, that this world is a school ; that man is in it, not merely to eat and drink, and vote, and get gain or honors (as many Americans seem to fancy), but that he is here, and to do all these things for the sake of growing up to the measure of a complete man. We have put the means for the end, and the end for the means. Every one sees the change education makes in ani mals. We could not plough with a wild buffalo, nor hunt with a dog just taken savage from the woods. But here the advantage is not on the animal's side. His education is against his nature. It lessens his animal qualities, so that he is less a dog or a buffalo than he was before. With man the change it produces is greater still, for here it is not against nature. It enhances his human qualities, and he is more a man after it than before. All the difference between the English scholar, with his accomplishment and skiU, "and the English boor, who is almost an animal; aU the difference between the wise and refined Brahman, and the debased and enslaved Pariah ; all the difference between the best educated men of Massachusetts and the natives of New Zealand, ignorant, savage, cannibal as they are, comes of this circumstance: one has had a better education than the other. At birth, they were equally of the kingdom of heaven. The same human ity burns in all hearts: the same soul ebbs and flows in all that are born of woman. The peculiarity of each man — slight and almost imperceptible when measured by his whole nature — and the particular circumstances to which he is exposed, make all this difference between savage and civilized. Some five- EDUCATION FOR THE PEOPLE 81 and-twenty centuries ago our ancestors, in the wilds of Europe, were quite as ignorant, cruel, and savage, as these men of New Zealand; and we have become what we are only through the influence of culture and edu cation, which ages have produced and matured. But each chUd in Boston is born a savage as much as at Otaheite. No doubt, in the passage our fathers went through from the savage to the civilized state, much has been lost, but more is won; and it is time to re trieve what is lost, and grasp more for the future. No doubt there are some in this, as in all civilized countries, who are still barbarians, and by no means gainers through the civilization of their brethren ; but it is time the foremost turned round to look after their stragghng brothers. If education, through schools, churches, books, and all the institutions of society, were neglected, all over the earth, for a single genera tion, the whole race would fall back into a savage state. But if the culture of one single generation could be enhanced, the spiritual welfare of mankind would also be enhanced to the end of time. It must appear plain to all who will think, that after providing for the support and comfort of the body — which must be the basis of all spiritual opera tions — the great work of the men and women now on the earth is to educate themselves and the next genera tion of men and women rising up to take their place. All things which do not tend, directly or indirectly, to one of these two ends — the physical or the spiritual development of man — are worse than worthless. We are sent into the world that we might accomplish this work of education. The world without harmonizes most beautifully with the craving spirit within. If a man start with the requisite outfit, and use diligently VII— 6 82 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC the means before him, all the callings of life, the vicis situdes that checker our days, the trials we are in, the crosses we carry, our hopes and our fears, our foes and our friends, our disappointment and success, are all guides and instructors to help us on, be our condi tion what it may. Now it may be laid down as a rule that will stand the test of rigid scrutiny, that all men are to be edu cated to the greatest possible extent; that education is to be regarded as an end, valuable for itself, and not simply as a means, valuable because conducive to some other end; and, also, that the whole community owes each individual in it the best education his nature, and the circumstances of the public, will allow. But, in opposition to this rule, demanding the education of aU, it may be said, as it always has been, by the educated themselves, that there must be an educated class it is true, but also, from the imperfection of man, the necessity of the case, and the very nature of things, there must be an ignorant class also ; that the hard work necessary for the comfortable subsistence of man in society renders it indispensable that seven-eighths of men should continue in almost hopeless ignorance. This doctrine has been taught these thousand years ; and while it has sometimes been accepted by the wise and the benevolent, whom the difficulty of the case forced to despair, it has too generally become the creed of the strong, and the indolent, and the selfish. But at first sight it seems to belong to that same class of sayings with the remark of a distinguished " divine " of the Church, that if there were no vice to hate, there would be no virtue to love ; and this other of a similar " divine " of the State, that without slavery in the one class there would be no freedom in the other. No EDUCATION FOR THE PEOPLE 83 doubt, under any possible circumstances, there will always be a great difference in the attainments and powers of men, for this difference originates in the difference of endowments God bestows: no education can prevent this. But is there any argument to show, that the laboring men of New England cannot attain as good an education as the mass of lawyers and clergymen now possess? One great argument in support of the common notion that the majority of the human family must always be ignorant, is drawn from history. Men appeal to this authority, and quote precedents in great numbers, to show it has always been so, and so must always be. But it does not follow the future must be just like the past, for hitherto no two ages have been just alike. God does not repeat himself, so to say, nor make two ages or two men just alike. The history of past times does indeed show that the mass of men have always been ignorant and oppressed likewise. But few men in America think this a sound argument to justify oppression. Is it stronger for ignorance? Let us look more carefully at this same history, which shows that there always has been an ignorant class: perhaps it has other things to say likewise. It shows a progress in man's condition, almost perpetual, from the first beginnings of history down to the present day. To look at the progress of our own ancestors: two thousand years gone by no man within the bounds of Britain could read or write; three-fourths of the people were no better than slaves ; all were savage heathens. If a cultivated Greek had proposed to bring in civilization and the arts, no doubt Adelgither, or some other island chief, would have mocked at the in troduction of agriculture and the mechanic arts, and 84 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC would foretell the sinking of the firm land through the wrath of " all-powerful Hu," if such measures were attempted. Within a very few centuries there was no man in England who could read and write except the clergy, and very few of that class. No doubt it was then a popular maxim with bishops and prebends, that men of each other class, from the cobbler to the courtier, were so engaged in their peculiar craft, they could not be taught to read and write. The maxim, no doubt, was believed. Nay more, even now there are, in that same England, men of wealth, education, rank, and influence, who teach that the laboring people ought not to be taught to read and write, and, therefore, they hang — perilous position — as heavy weights on the wheels of reform. Yet agriculture and the arts came into the land ; one by one, as time passed by, men came up from the nobles, the gentry, the people, learned to read and write, and that to good purpose, and laboring men are now beginning to thrive on what has been branded as poison. Now then, these opin ions, that laboring men ought not to be taught even to read the Bible ; that none but the clergy need liter ary education; that agriculture would sink the island — are not these worth quite as much as that oft- repeated maxim, that a sound, generous, manly educa tion is inconsistent with a life of hard work? Ex perience has shown that civilization did not provoke the vengeance of Hu, the all-powerful; that men can be instructed in letters and science, though not priests; that a laboring population, one most wofully oppressed by unjust labor, can learn to read, at least radical newspapers, and the Bible, still more radical in a false, state of things. Experience daily shows us men who, never relaxing their shoulders from the burden of EDUCATION FOR THE PEOPLE 85 manly toil, yet attain an education of mind better than that of the most cultivated Englishman seven centuries ago. No man needs dogmatize in this matter. Few will venture to prophesy ; but, reasoning from history, and the gradual progress it reveals, are we to suppose the world will stop with us? Is it too much to hope, that in our free, wealthy, Christian land, the time wiU come when that excellence of education, that masterly accomplishment of mind, which we think now is at tainable only by four or five men out of ten thousand, shall become so common that he wiU be laughed at, or pitied, who has it not? Certainly, the expectation of this result is not so visionary as that of our present ¦ state would have appeared a single century ago. To win this result we must pay its price. An old proverb represents the Deity saying to man, " What would you have? Pay for it, and take it." The rule holds good in education, as in all things else. A man cannot filch it, as coin, from his neighbors, nor inherit it from his fathers ; for David had never a good son, nor Sol omon a wise one. It must be won, each man toihng for himself. But many are born of the ignorant and the poor ; they see not how to gain this pearl for them selves; as things now are, they find no institution to aid them, and thus grow up and die bodies, and no more. The good sense, the manly energy, of the na tives of New England, their courage, and fortitude, and faith — the brain in the head, the brain in the hand — have hitherto made them successful in all they undertake. We have attained physical comfort to such a degree that the average duration of human life with us is many times greater than in Italy, the most civilized of states, sixteen centuries ago ; physical com fort with philanthropists, they never dreamed of in 86 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC their gayest visions. We have attained, also, a meas ure of political and civil freedom to which the fairest states of antiquity, whether in Greece, Egypt, or Judea, were aU strangers ; civil freedom which neither the Roman nor Athenian sage deemed possible in his ideal state. Is it, then, too much to hope — reasoning from the past — that when the exhaustless energies of the American mind are turned to this subject, we shall go further still, and, under these more favorable cir cumstances, rear up a noble population, where all shall be not only weU fed, but well instructed also; where all classes, rich and poor, if they wish, may obtain the fairest culture of all their powers, and men be free in fact as well as in name? Certainly he must have the gift of prophecy who shall teU us this cannot be. As we look back, there is much in the retrospect to wound and make us bleed. But what then? What is not be hind is before us. A future, to be worked for and won, is better than a past, to be only remembered. If we look at the analogies of nature, all is full of encouragement. Each want is provided for at the table God spreads for his many children. Every spar row in the fields of New England has " scope and verge enough," and a chance to be all its organization will aUow. Can it be, then, that man — of more value than many sparrows, of greater worth than the whole external creation — must of necessity have no chance to be all his nature will aUow, but that seven-eighths of the human family are doomed to be " cabined, crib bed, confined," kept on short allowance of everything but hard work, with no chance to obtain manhood, but forced to be always dwarfs and pigmies, manikins in intellect, not men? Let us beware how we pay God in Caesar's pence, and fasten on eternal wisdom what is EDUCATION FOR THE PEOPLE 87 the reproach of our folly, selfishness, and sin. The old maxim, that any one, class or individual, must be subservient to the State, sacrificed to the sin and inter est of the mass — that kindred doctrine, a fit corol lary, that he who works with the hand can do little else — is a foul libel on nature and nature's God. It came from a state of things false to its very bottom. Pity we had not left it there. We are all gifted with vast faculties, which we are sent into this world to mature; and if there is any occupation in life which precludes a man from the harmonious development of all his faculties, that occupation is false before reason and Christianity, and the sooner it ends the better. We all know there are certain things which society owes to each man in it. Among them are a defense from violence; justice in matters between man and man ; a supply of comforts for the body, when the man is unable to acquire them for himself; remunera tion for what society takes away. Our policy, equally wise and humane, attempts to provide them for the humblest child that is born amongst us ; and in almost every case these four things are actually provided. But there is one more excellent gift which society owes to each; that is, a chance to obtain the best education the man's nature will allow and the community afford. To what end shall we protect a man's body from war and midnight violence; to what end give him justice in the court-house, repay him for what society takes to itself ; to what end protect him from cold and hunger, and nakedness and want — if he is left in ignorance, with no opportunity to improve in head, or heart, or soul? If this opportunity be not given, the man might, as it were, bring an action before heaven's high chancery, and say, " I was a stranger, and ye 88 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC took me not in; naked, and ye clothed me not; igno rant, ye would not instruct me; weak and unarmed, ye put me in the forefront of the battle, where my utter ruin was unavoidable. I had strong passions, which ye did not give me religion to charm down. I waxed wicked, and was scarred all over with the leprosy of sin, but ye took no pity on me. I hungered and thirsted after the bread of life, not knowing my need — ye gave me a stone, the walls of a jail; and I died, ignominious and unpitied, the victim of society, not its foe." Here in Massachusetts, it seems generaUy admitted, the State owes each man the opportunity to begin an education of himself. This notion has erected the fair and beautiful fabric of our free schools ; the cradle of freedom, the hope of the poor, the nursery of that spirit which upholds aU that is good in Church and State. But as yet only a beginning is made. We are still on short allowance of wisdom and cultivation ; not a gill of water a day for each man. Our system of popular education, even where it is most perfect, is not yet in harmony with the great American idea, which has fought our battles with the elements, built up our institutions, and made us a great people. It is an old transatlantic system of education which is too often followed, not congenial with our soil, our atmosphere, our people. From feudal times and governments which knew little of the value of the human soul, the equality of all before God, the equal rights of strong and weak, their equal claims for a manly education — from them we have derived the notion that only a few need a liberal, generous education, and that these few must be the children of wealth, or the well-born sons of genius, who have many hands and dauntless courage, EDUCATION FOR THE PEOPLE 89 and faith to remove mountains, who live on difficulties, and, hke gravitation itself, burst through all impedi ments. There will always be men whom nothing can keep uneducated; men like Franklin and Bowditch, who can break down every obstacle; men gifted with such tenacity of resolution, such vigor of thought, such power of , self-control that they live on difficulties, and seem strongest when fed most abundantly with that rugged fare; men that go forth strong as the sun and as lonely, nor brook to take assistance from the world of men. For such no provision is needed. They fight their own battles, for they are born fully armed, terrible from their very beginning. To them difficulty is nothing. Poverty but makes them watch ful. Shut out from books and teachers, they have in structors in the birds and beasts, and whole Vatican libraries in the trees and stones. They fear no dis couragement. They go on the errand God sent- them, trusting in him to bless the gift he gave. They beat the mountain of difficulty into dust, and get the gem it could not hide from an eye piercing as Argus. But these men are rare, exceptions to the rule, strong souls in much-enduring flesh. Others, of greater merit per haps, but less ruggedness of spirit, less vigor of body, who cannot live with no sympathy but the silent elo quence of nature, and God's rare visitations of the inner man, require the aid of some institutions to take them up where common schools let them fall, and bear them on till they can walk alone. Over many a village churchyard in the midst of us it may still be writ, with no expression of contingency — " Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire, Hands that the rod of empire might have swayed, Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre. 90 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC " But knowledge to their eyes her ample page, Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll: Chill penury repressed their noble rage, And froze the genial current of the soul." To have a perfect people, said pagan Plato, we must have perfect institutions; which means, in plain English, to enable laboring men and women to obtain a good education, we must have some institution to go further than our common schools. But this great subject of pubhc education as yet excites but little interest among us. The talk made about it by a few wise and good men proves only that we have it not. It is only lost goods that men cry in the streets. We acknowledge that we have no scholars to match the learned clerks of other lands, where old institutions and the abundant leisure of the wealthy have trained men to accomplishment and skiU we never reach. We boast, and with reason, of the superior education of the great mass of men and women with us. Certain it is that learning is more marked for its diffusion in the mass than its accumulation in the in dividual. It is with it as with bread in a besieged city. Each person gets a mouthful, but no one a full meal. This, no doubt, is better than it would be for many to perish with hunger, while a few had enough and to spare. Some other countries are worse off in this par ticular than ourselves. The more the pity. We may rather weep for them than rejoice for ourselves. We can only boast of building poorly on the foundation our fathers laid — laid so nobly in their toil and want and war. An absolute monarch in Europe, recently deceased, not holding his place by the people's choice, but kept on his throne by hired bayonets, and, there fore, feeling no judicial accountability to them, in- EDUCATION FOR THE PEOPLE 91 debted to a large amount, has yet done more for the education of all classes of his people, than all the poli ticians of the twenty-six States have done with the wealth of the public lands and the surplus revenue be fore them, and the banner of freedom over their heads.1 We have orators enough to declaim at the corners of the street about the War of Independence, now the blows are all over; and the sins of George III., now he is dead and forgotten ; in favor of a " national bank " or a " sub-treasury," as the popular current happens to set ; but very few to take up the holy and neglected cause of education, insisting that all men, rich and poor, and low and high, shall receive this priceless boon. Alas for us ! These few are received with cold hands and empty houses, while the viUage brawler, ranting of politics, collects the huzzaing crowd from nine towns round. The reason is plain: there are ins for those out, and outs for those in. A " national bank " and a " sub-treasury " have dollars in them, at least the people are told that it is so ; men hope to get dollars out of them ; while the most " prom ising " friend of education offers only wisdom, virtue, rehgion, things that never appear in the price-current, and will not weigh down an ounce in the town scales. We know the worth of dollars — which is something ¦ — yes, it is much. Give the dollars their due. But alas ! the worth of educated men and women we do not know. The fact that in our country and these times men find it necessary to leave a particular calling which they like, and for which they are fitted by nature and choice — that of a shoemaker, a blacksmith, or a tan ner — and enter one of the three professions, for which they have no fondness, nor even capacity, solely for 92 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC the sake of an education, shows very plainly into what a false position we have been brought. We often lay the blame on Providence, and it seems generally thought to be a law of the Most High, that a man, with the faculties of an angel, should be born into the world, and live in it threescore years and ten, in the blameless pursuit of some calling indispensable to so ciety, and yet die out of it without possibility of developing and maturing these faculties ; thus at the last rather ending a long death, than completing a life. This seems no enactment of the Lawgiver. He made man upright, and we have sought out many inventions, some of them very foolish./^As things now are, an excellent brazier, a tolerable tinker or tailor, is often spoiled, to make an indifferent lawyer, a sluggish phy sician, coadjutor of death, or a parson whose " drowsy tinkling lulls the distant fold," solely because these men, innocent of sinister designs, wanted an education which, as things were, could not readily be got in the trade, but came as a requisite in the profession. Now in all countries the mass of men must work; in our land they must work and rule likewise. Some method must, therefore, be found to educate this mass, or it is plain our free institutions must go to the ground, for ignorance and freedom cannot exist together more than fire and water in the same vessel. / No doubt we have done much. But how much more remains to be done! That absolute monarch, before spoken of, has done more than all the free Americans in this matter, and made his people our superiors in almost every department of intellectual, moral, and religious education. The American mind has never yet been applied in earnest to this great work, as to commerce, and clearing land, building factories and EDUCATION FOR THE PEOPLE 93 railroads. We do not yet realize the necessity of edu cating all men. Accordingly, men destined for the " learned " professions, as they are caUed, hasten through the preparatory studies thereof, and come half -educated to the work. The laboring man starts with a very small capital of knowledge or mental skill, and then thinks he has no time for anything but work ; never reads a book which has thought in it ; never at tempts to make his trade teach him : " getting and spending, he lays waste his powers." Children are hurried from the common school just as they begin to learn, and thus half its benefits are lost. The old rule, that " what is gained in time is lost in power," is quite as true in education as in mechanics, as our experience is teaching us at great cost. Since the advantages of the common school are not fully enjoyed, many, whose voices might be heard, do not see the necessity of a higher series of free schools — at least one in a county — which should do for all what the college now does for a part. Those only feel the want of such who are without voice in the commonwealth, whose cry only Heaven hears. If such existed, or, even without them, if the common schools were what all might be, and some are, and their advantages properly, used, then the mechanic, the farmer, the shopkeeper, might start with a good capital of knowledge, good habits of study, and his trade, if temperately pursued, would teach him as much as the professions teach men em barked therein. Were two men of the same ability, and the same intellectual discipline, to embark in life, one a clergyman and the other a farmer, each devoting eight or ten hours a day to his vocation, spending the rest of his time in the same wise way, the superiority in twenty years could scarcely be on the clergyman's side.2 94 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC But besides this lack of mental capital with which laboring men set out in life, there is another evil, and even greater, which comes of the mechanical and ma terial tendency of our countrymen at this time. They ask a result which they can see and handle ; and since wisdom and all manly excellence are not marketable nor visible commodities, they say they have no time for mental culture. A young mechanic, coming into one of our large country towns, and devoting all the spare time he could snatch from labor or sleep to hard study, was asked by an older companion, " What do you want to be? " supposing he wished to be a consta ble, or a captain, or a member of the " Great and Gen eral Court," it may be. The answer was, " I wish to be a man." " A man ! " exclaimed the questioner, thinking his friend had lost his wits. " A man ! are you not twenty-one years old, and six feet high? " Filled with this same foolish notion, men are willing to work so many hours of the blessed day that the work enslaves the man. He becomes hands, and hands only ; a passive drudge, who can eat, drink, and vote. The popular term for working men, " hands," is not with out meaning; a mournful meaning, too, if a man but thinks of it. He reads httle — that of unprofitable matter, and thinks still less than he reads. He is con tent to do nothing but work. So old age of body comes upon him before the prime years of life, and imbecility of spirit long before that period. That human flesh and blood continue to bear such a state of things, whence change is easy, this is no smaU marvel. The fact that wise men and Christian men do not look these matters in the face, and seek remedies for evils so widespread, proves some sad things of the state of wis dom and Christianity with us. EDUCATION FOR THE PEOPLE 95 Many laboring men now feel compelled to toil all of the week-days with such severity that no time is left for thought and meditation — the processes of mental growth ; and their discipline of mind is not perfect enough to enable them to pursue this process while about their manual work. One man in the village, de spising a manly growth of his whole nature, devotes himself exclusively to work, and so in immediate re sults surpasses his wiser competitor, who, feeling that he is not a body alone, but a soul in a body, would have time for reading, study, and the general exercise and culture of his best gifts. The wiser man, ashamed to be distanced by his less gifted neighbor ; afraid, too, of pubhc opinion, which stiU counts beef and brandy better than a wise mind and a beautiful soul ; unwiUing to wear coarse raiment, and fare like a hermit, that his mind be bravely furnished within, and sumptuously fed — devotes himself also exclusively to his toil, and the evil spreads. The few men with us who have lei sure enough and to spare rarely devote it to the Chris tian work of hghtening the burdens of their brethren. Rather, by withdrawing their necks from the common yoke, do they increase the weight for such as are left faithful. Hence the evil yearly becomes worse — as some men fear — and the working man finds his time for study abridged more and more. Even the use of machinery has hitherto done httle good in this respect to the class that continues to work. Give a child a new knife, he wiU only cut himself. The sacramental sin of the educated and wealthy amongst us is the notion that work with the hands is disgraceful. While they seek to avoid the " disgrace," others must do more than their natural share. The lazy man wastes his leisure; the industrious, who does his work, has no 96 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC leisure to enjoy. Affairs will never take their true shape, nor the laboring class have an opportunity to obtain the culture reason demands for them, until sounder notions of labor, and a more equitable division thereof, prevail. When he works who is fit, and he thinks who can, thought and labor may go hand in hand. The peaceful and gradual change already ap parent will doubtless effect the object in time, and for such an issue the world can afford to wait some few years. It is common, as it is easy and wicked, to throw the whole blame of this matter on the rich and educated. But this sin belongs to the whole commu nity ; though it must be most heavily charged upon the strongest heads, who should think for the weak, and help them to think for themselves. But even now much may be done, if men gather up the fragments of time. The blessed Sabbath — in spite of the superstitious abuse thereof, the most valu able relic the stream of time has brought us — in half a century allows more than seven solid years redeemed from toil. There are the long nights of winter, the frequent periods when inclement weather forbids labor in the fields. All of these, taken together, afford a golden opportunity to him who, having previous in struction, has resolution to employ it well. Books, too, those " ships of thought " that sail majestic on through time and space, bear their rich treasure down to old and young, landing them upon every shore. Their magic influence reaches all who wiU open their arms. The blessing they bring may quicken the labor er's mind, and place him where he did not stand before. The thought of others stirs his thought. His lamp is lit at some great thinker's urn, and glitters with perennial glow. Toil demands his hands ; it leaves his EDUCATION FOR THE PEOPLE 97, thought fetterless and free. To the instructed man his trade is a study; the tools of his craft are books; his farm a gospel, eloquent in its subhme si lence ; his cattle and corn his teachers ; the stars his guides to virtue and to God; and every mute and every hving thing, by shore or sea, a heaven-sent prophet to refine his mind and heart. He is in har mony with nature, and his education goes on with the earth and the hours. Many such there are in the lanes and villages of New England. They are the hope of the land. But these are the favored sons of genius, who, under iU-starred circumstances, make a church and a college of their daily work. To all, as things now are, this is not possible. But when all men see the dignity of manual work, few wiU be so foolish as to refuse the privilege of labor, though many are now wicked enough to shrink from it as a burden. Then it will be a curse to none, but a blessing to all. Then there will be time enough for all to live as men ; the meat will not be reckoned more than the life, nor the soul wasted to pamper the flesh. Then some institu tion, not yet devised, may give the mass of men a bet ter outfit of education, and art supply what nature did not give, and no man, because he toils with his hands, be forced to live a body and no more. The education which our people need, apart from strength and skiU in their peculiar craft, consists in culture of mind, of the moral and the religious nature. What God has joined can never safely be put asunder. Without the aid of practised moral principle, what mental education can guide the man? Without the comfort and encouragement of religion, what soul, however well endowed with intellectual and moral ac complishments, can stand amid the ceaseless wash of VII— 7 8 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC contending doubts, passions, interests, and fears? All partial education is false. Such as would cultivate the mind alone soon fail of the end. The ship spreads wide her canvas, but has neither ballast nor helm. It has been said the education of the laboring class is safe neither for the nation nor the class; and if only tbe understanding is cultivated, there is a shadow of truth somewhere about the remark. An educated knave or pirate is, no doubt, more dangerous than a knave or pirate not educated. It appears in some countries that crime increases with education. This fact has caused the foes of the human race to shout long and loud, and the noise of their shouting comes over the Atlantic to alarm us. The result could have been fore seen when the education was intellectual chiefly. But even then great crimes against the human person be come rare ; and who shall say the increased crimes against property have not come from the false system on which property is held, quite as much as from the false system of education ?/7Still the grand rule holds good, that intellectual education alone is fearfully in sufficient. Let the whole nature of man. be developed. Educate only the moral nature, men are negatively virtuous, as a dead man will neither lie nor steal. They who seek only religious education soon degener ate into bigots, and become the slaves of superstition, the tools of designing and crafty men, as both ancient and recent history assures us. Man only is manlike, and able to realize the idea for which he was made, when he unfolds all of his powers, mind, heart, and soul; thinks, feels, and worships as reason, conscience, and religion demand ; thus uniting in himself the three great ideas of the true, the good, and the holy, which make up the sum of beauty, the altogether beautiful of mortal life. /, EDUCATION FOR THE PEOPLE 99 It is to be believed the American mind will one day be turned to its greatest object, the rearing up of a manly people, worthy to tread these hills, and breathe this air, and worship in the temples our fathers built, and he down in their much-honored graves. Who shall say the dream of men, now regarded as visionary, shall not one day become a reality blessed and beautiful? If the unconquerable energies of our people were turned to this work; if the talent and industry so profusely squandered on matters of no pith or moment, or wasted in petty quarrels, during a single session of Congress ; if half the enthusiasm and zeal spent in a single pres idential election, were all turned to devise better means of educating the people — we cannot help thinking matters would soon wear a very different aspect. One of two conclusions we must accept. Either God made man with desires that cannot be gratified on earth, and which yet are his best and most Godlike desires, and then man stands in frightful contradiction with all the rest of nature ; or else it is possible for aU the men and women of every class to receive a com plete education of the faculties God gave them, and then the present institutions and opinions of society on this matter of education are aU wrong, contrary to rea son and the law of God. There are some good men, and religious men, doubtless, who think that in this respect matters can never be much mended, that the senses must always overlay the soul, the strong crush the weak, and the mass of men, who do all the work of the world, must ever be dirty and ignorant, and find little but toil and animal comfort, till they go where the servant is free from his master,, and the wicked cease from troubhng, and the weary are at rest. These men represent the despair and the selfishness of society. If 100 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC the same thing that has been must be; if the future must be just like the past; if falsehood and sin are eternal, and truth and goodness ephemeral creatures of to-day — then these men are right, and the sooner we renounce all hope of liberty, give up all love of wis dom, and call Christianity a lie — a hideous lie — why, the sooner the better. Let us never fear to look things in the face, and caU them by their true names/7' But there are other men, who say the past did its work, and we will do ours. We will not bow to its idols, though they fell from the clouds; nor accept its limitations, though Lycurgus made poor provision, and Numa none at all, for the education of the people; we will not stop at its landmarks, nor construct ourselves in its image, for we also are men. While we take grate fully whatever past times bring us, we will get what we can grasp, and never be satisfied. These men rep resent the hope and the benevolence there is in man. If they are right, the truths of reason are not a whim ; aspiration after perfection is more than a dream ; Christianity not a lie, but the eternal truth the All- seeing has writ for his children's welfare; God not a tyrant, but the Father of all. The sooner these men are on their feet, and about their work, to reinstate fallen mankind, the better for themselves and the world. They may take counsel of their hopes always, of their fears never. But there are difficulties in the way of education, as in aU ways but that to destruction. There is no pan acea to educate the race in a moment, and with no trouble. It is slow work, the old way of each man toiling for himself, with labor and self-denial, and many prayers; the Christian way of the strong help ing the weak, thinking for them, and aiding them to EDUCATION FOR THE PEOPLE 101 think for themselves. Some children can scramble up the mountain alone, but others the parents must carry m their arms. The way is for wise men to think and toil, and toil and think, remembering that " Zeno and Chrysippus did greater things," so says Seneca, " in their studies, than if they had led armies, borne offices, or given laws, which indeed they did, not to one city alone, but to aU mankind." There are great difficul ties to be overcome, as M. Pastoret, a French judge, has said, respecting improvements in the law : " We have also to encounter mediocrity, which knows noth ing but its old routine; always ready to load with re proaches such as have the courage to raise their thoughts and observations above the level to which itself is condemned. ' These are innovators,' it ex claims. ' This is an innovation,' say the reproducers of old ideas, with a smile of contempt. Every project of reform is, in their eyes, the result of ignorance or insanity, and the most compassionate it is who conde scend to accuse you of what they call the bewilder ment of your understanding. ' They think themselves wiser than their fathers,' says one, and with that the matter seems decided." StiU the chief obstacle is found in the low, material aims of our countrymen, which make them wilhng to toil eight, ten, twelve, six teen, even eighteen hours of the day, for the body, and not one for the mind; in the popular notion, that he who works with the hand can do nothing else. No doubt it is hard work to overcome these difficulties, slow work to get round them. But there are many encouragements for the work : our freedom from war ; the abundance of physical comfort in our land; the restless activity of the American mind, which requires only right direction ; in the facility with which books 102 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC are printed and circulated; in the free schools, which have already done so vast and beautiful a work; in the free spirit of our institutions, which have hitherto made us victorious everywhere; but, above all, in that rehgion which was first revealed to a carpenter, earliest accepted by fishermen, most powerfully set forth by a tentmaker — that religion which was the Bethlehem star of our fathers, their guide and their trust, which has nothing to fear, but everything to hope, from knowledge widespread among the people, and which only attains its growth and ripens its fruit when all are instructed — mind, heart and soul. With such encouragement who wiU venture to despair? IV THE PERISHING CLASSES It is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish. — Matthew xviii, 14. There are two classes of men who are weak and little: one is little by nature, consisting of such as are born with feeble powers, not strongly capable of self- help ; the other is httle by position, comprising men that are permanently poor and ignorant. When Jesus said, " It is not God's will that one of these little ones should perish," I take it he included both these classes — men little by nature, and men little by posi tion. Furthermore, I take it he said what is true, that it is not God's will one of these little ones should per ish. Now, a man may be said to perish when he is ruined, or even when he fails to attain the degree of manhood he might attain under the average circum stances of this present age, and these present men. In a society like ours, and that of all nations at this time, as hitherto, with such a history, a history of blood and violence, cunning and fraud; resting on such a basis — a basis of selfishness ; a society wherein there is a preference of the mighty, and a postponement of the righteous, where power is worshiped and justice little honored, though much talked of, it comes to pass that a great many little ones from both these classes actu ally perish. If Jesus spoke the truth, then they perish contrary to the wiU of God, and, of course, by some other will adverse to the will of God. In a society where the natural laws of the body are constantly violated, where many men are obliged by circumstances 103 104 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC to violate them, it follows unavoidably that many are born little by nature, and they transmit their feeble ness to their issue. The other class, men httle by posi tion, are often so hedged about with difficulties, so neglected, that they cannot change their condition; they bequeath also their littleness to their children. Thus the number of little ones enlarges with the in crease of society. This class becomes perpetual, a class of men mainly abandoned by the Christians. In all forms of social life hitherto devised these classes have appeared, and it has been a serious ques tion, What shall be done with them? Seldom has it been the question, What shall be done for them? 1 In olden time the Spartans took children born with a weak or imperfect body, children who would probably be a hindrance to the nation, and threw them into a desert place to be devoured by the wild beasts, and so settled that question. At this day the Chinese, I am told, expose such children in the streets, and beside the rivers, to the humanity of passers-by; and not only such, but sound, healthy children, none the less, who, though strong by nature, are born into a weak posi tion. Many of them are left to die, especially the boys. But some are saved, those mainly girls. I wiU not say they are saved by the humanity of wealthier men. They become slaves, devoted by their masters to a most base and infamous purpose. With the excep tion of criminals, these abandoned daughters of the poor form, it is said, the only class of slaves in that great country. Neither the Chinese nor the Spartan method is manly or human. It does with the httle ones, not for them. It does away with them, and that is all. I will not decide which is the worst of the two modes, the THE PERISHING CLASSES 105 Chinese or the Spartan. We are accustomed to call both these nations heathen, and take it for granted they do not know it is God's will that not one of these little ones should perish. Be that as it may, we do not call ourselves heathen ; we pretend to know the wiU of God in this particular. Let us look, therefore, and see how we have disposed of the little ones in Boston, what we are doing for them or with them. Let me begin with neglected and abandoned chil dren. We aU know how large and beautiful a provi sion is made for the pubhc education of the people. About a fourth part of the city taxes are for the pub lic schools. Yet one not familiar with this place is astonished at the number of idle, vagrant boys and girls in the streets. It appears from the late census of Boston, that there are 4,948 children between four and fifteen who attend no school. I am not speaking of truants, occasional absentees, but of children whose names are not registered at school, permanent ab sentees. If we allow that 1,948 of these are kept in some sort of restraint by their parents, and have, or have had, some little pains taken with their culture at home ; that they are feeble, and do not begin to attend school so early as most; or that they are precocious, and complete their studies before fifteen; or for some other good reason are taken from school, and put to some useful business, there stiU remain 3,000 children who never attend any school, turned loose into your streets. Suppose there is some error in the counting, that the number is overstated one-third, still there are left 2,000 young vagrants in the streets of Boston. What will be the fate of these 2,000 children? Some men are superior to circumstances — so weU born they defy iU breeding. There may be children 106 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC so excellent and strong they cannot be spoiled. Surely there are some who will learn with no school; boys of vast genius, whom you cannot keep from learning. Others there are of wonderful moral gifts, whom no circumstances can make vulgar; they will live in the midst of corruption and keep clean through the innate refinement of a wondrous soul. Out of these 2,000 children there may be two of this sort ; it were foohsh to look for more than one in a thousand. The 1,997 depend mainly on circumstances to help them ; yes, to make their character. Send them to school and they will learn. Give them good precepts, good examples, they will also become good. Give them bad precepts, bad examples, and they become wicked. Send them half -clad and uncared for into your streets, and they grow up hungry savages, greedy for crime. What have these abandoned children to help them? Nothing, literally nothing! They are idle, though their bodies crave activity. They are poor, ill clad and ill fed. There is nothing about them to foster self-respect; nothing to call forth their conscience, to awaken and cultivate their sense of religion. They find themselves beggars in the wealth of a city ; idlers in the midst of its work; yes, savages in the midst of civilization. Their consciousness is that of an outcast, one abandoned and forsaken of men. In cities life is intense amongst all classes. So the passions and ap petites of such children are strong and violent. Their taste is low ; their wants clamorous. Are religion and conscience there to abate the fever of passion and regulate desire? The moral class and the cultivated shun these poor wretches, or look on with stupid won der. Our rule is that the whole need the physician, not the sick. They are left almost entirely to herd and THE PERISHING CLASSES 107 consort with the basest of men ; they are exposed early and late to the worst influences, and their only com rades are men whom the children of the rich are taught to shun as the pestilence. To be poor is hard enough in the country, where artificial wants are few, and those easily met ; where all classes are humbly clad, and none fare sumptuously every day. But to be poor in the city, where a hundred artificial desires daily claim satisfaction, and where, too, it is difficult for the poor to satisfy the natural and unavoidable wants of food and raiment ; to be hungry, ragged, dirty, amid luxury, wantonness and refinement ; to be miserable in the midst of abundance, that is hard beyond aU power of speech. Look, I will not say at the squalid dress of these children, as you see them prowling about the markets and wharves, or contending in the dirty lanes and byplaces into which the pride of Boston has el bowed so much of her misery; look at their faces! Haggard as they are, meager and pale and wan, want is not the worst thing written there, but cunning, fraud, violence and obscenity, and, worst of all, fear! Amid aU the science and refined culture of the nine teenth century, these children learn little; httle that is good, much that is bad. In the intense life around them, they unavoidably become vicious, obscene, de ceitful, and violent. They will he, steal, be drunk. How can it be otherwise? If you could know the life of one of those poor lepers of Boston, you would wonder and weep. Let me take one of them at random out of the mass. He was born, unwelcome, amid wretchedness and want. His coming increased both. Miserably he struggles through his infancy, less tended than the lion's whelp. He becomes a boy. He is covered only with rags, and 108 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC those squalid with long accumulated filth. He wan ders about your streets, too low even to seek employ ment, now snatching from a gutter half -rotten fruit which the owner flings away. He is ignorant; he has. never entered a schoolhouse ; to him even the alphabet is a mystery. He is young in years, yet old in misery. There is no hope in his face. He herds with others like himself, — low, ragged, hungry, and idle. If misery loves company, he finds that satisfaction. Fol low him to his home at night; he herds in a cellar; in the same sty with father, mother, brothers, sisters, and perhaps yet other families of like degree. What served him for dress by day, is his only bed by night. Well, this boy steals some trifle, a biscuit, a bit of rope, or a knife from a shop-window ; he is seized and carried to jail. The day comes for trial. He is marched through the streets in handcuffs, the com panion of drunkards and thieves, thus deadening the little self-respect which nature left even in an outcast's bosom. He sits there chained like a beast; a boy in irons! the sport and mockery of men vulgar as the common sewer. His trial comes. Of course he is con victed. The show of his countenance is witness against him. His rags and dirt, his ignorance, his vagrant habits, his idleness, aU testify against him. That face so young, and yet so impudent, so sly, so writ aU over with embryo villainy, is evidence enough. The jury are soon convinced, for they see his temptations in his look, and surely know that in such a condition men will steal: yes, they themselves would steal. The judge represents the law, and that practically regards it a crime even for a boy to be weak and poor. Much of our common law, it seems to me, is based on might, not right. So he is hurried off to jail at a tender age, THE PERISHING CLASSES 109 and made legally the companion of felons. Now the State has him wholly in her power; by that rough adoption has made him her own child, and sealed the indenture with the jailer's key. His handcuffs are the symbol of his sonship to the State. She shuts him in her CoUege for the Little. What does that teach him ; science, letters, — even morals and religion? Little enough of this, even in Boston; and in most counties of Massachusetts, I think nothing at all, not even a trade which he can practise when his term expires. I have been told a story, and I wish it might be falsely told, of a boy, in this city, of sixteen, sent to the House of Correction for five years because he stole a bunch of keys, and coming out of that jafl at twenty- one, unable to write, or read, or calculate, and with no trade but that of picking oakum. Yet he had been five years the child of the State, and in that College for the Poor ! Who would employ such a youth ; with such a reputation ; with the smell of the jail in his very breath? Not your shrewd men of business, they know the risk; not your respectable men, members of churches and aU that ; not they. Why, it would hurt a man's reputation for piety to do good in that way. Besides the risk is great, and it argues a great deal more Christianity than it is popular to have, for a respectable man to employ such a youth. He is forced back into crime again. I say forced, for honest men wUl not employ him when the State shoves him out of the jail. Soon you will have him in the court again, to be punished more severely. Then he goes to the State prison, and then again and again, till death mercifully ends his career! Who is to blame for all that? I will ask the best man among the best of you, what he would have be- 110 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC come, if thus abandoned, turned out in childhood, and with no culture, into the streets, to herd with the wickedest of men. Somebody says, there are " organic sins " in society which nobody is to blame for. But by this sin organized in society, these vagrant children are training up to become thieves, pirates, and mur derers. I cannot blame them. But there is a terrible blame somewhere, for it is not the will of God that one of these httle ones should perish. Who is it that or ganizes the sin of society? Let us next look at the parents of these vagrants, at the adult poor. It is not easy or needed for this purpose, to define very nicely the limits of a class, and teU where the rich end, and the poor begin. However, men may, in reference to this matter, be divided into three classes. The first acts on society mainly by their capital; the second mainly by their skill, mental and manual, by educated labor ; and the third by their muscles, by brute force with little or no skiU, unedu cated labor. The poor, I take it, come mainly from this latter class. Education of head or hand, a pro fession or a trade, is wealth in possibility; yes, wealth in prospect, wealth in its process of accumulation, for wealth itself is only accumulated labor, as learning is accumulated thought. Most of our rich men have come out of this class which acts by its skill, and their children in a few years will return to it. I am not now to speak of men transiently poor, who mend their con dition as the hours go by, who may gain enough, and perhaps become rich; but of men permanently poor, whom one year finds wanting, and the next leaves no better off; men that hve, as we say, from hand to mouth, but whose hand and mouth are often empty. Even here in Boston, there is little of the justice that THE PERISHING CLASSES 111 removes causes of poverty, though so much of the charity which alleviates its effects. Those men live, if you can call it life, crowded together more densely, I am told, than in Naples or Paris, in London or Liver pool. Boston has its ghetto, not for the Jews as at Prague and at Rome, but for brother Christians. In the quarters inhabited mainly by the poor, you find a filthiness and squalor which would astonish a stranger. The want of comfort, of air, of water, is terrible. Cold is a stern foe in our winters, but in these places I am told that men suffer more from want of water in summer, than want of fire in winter. If your bills of mortality were made out so as to show the deaths in each ward of the city, I think all would be astonished at the results. Disease and death are the result of causes, causes too that may for a long time be avoided, and in the more favored classes are avoided. It is not God's will that the rich be spared and the poor die. Yet the greatest mortality is always among the poor. Out of each hundred Catholics who died in Boston from 1833 to 1838, more than sixty-one were less than five years of age. The result for the last six years is no better. Of one hundred children born amongst them, only thirty-eight live five years ; only eleven be come fifty. Gray-haired Irishmen we seldom see. Yet they are not worse off than others equally poor, only we can more distinctly get at the facts. In the war with disease which mankind is waging, the poor stand in front of the fire, and are mowed down without pity. Of late years in Boston there has been a gradual in crease in the mortality of children. I think we shall find the increase only among the children of the poor. Of course it depends on causes which may be removed, at least modified, for the average life of mankind is on 112 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC the increase. I am told, I know not if the authority be good, that mortality*- among the poor is greater in Boston than in any city of Europe. Of old times the rich man rode into battle, shirted with mail, covered and shielded with iron from head to foot. Arrows glanced from him as from a stone. He came home unhurt and covered with " glory." But the poor, in his leathern jerkin or his linen frock, confronted the war, where every weapon tore his un protected flesh. In the modern, perennial battle with disease, the same thing takes place; the poor faU and die. The destruction of the poor is their poverty. They are ignorant not from choice but necessity. They cannot, therefore, look round and see the best way of doing things, of saving their strength, and sparing their means. They can have little of what we caU thrift, the brain in the hand for which our people are so remarkable. Some of them are also little by nature, ill born; others weU born enough, were abandoned in childhood, and have not since been able to make up the arrears of a neglected youth. They are to fight the great battle of life, for battle it is to them, with feeble arms. Look at the houses they live in, without comfort or convenience, without sun, or air, or water; damp, cold, filthy, and crowded to excess. In one section of the city there are thirty-seven persons on an average in each house. Consider the rents paid by this class of our brothers. It is they who pay the highest rate for their dweUings. The worth of the house is often little more than noth ing, the ground it covers making the only value. I am told that twelve or fifteen per cent, a year on a large valuation is quite commonly paid, and over thirty per THE PERISHING CLASSES 113 cent, on the actual value is not a strange thing. I wish this might not prove true. But the misery of the poor does not end with their wretched houses and exorbitant rent. Having nei ther capital nor store-room, they must purchase articles of daily need in the smaUest quantities. They buy, therefore, at the greatest disadvantage, and yet at the dearest rates. I am told it is not a rare thing for them to buy inferior quantities of flour at six cents a pound, or $11.88 a barrel, while another man buys a month's supply at a time for $4 or $5 a barrel. This may be an extreme case, but I know that in some places in this city an inferior article is now retailed to them at $7.92 the barrel. So it is with all kinds of food; they are bought in the smallest quantities, and at a rate which a rich man would think ruinous. Is not the poor man, too, most often cheated in the weight and the measure? So it is whispered. " He has no friends," says the sharper ; " others have broken him to fragments, I wiU grind him to powder ! " And the grinding comes. Such being the case, the poor man finds it difficult to get a cent beforehand. I know rich men teU us that capital is at the mercy of labor. That may be proph ecy; it is not history; not fact. Uneducated labor, brute force without skill, is whoUy at the mercy of capi tal. The capitalist can control the market for labor, which is all the poor man has to part with. The poor cannot combine as the rich. True, a mistake is some times made, and the demand for labor is greater than the supply, and the poor man's wages are increased. This result was doubtless God's design, but was it man's intention? The condition of the poor has hith erto been bettered, not so much by the design of the strong, as by God making their wrath and cupidity serve the weak. VII— 8 114 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC Under such circumstances, what marvel that the poor man becomes unthrifty, reckless and desperate? I know how common it is to complain of the extrava gance of the poor. Often there is reason for the com plaint. It is a wrong thing, and immoral, for a man with a dependent family to spend all his earnings, if it be possible to hve with less. I think many young men are much to be blamed, for squandering all their wages to please a dainty palate, or to dress as fine as a richer man, making only the heart of their tailor foolishly glad. Such men may not be poor now, but destine themselves to be the fathers of poor children. After making due allowance, it must be confessed that much of the recklessness of the poor comes unavoidably from their circumstances ; from their despair of ever being comfortable, except for a moment at a time. Every one knows that unmerited wealth tempts a man to squander, while few men know, what is just as true, that hopeless poverty does the same thing. As the tor tured Indian will sleep, if his tormentor pause but a moment, so the poor man, grown reckless and desper ate, forgets the future storms, and wastes in revel the solitary gleam of sunlight which falls on him. It is nature speaking through his soul. Now consider the moral temptations before such men. Here is wealth, food, clothing, comfort, luxury, gold, the great enchanter of this age, and but a plank betwixt it and them. Nay, they are shut from it only by a pane of glass, thin as popular justice, and scarcely less brittle. They feel the natural wants of man; the artificial wants of men in cities. They are indignant at their social position, thrust into the mews and the kennels of the land. They think some one is to blame for it. A man in New England does not THE PERISHING CLASSES 115 believe it God's will he should toil for ever, stinting and sparing only to starve the more slowly to death, over loaded with work, with no breathing time but the blessed Sunday. They see others doing nothing, idle as Solomon's lilies, yet wasting the unearned bread God made to feed the children of the poor. They see crowds of the idle women elegantly clad, a show of lovehness, a rainbow in the streets, and think of the rag which does not hide their daughter's shame. They hear of thousands of baskets of costly wine imported in a single ship, not brought to recruit the feeble, but to poison the palate of the strong. They begin to ask if wealthy men and wise men have not forgotten their brothers, in thinking of their own pleasure. It is not the poor alone who ask that. In the midst of all this, what wonder is it if they feel desirous of revenge; what wonder that stores and houses are broken into, and stables set on fire! Such is the natural effect of misery like that; it is but the voice of our brother's blood crying to God against us all. I wonder not that it cries in robbery and fire. The jail and the gallows wUl not still that voice, nor silence the answer. I wonder at the fewness of crimes, not their multitude. I must say, that if goodness and piety did not bear a greater proportion to the whole development of the poor than the rich, their crimes would be tenfold. The nation sets the poor an example of fraud, by making them pay highest on all local taxes ; of theft, by levying the national revenue on persons, not prop erty. Our navy and army set them the lesson of vio lence; and, to complete their schooling, at this very moment we are robbing another people of cities and lands, stealing, burning, and murdering, for lust of power and gold.2 Everybody knows that the political 116 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC action of a nation is the mightiest educational influ ence in that nation. But such is the doctrine the State preaches to them, a constant lesson of fraud, theft, violence, and crime. The literature of the na tion mocks the poor, laughing in the popular journals at the poor man's inevitable crime. Our trade deals with the poor as tools, not men. What wonder they feel wronged! Some city missionary may dawdle the matter as he will ; tell them it is God's will they should be dirty and ignorant, hungry, cold and naked. Now and then a poor woman, starving with cold and hunger, may think it true. But the poor know better; igno rant as they are, they know better. Great Nature speaks when you and I are stiU. They feel neglected, wronged and oppressed. What hinders them from fol lowing the example set by the nation, by society, by the strong? Their inertness, their cowardice, and, what does not always restrain abler men, their fear of God. With cultivated men, the intellect is often developed at the expense of conscience and religion. With the poor this is more seldom the case. The misfortunes of the poor do not end here. To make their degradation total, their name infamous, we have shut them out of our churches. Once in our Puritan meeting-houses there were " body seats " for the poor ; for a long time free galleries, where men sat and were not ashamed. Now it is not so. A Christian society about to build a church, and having $50,000, does not spend $40,000 for that, making it a church for all, and keep $10,000 as a fund for the poor. No ; it borrows $30,000 more, and then shuts the poor out of its bankrupt aisles. A high tower, or a fine-toned bell, yes, marble and mahogany, are thought better than the presence of these little ones whom God wills THE PERISHING CLASSES 117 not to perish. I have heard ministers boast of the great men, and famous, who sat under their preaching ; never one who boasted that the poor came into his church, and were fed, body and soul. You go to our churches — the poor are not in them. They are idling and lounging away their day of rest, like the horse and the ox. Alas me, that the apostles, that the Christ himself could not worship in our churches, till he sold his garment and bought a pew ! Many of our houses of public worship would be well named, " Churches for the affluent." Yet religion is more to the poor man than to the rich. What wonder, then, if the poor lose self-respect, when driven from the only churches where it is thought respectable to pray ! This class of men are perishing; yes, perishing in the nineteenth century; perishing in Boston, wealthy, charitable Boston ; perishing soul and body, contrary to God's wiU ; and perishing all the worse because they die slow, and corrupt by inches. As things now are their mortality is hardly a curse. The Methodists are right in teUing them this world is a valley of tears ; it is almost wholly so to them ; and heaven a long June day, full of rest and plenty. To die is their only gain ; their only hope. Think of that, you who murder be cause money is " tight," because your investment gives only twenty per cent, a year, or because you are taxed for half of your property, meaning to move off next season; think of that, you who complain because the Democrats are in power to-day, and you who tremble lest the Whigs shaU be in '49 ; think of that, you who were never hungry, nor athirst ; who are sick, because you have nothing else to do, and grumble against God from mere emptiness of soul and for amusement's sake ; think of men, who, if wise, do not dare to raise 118 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC the human prayer for life, but for death, as the only gain, the only hope, and you will give over your com plaint, your hands stopping your mouth. What shaU become of the children of such men? They stand in the forefront of the battle, aU unpro tected as they are ; a people scattered and peeled, only a miserable remnant reaches the age of ten. Look about your streets, and see what does become of such as live, vagrant and idle boys. Ask the police, the constables, the jails ; they shall tell you what becomes of the sons. Will a white lily grow in a common sewer; can you bleach linen in a tan-pit? Yes, as soon as you can rear a virtuous population under such circumstances. Go to any State prison in the land, and you shall find that seven-eighths' of the convicts came from this class, brought there by crimes over which they had no control ; crimes which would have made you and me thieves and pirates. The characters of such men are made for them, far more than by them. There is no more vice, perhaps, born into that class; they have no more " inherited sin " than any other class in the land ; all the difference, then, between the morals and manners of rich and poor, is the result of education and circum stances. The fate of the daughters of the poor is yet worse. Many of them are doomed to destruction by the lust of men, their natural guardians and protectors. Think of an able, " respectable " man, comfortable, educated, and " Christian," helping debase a woman, degrade her in his eyes, her eyes, the eyes of the world ! Why, it is bad enough to enslave a man, but thus to enslave a woman — I have no words to speak of that. The crime and sin, foul, poUuting and debasing all it touches, has come here to curse man and woman, the THE PERISHING CLASSES 119 married and the single, and the babe unborn. It seems to me as if I saw the genius of this city stand before God, lifting his hands in agony to heaven, crying for mercy on woman, insulted and trodden down, for ven geance on man, who treads her thus infamously into the dust. The vengeance comes, not the mercy. Misery in woman is the strongest inducement to crime. Where self-respect is not fostered; where severe toil hardly holds her soul and body together amid the temp tations of a city and its heated life, it is no marvel to me that this sin should slay its victims, finding woman an easy prey. Let me follow the children of the poor a step further — I mean to the jail. Few men seem aware of the frightful extent of crime amongst us, and the extent of the remedy, more awful yet. In less than one year, namely, from the 9th of June, 1845, to the 2nd of June, 1846, there were committed to your House of Correction, in the city, 1,228 persons, a little more than one out of every fifty-six in the whole population that is more than ten years old. Of these 377 were women; 851 men. Five were sentenced for an indefi nite period, and forty-seven for an additional period of solitary imprisonment. In what follows I make no account of that. But the whole remaining period of their sentences amounts to more than 544 years, or 198,568 days. In addition to this, in the year ending with June 9, 1846, we sent from Boston to the State prison, thirty-five more, and for a period of 18,595 days, of which 205 were solitary. Thus it appears that the illegal and convicted crime of Boston, in one year, was punished by imprisonment for 217,163 days. Now as Boston contains but .114,366 persons of all ages, and only 69,112 that are over ten years of age, 120 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC it follows that the imprisonment of citizens of Boston for crime in one year, amounts to more than one day and twenty-one hours, for each man, woman, and child, or to more than three days and three hours, for each one over ten years of age. This seems beyond belief, yet in making the estimate, I have not included the time spent in jail before sentence; I have left out the solitary imprisonment in the House of Correction; I have said nothing of the 169 children, sentenced for crime to the House of Reformation in the same period. What is the effect of this punishment on society at large? I will not now attempt to answer that ques tion. What is it on the criminals themselves ? Let the jail books answer. Of the whole number, 202 were sentenced for the second time ; 131 for the third ; 101 for the fourth ; 38 for the fifth ; 40 for the sixth ; 29 for the seventh; 23 for the eighth; 12 for the ninth; 50 for the tenth time, or more; and of the criminals punished for the tenth time, thirty-one were women! Of the thirty-five sent to the State prison, fourteen had been there before ; of the 1,228 sent to the House of Correction, only 626 were sent for the first time. There are two1 classes, — the victims of society, and the foes of society : the men that organize its sins, and then tell us nobody is to blame. May God deal merci fully with the foes; I had rather take my part with the victims. Yet, is there one who wishes to be a foe to mankind? Here are the sons of the poor, vagrant in your streets, shut out by their misery from the culture of the age; growing up to fill your jails, to be fathers of a race like themselves, and to be huddled into an in famous grave. Here are the daughters of the poor, cast out and abandoned, the Pariahs of our civilization, THE PERISHING CLASSES 121 training up for a life of shame and pollution, and coming early to a miserable end. Here are the poor, daughters and sons, excluded from the refining influ ences of modern life, shut out of the very churches by that bar of gold, — ignorant, squalid, hungry and hopeless, waUowing in their death. Are these the re sults of modern civilization; this in the midst of the nineteenth century, in a Christian city full of churches and gold; this in Boston, which adds $13,000,000 a year to her actual wealth? Is that the will of God? TeU it not in China; whisper it not in New Holland, lest the heathen turn pale with horror, and send back your missionaries, fearing they shall pollute the land ! There is yet another class of little ones. I mean the intemperate. Within the last few years it seems that drunkenness has increased. I know this is sometimes doubted. But if this fact is not shown by the increased number of legal convictions for crime, it is by the sight of drunken men in public and not arrested. I think I have not visited the city five times in the last ten months without seeing more or less men drunk in the streets. The cause of this increase, it seems to me, is not diffi cult to discover. All great movements go forward by undulations, as the waves of the rising tide come up the beach. Now comes a great wave reaching far up the shore, and then recedes. The next, and the next, and the next faUs short of the highest mark; yet the tide is coming in aU the whUe. You see this same undu lation in other popular movements ; for example, in pohtics. Once the great wave of democracy broke over the central power, washing it clean. Now the water lies submissive beneath that rock, and humbly licks its feet. In some other day the popular wave shall break with purifying roar clean over that 122 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC haughty stone and wash off the lazy barnacles, heaps of corrupting drift-weed, and deadly monsters of the deep. By such seemingly unsteady movements do popular affairs get forward. The reformed drunk ards, it is said, were violent, ill-bred, theatrical, and only touched the surface. Many respectable men withdrew from the work as soon as the Washingtonians came to it.3 It was a pity they did so; but they did. I think the conscience of New England did not trust the reformed men ; that also is a pity. They seem now to have relaxed their efforts in a great measure, perhaps discouraged at the coldness with which they have in some quarters been treated. I know not why it is, but they do not continue so ably the work they once begun. Besides, the State, it was thought, fa vored intemperance. It was for a long time doubted if the license-laws were constitutional; so they were openly set at nought, for wicked men seize on doubt ful opportunities. Then, too, temperance had gone, a few years ago, as far as it could be expected to go un til certain great obstacles were removed. Many leading men in the land were practically hostile to temperance, and, with some remarkable exceptions, still are. The sons of the Pilgrims, last Forefathers' day, could not honor the self-denial of the Puritans without wine. The Alumni of Harvard University could never, tiU this season, keep their holidays without strong drink.4 If rich men continue to drink without need, the poor will long continue to be drunk. Vices, like decayed furniture, go down. They keep their shape, but be come more frightful. In this way the refined man who often drinks, but is never drunk, corrupts hundreds of men whom he never saw, and, without intending it, becomes a foe of society. THE PERISHING CLASSES 123 Then, too, some of our influential temperance men aid us no longer. Beecher is not here; Channing and Ware have gone to their reward. That other man, be nevolent and indefatigable, where is he? He trod the worm of the still under his feet, but the worm of the pulpit stung him, and he too is gone ; that champion of temperance, that old man eloquent, driven out of Boston. Why should I not tell an open secret? — driven out by rum and the Unitarian clergy of Boston.5 Whatsoever the causes may be, I think you see proofs enough of the fact that drunkenness has increased within the last few years. You see it in the men drunken in the streets, in the numerous shops built to gratify the intemperate man. Some of these are ele gant and costly, only for the rich ; others so mean and dirty that one must be low indeed to wallow therein. But the same thing is there in both, — rum, poison- drink. Many of these latter are kept by poor men, and the spider's web of the law now and then catches one of them, though latterly but seldom here. Some times they are kept, and, perhaps, generally owned, by rich men who drive through the net. I know how hard it is to see through a dollar, though misery stand behind it, if the doUar be your own, and the misery be long to your brother. I feel pity for the man who helps ruin his race, who scatters firebrands and death throughout society, scathing the heads of rich and poor, and old and young. I would speak charitably of such a one as of a fellow-sinner. How he can ex cuse it to his own conscience is his affair, not mine. I speak only of the fact. For a poor man there may be some excuse; he has no other calling whereby to gain his bread ; he would not see his own children beg, nor starve, nor steal. To see his neighbor go to ruin 124 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC and drag thither his children and wife, was not so hard. But it is not the shops of the poor men that do most harm. Had there been none but these, they had long ago been shut, and intemperance done with. It is not poor men that manufacture this poison ; nor they who import it, or sell by the wholesale. If there were no rich men in this trade there would soon be no poor ones. But how does the rich man reconcile it to his con science? I cannot answer that. It is difficult to find out the number of drink-shops in the city. The assessors say there are eight hundred and fifty; another authority makes the number twelve hundred. Let us suppose there are but one thousand. I think that much below the real number, for the assistant assessors found three hundred in a single ward. These shops are open morning and night. More is sold on Sunday, it is said, than on any other day in the week. While you are here to worship your Father, some of your brothers are making themselves as beasts ; yes, lower. You shall probably see them at the doors of these shops as you go home ; drunk in the streets this day. To my mind, the retailers are committing a great offense. I am no man's judge and cannot condemn even them. There is One that judgeth. I cannot stand in the place of any man's con science. I know weU enough what is sin; God, only, who is a sinner. Yet I cannot think the poor man who retails half so bad as the rich man who distils, imports or sells by wholesale the infamous drug. He knew better, and cannot plead poverty, as the excuse of his crime. Let me mention some of the statistics of this trade before I speak of its effects. If there are one thou sand drink-shops, and each sells liquor to the amount THE PERISHING CLASSES 125 of only six dollars a day, which is the price of only one hundred drams, or two hundred at the lowest shops, then we have the sum of $2,190,000 paid for liquor to be drunk on the spot every year. This sum is considerably more than double the amount paid for the whole public education of the people in the entire State of Massachusetts. In Boston alone, last year, there were distilled 2,873,623 gallons of spirit. In five years, from 1840 to 1845, Boston exported 2,156,- 990, and imported 2,887,993 gallons. They burnt up a man the other day, at the distillery in Merrimac Street. You read the story in the daily papers, and remember how the bystanders looked on with horror to see the wounded man attempting with his hands to fend off the flames from his naked head. Great Heaven! It was not the first man that distillery has burnt up. No, not by thousands. You see men about your streets, all on fire; some half burnt down; some with all the soul burnt out, only the cinders left of the man, the shell and wall, and that tumbling and tottering, ready to fall. Who of you has not lost a relative, at least a friend, in that withering flame, that terrible auto da fe, that hell-fire on earth? Let us look away from that. I wish we could look on something to efface that ghastly sight. But see the results of this trade. Do you wonder at the pov erty just now spoken of? at the vagrant children? In the poorhouse at Albany, at one time, there were 633 persons, and of them 615 were intemperate. Ask your city authorities how many of the poor are brought to their almshouse directly or remotely by intemperance. Do you wonder at the crime which fills your jails, and swells the tax of county and city? Three-fourths of the petty crime in the State comes 126 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC from this source directly or remotely. Your jails were never so full before. When the parents are there, what is left for the children? In Prussia, the Gov ernment which imprisons the father takes care of the children, and sends them to school. Here they are forced into crime. As I gave some statistics of the cause, let me also give some of the effects. Two years ago your grand jury reports that one of the city police, on Sunday morning, between the hours of twelve and two, in walk ing from Cornhill Square to Cambridge Street, passed more than one hundred persons more or less drunk. In 1844 there were committed to your House of Cor rection, for drunkenness, 453 persons ; in 1845, 595 ; in 1846, up to the 24th of August, that is, in seven months and twenty-four days, 446. Besides, there have been already in this year, 396 complained of at the police court and fined, but not sent to the House of Correction. Thus, in seven months and twenty- four days, 842 persons have been legally punished for public drunkenness. In the last two months and a half 445 persons were thus punished. In the first twenty-four days of this month, ninety-four. In the last year there were 4,643 persons committed to your watch-houses, more than the twenty-fifth of the whole population. The thousand drink-shops levy a direct tax of more than $2,000,000. That is only the first outlay. The whole ultimate cost, in idleness, sickness, crime, death, and broken hearts — I leave you to cal culate that. The men who live in the lower courts, famihar with the sinks of iniquity, speak of this crime as " most awful ! " Yet in this month and the last, there were but nine persons indicted for the illegal sale of the poison which so wastes the people's life. THE PERISHING CLASSES 127 The head of your police and the foreman of your last grand jury are prominent in that trade. Does the Government know of these things ; know of their cause? One would hope not. The last grand jury, in their public report, after speaking manfully of some actual evils, instead of pointing at drunken ness and bar-rooms, direct your attention " to the increased number of omnibuses and other large car riages in the streets." These are sad things to think of in a Christian church. What shall we do for all these little ones that are perishing? "Do nothing," say some. " Am I my brother's keeper? " asked the first Cain, after killing that brother. He thought the answer would be, " No ! you are not." But he was his brother's keeper, and Abel's blood cried from the ground for justice, and God heard it. Some say we can do noth ing. I wiU never beheve that a city which in twelve years can build near a thousand miles of railroad, hedge up the Merrimac and the lakes of New Hamp shire; I will never believe that a city, so full of the hardiest enterprise and the noblest charity, cannot keep these httle ones from perishing. Why, the na tion can annex new states and raise armies at un counted cost. Can it not extirpate pauperism, pre vent intemperance, pluck up the causes of the present crime? All that is lacking is the prudent wiU. It seems as if something could easily be done to send the vagrant children to school; at least to give them employment, and so teach them some useful art. If some are Catholics, and will not attend the Protestant schools, perhaps it would be as possible to have a special and separate school for the Irish as for the Africans. It was recently proposed in a Protestant 128 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC assembly to found Sunday schools, with Catholic teachers for Catholic children. The plan is large and noble, and indicates a liberality which astonishes one even here, where some men are ceasing to be sectarian and becoming human. Much may be done to bring many of the children to our Sunday and week-day schools, as they now are, and so brands be snatched from the burning. The State Farm School for Juvenile Offenders, which a good man last winter suggested to your Legislature, will doubtless do much for these idle boys, and may be the beginning of a greater and better work.6 Could the State also take care of the children when it locks the parents in a jail, there would be a nearer approach to justice and greater hkelihood of obtaining its end. StiU the laws act cumbrously and slow. The great work must be done by good men, acting separately or in concert, in their private way. You are your brother's keeper; God made you so. If you are rich, intelli gent, refined and religious, why, you are all the more a keeper to the poor, the weak, the vulgar, and the wicked. In the pauses of your work there will be time to do something. In the unoccupied hours of the Sunday there is yet leisure to help a brother's need. If there are times when you are disposed to murmur at your own hard lot, though it is not hard ; or hours when grief presses heavy on your heart, go and look after these children, find them employment, and help them to start in life; you will find your murmurings are ended, and your sorrow forgot. It does not seem difficult to do something for the poor. It would be easy to provide comfortable and convenient houses, and at a reasonable rate. The ex periment has been tried by one noble-hearted man, and THE PERISHING CLASSES 129 thus far works well. I trust the same plan, or one better, if possible, will soon be tried on a larger scale, and so repeated, till we are free from that crowding together of miserable persons, which now disgraces our city. It seems to me' that a store might be es tablished where articles of good quality should be fur nished to the poor at cost. Something has already been done in this way, by the Trades' Union, who need it much less. A practical man could easily man age the details of such a scheme. All reform and elevation of this class of men must begin by mend ing their circumstances, though of course it must not end there. Expect no Improvement of men that are hungry, naked, and cold. Few men respect them selves in that condition. Hope not of others what would be impossible for you. You may give better pay when that is possible. I can hardly think it the boast of a man, that he has paid less for his labor than any other in his calling. But it is a common boast, though to me it seems the glory of a pirate. I cannot believe there is that sharp dis tinction between week-day religion and Sunday re ligion, or between justice and charity, that is some times pretended. A man both just and charitable would find his charity run over into his justice, and the mixture improve its quality. When I remember that all value is the result of work, and see hkewise that no man gets rich by his own work, I cannot help thinking that labor is often wickedly underpaid, and capital sometimes as grossly overfed. I shall believe that capital is at the mercy of labor, when the two extremes of society change places. Is it Christian or manly to reduce wages in hard times, and not raise them in fair times? and not raise them again in extraordinary, VII— 9 130 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC times? Is it God's will that large dividends and small wages should be paid at the same time? The duty of the employer is not over when he has paid " the hands " their wages. Abraham is a special provi dence for Eliezer, as God the universal providence for both. The usages of society make a sharp dis tinction between the rich and poor; but I cannot be heve the churches have done wisely, by making that distinction appear through separating the two in their worship. The poor are undesignedly driven out of the respectable churches. They lose self-respect; lose religion. Those that remain, what have they gained by this expulsion of their brothers ? A beautiful and costly house, but a church without the poor. The Cathohcs were wiser and more humane than that. I cannot believe the mightiest abilities and most ex quisite culture were ever too great to preach and apply Christianity among the poor ; and that " the best ser mons would be wasted on them." Yet such has not been the practical decision here; I trust we shall yet be able to say of aU our churches, however costly, " There the rich and poor meet together." They are now equally losers by the separation. The seventy ministers of Boston — how much they can do for this class of little ones, if they will. It has been suggested by some kindly and wise men, that there should be a prisoners' home estab lished, where the criminal, on being released from jail, could go and find a home and work. As the case now is, there is almost no hope for the poor offender. " Le gal justice " proves often legal vengeance and total ruin to the poor wretch on whom it falls ; it grinds him to powder. AU reform of criminals, without such a place, seems to me worse than hopeless. If possible, THE PERISHING CLASSES 131 such an institution seems more needed for the women, than even for the men : but I have not now time to dwell on this theme. You know the efforts of two good men amongst us, who, with slender means, and no great en couragement from the pubhc, are, indeed, the friends of the prisoner.7 God bless them in their labors ! We can do something in all these schemes for helping the poor. Each of us can do something in his own sphere, and now and then step out of that sphere to do something more. I know there are many amongst you, who only require a word before they engage in this work, and some who do not require even that, but are more competent than I to speak that word. Your Committee of Benevolent Action have not been idle. Their work speaks for them. For the suppression of intemperance, redoubled ef forts must be made. Men of wealth, education, and in fluence must use their strength of nature, or position, to protect their brothers, not drive them down to ruin. Temperance cannot advance much further among the people, until this class of men lend their aid; at least, until they withdraw the obstacles they have hitherto and so often opposed to its progress. They must for bear the use, as weU as the traffic. I cannot but think the time is coming, when he who makes or sells this poison as a drink, wiU be legally ranked with other poisoners, with thieves, robbers, and house-burners; when a fortune acquired by such means will be thought infamous, as one now would be if acquired by piracy. I know good men have formerly engaged in this trade ; they did it ignorantly. Now we know the unavoida ble effects thereof. I trust the excellent example lately set by the Government of the University will be fol lowed at all public festivals. 132 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC We must still have a watchful eye on the sale of this poison. It is not the low shops which do the most harm, but the costly tippling-houses which keep the low ones in countenance, and thus shield them from the law and public feeling. It seems as if a law were needed, making the owner of a tippling-house responsi ble for the illegal sale of liquors there. Then the real offender might be reached, who now escapes the meshes of the law. It has long ago been suggested that a temperance home was needed for the reformation of the unfortu nate drunkard. It is plain that the jail does not re form him. Those sent to jail for drunkenness are, on the average, sentenced no less than five times ; some of them, fifteen or twenty times. Of what use to shut a man in a jail and release him with the certainty that he will come out no better, and soon return for the same offense? When as much zeal and ability are directed to cure this terrible public malady, as now go to increase it, we shall not thus foolishly waste our strength. You all know how much has been done by one man in this matter ; that in four years he saved three hundred drunkards from the prison, two hundred of whom have since done well.8 If it be the duty of the State to pre vent crime, not avenge it, is it not plain what is the way? However, a reform in this matter will be permanent only through a deeper and wider reform elsewhere. Drunkenness and theft in its various illegal forms are confined almost wholly to the poorest class. So long as there is unavoidable misery like the present pau perism and popular ignorance ; so long as thirty-seven are crowded into one house, and that not large; so long as men are wretched and without hope, there wiU THE PERISHING CLASSES 133 be drunkenness. I know much has been done already ; I think drunkenness will never be respectable again, or common amongst refined and cultivated men ; it will be common among the ignorant, the outcast, and the mis erable, so long as the present causes of poverty, ig norance, and misery continue. For that continuance, and the want, the crime, the unimaginable wretchedness and death of heart which comes thereof, it is not these perishing little ones, but the strong that are responsi ble before God. It will not do for your grand juries to try and hide the matter by indicting " omnibuses and other large carriages ;" the voice of God cries, "Where is thy brother?" — and that brother's blood answers from the ground. What I have suggested only palliates effects; it re moves no cause ; — of that another time. These httle ones are perishing here in the midst of us. Society has never seriously sought to prevent it, perhaps has not been conscious of the fact. It has not so much legislated for them as against them. Its spirit is hostile to them. If the mass of able-headed men were in earnest about this, think you they would allow such unthrifty ways, such a waste of man's produc tive energies? Never! no, never. They would repel the causes of this evil as now an invading army. The removal of these troubles must be brought about by a great change in the spirit of society. Society is not Christian in form or spirit. So there are many who do not love to hear Christianity preached and applied, but to have some halting theology set upon its crutches. They like, on Sundays, to hear of the sacri fice, not to have mercy and goodness demanded of them. A Christian state after the pattern of that divine man, Jesus — how different it would be from this in spirit and in form ! 134 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC Taking aU this whole State into account, things, on the whole, are better here than in any similar popula tion, after all these evils. I think there can be no doubt of that ; better now, on the whole, than ever before. A day's work will produce a greater quantity of needful things than hitherto. So the number of httle ones that perish is smaller than heretofore, in proportion to the whole mass. I do not believe the world can show such examples of public charity as this city has afforded in the last fifty years. Alas! we want the justice which prevents causes no less than the charity which palliates effects. See yet the unnatural disparity in man's condition: bloated opulence and starving penury in the same street! See the pauper ism, want, licentiousness, intemperance and crime, in the midst of us ; see the havoc made of woman ; see the poor deserted by their elder brother, while it is their- sweat which enriches your ground, builds your railroads, and piles up your costly houses. The tall gallows stands in the background of society, over looking it all ; where it should be the blessed gospel of the living God. What we want to remove the cause of aU this is the application of Christianity to social hfe. Nothing less will do the work. Each of us can help forward that by doing the part which faUs in his way. Chris tianity, like the eagle's flight, begins at home. We can go further, and do something for each of these classes of little ones. Then we shall help others do the same. Some we may encourage to practical Chris tianity by our example ; some we may perhaps shame. Still more, we can ourselves be pure, manly, Christian ; each of us that, in heart and life. We can build up a company of such, men of perpetual growth. Then THE PERISHING CLASSES 135 we shaU be ready not only for this special work now before us, to palliate effects, but for every Christian and manly duty when it comes. Then, if ever some scheme is offered which is nobler and yet more Chris tian than what we now behold, it will find us booted, and girded, and road-ready. I look to you to do something in this matter. You are many; most of you are young. I look to you to set an example of a noble hfe, human, clean, and Christian, not debasing these little ones, but lifting them up. WUl you cause them to perish; you? I know you will not. WiU you let them perish? I can not beheve it. Will you not prevent their perishing? Nothing less is your duty. Some men say they will do nothing to help liberate the slave, because he is far off, and " our mission is silence." Well — here are sufferers in a nearer need. Do you say, I can do but little to Christianize society? Very weU, do that httle, and see if it does not amount to much, and bring its own blessing — the thought that you have given a cup of cold water to one of the little ones. Did not Jesus say, " Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto me? " Since last we met, one of our number has taken that step in hfe commonly called death.9 He was deeply in terested and active in the movement for the perishing classes of men. After his spirit had passed on, a woman whom he had rescued, and her children with her, from intemperance and ruin, came and laid her hand on that cold forehead whence the kindly soul had fled, and mourning that her failures had often grieved his heart before, vowed solemnly to keep steadfast for ever, and go back to evil ways no more. Who would not wish 136 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC his forehead the altar for such a vow? What nobler monument to a good man's memory ! The blessing of those ready to perish fell on him. If his hand cannot help us, his example may. THE DANGEROUS CLASSES If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray? — Matthew xviii, 12. We are first babies, then children, then youths, then men. It is so with the nation ; so with mankind. The human race started with no culture, no religion, no morals, even no manners, having only desires and fac ulties within, and the world without. Now we have attained much more. But it has taken many centuries for mankind to pass from primeval barbarism to the present stage of comfort, science, civilization, and re finement. It has been the work of two hundred gen erations ; perhaps of more. But each new child is born at the foot of the ladder, as much as the first child; with only desires and faculties. He may have a better physical organization than the first child — he cer tainly has better teachers: but he, in like manner, is born with no culture, no religion, no morals, even with no manners ; born into them, not with them ; born bare of these things and naked as the first child. He must himself toil up the ladder which mankind have been so long in constructing and climbing up. To attain the present civihzation he must pass over every point which the race passed through. The child of the civilized man, born with a good organization and under favor able circumstances, can do this rapidly, and in thirty or forty years attain the height of development which it took the whole human race sixty centuries or more 137 jlS8 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC to arrive at. He has the aid of past experience and the examples of noble men; he travels a road already smooth and beaten. The world's cultivation, so slowly, and painfully achieved, helps civilize him. He may then go further on, and cultivate himself; may tran scend the development of mankind, adding new rounds to the ladder. So doing he aids future children, who will one day chmb above his head, he possibly crying against them, — that they climb only to fall, and thereby sweep off him and all below ; that no new rounds can be added to the old ladder. StiU, after all the helps which our fathers have pro vided, every future child must go through the same points which we and our predecessors passed through, only more swiftly. Every boy has his animal period, when he can only eat and sleep, inteUigence slowly dawning on his mind. Then comes his savage period, when he knows nothing of rights, when aU thine is mine to him, if he can get it. Then comes his bar barous period, when he is ignorant and dislikes to learn; study and restraint are irksome. He hates the school, disobeys his mother, has reverence for nobody. Nothing is sacred to him — no time, nor place, nor person. He would grow up wild. The greater part of children travel beyond this stage. The unbearable boy becomes a tolerable youth; then a powerful man. He loves his duty ; outstrips the men that once led him so unwilling and reluctant; and will set hard lessons for his grandsire, which that grandsire, perhaps, will not learn. The young learns of the old, mounts the ladder they mounted and the ladder they made. The reverse is seldom true, that the old climbs the ladder which the young have made, and over that storms new heights. Now and then you see it, but such are THE DANGEROUS CLASSES 139 extraordinary and marvelous men. In the old story, Saturn did not take pains to understand his children, nor learn thereof ; he only devoured them up, till some outgrew and overmastered him. Did the generation that is passing from the stage ever comprehend and fairly judge the new generation coming on? In the world, the barbarian passes on and becomes the civ ilized, then the enlightened. In the physical process of growth from the baby to the man, there is no direct intervention of the will. Therefore the process goes on regularly, and we do not see abortive men who have advanced in years, but stopped growth in their babyhood or boyhood. But as the wiU is the soul of personahty, so to say, the heart of intellect, morals, and religion; so the force thereof may promote, retard, disturb, and perhaps for a time completely arrest the progress of intellectual, moral, and religious growth. Still more, the spiritual development of men is hindered or promoted by subtle causes hitherto httle appreciated. Hence, by reason of these outward or internal hindrances, you find persons and classes of men who do not attain the aver age culture of mankind, but stop at some lower stage of this spiritual development, or else loiter behind the rest. You even find whole nations whose progress is so slow, that they need the continual aid of the more civ ilized to quicken their growth. Outward circumstances have a powerful influence on this development. If a single class in a nation lingers behind the rest, the cause thereof will commonly be found in some outward hindrance. They move in a resisting medium, and therefore with abated speed. No one expects the same progress from a Russian serf and a free man of New England. I do not deny, that in the case of some men 140 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC personal will is doubtless the disturbing force. I am not now to go beyond that fact, and inquire how the will became as it is. Here is a man who, from what ever cause, is bodily ill born, with defective organs. He stops in the animal period ; is incapable of any con siderable degree of development, intellectual, moral, or religious. The defect is in his body. Others dis turbed by more occult causes do not attain their proper growth. This man wishes to stop in his savage pe riod; he would be a freebooter, a privateer against society, having universal letters of marque and re prisal; a perpetual Arab, his rule is to get what he can, as he will and where he pleases, to keep what he gets. Another stops at the barbarous age. He is lazy and will not work, others must bear his share of the general burden of mankind. He claims letters patent to make all men serve him. He is not only in dolent, constitutionally lazy ; but lazy consciously, and wilfully idle. He will not work, but in one form or another will beg or steal. Yet a fourth stops in the half-civilized period. He will work with his hands, but no more. He cannot discover; he wiU not study to learn ; he will not even be taught what has been in vented and taught before. None can teach him. The horse is led to the water, or the water brought to the horse, but the beast will not drink. " The idle fool is whipped at school," but to no purpose. He is always an oaf. No college or tutor mends him. The wUd ass will go out free, wild, and an ass. These four, the idiot, the pirate, the thief, and the clown, are exceptional men. They remain stationary. Meanwhile mankind advances continually, but not with an even front. The human race moves not by column or line, but by echelon as it were. We go up by stairs, THE DANGEROUS CLASSES 141 not by slopes. Now comes a great man, of far-reach ing and prospective sight, a Moses, and he tells men that there is a land of promise, which they have a right to who have skill to win it. Then lesser men, the Calebs and Joshuas, go and search it out, bringing back therefrom new wine in the cluster and alluring tales. Next troops of pioneers advance, yet lesser men; then a few bold men who love adventure. Then comes the army, the people with their flocks and herds, the priesthood with their ark of the covenant and the tabernacle, the title-deeds of the new lands which they have heard of but not seen. At last there comes the mixed multitude, following in no order, but not with out shouting and tumult, men treading one another un der foot, cowards looking back and refusing to march, old men dying without seeing their consolation. If you wiU lie down on the ground and take the profile of a great city, and see how hill, steeple, dome, tower, the roof of the tall house, gain on the sky, and then come whole streets of warehouses and shops, then common dwellings, then cheap, low tenements, you will have a good profile of man's march to gain new conquests in science, art, morals, religion, and general development. It is so in the family, a bright boy shooting before all the rest, and taking the thunder out of the adverse cloud for his brothers and sisters, who follow and grow rich with unscathed forehead. It is so in the nation, a few great men bearing the brunt of the storm, and wading through the surges to set their weaker broth ers, screaming and struggling, with dry feet, in safety, on the firm land of science or religion. It is so in the world, a tall nation achieving art, science, law, morals, religion, and by the fact reveahng their beauty, to the barbarian race. 142 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC In aU departments of human concern there are such pioneers for the family, the nation, or mankind. It is instructive to study this law of human progress, to see the De Gamas and Columbuses, aspiring men who dream of worlds to come and lead the perilous van ; to see the Vespuccis, the Cortezes, the Pizarros, who get rank and fame by following in their track ; to see next the merchant adventurers, soldiers, sutlers, and the hke, who make money out of the new conquest, whUe the great discoverers had for meet reward the joy of their genius, the nobleness of their work, a sight of the world's future welfare from the prophet's mountain — a hard life, a bad name, and a grave unknown. Now, while there are those men in the van of society, who aspire at more, chiding and taxing mankind with idleness, cowardice, and even sin, there are yet those others who loiter on the way, from weakness or wilful ness, refusing to advance — idlers, cowards, sinners. If born in the rear, afar from civilization, they are left to die — the savages, the inferior races, the perish ing classes of the world. If born in the center of civil ization, for a while they impede the march by actively hindering others, by standing in their way, or by plun dering the rest — the dangerous classes of society. They too are slain and trodden under foot of men, and likewise perish. In most large families there is a bad boy, a black sheep in the flock, an Ishmael whom Abraham will drive out into the wilderness, to meet an angel if he can find one. That story of Hagar and her son is very old, but verified anew each year in families and nations. So in society there are criminals who do not keep up with the moral advance of the mass, stragglers from the march, whom society treats as Abraham his base- THE DANGEROUS CLASSES 143 born boy, but sending them off with no loaf or skin of water, not even a blessing, but a curse ; sending them off as Cain went, with a bad name and a mark on their forehead. So in the world there are inferior nations, savage, barbarous, half -civilized ; some are inferior in nature, some perhaps only behind us in development; on a lower form in the great school of Providence — negroes, Indians, Mexicans, Irish,1 and the like, whom the world treats as Ishmael and the Gibeonites got treated: now their land is stolen from them in war; their children, or their persons, are annexed to the strong as slaves. The civilized continually preys on the savage, re-annexing their territory and stealing their persons — owning them or claiming their work. Esau is rough and hungry, Jacob smooth and well fed. The smooth man overreaches the rough ; buys his birth right for a mess of pottage; takes the ground from underneath his feet, thereby supplanting his brother. So the elder serves the younger, and the fresh civiliza tion, strong, and sometimes it may be wicked also, overmasters the ruder age that is contented to stop. The young man now a barbarian wiU come up one day and take aU our places, making us seem ridiculous, nothing but timid conservatives. AU these three, the reputed pests of the family, society, and the world, are but loiterers from the march, bad boys, or dull ones. Criminals are a class of such ; savages are nations thereof — classes or na tions that for some cause do not keep up with the move ment of mankind. The same human nature is in us all, only there it is not so highly developed. Yet the bad boy, who to-day is a curse to the mother that bore him, would perhaps have been accounted brave and good in the days of the Conquerer; the dangerous class might 144 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC have fought in the Crusades, and been reckoned soldiers of the Lord whose chance for heaven was most auspi cious. The savage nations would have been thought civilized in the days when " there was no smith in Israel." David would make a sorry figure among the present kings of Europe, and Abraham would be judged of by a standard not known in his time. There have been many centuries in which the pirate, the land-robber, and the murderer were thought the greatest of men. Now it becomes a serious question, What shall be done for these stragglers, or even with them? It is sometimes a terrible question to the father and mother what they shall do for their reprobate son who is an offense to the neighborhood, a shame, a reproach, and a heart-burning to them. It is a sad question to society. What shall be done with the criminals — thieves, housebreakers, pirates, murderers? It is a serious question to the world, What is to become of the hum bler nations — Irish, Mexicans, Malays, Indians, negroes ? In the world and in society the question is answered in about the same way. In a low civilization, the in stinct of self-preservation is the strongest of all. They are done with, not for; are done away with. It is the Old Testament answer: the inferior nation is hewn to pieces, the strong possess their lands, their cities, their cattle, their persons, also, if they will; the class of criminals gets the prophet's curse, — the two bears, the jail and the gallows, eat them up. In the family alone is the Christian answer given: the good shepherd goes forth to seek the one sheep that has strayed and gone, lost upon the mountains ; the father goes out after the poor prodigal, whom the swine's meat could not feed THE DANGEROUS CLASSES 145 nor ful. The world, which is the society of nations, and society, which is the family of classes, still belong mainly to the " old dispensation," heathen or Hebrew, the period of force. In the family there is a certain instinctive love binding the parent to the child, and therefore a certain unity of action, growing out of that love. So the father feels his kinship to his boy, though a reprobate; looks for the causes of his son's folly or sin, and strives to cure him, — at least to do something for him, not merely with him. The spirit of Christianity comes into the family, but the recog nition of human brotherhood stops mainly there. It does not reach throughout society; it has little in fluence on national politics or international law — on the affairs of the world taken as a whole. I know the idea of human brotherhood has more influence now than hitherto ; I think in New England it has a wider scope, a higher range, and works with more power than else where. Our hearts bleed for the starving thousands of Ireland, whom we only read of; for the down-trod den slave, though of another race, and dyed by heaven with another hue ; yes, for the savage and the suffering everywhere. The hand of our charity goes through every land. If there is one quality for which the men of New England may be proud, it is this, — their sym pathy with suffering man. Still we are far from the Christian ideal. We stiU drive out of society the Ishmaels and Esaus. This we do not so much from ill will as want of thought, but thereby we lose the strength of these outcasts. So much water runs over the dam — wasted and wasting ! In all these melancholy cases what is it best to do? What shall the parents do to mend their dull boy, or their wicked one? There are two methods which may VII— 10 146 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC be tried. One is the method of force, sometimes re ferred to Solomon, and recommended by the maxim " Spare the rod and spoil the child." That is the Old Testament way. " Stripes are prepared for the fool's back." The mischief is, they leave it no wiser than they found it. By the law of the Hebrews, a man brought his stubborn and rebellious son before the magistrates and deposed : " This our son is stubborn and rebellious: he will not obey our voice. He is a glutton and a drunkard." Thereupon, the men of the city stoned him with stones, and so " put away the evil from amongst them." That was the method of force. It may bruise the body; it may fill men with fear; it may kill. I think it never did any other good. It belonged to a rude and bloody age. I may ask inteUi- gent men who have tried it, and I think they will con fess it was a mistake. I think I may ask intelligent men on whom it has been tried, and they will say, " It was a mistake on my father's part, but a curse to me." I know there are exceptions to that reply ; still I think it will be general. A man is seldom elevated by an ap peal to low motives ; always by addressing what is high and manly within him. Is fear of physical pain the highest element you can appeal to in a child ; the most effectual? I do not see how Satan can be cast out by, Satan. I think a Saviour never tries it. Yet this method of force is brief and compact. It requires no patience, no thought, no wisdom for its application, and but a moment's time. For this reason, I think, it is still retained in some families and many schools, to the injury alike of all concerned. Blows and vio lent words are not correction, often but an adjourn ment of correction; sometimes only an actual confes sion of inability to correct. THE DANGEROUS CLASSES 147 The other is the method of love, and of wisdom not the less. Force may hide and even silence effects for a time ; it removes not the real causes of evil. By the method of love and wisdom the parents remove the causes; they do not kiU the demoniac, they cast out the demon, not by letting in Beelzebub, the chief devil, but by the finger of God. They redress the child's folly and evil birth by their own wisdom and good breeding. The day drives out and off the night. Sometimes you see that worthy parents have a weak and sickly child, feeble in body. No pains are too great for them to take in behalf of the faint and fee ble one. What self-denial of the father; what sacri fice on the mother's part ! The best of medical skill is procured ; the tenderest watching is not spared. No outlay of money, time, or sacrifice, is thought too much to save the child's hfe; to insure a firm constitution and make that hfe a blessing. The able-bodied chil dren can take care of themselves, but not the weak. So the affection of father and mother centers on this sickly child. By extraordinary attention the feeble becomes strong; the deformed is transformed, and the grown man, strong and active, blesses his mother for health not less than hfe. Did you ever see a robin attend to her immature and callow child which some heedless or wicked boy had stolen from the nest, wounded, and left on the ground, half living, left to perish? Patiently she brings food and water, gives it kind nursing. Tenderly she broods over it all night upon the ground, sheltering its tor tured body from the cold air of night and morning's penetrating dew. She perils herself; never leaves it — not tiU hfe is gone. That is nature; the strong protecting the feeble. Human nature may pause anrf 148 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC consider the fowls of the air, whence the Greatest once drew his lessons. Human history, spite of all its tears and blood, is full of beauty and majestic worth. But it shows few things so fair as the mother watching thus over her sickly and deformed child, feeding him with her own life. What if she forewent her native in stinct, and the mother said, " My boy is deformed, a cripple — let him die"? Where would be the more hideous deformity? If his child be dull, slow-witted, what pains will a good father take to instruct him; still more if he is vicious, born with a low organization, with bad pro pensities — what admonitions will he administer ; what teachers will he consult; what expedients will he try; what prayers will he not pray for his stubborn and rebellious son! Though one experiment fail, he tries another, and then again, reluctant to give over. Did it never happen to one of you to be such a child, to have outgrown that rebellion and wickedness? Re member the pains taken with you ; remember the agony your mother felt; the shame that bowed your father's head so oft, and brought such bitter tears adown those venerable cheeks. You cannot pay for that agony, that shame, not pay the hearts which burst with both — yet uttering only a prayer for you. Pay it back, then, if you can, to others like yourself, stubborn and rebeUious sons. Have none of you ever been such a father or mother? You know, then, the sad yearnings of heart which tried you. The world condemned you and your wicked child, and said, " Let the elders stone him with stones. The gallows waiteth for its own ! " Not so you ! You said : " Nay, now, wait a little. Perchance the boy will mend. Come, I will try again. Crush him not THE DANGEROUS CLASSES 149 utterly and a father's heart besides ! " The more he was wicked, the more assiduous were you for his recov ery, for his elevation. You saw that he would not keep up with the moral march of men ; that he was a barbarian, a savage, — yes, almost a beast amongst men. You saw this; yes, felt it too as none others felt. Yet you could not condemn him wholly and without hope. You saw some good mixed with his evil ; some causes for the evil and excuses for it which others were blind to. Because you mourned most you pitied most — all from the abundance of your love. Though even in your highest hour of prayer, the sad conviction came that work or prayer was all in vain — you never gave him over to the world's reproach, but interposed your fortune, character, yes, your own per son, to take the blows which the severe and tyrannous world kept laying on. At last, if he would not repent, you hid him away, the best you could, from the mock ing sight of other men, but never shut him from your heart; never from remembrance in your deepest pray ers. How the whole family suffers for the prodigal till he returns ! When he comes back, you rejoice over one recovered olive-plant more than over all the trees of your field which no storm has ever broke or bowed. How you went forth to meet him; with what joy re joiced! "For this my son was lost and is found," says the old man ; " he was dead and is alive once more. Let us pray and be glad ! " With what a serene and haUowed countenance you met your friends and neigh bors, as their glad hearts siriiled up in their faces when the prodigal came home from riot and swine's- bread, a new man safe and sound ! Many such things have I seen, and hearts long cold grew bright and warm again. Towards evening the clouds broke asunder; ,150 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC Simeon saw his consolation, and went home in sunlight and in peace. The general result of this treatment in the family is, that the dull boy learns by degrees, learns what he is fit for; the straggler joins the troop, and keeps step with the rest — nay, sometimes becomes the leader of the march ; the vicious boy is corrected ; even the faults of his organization get overcome, not suddenly, but at length. The rejected stone finds its place on the wall, and its use. Such is not- always the result. Some will not be mended. I stop not now to ask the cause. Some will not return, though you go out to meet them a great way off. What then ? Will you refuse to go ? Can you wholly abandon a friend or a child who thus deserts himself? Is he so bad that he cannot be made better? Perhaps it is so. Can you not hinder him from being worse? Are you so good that you must forsake him? Did not God send his greatest, noblest, purest Son to seek and save the lost? send him to call sinners to repent? When sinners slew him, did God forsake mankind? Not one of those sinners did His love forget. Does the good physician spend the night in feast ing with the sound, or in watching with the sick? Nay, though the sick man be past all hope, he wiU look in to soothe affliction which he cannot cure ; at least to speak a word of friendly cheer. The wise teacher spends most pains with backward boys, and is most bountiful himself where Nature seems most niggard in her gifts. What would you say if a teacher refused to help a boy because the boy was slow to learn; be cause he now and then broke through the rules? What if the mother said, " My boy is a sickly dunce, not worth the pains of rearing. Let him die ! " What if THE DANGEROUS CLASSES 151 the father said, " He is a born villain, to be bred only for the gallows; what use to toil or pray for him? Let the hangman take my son ! " What shall be done for criminals, the backward chil dren of society, who refuse to keep up with the moral or legal advance of mankind? They are a dangerous class. There are three things which are sometimes confounded. There is error, an unintentional viola tion of a natural law. Sometimes this comes from abundance of life and energy ; sometimes from igno rance, general or special; sometimes from heedlessness, which is ignorance for the time. Next there is crime, the violation of a human statute. Suppose the statute also represents a law of God ; the violation thereof may be the result of ignorance, or of design, it may come from a bad heart. Then it becomes a sin — the wilful violation of a known law of God. There are many errors which are not crimes ; and the best men often com mit them innocently, but not without harm, violating laws of the body or the soul, which they have not grown up to understand. There have been many crimes, yes, conscious violations of man's law, which were not sins, but rather a keeping of God's law. There are still a great many sins not forbidden by any human statute, not considered as crimes. It is no crime to go and fight in a wicked war; nay, it is thought a virtue. It was a crime in the heroes of the American Revolution to demand the unalienable rights of man — they were " traitors " who did it ; a crime in Jesus to sum up the " Law and the Prophets " in one word, love ; he was reckoned an " infidel," guilty of blasphemy against Moses. Now to punish an error as a crime, a crime as a sin, leads to confusion at the first, and to much worse than confusion in the end. 152 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC But there are crimes which are a violation of the eternal principles of justice. It is of such, and the men who commit them, that I am now to speak. What shall be done for the dangerous classes, the criminals? The first question is, What end shall we aim at in dealing with them? The means must be suited to ac complish that end. We may desire vengeance; then the hurt inflicted on the criminal wiU be proportioned to the loss or hurt sustained by society. A man has stolen my goods, injured my person, traduced my good name, sought to take my life. I wiU not ask for the motive of his deeds, or the cause of that motive. I will only consider my own damage, and wiU make him smart for that. I will use violence — having an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. I wiU deliver him over to the tormentors till my vengeance is satisfied. If he slew my friend, or sought to slay, but lacked the power, as I have the ability, I will kill him! This desire of vengeance, of paying a hurt with a hurt, has still very much influence on our treatment of crimi nals. I fear it is still the chief aim of our penal juris prudence. When vengeance is the aim, violence is the most suitable method; jails and the gaUows most appropriate instruments. But is it right to take ven geance ; for me to hurt a man to-day solely because he hurt me yesterday? If so, the proof of that right must be found in my nature, in the law of God ; a man can make a statute, God only a right. As I study my nature, I find no such right ; reason gives me none ; conscience none; religion quite as little. Doubtless I have a right to defend myself by all manly means; to protect myself for the future no less than for the present. In doing that, it may be needful that I should restrain, and in restraining, seize and hold, and THE DANGEROUS CLASSES 153 in holding incidentally hurt my opponent. But I can not see what right I have in cold blood wilfully to hurt a man because he once hurt me, and does not intend to repeat the wrong. Do I look to the authority of the greatest Son of man? I find no illusion to such a right. I find no law of God which allows vengeance. In His providence I find justice everywhere as beauti ful as certain ; but vengeance nowhere. I know this is not the common notion entertained of God and His providence. I shudder to think at the barbarism which yet prevails under the guise of Christianity; the ven geance which is sought for in the name of God. The aim may be not to revenge a crime, but to pre vent it ; to deter the offender from repeating the deed, and others from the beginning thereof. In all modern legislation the vindictive spirit is slowly yielding to the design of preventing crime. The method is to inflict certain uniform and specific penalties for each offense, proportionate to the damage which the criminal has done; to make the punishment so certain, so severe, or so infamous, that the offender shall forbear for the future, and innocent men be deterred from crime. But have we a right to punish a man for the example's sake? I may give up my life to save a thousand hves, or one, if I wiU. But society has no right to take it, without my consent, to save the whole human race. I admit that society has the right of eminent domain over my property, and may take my land for a street ; may destroy my house to save the town ; perhaps seize on my store of provisions in time of famine. It can render me an equivalent for those things. I have not the same hen on any portion of the universe as on my hfe, my person. To these I have rights which none can alienate except myself, which no man has given, 154 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC which all men can never justly take away. For any injustice wilfully done to me, the human race can ren der me no equivalent. I know society claims the right of eminent domain over person and life not less than over house and land — to take both for the Commonwealth. I deny the right — certainly it has never been shown. Hence to me, resting on the broad ground of natural justice, the law of God, capital punishment seems wholly inadmis sible, homicide with the pomp and formality of law.2 It is a relic of the old barbarism — paying hurt for hurt. No one will contend that it is inflicted for the offender's good. For the good of others, I contend we have no right to inflict it without the sufferer's consent. To put a criminal to death seems to me as foolish as for the child to beat the stool it has stumbled over, and as useless, too. I am astonished that nations with the name of Christian ever on their lips, continue to dis grace themselves by killing men, formally and in cold blood ; to do this with prayers — " Forgive us as we forgive ;" doing it in the name of God ! I do not wonder that in the codes of nations, Hebrew or heathen, far lower than ourselves in civilization, we should find laws enforcing this punishment; laws too, enacted in the name of God. But it fills me with amazement that worthy men in these days should go back to such sources for their wisdom; should walk dry-shod through the Gospels, and seek in records of a barba rous people to justify this atrocious act. Famine, pes tilence, war, are terrible evils, but no one is so dreadful in its effects as the general prevalence of a great theo logical idea that is false. It makes me shudder to recollect that out of the twenty-eight States of this Union, twenty-seven should THE DANGEROUS CLASSES 155 still continue the gallows as a part of the furniture of a Christian government. I hope our own State, dig nified already by so many noble acts, will soon rid herself of the stain. Let us try the experiment of abohshing this penalty, if we will, for twenty years, or but ten, and I am confident we shall never return to that punishment. If a man be incapable of living in society, so ill born or ill bred that you cannot cure or mend him, why, hide him away out of society. Let him do no harm, but treat him kindly, not like a wolf, but a man. Make him work, to be useful to himself, to society, but do not kiU him. Or if you do, never say again, " Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us." What if he should take you at your word! What would you think of a father who to-morrow should take the Old Testament for his legal warrant, and bring his son before your mayor and aldermen, because he was " stubborn and rebeUious, a drunkard and a glutton," and they should stone him to death in front of the City Hall? But there is quite as good a warrant in the Old Testament for that as for hanging a man. The law is referred to Jehovah as its author. How much better is it to choke the life out of a man behind the prison wall? Is not society the father of us all, our protector and defender? Hanging is vengeance; nothing but ven geance. I can readily conceive of that great Son of man, whom the loyal world so readily adores, perform ing all needful human works with manly dignity. Artists once loved to paint the Saviour in the lowly toil of lowly men, his garments covered with the dust of common hfe, his soul sulhed by no pollution. But paint him to your fancy as an executioner ; legaUy kUl- ing a man ; the halter in his hands, hanging Judas for 156 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC high treason! You see the relation which that pun ishment bears to Christianity. Yet what was unchris tian in Jesus, does not become Christian in the sheriff. We call ourselves Christians ; we often repeat the name, the words of Christ, — but his prayer ? oh, no — not that. There are now in this land, I think, sixteen men un der sentence of death; sixteen men to be hanged till they are dead. Is there not in the nation skill to heal these men? Perhaps it is so. I have known hearts which seemed to me cold stones, so hard, so dry. No kindly steel had alchemy to win a spark from them. Yet their owners went about the streets and smiled their hollow smiles ; the ghastly brother cast his shadow in the sun, or wrapped his cloak about him in the win try hour, and still the world went on though the worst of men remain unhanged. Perhaps you cannot cure these men ! — is there not power enough to keep them from doing harm ; to make them useful ? Shame on us that we know no better than thus to pour out life upon the dust, and then with reeking hands turn to the poor and weak, and say, " Ye shall not kill." But if the prevention of crime be the design of the punishment, then we must not only seek to hinder the innocent from vice, but we must reform the criminal. Do our methods of punishment effect that object? During the past year we have committed to the various prisons in Massachusetts five thousand six hundred and sixty-nine persons for crime. How many of them will be reformed and cured by this treatment, and so live honest and useful lives hereafter? I think very few. The facts show that a great many criminals are never reformed by their punishment. Thus in France, taking the average of four years, it seems that twenty- THE DANGEROUS CLASSES 157 two out of each hundred criminals were punished of tener than once ; in Scotland, thirty-six out of the hun dred. Of the seventy-eight received at your State's prison the last year — seventeen have been sent to that very prison before. How many of them have been tenants of other institutions, I know not; but as only twenty-three of the seventy-eight are natives of this State, it is plain that many, under other names, may have been confined in jail before. Yet of these seventy-eight, ten are less than twenty years old. Of thirty-five men sent from Boston to the State prison in one year, fourteen had been there before. More than half the inmates of the House of Correction in this city are punished oftener than once. These facts show that if we aim at the reformation of the offender we fail most signally. Yet every criminal not re formed lives mainly at the charge of society ; and lives, too, in the most costly way, for the articles he steals have seldom the same value to him as to the lawful owner. It seems to me that our whole method of punishing crimes is a false one ; that but httle good comes of it, or can come. We beat the stool which we have stumbled over. We punish a man in proportion to the loss or the fear of society; not in proportion to the offender's state of mind, not with a careful desire to improve that state of mind. This is wise, if vengeance be the aim; if reformation, it seems sheer folly. I know our pres ent method is the result of six thousand years' ex perience of mankind ; I know how easy it is to find fault — how difficult to devise a better mode. Still, the facts are so plain, that one with half an eye cannot fail to see the falseness of the present methods. To re move the evil, we must remove its cause, — so let. us 158 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC look a little into this matter, and see from what quarter our criminals proceed. Here are two classes. I. There are the foes of society ; men that are crimi nals in soul, born criminals, who have a bad nature. The cause of their crime therefore is to be found in their nature itself, — in their organization, if you wiU. All experience shows that some men are born with a depraved organization, an excess of animal passions, or a deficiency of other powers to balance them. II. There are the victims of society; men that be come criminals by circumstances, made criminals, not born ; men who become criminals, not so much from strength of evil in their soul, or excess of evil propensities in their organization, as from strength of evil in their circumstances. I do not say that a man's character is wholly determined by the circumstances in which he is placed, but all experience shows that cir cumstances, such as exposure in youth to good men or bad men, education, intellectual, moral, and religious, or neglect thereof, entire or partial, have a vast in fluence in forming the character of men, especially of men not weU endowed by nature. Now the criminals in soul are the most dangerous of men, the born foes of society. I will not at this moment undertake to go behind their organization, and ask, " How comes it that they are so ill bom ? " I stop now at that fact. The cause of their crime is in their bodily constitution itself. This is always a small class. There are in New England perhaps five hundred men born blind or deaf. Apart from the idiots, I think there are not half so many who by nature and bodily constitution are incapable of attain ing the average morality of the race at this day; THE DANGEROUS CLASSES 159 not so many born foes of society as are born blind or deaf. The criminals from circumstances become what they are by the action of causes which may be ascertained, guarded against, mitigated, and at last overcome and removed. These men are born of poor parents, and find it difficult to satisfy the natural wants of food, clothing, and shelter. They get little culture, intel lectual or moral. The schoolhouse is open, but the parent does not send the children, he wants their services, — to beg for him, perhaps to steal, it may be to do little services which lie within their power. Besides, the child must be ill clad, and so a mark is set on him. The boy of the perishing classes, with but common endowments, cannot learn at school as one of the thrifty or abounding class. Then he receives no stimulus at home; there everything discourages his attempts. He cannot share the pleasure and sport of his youthful fellows. His dress, his uncleanly habits, the result of misery, forbid all that. So the children of the perishing herd together, ignorant, ill fed, and miserably clad. You do not find the sons of this class in your coUeges, in your high schools, where all is free for the people; few even in the grammar-schools ; few in the churches. Though born into the nineteenth century after Christ, they grow up almost in the barbarism of the nineteenth cen tury before him. Children that are blind and deaf, though born with a superior organization, if left to themselves, become only savages, little more than ani mals. What are we to expect of children, born in deed with eyes and ears, but yet shut out from the culture of the age they hve in? In the corruption of a city, in the midst of its intenser life, what wonder 160 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC that they associate with crime, that the moral instinct, baffled and cheated of its due, becomes so powerless in the boy or girl; what wonder that reason never gets developed there, nor conscience, nor that blessed re hgious sense learns ever to assert its power? Think of the temptations that beset the boy; those yet more revolting which address the other sex. Opportunities for crime continually offer. Want impels, desire leagues with opportunity, and the result we know. Add to all this the curse that creates so much disease, poverty, wretchedness, and so perpetually begets crime; I mean intemperance. That is almost the only pleasure of the perishing class. What recognized amusement have they but this, of drinking themselves drunk? Do you wonder at this? with no air, nor light, nor water, with scanty food and a miserable dress, with no culture, living in a cellar or a garret, crowded, stifling, and offensive even to the rudest sense, do you wonder that man or woman seeks a brief vacation of misery in the dram-shop, and in its drunk enness? I wonder not. Under such circumstances how many of you would have done better? To suffer continually from lack of what is needful for the natural bodily wants of food, of shelter, of warmth, that suffering is misery. It is not too much to say, there are always in this city thousands of persons who smart under that misery. They are indeed a perishing class. Almost all our criminals, victims and foes, come from this portion of society. Most of those born with an organization that is predisposed to crime are born there. The laws of nature are unavoidably violated from generation to generation. Unnatural results must follow. The misfortunes of the father THE DANGEROUS CLASSES 161 are visited on his miserable child. Cows and sheep degenerate when the demands of nature are not met, and men degenerate not less. Only the low, animal instincts, those of self-defense and self -perpetuation, get developed; these with preternatural force. The animal man wakes, becomes brutish, while the spiritual element sleeps within him. Unavoidably, then, the perishing is mother of the dangerous class. I deny not that a portion of criminals come from other sources, but at least nine-tenths thereof proceed from this quarter. Of two hundred and seventy- three thousand eight hundred and eighteen criminals punished in France from 1825 to 1839, more than half were wholly unable even to read, and had been brought up subject to no family affections. Out of seventy criminals in one prison at Glasgow who were under eighteen, fifty were orphans having lost one or both parents, and nearly all the rest had parents of bad character and reputation. Taking all the criminals in England and Wales in 1841, there were not eight in a hundred that could read and write well. In our country, where everybody gets a mouthful of education, though scarce any one a full meal, the result is a httle different. Thus of the seven hundred and ninety prisoners in the Mount Pleasant State's Prison in New York, one hundred, it is said, could read and understand. Yet of all our criminals only a very small proportion have been in a condition to obtain the average intellectual and moral culture of our times. Our present mode of treating criminals does no good to this class of men, these victims of circum stances. I do not know that their improvement is even contemplated. We do not ask what causes made VII— 11 162 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC this man a criminal, and then set ourselves to remove those causes. We look only at the crime; so we punish practicaUy a man because he had a wicked father; because his education was neglected, and he exposed to the baneful influence of unholy men. In the main we treat all criminals alike if guilty of the same offense, though the same act denotes very differ ent degrees of culpability in the different men, and the same punishment is attended with quite opposite results. Two men commit similar crimes, we sentence them both to the State prison for ten years. At the expiration of one year let us suppose that one man has thoroughly reformed, and has made strict and solemn resolutions to pursue an honest and useful life. I do not say such a result is to be expected from such treatment; stiU it is possible, and I think has happened, perhaps many times. We do not dis charge the man; we care nothing for his penitence; nothing for his improvement; we keep him nine years more. That is an injustice to him; we have robbed him of nine years of time which he might have con verted into life. It is unjust also to society, which needs the presence and the labor of all that can serve. The man has been a burden to himself and to us. Suppose at the expiration of his ten years the other man is not reformed at all ; this result, I fear, happens in the great majority of cases. He is no better for what he has suffered; we know that he will return to his career of crime, with new energy and with even malice. Still he is discharged.3 This is unjust to him, for he cannot bear the fresh exposure to cir cumstances which corrupted him at first, and he will fall lower still. It is unjust to society, for the property and the persons of all are exposed to his THE DANGEROUS CLASSES 163 passions just as much as before. He feels indignant as if he had suffered a wrong. He says, " Society has taken vengeance on me, when I was to be pitied more than blamed. Now I will have my turn. They will not allow me to live by honest toil. I will learn their lesson. I will plunder their wealth, their roof shall blaze ! " He will live at the expense of society, and in the way least profitable and most costly to mankind. This idle savage will levy destructive con tributions on the rich, the thrifty, and the industrious. Yes, he will help teach others the wickedness which himself once and perhaps unavoidably learned. So in the very bosom of society there is a horde of marauders waging perpetual war against mankind. Do not say my sympathies are with the wicked, not the industrious and good. It is not so. My sym pathies are not confined to one class, honorable or despised. But it seems to me this whole method of keeping a criminal a definite time and then discharg ing him, whether made better or worse, is a mistake. Certainly it is so if we aim at his reformation. What if a shepherd made it a rule to look one hour for each lost sheep, and then return with or without the wan derer? What if a smith decreed that one hour and no more should be spent in shoeing a horse, and so worked that time on each, though half that time were enough — or sent home the beast with but three shoes, or two, or one, because the hour passed by? What if the physicians decreed, that all men sick of some contagious disease should spend six weeks in the hos pital, then, if the patient were found well the next day after admission, still kept him the other forty; or, if not mended at the last day, sent him out sick to the world? Such a course would be less unjust, less inhuman; only the wrong is more obvious. 164 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC To aggravate the matter stiU more, we have made the punishment more infamous than the crime. A man may commit great crimes which indicate deep depravity; may escape the legal punishment thereof, by gold,1 by flight, by further crimes, and yet hold up his head unblushing and unrepentant amongst mankind. Let him commit a small crime, which shall involve no moral guilt, and be legally punished — who respects him again? What years of noble life are deemed enough to wipe the stain out of his reputa tion? Nay, his children after him, to the third gen eration, must bear the curse. The evil does not stop with the infamy. A guilty man has served out his time. He is thoroughly re solved on industry and a moral life. Perhaps he has not learned that crime is wrong, but found it un profitable. He will live away from the circumstances which before led him to crime. He comes out of prison, and the jail-mark is on him. He now suffers the severest part of his punishment. Friends and re lations shun him. He is doomed and solitary in the midst of the crowd. Honest men will seldom employ him. The thriving class look on him with shuddering pity; the abounding loathe the convict's touch. He is driven among the dangerous and the perishing; they open their arms and offer him their destructive sympathy. They minister to his wants; they exag gerate his wrongs ; they nourish his indignation. His direction is no longer in his own hands. His good resolutions — he knows they were good, but only impossible. He looks back, and sees nothing but crime and the vengeance society takes for the crime. He looks around, and the world seems thrusting at him from all quarters. He looks forward, and what THE DANGEROUS CLASSES 165 prospect is there ? " Hope never comes that comes to all." He must plunge afresh into that miry pit, which at last is sure to swallow him up. He plunges anew, and the jail awaits him; again; deeper yet; the gallows alone can swing him clear from that pestilent ditch. But he is a man and a brother, our companion in weakness. With his education, exposure, tempta tion, outward and from within, how much better would the best of you become? No better result is to be looked for from such a course. Of the one thousand five hundred and ninety- two persons in the State prison of New York, four hundred have been there more than once. In five years, from 1841 to 1847, there were punished in the House of Correction in this city, five thousand seven hundred and forty-eight persons ; of these three thou sand one hundred and forty-six received such a sen tence oftener than once. Yes, in five years, three hundred and thirteen were sent thither, each ten times or more. How many found a place in other jails I know not. What if fathers treated duU or vicious boys in this manner at home — making them infamous for the first offense or the first dulness, and then refusing to receive them back again? What if the father sent out his son with bad boys, and when he erred and fell, said, " You did mischief with bad boys once ; I know they enticed you. I knew you were feeble, and could not resist their seductions. But I shall punish you. Do as well as you please, I will not forgive you. If you err again, I will punish you afresh. If you do never so well, you shall be infamous for ever " ? What if a public teacher never took back to college a boy who once had broke the academic law — but 166 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC made him infamous for ever? What if the physicians had kept a patient the requisite time in the hospital, and discharged him as wholly cured, but bid men beware of him and shun him for ever? That is just what we are doing with this class of criminals ; not intentionally, not consciously — but doing none the less. Let us look a moment more carefully, though I have already touched on this subject, at the proxi mate causes of crime in this class of men. The first cause is obvious — poverty. Most of the criminals are from the lowest ranks of society. If you dis tribute men into three classes, — the abounding, the thriving, the perishing, — you will find the inmates of your prisons come almost wholly from the latter class. The perishing fill the sink of society, and the danger ous the sink of the perishing — for in that " lowest deep there is a lower depth." Of three thousand one hundred and eighty-eight persons confined in the House of Correction in this city, one thousand six hundred and fifty-seven were foreigners ; of the five hundred and fifty sent from this city in five years to the State prison, one hundred and eighty-five were foreigners. Of five hundred and forty-seven females in the prison on BlackweU's Island at one time — five hundred and nineteen were committed for " va grancy;" women with no capital but their person, with no friend, no shelter. Examine minutely, you shall find that more than nine-tenths of all criminals come from the perishing class of men. There aU cul tivation, — intellectual, moral, religious, — is at the lowest ebb. They are a class of barbarians; yes, of savages, living in the midst of civilization, but not of it. The fact that most criminals come from this THE DANGEROUS CLASSES 167 class shows that the causes of the crime lie out of them more than in them; that they are victims of society, not foes. The effect of property in elevating and moralizing a class of men is seldom appreciated. HistoricaUy the animal man comes before the spiritual. Animal wants are imperious; they must be supphed. The lower you go in the social scale, the more is man subordinated to his animal appetites and demonized by them. Nature aims to preserve the individual and repeat the species — so all passions relative to these two designs are preeminently powerful. If a man is born into the intense hfe of an American city, and grows up, having no contact with the loftier culture which naturaUy belongs to that intense life, why the man becomes mainly an animal, all the more violent for the atmosphere he breathes in. What shall re strain him? He has not the normal check of reason, conscience, religion, — these sleep in the man ; nor the artificial and conventional check of honor, of manners. The public opinion which he bows to favors obscenity, drunkenness, and violence. He is doubly a savage. His wants cannot be legaUy satisfied. He breaks the law, the law which -covers property, then goes on to higher crimes. The next cause is the result of the first — education is neglected, inteUectual, moral, and religious. Now and then a boy in whom the soul of genius is covered with the beggar's rags, struggles through the terrible environment of modern poverty to die, the hero of misery, in the attempt at education. His expiring light only makes visible the darkness out of which it shone. Boys born into this condition find at home nothing to aid them, nothing to encourage a love of excellence, or a taste for even the rudiments of learn- 168 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC ing. What is unavoidably the lot of such? The land has been the schoolmaster of the human race, but the perishing class scarce sees its face. Poverty brings privations, misery, and that a deranged state of the system ; then unnatural appetites goad and burn the man. The destruction of the poor is their poverty. They see wealth about them, but have none; so none of what it brings ; neither the cleanliness, nor health, nor self-respect, nor cultivation of mind, and heart, and soul. I am told that no Quaker has ever been confined in any jail in New England for any real crime. Are the Quakers better born than other men? Nay, but they are looked after in childhood. Who ever saw a Quaker in an almshouse? Not a fiftieth part of the people of New York are negroes, yet more than a sixth part of all the criminals in her four State's prisons are men of color. These facts show plainly the causes of crime. It is almost impossible to exaggerate the tempta tions of the perishing class in our great cities. In Boston at this moment there are more than four hun dred boys employed about the various bowling-alleys of the city, exposed to the intemperance, the coarse ness, the general corruption of the men who mainly frequent those places. What will be their fate ? Shall I speak of their sisters ; of the education they are re ceiving; the end that awaits them? Poverty brings misery with its family of vices. A third cause of crime comes with the rest — intem perance, the destroying angel that lays waste the household of the poor. In our country, misery in a healthy man is almost proof of vice ; but the vice may belong to one alone, and the misery it brings be shared by the whole family. A large proportion of the per- THE DANGEROUS CLASSES 169 ishing class are intemperate, and a great majority of all our criminals. Now our present method is wholly inadequate to reform men exposed to such circumstances. You may punish the man, but it does no good. You can seldom frighten men out of a fever. Can you frighten them from crime, when they know httle of the internal distinction between right and wrong; when all the circumstances about them impel to crime? Can you frighten a starving girl into chastity? You cannot keep men from lewdness, theft, and violence, when they have no self-respect, no culture, no development of mind; heart, and soul. The jail wiU not take the place of the church, of the schoolhouse, of home. It will not remove the causes which, are making new criminals. It does not reform the old ones. Shall we shut men in a jail, and when there treat them with all manner of violence, crush out the little self-respect yet left, give them a degrading dress, and send them into the world cursed with an infamous name, and all that because they were born in the low places of society, and caught the stain thereof? The jail does not alter the circumstances which occasioned the crime, and tiU these causes are removed a fresh crop will spring out of the festering soil. Some men teach dogs and horses things unnatural to these animals ; they use violence and blows as their instrument of instruction. But to teach man what is conformable to his nature, something more is required. To return to the other class, who are born criminals. Bare confinement in the prison alters no man's con stitutional tendencies; it can no more correct moral or mental weakness or obliquity, than it can correct a deficiency of the organs of sensation. You aU 170 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC know the former treatment of men born with defective or deranged intellectual faculties — of madmen and fools. We still pursue the same course towards men born with defective or deranged moral faculties, idiots and madmen of a more melancholy class, and with a like result. I know how easy it is to find fault, and how difficult to propose a better way; how easy to misunderstand all that I have said, how easy to misrepresent it all. But it seems to me that hitherto we have set out wrong in this undertaking; have gone on wrong, and, by the present means, can never remove the causes of crime, nor much improve the criminals as a class. Let me modestly set down my thoughts on this subject, in hopes that other men, wiser and more practical, will find out a way yet better still. A jail, as a mere house of punishment for offenders, ought to have no place in an enlightened people. It ought to be a moral hospital where the offender is kept till he is cured. That his crime is great or little, is compara tively of but small concern. It is wrong to detain a man against his will after he is cured ; wrong to send him out before he is cured, for he will rob and corrupt society, and at last miserably perish. We shall find curable cases and incurable. I would treat the small class of born criminals, the foes of society, as maniacs. I would not kill them, more than madmen; I would not inflict needless pain on them. I would not try to shame, to whip, or to starve into virtue men morally insane. I would not torture a man because born with a defective organiza tion. Since he could not hve amongst men, I would shut him out from society; would make him work for his own good and the good of society. The thought THE DANGEROUS CLASSES 171 of punishment for its own sake, or as a compensation for the evil which a man has done, I would not harbor for a moment. If a man has done me a wrong, calumniated, insulted, abused me with all his power, it renders the matter no better that I turn round and make him smart for it. If he has burned my house over my head, and I kill him in return, it does not rebuild my house. I cannot leave him at large to burn other men's houses. He must be restrained. But, if I cure the man, perhaps he will rebuild it — at any rate, will be of some service to the world, and others gain much while I lose nothing. When the victims of society violated its laws, I would not torture a man for his misfortune, because his father was poor, his mother a brute ; because his education was neglected. I would shut him out from society for a time. I would make him work for his own good and the good of others. The evil he had caught from the world I would overcome by the good that I would present to him. I would not clothe him with an infamous dress, crowd him with other men whom society had made infamous, leaving them to ferment and rot together. I would not set him up as a show to the pubhc, for his enemy, or his rival, or some miserable fop to come and stare at with merciless and tormenting eye. I would not load him with chains, nor tear his flesh with a whip. I would not set soldiers with loaded guns to keep watch over him, insulting their brother by mocking and threats. I would treat the man with firmness, but with justice, with pity, with love. I would teach the man; what his family could not do for him, what society and the church had failed of, the jail should do, for the jail should be a manual labor school, not a dungeon of 172 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC torture. I would take the most gifted, the most cul tivated, the wisest and most benevolent, yes, the most Christian man in the State, and set him to train up these poor savages of civilization. The best man is the natural physician of the wicked. A violent man, angry, cruel, remorseless, should never enter the jail except as a criminal. You have already taken one of the greatest, wisest, and best men of this Common wealth, and set him to watch over the public education of the people. True, you give him little money, and no honor; he brings the honor to you, not asking, but giving that.4 You begin to see the result of setting such a man to such a work, though unhonored and ill paid. Soon you will see it more plainly in the increase of temperance, industry, thrift, of good morals and sound religion. I would set such a man, if I could find such another, to look after the danger ous classes of society. I would pay him for it ; honor him for it. I would have a board of public morals to look after this matter of crime, a secretary of public morals, a Christian censor, whose business it should be to attend to this class, to look after the jails, and make them houses of refuge, of instruction, which should do for the perishing class what the school- house and the church do for others. I would send missionaries amongst the most exposed portions of mankind as well as amongst the savages of New Hol land. I would send wise men, good men. There are already some such engaged in this work. I would strengthen their hands. I would make crime infa mous. If there are men whose crime is to be traced not to a defective organization of body, not to the influence of circumstances, but only to voluntary and self- conscious wickedness, I would make these men infa- THE DANGEROUS CLASSES 173 mous. It should be impossible for such a man, a voluntary foe of mankind, to live in society. I would have the jail such a place that the friends of a crim inal of either class should take him as now they take a lunatic or a sick man, and bring him to the court that he might be healed if curable, or if not, might be kept from harm and hid away out of sight. Crime and sin should be infamous ; not its correction, least of all its cure. I would not loathe and abhor a man who had been corrected and reformed by the jail, more than a boy who had been reformed by his teacher, or a man cured of lunacy. I would have society a father who goes out to meet the prodigal while yet a great way off; yes, goes and brings him away from his riotous living, washes him, clothes him, and re stores him to a right mind. There is a prosecuting attorney for the State ; I would have also a defending attorney for the accused, that justice might be done all round. Is the State only a stepmother? Then is she not a Christian commonwealth, but a barbarous despotism, fitly represented by that uplifted sword on her public seal, and that motto of barbarous and bloody Latin. I would have the State aid men and direct them after they have been discharged from the jail; not leave them to perish, not force them to perish. Society is the natural guardian of the weak. I cannot think the method here suggested would be so costly as the present. It seems to me that institu tions of this character might be made not only to sup port themselves, but be so managed as to leave a balance of income considerably beyond the expense. This might be made use of for the advantage of the criminal when he returned to society; or with it he might help make restitution of what he had once 174 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC stolen. Besides being less costly, it would cure the offender, and send back valuable men into society. It seems to me that our whole criminal legislation is based on a false principle — force and not love ; that it is eminently well adapted to revenge, not at all to correct, to teach, to cure. The whole apparatus for the punishment of offenders, from the gallows down to the house of correction, seems to me wrong; wholly wrong, unchristian, and even inhuman. We teach crime while we punish it. Is it consistent for the State to take vengeance when I may not? Is it better for the State to kill a man in cold blood, than for me to kUl my brother when in a rage? I cannot help thinking that the gallows, and even the jail, as now administered, are practical teachers of violence and wrong. I cannot think it will always be so. Hitherto we have looked on criminals as voluntary enemies of mankind. We have treated them as wild beasts, not as dull or loitering boys. We have sought to destroy by death, to disable by mutilation or im prisonment, to terrify and subdue, not to convince, to reform, encourage, and bless. The history of the past is full of prophecy, for the future. Not many years ago we shut up our lunatics in jails, in dungeons, in cages ; we chained the maniac with iron; we gave him a bottle of water and a sack of straw; we left him in filth, in cold, and nakedness. We set strong and brutal men to watch him. When he cried, when he gnashed his teeth and tore his hair, we beat him all the more. They do so yet in some places, for they think a madman is not a brother, but a devil. What was the result? Madness was found incurable. Now lunacy is a disease, to be prescribed for as fever or rheumatism ; when we find an incurable THE DANGEROUS CLASSES 175 case we do not kiU the man, nor chain him, nor count him a devil. Yet lunacy is not curable by force, by jails, dungeons, and cages; only by, the medicine of wise men and good men. What if Christ had met one demoniac with a whip and another with chains? You know how we once treated criminals ; with what scourgings and mutilations, what brandings, what tor tures with fire and red-hot iron ! Death was not pun ishment enough, it must be protracted amid the most cruel torments that quivering flesh could bear. The multitude looked on and learned a lesson of deadly wickedness. A judicial murder was a holiday. It is but little more than two hundred years since a man was put to death in the most enlightened country of Europe for eating meat on Friday ; not two hundred since men and women were hanged in Massachusetts for a crime now reckoned impossible. It is not a hundred years since two negro slaves were judiciaUy burned alive in this very city. These facts make us shudder, but hope also. In a hundred years from this day will not men look on our gallows, jails, and penal law as we look on the racks, the torture-chambers of the Middle Ages, and the bloody code of remorseless inquisitors? We need only to turn our attention to this subject to find a better way. We shall soon see that punish ment as such is an evil to the criminal, and so swells the sum of suffering with which society runs over; that it is an evil also to the community at large by abstracting valuable force from profitable work, and so a loss. We shaU one day remember that the of fender is a man, and so his good also is to be consulted. He may be a bad man, voluntarily bad if you will. StiU we are to be economical even of his suffering, for 176 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC the least possible punishment is the best. Already a good many men think that error is better refuted by truth than by fagots and axes. How long will it be before we apply good sense and Christianity to the prevention of crime? One day we must see that a jah, as it is now conducted, is no more likely to cure a crime than a lunacy or a fever. Hitherto we have not seen the application of the great doctrines of Christianity; not felt that all men are brothers. So our remedies for social evils have been bad almost as the disease; remedies which remedied nothing, but hid the patient out of sight. All great criminals have been thought incurable, and then killed. What if the doctors found a patient sick of a disease which he had foolishly or wickedly brought upon himself, and then, by the advice of twelve other doctors, profes sionally killed him for justice or example's sake? They would do what all the States in Christendom have done these thousand years. I cannot see why the Legislature has not as good right to authorize the medical college thus to kill me, as to authorize the present forms of destroying life. We do not look the facts of crime fairly in the face. We do not see what heathens we are. Why, there is not a Christian nation in the world that has not a secretary of war, armies, soldiers, and the terri ble apparatus of destruction. But there is not one that has a secretary of peace, not one that takes half the pains to improve its own criminals which it takes to build forts and fleets. Yet it seems to me that a Christian State should be a great peace society, a society for mutual advancement in the qualities of a man. Do we not see that by our present course we are THE DANGEROUS CLASSES 177 teaching men violence, fraud, deceit, and murder? What is the educational effect of our present political conduct, of our invasions, our battles, our victories; of the speeches of " our great men? " You all know that this teaches the poor, the low, and the weak that murder and robbery are good things when done on a large scale; that they give wealth, fame, power, and honors. The ignorant man, ill born and ill bred, asks, " Why not when done on a small scale ; why not good for me? " If it is right in the President of the United States to rob and murder, why not for the President of the United States Bank? Do famous men say, " Our country however bounded," and vote to plunder a sister State? Then why shall not the poor man, hungry and cold, say, " My purse however bounded," and seize on all he can get? Give one a seat in Congress if you will, and the other a noose of hemp : there is a God before whom seats in Congress and hempen halters are of equal value, but who does justice to great and httle ! To reform the dangerous classes of society, to advance those who loiter behind our civilization, we need a special work designed directly for the good of the criminals and such as stand on that perilous ground which slopes towards crime. Some good men undertook this work long ago. They found much to do ; a good deal to encourage them. Some of them are well known to you, are laboring here in the midst of us. They need counsel, encouragement, and aid. We must not look coldly on their enterprise nor on them. They can tell far better than I what specific plans are best for their specific work. Already have they accomplished much in this noble enterprise. The society for aiding discharged convicts is a prophecy VII— 12 178 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC of yet better things. Soon I trust it wiU extend its kind offices to all the prisons, and its work be made the affair of the State. The plan now before your Legislature for a State Manual Labor School, de signed to reform vicious children, is also full of promise. The wise and anonymous charity which so beautifuUy and in silence has dropped its gold into the chest for these poor outcasts, is itself its hundredfold reward.5 Institutions like that which we contemplate have been found successful in England, Germany, and France. They actually reform the juvenile delinquent, and bring up useful men, not hardened criminals.6 We are beginning to attend to this special work of re moving the causes of crime, and restoring at least the young offenders. However, the greater portion of this work is not special and for the criminal, but general and for soci ety. To change the treatment of criminals, we must change everything else. The dangerous class, is the unavoidable result of our present civilization, of our present ideas of man and social life. To reform and elevate the class of criminals, we must reform and elevate all other classes. To do that, we must educate and refine men. We must learn to treat aU men as brothers. This is a great work and one of slow achievement. It cannot be brought about }3j legisla tion, nor any mechanical contrivance and reorganiza tion alone. There is no remedy for this evil and its kindred but keeping the laws of God; in one word, none but Christianity, goodness, and piety felt in the heart, applied in all the works of life, individually, socially, and politicaUy. While educated and abound ing men acknowledge no rule of conduct but self- interest, what can you expect of the ignorant and the THE DANGEROUS CLASSES 179 perishing? While great men say without rebuke that we do not look at " the natural justice of a war," do you expect men in the lowest places of society, igno rant and brutish, pinched by want, to look at< the natural justice of theft, of murder? It were a vain expectation. We must improve aU classes to improve one ; perhaps the highest first. Different men acting in the most various directions, without concert, often jealous one of another, and all partial in their aims, are helping forward this uni versal result. While we are contending against slavery, war, intemperance, or party rage ; while we are building up hospitals, colleges, schools ; while we are contending for freedom of conscience, or teaching abstractly the love of man and love of God, we are all working for the welfare of this neglected class. The gallows of the barbarian and the gospel of Chris tianity cannot exist together. The times are full of promise. Mankind slowly fulfils what a man of genius prophesies. God grants what a good man asks, and when it comes it is better than what he prayed for. VI THE AGED As the clear light is upon the holy candlestick; so is the beauty of the face in ripe age. — Ecci^siasticus xxvi, 17. I have often been asked to preach a sermon of old age ; and hitherto have declined, on the ground that I could not speak exactly from internal experience, but only from outward observation ; and I hope to be able at 'Some future time to speak on the theme : certainly, if I live, I may correct this present infirmity. To-day, I will try, — only asking all old persons to forgive the imperfections of this discourse; for they know what I only see. But as I was born into the arms of a father then one-and-fifty years old, who lived to add 3>et another quarter of a century thereunto ; and as my cradle was rocked by a grandmother who had more than fourscore years at my birth, and nearly a hundred when she ceased to be mortal ; and as my first " Christian ministry " was attending upon old age, — I think I know something about the character of men and women whom time makes venerable. There is a period when the apple tree blossoms with its fellows of the wood and field. How fair a time it is ! AU nature is woosome and winning ; the material world celebrates its vegetable loves; and the flower- bells, touched by the winds of spring, usher in the universal marriage of nature. Beast, bird, insect, reptile, fish, plant, lichen, with their prophetic colors spread, all float forward on the tide of new life. Then comes the summer. Many a blossom falls fruitless to the ground, littering the earth with beauty, never to 180 THE AGED 181 be used. Thick leaves hide the process of creation, which first blushed public in the flowers, and now unseen goes on. For so hfe's most deep and fruitful hours are hid in mystery. Apples are growing on every tree ; all summer long they grow, and in early autumn. At length the fruit is fuUy formed; the leaves begin to fall, letting the sun approach more near. The apple hangs there yet; not to grow, only to ripen. Weeks long it clings to the tree; it gains nothing in size and weight. Externally, there is in- » crease of beauty. Having finished the form from within, nature brings out the added grace of color. It is not a tricksy fashion painted on ; but an expres sion which 6f itself comes out; — a fragrance and a loveliness of the apple's innermost. Within, at the same time, the component elements are changing. The apple grows mild and pleasant. It softens, sweetens; in one word, it mellows. Some night, the vital forces of the tree get drowsy, and the autumn, with gentle breath, just shakes the bough; the expectant fruit lets go its hold, full grown, full ripe, full colored too, and with plump and happy sound the apple falls into the autumn's lap ; and the spring's marriage promise is complete. Such is the natural process which each fruit goes through, blooming, growing, ripening. The same divine law is appropriate for every kind of animal, from the lowest reptile up to imperial man. It is very beautiful. The parts of the process are perfect; the whole is complete. Birth is human blos som; youth, manhood, they are our summer growth; old age is ripeness. The hands let go the mortal bough ; that is natural death. It is a dear, good God who orders all for the apple tree, and for mankind. 182 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC Yea, His ark shelters the spider and the toad, the wolf and the lizard, and the snake ; — for He is Father and Mother to aU the world. I cannot tell where childhood ends, and manhood begins ; nor where manhood ends, and old age begins. It is a wavering and uncertain line, not straight and definite, which borders betwixt the two. But the out ward characteristics of old age are obvious enough. The weight diminishes. Man is commonly heaviest at forty, woman at fifty. After that, the body shrinks a little; the height shortens as the cartilages become thin and dry. The hair whitens and falls away. The frame stoops, the bones become smaller, feebler, have less animal and more mere earthy matter. The senses decay, slowly and handsomely. The eye is not so sharp, and while it penetrates further into space, it has less power clearly to define the outline of what it sees. The ear is dull ; the appetite less. Bodily heat is lower ; the breath produces less carbonic acid than before. The old man consumes less food, water, air. The hands grasp less strongly; the feet less firmly tread. The lungs suck the breast, of heaven with less powerful collapse. The eye and ear take not so strong a hold upon the world; " And the big manly voice, Turning again to childish treble, pipes And whistles in his sound." The animal life is making ready to go out. The very old man loves the sunshine and the fire, the arm chair and the shady nook. A rude wind would jostle the full-grown apple from its bough, fuU ripe, full colored too. The internal characteristics correspond. General activity is less. Salient love of new things and of new THE AGED 183 persons, which bit the young man's heart, fades away. He thinks the old is better. He is not venturesome; he keeps at home. Passion once stung him into quick ened life; now that gadfly is no more buzzing in his ears. Madame de Stael finds compensation in science for the decay of the passion that once fired her blood; but heathen Socrates, seventy years old, thanks the gods that he is now free from that " ravenous beast," which had disturbed his philosophic meditations for many a year. Romance is the child of Passion and Imagination ; — the sudden father that, the long-pro tracting mother this. Old age has little romance. Only some rare man, hke Wilhelm Von Humboldt, keeps it still fresh in his bosom. In intellectual matters the venerable man loves to recaU the old times, to revive his favorite old men, — no new ones half so fair. So in Homer, Nestor, who is the oldest of the Greeks, is always talking of the old times, before the grandfathers of men then living had come into being ; " not such as live in these de generate days." Verse-loving John Quincy Adams turns off from Byron and Shelley and Wieland and Goethe, and returns to Pope, "Who pleased his childhood and informed his youth." The pleasure of hope is smaller; that of memory greater. It is exceeding beautiful that it is so. The venerable man loves to set recollection to beat the roU- call, and summon up from the grave the old time, "the good old time," — the old places, old friends, old games, old talk; nay, to his ear the old familiar tunes are sweeter than anything that Mendelssohn, or Strauss, or Rossini can bring to pass. Elder Brewster expects to hear St. Martin's and Old Hun- 184 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC dred chanted in heaven. Why not? To him heaven comes in the long-used musical tradition, not in the neologies of sweet sound. He loves the old doctrines. The Christian of the fourth century, who in manhood went through fire for Christianity's sake, and confessed Jesus in the jail and on the rack, in his old age goes back to the castle of Dame Venus, whom in his heady youth he had for sworn. He loves the temples and statues of his father's religion, and rebuilds the faith which once he destroyed. The Protestant who stood by Luther's doctrine in all his manly days, now that he is old thinks of the Madonna of his childhood, and dies with the once hated wafer in his lips. The Unitarian woman at her Thursday lecture, who in her prime, with Ware and Channing, endured the reproach of thinking for herself, and bore the common Church's scoff and scorn, now fans her faded cheek with de nunciations of all who doubt a miracle ; deals " damna tion round the land ; " getting old and cold-blooded, she goes back to orthodoxy, and wants a chance to warm her shriveled limbs and poor thin blood at the fire of eternal torment. An old poem of the North tells of a brave boy, who in his earlier days found his mother's cottage too narrow, mourned at tending the goats on the mountain-side, and felt his heart sweU in him like a brook from the melting of the snow, when he saw a ship shoot like an arrow into the bay. He ran from his mother and the goats. The viking took him on board. The wind swelled the sails. He saw the hill-top sink in the blue deep, and was riotously glad. He took his father's sword in hand and swore to conquer him " houses and lands by the sea." He also is a viking. He has been all over THE AGED 185 the Mediterranean coast, and conquered him " houses and lands by the sea;" now, in his old age, his palace in Byzantium is a weariness to him, and he longs for the little cottage of his mother. He dreams of the goats ; all day the kids bleat for him. He enters a little barque ; he sails for the Scandinavian coast, and goes to the very cottage too narrow for his childhood, and eats again the barken bread of Sweden, and drinks its bitter beer; bares his forehead to the storm; sits on the rocks, and there he dies. " Bury me not, I pray thee, in Egypt," said old Jacob, " but I will lie with my fathers : bury me in their burying place." Then the scholar becomes an antiquary ; he likes not young men unless he knew their grandfathers before. The young woman looks in the newspaper for the marriages, the old man for the deaths. The young man's eye looks forward ; the world is " all before him where to choose." It is a hard world; he does not know it : he works httle, and hopes much. The middle- aged man looks around at the present; he has found out that it is a hard world: he hopes less, and works more. The old man looks back on the fields he has trod : " This is the tree I planted ; this is my footprint ;" and he loves his old house, his old carriage, cat, dog, staff, and friend. In lands where the vine grows, I have seen an old man sit all day long, a sunny autumn day, before his cottage door, in a great arm-chair, his old dog couched at his feet, in the genial sun. The autumn wind played with the old man's venerable hairs ; above him on the wall, purpling in the sunlight, hung the full clusters of the grape, ripening and maturing yet more. The two were just alike; the wind stirred the vine leaves, and they fell ; stirred the old man's hair, and it whitened yet more. Both were 186 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC waiting for the spirit in them to be fully ripe. The young man looks forward; the old man looks back. How far extended the shadows lie in the setting sun; the steeple a mile long reaching across the plain, as the sun stretches out the hills in grotesque dimensions. So are the events of life in the old man's consciousness. I spoke the other day of the dangers of early man hood; and again of those of later manhood; of the period of passion, and the period of calculation. This, I take it, — I say it with reverence, and under correc tion, — is the danger of old age : — that the man should be querulous ; should slight the needful and appropriate joys of youth and manhood; that he should be timid of all things which are new, consult with his fear, and not his hope, and look backwards and not forth. These, it seems to me, are the special dangers of the old man. Pardon me, venerable per sons, if I mistake! I read from only without; you can answer from within. It is said that men seldom get a new idea after five-and-forty. It is perhaps true; but it has also been my fortune to know men and women who in their old age had a long Indian summer, in which the grass grew fresh again, and the landscape had a richness, a mellowness of outline and of tint; yea, and a beauty, too, which it had lacked in earlier years. What has been exceptional in my observation, may perhaps be instantial, and belong to the nature of old men. Divers diseases invade the flesh in old age, which, most of them, it seems to me, come from our genera] ignorance or the violation of nature's laws. Child hood is unnatural. Half the human race is cradled in the arms of death. The pains we cause at birth, the pains we bear, are alike unnatural. So are many of - THE AGED 187 the pains of old age. The old lion, buffalo, eagle, elephant, dies as the apple falls from the tree, with little pain. So have I seen a pine tree in the woods, old, dry at its root, weak in its limbs, capped with age-resembling snow; it stood there, and seemed like to stand ; but a little touch of wind drove it headlong, and it fell with long resounding crash. The next morning the woodsman is astonished that the old tree lies prostrate on the ground. This is a natural death, for the old tree, and the venerable man. But our cradle and couch are haunted now with disease, which I doubt not wisdom, knowledge of nature's laws, and the true religion of the flesh, will one day enable us to avoid. Now sickness attends our rising up and our lying down. These infirmities I pass by. The man reaps in his old age as he sowed in his youth and his manhood. He ripens what he grew. The quantity and the quality of his life are the result of all his time. If he has been faithful to his better nature, true to his conscience, and his heart, and his soul, — in his old age he often reaps a most abun dant reward in the richest delight of his own quiet consciousness. Private selfishness is less now than ever before. He loves the eternal justice of God, the great higher law. Once his hot blood tempted him, and he broke perhaps that law; now he thinks thereof with grief at the wrong he made others suffer : though he clasps his hands and thanks God for the lesson he has learned even from his sin. He heeds now the great attraction whereby all things gravitate towards God. He knows there is a swift justice for nations and for men, and he says to the youth: "Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth! Let thy heart cheer thee! But know thou that for aU these things God wiU bring thee 188 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC into account. Hear the sum of the whole matter : Love God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole of man." In the old saint perhaps instinctive conscience, like his natural eye and ear, has grown more feeble. But yet the well-developed moral sense, strengthened by in ward and outward observation, and enforced by the momentum which long habit gives, endows him with greater moral power than he ever had before ; "And old experience doth attain To something like prophetic strain.'' You cannot swerve him from the right. What bribe could make old Washington unjust, or Franklin false to his love for the slave, the sick, the poor, for all men? In long time, our good old man has got a great estate of righteousness, which no genius could have accumulated in a short period. His affections now are greater than before; yet it is not the mere power of instinctive affection — the connubial instinct which loves a mate, or the parental instinct which loves a child; but a general human, reflective, volitional love, not sharpened by animal de sire, not narrowed by affiliated bounds, but coming of his freedom, not his bondage. Of mere instinctive affection he has perhaps less than before. That fades with the age which needs it, as the blossom falls when the fruit is set, and the leaves when it has grown. With this pure human affection, he loves his venerable wife better than before ; she him : they have been rising in love these sixty or seventy summers. Once, in their spring of life, their connubial love bloomed passion- red ; then it grew to summer beauty ; now it is autumn THE AGED 189 ripe, it is all affection; there is no romance; passion is gone. It is affection ripened by half a hundred years of use and wont ; a gradual marriage sloping up to a complete wedlock of the man and woman. Now the two are one ; dualism is unified in a long life. This unity and its joy — that is God's benediction on a true marriage, fifty years a-making. All the wife's spiritual womanhood is his; all the spiritual manhood of the husband is hers. Neither has lost; both have won; each has gained the whole value of what was exchanged in this matrimonial barter. The old grandfather loves his grandchild better than once he loved his new-born boy or girl; with less instinctive fire of paternity, but with more general human love; for his character has grown more and more. Once his love was the fiery particle drawn from a voltaic pile of only five-and-twenty years ; now it gathers, power from the combination of eighty several summers and winters. He loves with all that added force. He no longer limits his love to his family; it has not the intensity of instinct, nor its narrow bound. His heart went to school in his early passionate love. Marriage, paternity, brought new education to his affections. His babies taught him. Early his affection rode on the shoulders of his wife; then on the backs of his boy and girl; now it over takes all men — friends, countrymen ; yea, all whom God's love broods over in the world's wide nest. Once, when hot blood was in him, he said, Aha! among the trumpets, smelling the battle afar off, and he loved war; now he hates strife, loves peace. And so he honors the gentle deeds of charity, benevolence, and piety. General Jacksons, and Nelsons, and Na poleons, and Wellingtons, are not heroes of his: the 190 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC good Samaritans are his beloved; not the great sol diers, with their innumerable trains of artillery and baggage-wagons, and their famous " great victories ;" it is the good maiden, the angel of mercy in the neigh boring street; it is the kind man, whose wise heart goes out as medicine to the sick, the old, the feeble, the poor, — these are his heroes. The heroism of hate he has trod under foot ; the heroism of love — he looks up and thanks God for that. His religion is deeper, more inward than before. It is not doctrine alone, nor mere form. There is little rapture ; he is still, and knows that God is Father and Mother of the world. His religion is love of God; faith and trust in Him ; rest, tranquillity, peace for his soul. From the wide field of time, deeply labored for eighty years, he reaps a great harvest of hfe, and now his sheaves are with him ; the eternal riches of heaven are poured into his lap. He fears nothing ; he loves. His hope for this world is something small; for his immortal future he knows no bounds. The farmer tills his ground for the annual harvest, but his good tillage fertilizes the soil; and without his think ing of it, his farm grows richer and his estate larger.- And just so it is with the true, good man ; as the years go by him, his estate of religion greatens, and be comes more and more. The little flowers of humanity — a warm spring day calls them out, where there is no deepness of earth: but to raise the great oak trees of human righteousness, you want a deep, rich soil, and threescore, fourscore, fivescore summers and win ters, for the tree to grow in, broadly buttressed below, broad-branched above, to wrestle with the winds, and take the sunshine of God's heaven on its top. And that is the value of long life — it is an opportunity to THE AGED 191 grow great and ripen through. It is out of time and nature that man makes life ; long time is needed, as well as noble nature, for a great life. Alas for the man who has lived meanly! His old age is a sad and wintry day, whereunto the spring offers no promise. He sowed the wind: it is the storm he reaps. Here is an old sensuahst. In his youth he threw the reins on the neck of every lust which wars against the soul, and so went through the period of instinctive passion. In his graver years, his calculation was only for the appetites of the flesh, ambition for sensual dehght. Now he is old, his desire has become habit ; but the instruments of his appetite are dull, broken, worn out. He recollects the wine and the debauch once rejoiced in; now they have lost their relish; his costly meat turns to gall in him. He remembers nothing but his feasting, and his riot, and his debauch. He has had his skinful of animal gluttony, nothing more. He thinks of the time when the flesh was strong about him. So the Hebrews, whom Moses led out of thral dom, remembered the leeks and the onions and the garhc, which they did eat in Egypt freely, and said, " Carry us back to Egypt, that we may serve false gods, and be fuU." He dreams of his old life: some night of sickness, when opium has drugged him to sleep, it comes up once more. His old fellow-sinners have risen from the dead; they prepare the feast; they pour the wine; they sing the filthy, ribald song; the lewd woman comes in his dream ; — alas ! it is only a dream ; he wakes with his gout and' his chagrin. Let us leave him with his bottle and his bloat, his recoUection and his gout. Poor old man ! — his gray hairs not venerable, but stained with drunkenness and 192 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC lust. So have I seen, in other lands, the snows of winter faU on what was once a mountain that spouted cataracts of fire. Now all is cold, and the volcano's crater is but a bowl of ice, which no mortal summer can melt; and underneath it there are the scoria and the lava which the volcano threw up in its heat — cold, barren, ugly to look on. O young man ! young maid ! would you be buried alive, to die of rot, in such a grave as that? Here is an old man who loved nothing but money. Instead of a conscience, heart, and soul, he had only a three-headed greedy-worm, which longed for money — copper, silver, gold. In youth, he minted his pas sion into current coin, courting an estate ; in manhood, he was ambitious only for gold ; in old age, he has his money, the passion and ambition therefor; the triple greedy-worm, three times more covetous than before. As the powers of the body fail, his lust- for gold grows fiercer in that decay: " the interest table is his creed, His paternoster and his decalogue." How afraid he is of the assessor! In youth avarice was a passion; in manhood calculation; but now the passion is stronger, the calculation more intense, and there is the habit of covetousness, eighty years old. The accumulated fall of eighty winters gives his cov etousness such a momentum as carries him with swiftly accelerated speed down into the bottomless pit of hunkerism. He has no care for right and justice: no love for mankind ; none for God. Mammon is his sole divinity, that Godhead a trinity of coin. What an end of what a hfe! His gray hairs cover only an estate ; he is worth nothing. THE AGED 193 Did you ever see the old age of a covetous man who for eighty years had gathered gold, and nothing more? I have seen more than one such. It is the sin of New England. I spoke of poverty the other day; of want which I saw in the cellars of Broad Street and Burgess Alley, in the attics of the North End Block. There is no want so squalid, no misery of poverty so desperate, as the consciousness of an old miser, in his old age of covetousness. Pass him by. Here is an old man who in his long time has sought only power and place, and thence-accruing fame. His passion was aU ambition, his calculation only for place and name. With strange fire he sacrificed youth and manhood on this unholy altar. He has not yet won the place he longs for; nor never wiU. He sets his hungry eye on it, and grows more reckless in the means that seem to lead thereto, " for he knoweth that his time is short." Nothing stands between him and what he aims at. Friendship is nothing; his plighted word is only the oath of a dicer who throws for place. His past hfe is nothing; he wiU eat his own words, though hard as cannon-shot. His conscience is noth ing; his affections nothing; his soul nothing; and his God — that is a word to swear by, and beguile the people with. He knows no higher law — only the passion of the many, the ambition of the few. I have seen the old age of such; I remember their faces — the face of a volcano, rent with hidden fires, scarred and streaked with the ruin they had thrown out from their own ambition. God save you from such an end, and me ! Look around you and see men conspicuous in Amer ican politics to-day — men whose passions of the flesh time has cooled, and tamed, and chilled, and frozen VII— 13 194 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC through; but the passion for place wars still in their members, and yet more against the soul. Old men, they mock at conscience; they pimp and pander to every vice of America. " Give us place," say they, " and you shall have Cuba and Mexico for your slavery; yea, the bloodhounds of America shall bark from the Mexique Bay to the British hne, and the tide of slavery shall break over the Rocky Mountains' top ! " Would you wish such an old age? Look at the Senate of the United States to-day; at the aspirants for the presidency, I know not how many of them. Nay, look in less eminent places, for the ambition of obscurer men, and see how it eats out the heart of such as time has spared. The old age of the sensualist, the miser, of him who worships only place, and fame, and power — what a judgment it is against the sin! I have no eloquence, nor nature's simple power of speech, to paint in words the ghastly fact. There was once a man in America, of large talent and extraordinary culture, born also of a family ven erable for the great men it had cradled in its bosom. In him the discordant vices of passion and calculation seemed both to culminate. He was the favorite of a powerful party ; thirty-five times did the Federalist delegates in Congress give their voice for him. They made him Vice-President of the nation. He was pos sessed of almost every loathly sin that human nature could hold, and yet hold together. He was more than eighty years old when he died. But the old age of Aaron Burr — would you wish worse punishment for the worst man that ever lived? The nation hated him, not without cause; for he turned a traitor to THE AGED 195 America. Within him all was rotten: he was a faith less friend ; a subtle and merciless enemy ; a deceitful father, who sought to sell the honor of his only daugh ter, and she a wife and mother too! Some night in his last days, when pain, most ignominiously got, kept him from sleep, perhaps conscience came and beat the reveille in his heart, and his memory gave up its dead ; the buried victims of his deceit rose before him, of his treason, his lust, his malice, his covetousness, and his revenge. Pass him by, only fit " to point a moral and adorn a tale," — perhaps the worst great man young America ever gendered in her bosom. Here is a woman who has sought chiefly the admira tion of the world, the praise of men. Her life is vanity long drawn out, the only frailty which joins her to mankind". Now she is an old woman of fashion — wearing still the garments of her earlier prime, which, short and scanty as they were, are yet a world too wide for shrunken age to fill. How ill those gaudy ruffles become the withered dewlap that hangs beneath her chin ! Her life has been a long cheat ; she has had no calculation but for vanity, setting a trap to catch a compliment : it is fit her age should be a deceit. That color — the painter did it ; the plumpness — it is artificial; the hair — false; the teeth — are pur chased at a shop ; the hands — all glove and bone, and great big veins ; the tongue — it was always artificial and false ; it needs no other change. Yet she apes the tread of youth. Alas! poor fly! For this you have lived ; nay, flirted ! — it is not hfe. This, then, is the end of the waltzes, and polkas, and Cracoviennes ; this is the pay for the morning study over dress, the after noon prattle about it, the evening spent in putting on this gaudy attire. Poor creature! in youth, a worm; 196 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC in womanhood, a butterfly; in old age, your wings aU tattered, your plumage rent, a " fingered moth," — old, shriveled, sick, perching on nothing, and perishing into dust ; the laughter of the witty ; the scorn of the thoughtless; only the pity of the wise and good. What a three-act drama is her life — youth, woman hood, age! Vanity sits there in front of the stage, known but not seen, and prompts the play — the words, the grimace. What music it is ! From the opera, the lewdest and the wildest, and from the Catholic judg ment-hymn, mingled together in the same confusion which behind the scenes her toilet table brings to view, where you also find " puffs, powders, patches, Bibles, billets-doux." Now the audience is tired of her, and laughs at the hollow voice, the bleary eye, the spindle limbs. The curtain falls ; the farce is at an end. Poor old butterfly! Death and Vanity carry her between them to fitting burial and the mercy-seat of the In finite God. What a beautiful thing is the old age which crowns a noble life, of rich or poor! How fair are the latter days of many a woman — wife, mother, sister, aunt, friend — whom you and I have known ! How proud were the last years of Washington; the old age of Franklin ! How beautiful in his late autumn is Alex ander Von Humboldt! The momentum of manliness bears on the venerable man beyond his four-and- eightieth year. There you see the value of time. It takes much to make a great life, as to make a great estate. No amount of genius that God ever gives a man could enable one to achieve at forty what Von Humboldt has only done at more than eighty. It was so with Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Leibnitz, every great man who has awed the world by the action of a mighty intellect, with corresponding culture. THE AGED 197 These are men of high talent, station, genius per haps. But the old age of a Quaker tailor in Phila delphia and New York was not a whit less fair. The philanthropy of Isaac Hopper blessed the land; in his manhood it enriched the world; in his old age it beau tified his own hfe, giving an added glory to his soul. How many farmers, mechanics, traders, servants, how many mothers, wives, and aunts have you and I known, whose last days were a handsome finish to a handsome life; the Christian ornament on the tall col umn of time! Their old age was the slow setting of the sun, which left " The smile of his departure spread O'er the warm-colored heaven and ruddy mountain-head." Miss Kindly is aunt to everybody, and has been so long that none remember to the contrary. The little children love her; she helped their grandmothers to bridal ornaments, threescore years ago. Nay, this boy's grandfather found the way to college lay through her pocket. Generations not her own rise up and caU her blessed. To this man's father her patient toil gave the first start in life. . That great fortune — when it was a seed, she carried it in her hand. That wide river of reputation ran out of the cup her bounty filled. Now she is old; very old. The httle children, who cling about her, with open mouth and great round eyes, wonder that anybody should ever be so old; or that Aunt Kindly ever had a mother to kiss her mouth. To them she is coeval with the sun, and like that, an institution of the country. At Christmas, they think she is the wife of Saint Nicholas himself, such an ad vent is there of blessings from her hand. She has helped lay a Messiah in many a poor man's crib. 198 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC Her hands are thin; her voice feeble; her back is bent; she walks with a staff — the best limb of the three. She wears a cap of antique pattern, yet of her own nice make. She has great round spectacles, and holds her book away off the other side of the candle when she reads. For more than sixty years she has been a special providence to the family. How she used to go forth — the very charity of God — to soothe, and heal, and bless ! How industrious are her hands ! how thoughtful and witty that fertile mind! Her heart has gathered power to love in all the eighty-six years of her toilsome life. When the birth-angel came to a related house, she was there to be the mother's mother; ay, mother also to the new-born baby's soul. And when the wings of death flapped in the street, and shook a neighbor's door, she smoothed down the pillow for the fainting head; she soothed and cheered the spirit of the waiting man, opening the curtains of heaven that he might look through and see the welcom ing face of the dear Infinite Mother : nay, she put the wings of her own strong, experienced piety under him, and sought to bear him up. Now these things are passed by. No, they are not passed by; they are recollected in the memory of the dear God, and every good deed she has done is treas ured in her own heart. The bulb shuts up the summer in its breast which in winter will come out a fragrant hyacinth. Stratum after stratum, her good works are laid up, imperishable, in the geology of her character. It is near noon now. She is alone. She has been thoughtful all day, talking inwardly to herself. The family notice it, and say nothing. In her chamber, from a private drawer, she takes a httle casket; and from thence a book, gilt-edged and clasped; but the THE AGED 199 clasp is worn, the gilding is old, the binding faded by long use. Her hands tremble as she opens it. First she reads her own name, on the fly-leaf ; only her Christian name, " Agnes," and the date. Sixty-eight years ago this day it was written there, in a clear, youthful, clerkly hand — with a little tremble in it, as if the heart beat over-quick. It is very well worn, the dear old Bible. It opens of its own accord, at the four teenth chapter of St. John. There is a little folded piece of paper there: it touches the first verse and the twenty-seventh. She sees neither: she reads both out of her soul : — " Let not your heart be troubled ; ye believe in God ; believe also in me : " " Peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you. Not as the world giveth, give I unto you." She opens the paper. There is a little brown dust in it; perhaps the rem nant of a flower. She takes the precious relic in her hand, made cold by emotion. She drops a tear on it, and the dust is transfigured before her eyes : it is a red rose of the spring, not quite half blown, dewy fresh. She is old no longer. It is not Aunt Kindly now; it is sweet Agnes, as the maiden of eighteen was, eight and sixty years ago, one day in May, when all nature was woosome and winning, and every flower-bell rang in the marriage of the year. Her lover had just put that red rose of the spring into her hand, and the good God another in her cheek, not quite half blown, dewy fresh. The young man's arm is round her ; her brown curls faU on his shoulder; she feels his breath on her face, his cheek on hers; their lips join, and like two morning dew-drops in that rose, their two loves rush into one. But the youth must wander to a far land. They wiU think of each other as they look at the North star. She bids him take her Bible. He saw the North 200 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC star hang over the turrets of many a foreign town. His soul went to God — there is as straight a road from India as from any other spot — and a Bible came back to her — the divine love in it, without the human lover, the leaf turned down at the blessed words of St. John, first and twenty-seventh of the fourteenth chap ter. She put the rose there to note the spot; what marks the thought holds now the symbol of their youthful love. To-day her soul is with him, her maiden soul with his angel soul ; and one day the two, like two dew-drops, will rush into one immortal wed lock, and the old age of earth shall become eternal youth in the kingdom of heaven. Grandfather is old. His back also is bent. In the street he sees crowds of men looking dreadfully young, and walking fearfully swift. He wonders where all the old folks are. Once, when a boy, he could not find people young enough for him, and sidled up to any young stranger he met on Sundays, wondering why God made the world so old. Now he goes to Com mencement to see his grandsons take their degree, and is astonished at the youth of the audience. " This is new," he says ; " it did not use to be so fifty years be fore." At meeting the minister seems surprisingly young, the audience young ; and he looks round and is astonished that there are so few venerable heads. The audience seems not decorous ; they come in late, and hurry off early, clapping the doors to after them with irreverent bang. But Grandfather is decorous, well- mannered, early in his seat: jostled, he jostles not again; elbowed, he returns it not; crowded, he thinks no evil. He is gentlemanly to the rude, obliging to the insolent and vulgar; — for Grandfather is a gen tleman, not puffed up with mere money, but edified with THE AGED 201 well-grown manliness. Time has dignified his good manners. Now it is night. Grandfather sits by his old-fash ioned fire. The family are all a-bed. He draws his old-fashioned chair nearer to the hearth. On the stand which his mother gave him are the candlesticks, also of old time. The candles are three-quarters burnt down ; the fire on the hearth also is low. He has been thoughtful aU day, talking half to himself, chanting a bit of verse, humming a snatch of an old tune. He kissed more tenderly than common his youngest grand daughter, — the family pet, — before she went to bed. He takes out of his bosom a little locket: nobody ever sees it. Therein are two httle twists of hair; common hair: it might be yours or mine. But as Grandfather looks at them, the outer twist of hair becomes a whole head of most ambrosial curls. He remembers the stolen interviews, the meetings by moonlight, and how sweet the evening star looked, and how he laid his hand on another's shoulder. " You are my evening star," quoth he. He remembers "The fountain-heads, and pathless groves, Places that pale Passion loves." He thinks of his bridal hour. In the stiUness of the great slumbering town, while hfe breaks only in a quiet ripple on all those hundred thousand lips, he hears no noise ; but with wintry hands solemnly the church clock strikes the midnight hour. In his locket he looks again. This other twist is the hair of his first-born son. At that same hour of mid night, once, — it is now many years ago — when the long agony was over he knelt and prayed — " My God, I thank thee that I, though father, am still a husband 202 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC too! O, what have I done! What am I, that unto me this hfe should be given, and another spared ! " Now he has children, and children's children — the joy of his old age. But for many a year his wife has looked to him from beyond the evening star; yea, still she is herself the evening star, yet more beautiful ; a star that never sets ; not mortal wife, now, but angel ; and he says, " How long, O Lord? When lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, that mine eyes may see thy salvation? " The last stick on his andirons snaps asunder and faUs outward. Two faintly smoking brands stand there. Grandfather lays them together, and they flame up ; the two smokes are one united flame. " Even so let it be in heaven," says Grandfather. Dr. Priestly, when he was young, preached that old age was the happiest time of life; and when he was himself eighty he wrote " I have found it so." But the old age of the glutton, the fop, the miser, the hunter after place, the bigot, the shrew, what would that be? Think of the old age of a Boston kidnap per! It is only a noble, manly life, full of piety, which makes old age ' beautiful. Then we ripen for eternity, and the dear God looks down from heaven, and lays his hand on the venerable head. " Come, thou beloved, inherit the kingdom prepared for thee." VII MATERIAL CONDITIONS We intend in this article to write of the material condition of the people of Massachusetts. In detail we shall treat of the number of the people ; of their mar riages, their births, and their deaths ; then also of the property of the people; of idiocy, insanity, blindness, and sickness ; of the means of education, and the means for the repression of crime. At the end of all we shall offer some hints as moral, not to a fable, but to a fact. For convenience' sake, we put the statistics into tables, apples of gold in vessels of silver. I. Of the Persons in the State. — On the first day of June, 1855, there were in Massachusetts 1,132,- 369 persons. To-day the number is doubtless greater ; but let it be considered as still the same. I 1. They are thus divided in respect to race : - — 9,767 are black men, of the African race ; whereof 6,923 are pure negroes, 2,844 are mixed. 139 are red men, of the American or Indian race : of these, six only are pure Indian, the rest are mixed with the blood of other races. This is the poor remnant of the great savage population which filled up the land two hundred and fifty years ago,] as confident in their " manifest des tiny " as their civilized successors are to-day. [It is painful to consider the fate of the thousands of men who once filled the forests of New England. We know of no justification for the conduct of our fathers, who often treated the Indians like beasts of preyj But even now the Americans are scarcely more merciful. There are 1,122,463 of the Caucasian race: of these 203 204 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC 877,280 are natives of the United States; 244,685 are foreigners ; 498 are of unknown nativity. Putting all together, black, red, and white, there are 886,575 inhabitants of Massachusetts who were born here, 245,- 263 foreigners, and 531 of doubtful origin. Besides, in 1850, 199,582 natives of Massachusetts were living elsewhere in the United States, and there are 30,000 or 40,000 probably now residing in other countries of the earth. The historical growth of the population of Massa chusetts is a little remarkable. In 1620 the first white settlers — not counting the Scandinavians, who actu ally came in the Middle Ages — dropped their anchor in the shallow waters of " New Plymouth." The fol lowing tables show the subsequent growth in numbers. The first table is conjectural : — Table I. — Population of Massachusetts from 1620 to 1775. Year. Population. 1620 101 1701 70,000 Year. Population. 1749 220,000 1775 352,000 Table II. — Population of Massachusetts from 1790 to 1855. Year. Population. Year. Population. 1790 378,717 1830 610,408 1800 423,245 1840 737,699 1810 472,041 1850 994,514 1820 523,287 1855 1,132,369 The figures of this last table rest on actual official count. Truly this is a pretty respectable increase in two hundred and thirty-five years. Our fathers started with Puritanism and the wilderness, and this is the numeric result which has come of their ciphering. MATERIAL CONDITIONS 205 2. They are thus distributed in respect to sex: — 550,034 are males, 582,335 are females ; thus there are 32,301 more of womankind than of mankind in the State — 106 women to 100 men. More males are born every year, and more females die ; still the women sur pass the men. It is thought an excess of women mi grates in, and an excess of men migrates out, and hence the perpetual superabundance of women and its una voidable consequences. These persons live in 228,845 families, and occupy 175,311 dwellings. 3. They are thus distributed in respect to age. Human life may be divided into three periods: the de pendent age, from birth to 15; the productive age, from 15 to 60 ; the retiring age, from 60 to the end. Table III. — Age of the Population. 358,904 of the dependent age, 31.69 per cent, of whole population 701,100 " productive age, 61.91 " " " 70,024 " retiring age, 6.40 " " 2,341 of unascertained age. In 1855 there were 132,944 under 5, and 19 over 100. In the various countries of Europe the average age of all the population varies from 26 to 33 ; we do not know the figures for Massachusetts ; the average of the dying we shall give in a subsequent page. Out of 100 persons, 32 are under 15 ; 62 between 15 and 60; 6 are over threescore ; while only one out of 65,000 ever sees his hundredth birthday. We shall presently return to this matter of longevity. 4. The adult males are thus occupied in various trades. On the first of June, 1855, there were 333,542 males in the State over 15 years of age, whose industrial business was reported in the census of that year. We give the result as follows : — 206 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC Table IV. — Occupations of the People. Business. Number. Percentage. Mechanics 122,251 36.63 Laborers 60,248 18.06 Farmers 57,031 17.10 Traders 29,039 8.71 Mariners and boatmen 16,346 4.91 Factory operatives 8,801 2.64 Professional men 8,312 2.49 Manufacturers 5,294 1.59 Miscellaneous work 26,220 7.87 Total 333,542 100.00 About 41,000 men work upon leather, either in man ufacturing the article or molding it into various forms. There are 1,800 doctors; 1,750 ministers, of large and small denominations; 1,545 printers; 1,584 coopers; 1,116 lawyers; and 1,080 peddlers. Thus out of 100 males over fifteen years old, 3 work in factories ; 5 are sailors; 9 are traders; 17 are farmers; 18 are labor ers ; and 37 mechanics, of whom 12 work upon leather. Every eighth man in the State is a shoemaker. If we look back to the history of productive indus try in Massachusetts we shall see that a great change has taken place. A large part of the men are now at work under cover, in factories or shops, and are also dependent on some man or corporation who employs them. It was not so a hundred years ago, when the majority worked each man for himself, and the great mass of the people in the open air. This change in the industry of the people brings with it important consequences, which appear in the size, health, and longevity of the people, and also in the amount of their free individuahty. There is less physical strength in a thousand workingmen now than in 1750, we think ; less individual freedom of thought and manly inde- MATERIAL CONDITIONS 207 pendence. The industrial, hke other battles, is won with a loss. Man's body comes into equilibrium with the circumstances it is exposed to, oscillating for a while between its maximum and minimum of energy; the spirit of man also accommodates itself to its sur roundings, as any one can see in England, Spain, and Turkey. '"Tis the day of the chattel, Web to weave, and corn to grind; Things are in the saddle, And ride mankind. There are two laws discrete, Not reconciled, — Law for man, and law for thing; The last builds town and fleet, But it runs wild, And doth the man unking." i II. Of the Marriages of the People. — Here we take the facts for the year ending December 31, 1856. No State returns of a later date have been published, but the returns of the city of Boston come down a year later. In 1856 there were 12,265 couples married in Massa chusetts. The number is 1,418 less than that of 1854. Is marriage diminishing in Massachusetts? The ex travagant habits of luxurious men and women put marriage out of the reach of many, vanity prevailing over affection. As flounces increase in number and greaten in size, wives diminish and lessen. A woman becomes an article of luxury. It is instructive to no tice the proportion between tbe marriages of natives and foreigners. Mr. De Witt has put the wedlock of four years into a table as follows : — 208 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC Table V. — Marriages in Massachusetts from 1853 lo 1856. Nativity of the Parties 1853. Both parties- American .... 7,381 foreign 4,057 Amer. groom, for. bride. . . . 485 For. groom, Amer. bride. ... 458 Nativity not ascertained . . . 447 1854. 1855. 1856. 1853-56. 7,492 6,918 6,918 28,609 4,797 4,269 4,323 17,446 542 467 495 1989 512 487 487 1944 340 188 142 1117 Total 12,828 13,683 12,329 12,265 Of the 2,536 men who were married in Boston in 1856, only 1,033 were born in the United States, while 1,503 were foreigners — 960 of whom were natives of Ireland. Of the 2,536 women married here in that year, only 989 were natives of the United States, but 341 of whom were born in Boston; while 1,080 Irish women were made joyful with so many men. With that class extravagance does not hinder wedlock. The poor can always afford marriage. In the whole State the American outnumber the for eign marriages. It is always interesting to know at what age the par ties become one; so we have constructed the following table : — Table VI. — Age at the time of Marriage. Under 20 20 to 25 25 to 30 30 to 35 35 to 40 40 to 50 Above 50 Males 206 5,096 3,641 1,422 694 632 391 Females .. 2,739 5,493 2,235 751 353 304 457 Two boys of 16 were married; 1 girl of 13; 11 of 14; 63 of 15; 176 of 16; and 32 of 17. The oldest bridegroom was between 75 and 80; the oldest bride was between 60 and 65. So it seems 23 per cent, of the Massachusetts wives marry before 20 ; 45 per cent. between 20 and 25. In other words at 20 the maiden has escaped about one-fourth part of the risks of being married, but sailing is now dangerous; at 25 a little MATERIAL CONDITIONS 209 more than two-thirds of the peril is gone; while at 30 there is only about one chance in six that she will ever encounter that shipwreck. In Kentucky, in 1855, out of 5,353 women who were married, and whose ages are recorded, it appears that 1 was married at 11 ; 8 at 13; 17 at 14; 2,260 under 20; 4,161 under 25. One woman at 73 married a man of 81. A maiden of 75 joined herself (and her estate) to a man of 25. " And may God Almighty have mercy on your souls ! " would have been the appropriate benediction. III. Of the Number of Births. — In 1856 there were 34,445 children bom in Massachusetts. Out of 200 of these babies about 103 are boys and 97 girls ; this rule seems to be nearly constant in our State. Of these children 15,908 had both parents Americans, while 16,513 had a foreigner for father or mother; the nativity of the parents of 2,024 was not ascertained. The illegitimate births are reported as only 257, of which 118 took place in the two State almshouses. But this matter is not investigated as it should be ; the number of extra-matrimonial births is greater, though probably much less than in any other country of Chris tendom. The proportion of children of foreign extraction varies in different parts of the State. Thus, in the county of Suffolk, there were 6,251 births; but only 1,634 children had an American father and mother, while 3,955 had both parents foreign; only 1,881 had American fathers; but 4,202 had foreign fathers. Suffolk County is only a New England " County Cork ;" Boston is but the " Dublin " of America. 5,866 babies were born in Boston in 1856; only 1,670 had American fathers, only 902 Massachusetts fathers, VII— 14 210 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC only 428 Boston fathers ; while more than 2,900 chil dren had both parents Irish. Thirty pairs of Irish twins crowded into the world of Boston that year. In the seven years from 1850 to 1856, there were but 13,182 children born in Suffolk County to Ameri can fathers, while the foreign fathers rejoiced in the paternity of 26,924 children. In one case three Irish children rushed at one birth into the land of promise. Not long since a true Hibernian birth took place: a woman was delivered of twins, one of whom was born in 1855 and the other in 1856. This, we take it, could happen only in the case that both parents were Irish ! Some parts of Boston are more fertUe than others. Thus, in 1856, in Ward 2 (East Boston) there was one birth for every 21 persons ; while in Ward 4 there was but one birth to 63 persons. In Ward 2 every, eleventh female bore a child that year. In the whole city there was one birth to every 27.48 persons. The birth of colored children was only one in 44.40; in 1857, it was but one in 65. This comparative sterility of colored women in Boston is a remarkable fact. Is the climate too severe for these children of the tropics? or is the cause found in the abandoned hfe of many colored women? At the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Cheltenham, in 1856, Mr. Clibborn read a remarkable paper " On the Tendency of European Races to become Extinct in the United States." His purpose was to exhibit the " probability of the extinction on the continent of North America, not only of the Celtic or Irish race, but of all other European races, provided intercourse with Europe is entirely interrupted." A writer in the " Boston Daily MATERIAL CONDITIONS 211 Advertiser " some time since showed the absurdity of this opinion, and mentioned that the population of the United States increases " six times as fast as Great Britain, and ten times as fast as France." We would add a few facts, gathered from other sources, showing that population is not likely to cease at present. Dr. Wetherspoon, of the United States army, reports that in the neighborhood of Fort JKent, on the St. John River in Maine, on the British side of that river, some of the Celtic descendants of old Acadians are settled; in 12 families living within a mile of the garrison, and taken without exception, there were 93 children; the married life of the 24 parents was in all but 162 years, a child for every 20^2 months. M. Burgoyne had 18 children by his first wife, 2 by the second. His oldest daughter has been married 11 years, and had 8 children ; his mother had three pairs of twins. M. Ferriand has had 26 children by one wife ; she was 53 years old when the last was born. M. Le Crog had 19 children in 18 years, five pairs of twins. M. Cire has had 22 children, all single births ; his wife was 14 at marriage, now 43. There are six families at Green River, within the space of a mile, who have had in all 106 children — an average of 17.66 births to a mar riage. Four women had 84 children. Marriage of girls at 13 or 14 is not uncommon. The wife of Jacque Camel had been married 11 years, and has had 7 children, all now hving except the first, who died at the age of four. " She has always been in the habit of nursing her children from one birth to another." The settlers in Canada, as well as in the United States, have proved that the country is not one " that eateth up the inhabitants thereof." We know a gentleman whose six American male ancestors will average 77 at 212 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC death, while the six females come up to 80. Such examples are not uncommon. The descendants of the white man and the red woman are short-lived. IV. Of the Number of Deaths. — 20,734 died in Massachusetts in 1856 — 10,201 were males, 10,401 females, 132 were of unreported sex. 1. In the whole State the average age at death was 26.97; in Dukes County, 45.53; in Suffolk County, 19.98. In Suffolk, 10 persons at death have lived about 200 years; in Dukes, about 460. In Middle sex, the average age at death is 25,31 ; in Bristol, Essex, Hampden, and Worcester, about 28 ; in Frank lin, 34.64. Have the Irish and other Celtic people less tenacity of life than the Anglo-Saxons and their Teutonic kindred, or do circumstances cause the dif ference in duration of life? 4,226 died under one year. More than one-fifth of all deaths are of babies not a year old; more than two-fifths die before five. In Boston, the number of those who die before five is greater than all the deaths between 5 and 60 ; thus here the chances of death in the first 5 years are greater than in the next 55. Here the average age of all at death is about 20 ; of the native Americans, about 25 ; of the colored people, 27 ; of the foreigners, 17. It is often said the Africans in New England have less vitality than any other people. These facts do not support the theory. But in 1857, the average age of colored persons at death was only 25.24, while that of other native Americans was 27.57. 2. Women attain a greater age than men. Perhaps this is so in all countries. The following table shows the age at death of the various classes of men and women : — MATERIAL CONDITIONS 213 Table VII. — Age of Foreign and Native Males and Females at Death. Native-born females, at death, will average 29.94 Native-born males Foreign-born females " Foreign-born males " Native-born colored females Native-born colored males 27.57 17.9317.00 25.4624.79 American males live ten years more than foreign males, and American females twelve years more than their sisters from abroad. Let us divide life as before into thnee periods, the dependent, from birth to 15 ; the productive, from 15 to 60 ; the retiring, from 60 till death, and see what number die in each period. We omit all whose age is not ascertained. Table VIII. — Distribution of Death according to Age and Sex. 1856. Dependent Age. Productive Age. Retiring Age. Males 4,907 3,451 1,763 Females 4,301 4,091 1,937 Total 9,208 7,542 3,700 The mortality of males is greatest in the first period, while that of women takes precedence in the two oth ers. The causes which produce this increased sacrifice of male hfe in the first fifteen years are not yet well ascertained. The following table contains facts for the years 1852-56, and shows the comparative mortality of men and women at different ages. Table IX. — Distribution of Death according to Sex and Age. 1852-56. Under 1. Under 5. Between 20 and 30. Over 30. Males 12,245 20,782 4,888 24,446 Females .. 9,061 17,684 6,787 26,480 Total.. 21,306 38,466 11,675 50,926 214 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC Here, too, the superior longevity of woman appears. The same law prevails in other countries. Mr. Neison furnishes the facts for England, whence we have constructed the following table: — Table X. — Expectation of Life in England. Age. For Males. For Females. Age. For Males. I or Female 10 47.75 48.38 50 20.84 22.05 15 44.17 44.99 60 14.58 15.53 20 40.69 41.59 70 9.21 9.84 25 37.34 38.36 80 5.21 5.63 30 34.09 35.16 90 2.89 3.09 40 27.47 28.73 100 2.13 1.87 The same law appears in Belgium. We gather the curious statistics from M. Quetelet's celebrated book. In Belgium the males and females are nearly equal in number. Table XI. — Comparative Vitality of Males and Females. In Cities. In Country. For 100 females stillborn there are (Males.) (Males.) iere are 133 170 are in 1st 3 mos. 130 126 " 3 to 12 mos. 115 109 " 1 to 5 yrs. 103 90.50 " 5 to 14 90 93 " 14 to 18 82 75 " 18 to 21 98 92 " 21 to 40 104 86.33 " 40 to 50 102 83 " 50 to 60 107 118 " 60 to 70 96 105 " 70 to 80 77 100 " 80 to 100 68 92 In Boston the colored people furnish a striking ex ception to the general rule ; 38 colored males died here in 1856, and 33 colored females; the average age of the former was 30 years, of the latter, a httle less than MATERIAL CONDITIONS 215 25. It should be remembered that many colored fe males belong to the lowest class of prostitutes. There are but two places in New England where the colored are regarded as entitled to the same rights with the whites; one is the lowest haunt of corruption, the other the company of the most religious and humane of all philanthropists. 3. The deaths are thus distributed among natives and foreigners, males and females : — Table XII. — Distribution of Deaths in 1856. Native Americans. Foreigners. 16,678. 3,191. Males 8,i86 Males 1,663 Females 8,391 Females 1,557 Sex not reported.. 101 Sex not reported.. 1 During the last three years about 16 per cent, of all deaths in Massachusetts have been those of foreigners. It is instructive to look at the causes of death: 841 died by violence last year, most of them by accident, that is, by some man's carelessness. In the 15 years and 8 months ending December 31, 1856, no less than 4,081 persons have perished here by violence: whereof 3 were hanged by the sheriff; 108 were murdered; 860 committed suicide, 101 in 1856; and 3,110 came to an end by " other violent causes " not distinctly named in the reports. Americans are singularly reckless of life; but yet suicide is less common in Massachusetts than in many other civihzed countries. Thus, by the celebrated Gotha tables, calculated from the narrow basis of 2,807 lives, it appears that one death out of 44 was by suicide. The population of London is less than double that of Massachusetts, but its suicides are more than twice as many, varying from 203 to 266 a year. This crime is on the increase in Massachusetts. 216 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC Table XIII. — Increase of Suicides from 1849 to 1856. Year. No. of Suicides. Year. No. of Suicides. 1849 67 1853 67 1851 57 1854 82 1851 58 1855 91 1852 ' 76 1856 101 The greater proclivity of the male to violence ap pears in the number of suicides ; 71 per cent, are male, 29 female. " Omnis natura in re minima," is an old rule. The greatest number of Massachusetts suicides takes place in May. It seems in Europe this crime is more common amongst Protestants than Catholics. Any thoughtful man would expect it to be in some pro portion to the amount of freedom of thought and in dividual self -direction. Babies don't fall till they be gin to go alone; while in the cradle they break no bones. Many children are born dead. Infanticide takes two forms, ante-natal and post-natal. The law of Mas sachusetts regards the latter as a crime, and punishes it as other forms of murder ; but it takes no notice of the former. We cannot furnish the statistics of abor tion; but, judging from what we have learned, they would be more frightful than those of any other form of New England crime. It is not less murder to de stroy the life of a child in a woman's body than in a man's cradle or a public highway. If thoughtful men do not ascertain the extent of this enormity, and that among " respectable " women, by noticing the average number of children to a marriage, or by reading the advertisements of abortionists in the public papers, they may ask any intelligent physician of this town, and he will tell them facts that we do not care to shame these pages with. Much of the mortality of children MATERIAL CONDITIONS 217 in the first three years of life may often be traced to the mother's efforts to be no mother. Of the 20,748 who died in 1856, we find 978 died of old age ; 4 of these had reached the respectable period of 100, or more. Old age, we take it, is the only death that is natural to man and unavoidable. It is not our purpose to give an account of the vari ous diseases which have made havoc of men; we leave that to the physicians. But we would caU attention to the effect of a man's business and his locality on the length of his life. In the 12 years and 8 months ending with 1856, 38,027 persons over 20 years' old had died in Massa chusetts whose age and business were ascertained and reported in the official documents. The facts are shown in the following table: — Table XIV. — Of Occupation and Longevity. No. of Aggregate Average Occupation. Persons. Length of Life. Age at Death. Farmers 10,741 689,466 64.19 Coopers 305 17,790 58.33 Lawyers 188 10,746 57.15 Ministers 265 15,108 57.01 Shipwrights 275 15,456 56.20 Doctors 366 20,088 54.85 Blacksmiths 743 38,513 51.83 Wheelwrights 167 8,586 51.41 Carpenters 1,679 83,365 + 49.65 Merchants and traders.. 1,674 83,099 49.36 Tanners and curriers 214 10,284 48.05 Tavern-keepers 158 7,581 47.98 Masons 401 19,017 47.42 Cabinet-makers 228 10,735 47.08 Seamen 2,561 118,366 46.21 Laborers 7,300 326,324 44.71 Manufacturers 343 15,231 44.40 Stonecutters 223 9,792 43.91 Shoemakers 2,741 118,489 43.22 Mechanics 466 20,101 43.13 218 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC No. of Aggregate Average Occupation. Persons. Length of Life. Age at Death. Tailors 346 14,655 42.35 Painters 429 18,095 42.18 Machinists 409 15,350 37.55 Printers 150 5,490 36.60 It is now quite clear that in all civilized countries the average life of man is lengthening; yet it may be doubtful whether cases of extreme longevity are on the increase. We have never found any well-authenticated case of a man reaching his two-hundredth year. Thomas Parr was born in Shropshire, England, in 1483, and died in 1635, nearly 153 years old. He worked at farming till about 130; when 116 or 118, it is said, he became unlawfully the father of a child, and was punished ecclesiastically by walking on Sunday in a white sheet in front of the church in his parish. He married for the last time when near 120. At his death, Dr. Harvey opened the body, and found no signs of decay. One of his grandsons died at 120. In 1670 Henry Jenkins died in Yorkshire at the age of 169. Petrach Czartan, a Hungarian peasant, was born in 1587, and died in 1772, aged 185.2 This is the greatest age we find in any authentic history, if, indeed, the facts be well established. In the year 76 the census of Italy was taken, and in the " eighth region," between the Apennines and the Po, there were 124 persons over 100 years of age; three of them were 140; at Rimini, Marcus Aponius was then living at 150. Lord Bacon collects several cases of great age in his " History of Life and Death ;" but some of them are poorly vouched for. He says " the old Countess of Desmond " lived to 140. We remember to have heard it said of her in some verses — MATERIAL CONDITIONS 219 "Who lived to much more than a hundred and ten, And died by a fall from a cherry-tree then. What a frisky old girl ! " It is said that the famous John of Times (Johannes de Temporibus, so called for the ages he lived through) saw 361 years, but the statement lacks confirmation. M. Prosper Lucas, in a recent work, says that on the 12th of January, 1763, in the hamlet of Conino, in Russia, there died a woman named Margaret Crib- sowna, wife of Gaspard Raycoul. She was 108 years old. She married him, her third husband, when she was 94 and he 105 ; they had three children born in that wedlock, all living at their mother's death; the children's hair was white, they had no teeth, but cavi ties in the gums as if the teeth had been removed; they were of the ordinary size for their age, but crooked in the back, having a faded complexion, with all the other signs of decrepitude. The same author relates that the wife of one of the coachmen of Charles X. bore a child at the age of 65, who likewise had all the marks of senility. Wanley tells of a " Cornish beggar," an Irishman by birth, of whom this epitaph was written: — " Here Brawne, the quondam beggar lies, Who counted by his tale Some sixscore winters and above, Such virtue is in ale. Ale was his meat, his drink, his cloth, Ale did his death deprive, And could he still have drank his ale, He had been still alive: " Seventy-one men settled in the town of Newton, Mass., towards the middle of the seventeenth century. The age of thirty of them at death is ascertained : they averaged a httle more than 69.3 220 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC V. Of the Peopeety of the People. — 1. In T840, the taxable property of Massachusetts was val ued at $307,089,196. In 1850, at $597,936,460. At the present day, it is thought to be about $1,000,- 000,000. This does not include the untaxed property, real and personal, belonging to churches, schools, academies, colleges, and literary, scientific, and be nevolent institutions, which would amount to $100,- 000,000 more. This property is more than $880 io each person in the State. It is more than a dollar apiece to the human race. Less than 250 years ago Massachusetts started with a few Puritans and the wilderness for outfit, and now in eight generations she has accumulated so much property that she could give a dollar to each of the thousand million inhabitants of the earth, and still have all her schools, meeting-houses, town-houses, almshouses, jails, and literary, benevo lent, and scientific institutions left as nest-eggs to begin the world anew. We have done pretty well for beginners. [This great mass of property is more uniformly dis tributed than in any of the countries of Europe ; but we think less uniformly than in any other New Eng land State, with the exception of Rhode Island. It is pleasant to know that there are 86 savings banks in Massachusetts, in which about 177,000 depositors hold property, amounting to more than $33,000,000, about $30 to each man, woman, and child in the State.] No depositor, we think, draws interest when his prin cipal amounts to more than $500. The Irish are an acquisitive people, with a considerable instinct for hoarding. In the great towns they have much prop erty in these benevolent institutions. On the other hand, the Africans are more tropical in their habits, MATERIAL CONDITIONS 221 hoard little, and have not much property in the sav ings banks, or elsewhere. Yet in Louisville we are told of large estates in their hands. We have not been able to procure the statistics of municipal taxation in Massachusetts. Each of the 333 towns manages its own affairs, and no law requires any return of the amount of money collected. But it would be quite interesting to know the sum raised, and compare the expenses of different towns. The county taxes, it is officially known, have been on the increase continually, for the last ten years. Thus, in 1848, the tax in twelve counties — aU except Suffolk and Nantucket — was $233,575 ; in 1857 it had swol len to $526,535. We are glad to learn that the pres ent governor, prompt and efficient in many things, is attempting to procure information on this matter.4 In 1857, the valuation of Boston was $258,110,- 900. We should like to compare this with the prop erty of South Carolina. We have not the facts before us, but we find her State taxes in 1856 were $532,744 ; of this $290,488 came from negro slaves. Thus the en tire tax on property and free polls was only $242,256, though each free colored person, children included, is doomed to pay $2 a year. Hence it appears that more than half the wealth of that great State consists in the persons of its slaves. She had then 17,443,791 acres of taxable land, officially valued at $10,284,001, or about 58 cents an acre. In 1850, the entire property of South Carolina was estimated in the United States census at $283,867,709. This included the value of the slaves. The city of Boston alone could buy up all the natural property, all the land and things, in that State, and still have a balance left sufficient to purchase sev eral other slave States. 222 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC Property is less equally distributed in Boston than elsewhere in New England; a few men have great es tates; many are thriving, but many also are poor. The squalid poverty of New England, its drunken ness, prostitution, crime, flow hither as to a common sink. Boston has her perishing and her dangerous classes, whom no legislation lifts out from their wretch edness and vice. But we shall have a word for them on another page. We have no means of estimating the annual value of the industry of the people of Massachusetts, or of the income from capital. But in 1855, an accurate census was made of the value of articles produced in the State, though no separation was made between the worth of the material and that of the labor bestowed upon it. From that examination, it appeared that the value of articles produced by the people's labor in the year ending June 1, 1855, was $295,820,681.79. This is more than the worth of all the land and things in the two States of Virginia and South Carolina. Yet it is thought the census of 1855 did not return more than two-thirds of the actual earnings of the people, but the real value of the articles produced here that year would be $300,000,000. So the conceded earnings of that period would purchase all the land in Delaware, North Carohna, and Florida, at the Government estimate in 1850. 2. In the year ending November 1, 1857, it appears that 7,714 persons were received into the various alms houses of the 333 towns in Massachusetts; besides, in the nine months ending the 1st of October, 2,778 other paupers were received into the State almshouses. Thus 10,492 persons were sheltered by the State or municipal charity during that period ; on the average, 5,837 per- MATERIAL CONDITIONS sons were wholly supported in the various establish ments of the towns of the Commonwealth. Temporary relief was also municipally afforded to 17,181 others. Thus nearly 28,000 persons were more or less dependent on public charity. But of these nearly all whom the State relieved were foreigners ; of the 25,000 helped by the towns, 8,300 were for eigners. Of the 10,492 indoor paupers, we think more than half were born abroad; but, by a strange defect in the public documents, we are not able to ver ify our conjecture. Of the 25,000 helped by the towns, about 15,000 were brought to poverty by the intemperance of themselves or others. Of the 9,500 who had help from the charity of this county in 1856, less than 1,100 had a settlement in this State; about 8,500 of them were foreigners. Of the whole army of pau pers in Suffolk County, more than 8,000 were brought to poverty by drunkenness, in themselves or others. To support this vast mass of pauperism, the towns and the State collectively paid $641,192.41. Let us sup pose that $358,807.59 were given by private charity for the support of these or other poor persons. We have then $1,000,000, given to help the indigent. If the value of the earnings of Massachusetts be but $200,000,000, then our public and private charity of this kind is half of one per cent, of the earnings of the people — five mills on a dollar. Certainly it is not a very alarming piece of news. VI. Of Idiocy, Insanity, Blindness, and Sick ness in Massachusetts. — 1. On the 30th of Septem ber there were 63 idiotic or feeble-minded persons in the State institution at South Boston; 10 more had been there in the course of the year. There were also 58 other " idiotic or insane " persons in the various SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC jails of the Commonwealth : thus 121 were in the public institutions of the State, most of them supported wholly at the public cost. In the autumn of 1854, a census was made of aU the idiotic and insane persons in Massachusetts. It was taken with great accuracy, and a careful and detailed report made by Dr. Jarvis, so well known for his de votion to these unfortunate persons. From that we construct this table: — Table XV. — Of idiots ira Massachusetts. Native-born 1043 Foreigners 44 Total 1087 Supported by friends 670 Supported by the public 417 We shall again refer to this valuable document. 2. In the two public lunatic asylums at Worcester and Taunton, 1,148 insane persons were received in the first eleven months of last year ; 670 remained there on the 30th of November. The amount of insanity is quite large. It is caused by the great inteUectual activity of the people, the intensity of business, lack of society, the failure of affection ; by the vices of passion and the vices of ambition ; by celibacy, by drunkenness ; and by a dull and gloomy theology, with unnatural ideas of God, of man, and of the relation between the two. In the last report of the asylum at Worcester, we find an instructive array of facts, gathered from 3,390 cases, extending over 25 years, from 1833 to 1857. From them we construct the fol lowing table: — MATERIAL CONDITIONS 225 Table XVI. — Of the Causes of Insanity. Causes. Male Fem. TI. Ill health in general 135 467 602 Special diseases 244 207 451 Troubles attending the reproductive function 184 184 Casualties, exposure, etc 98 75 173 Excitement, intellectual, moral, and affectional, etc. 399 501 900 Religious excitement of all kinds 132 170 302 Intemperance 413 46 459 Self-abuse 230 22 252 All other causes 23 44 67 Total 1674 1716 3390 Table XVII. — Showing the Percentage of the most Important Causes for 25 Tears. General ill health 16.4 Troubles on account of the affections 10.8 Intemperance 9.2 Troubles on account of religion 5.5 Self-abuse 5.2 Troubles on account of property 4.7 Great pains have been taken with insane persons in Massachusetts ; we think no State has made more gen erous or wise provisions for this unfortunate class. But we do not reach the cause of the evil. That is not to be removed by doctoring, but to be outgrown. To us, in this age of intense business, it is what leprosy once was to a slothful, sluggish, and unclean people, and will no doubt in like manner be outgrown. A man's occupation affects his sanity. We have found that the farmer lives longer than men of any other calling. It seems a little surprising to find how great is the tendency to insanity among the agricultural peo ple. Out of 177 patients remaining at the Worcester Asylum, November 30, 1857, there were 30 farmers, 38 laborers, and 22 shoemakers. [We are told on high authority, that there is more insanity in Connecticut VII— IS 226 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC than in any part of the world in proportion to the whole number of the people. The tendency to madness is stronger in celibates than among the married peo ple. This follows naturally, and surprises no one. In the autumn of 1854 a careful census was made to ascertain the number of lunatics in the State, and a valuable report was published. The name of Dr. Jarvis is sufficient authority for the accuracy of the statements which we put into the following table : — Table XVIII. — Of Lunacy in Massachusetts in 1854. Total number of Lunatics in the State 2,632 Males 1,254 Females 1,378 Natives 2,007 Foreigners 625 Independent — Natives 1,066 Foreigners 44 1,110 Paupers — Natives 941 Foreigners 581 1,522 At that time the foreign population was estimated at 230,000, and the native at 894,676. It seems the aliens had a greater ratio of insanity than the natives, which we represent by the following table : — Table XIX. — Showing the Distribution of Insanity in Massa chusetts. Natives that are lunatics 1 in each 445 natives. Natives that are pauper lunatics 1 " 951 " Foreigners that are lunatics 1 " 368 foreigners. Foreigners that are pauper lunatics . . 1 " 399 " Thus it appears that every four-hundredth foreigner is a crazy pauper. But this fact does not show a greater ethnological tendency to madness in them, only that their circumstances are unfavorable to their MATERIAL CONDITIONS 227 sanity. Ninety-three per cent, of the foreign lunatics are paupers. "Much of their insanity," says Dr. Jarvis, " comes from the intemperance to which the Irish seems to be peculiarly prone." The tendency to madness is a httle greater in females than in males: this appears amongst both the native and the foreign population. Of this great army of lunatics, only 435 were supposed to be curable, while 2,018 were declared incurable — crazy men to be supported for their life. The pecuniary cost is the smallest part of this grievous burden. It would be interesting to ascertain how much of this madness is inherited; but we have not as yet adequate means to determine that question. Let us put both the idiots and lunatics together in the following table: — Table XX. — Showing the Ratio of Lunatics and Idiots in the Whole Population. Population of Massachusetts 1854. Lunatics. One in 1,124,676 2,632 427 Idiots. 1,087 One in 1,034 Lunatics and Idiots. One in 3,719 302 Thus in Massachusetts in 1854 one man out of each 302 was either a crazy man or a natural fool. 3. The average number of blind persons at the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind, was 124; 90 of these were pupils in the course of instruction, 24 were connected with the workshop department. 4. Of Sickness. — Health is the normal condition of mankind; sickness is unnatural. There is but one natural, normal, and unavoidable form of death — • that by old age; the ripe apple drops from the tree 228 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC some autumn night, falling in its time. Few men understand how much we lose by neglect of the natural laws of the body — which are the commandments of the Infinite God — " lively oracles," writ in these " living stones." Look at these facts : — In 1855 there were about 1,132,000 people in our goodly State — 550,- 000 males, 582,000 females. Look at this table: — Table XXL— Of the Age of the People. Under 5. 5 to 10. 10 to 15. 15 to 20. 20 to 30. 30 to 46. 132,944 115,862 110,098 117,047 235,678 165,046 40 to 50. 50 to 60. 60 to 70. 70 to 80. 80 to 90. 90 to 100. Over 100. 111,500 71,829 42,423 20,810 6,138 634 19 To state it in round numbers, 711,000 are under SO, only 421,000 above that moderate age; 248,000 are under 10; 227,000 between 10 and 20; 235,000 be tween 20 and 30. In other words, out of 100 persons, 22 are under 10 ; 20 are between 10 and 20 ; 21 between 20 and 30 ; and only 36 out of the 100 have yet seen their thirtieth birthday. So youthful is the people, that every fifth person is a little boy or girl under ten, while only one man in sixteen has seen his sixtieth year. In the whole State there are but 142,453 persons over 50 — a little more than half the number that are under 10. On a previous page we divided life into three periods — the dependent, the productive, and the retiring age. The productive age we put between 15 and 60. If we are a little more sanguine in our estimate, and add ten years to the productive period, making it extend from 15 to 70, then we shall have about 743,000 in that age. The other 400,000 are dependent. Now and then a bright boy, or girl is of considerable MATERIAL CONDITIONS 229 " pecuniary value" before 15. Now and then a man or woman is so well born and well bred that the period of large usefulness continues till 80, or even 90. The most valuable years of John Quincy Adams's life were between 70 and 80. Massachusetts has several examples of this handsome age; but they are always exceptional. The productive power of the people — their bodily, intellectual, and moral power — will de pend on the number of men and women in the vigorous age, say between 25 and 60, or 70. It appears that 20,734 persons died in Massachusetts in 1856; that is, about two out of 109. It is not extravagant to suppose that two persons are sick all the time for one that dies: thus, 41,468 persons in Massachusetts are continually sick; that is, 1,132,000 persons endure 41,000 years of sickness in each twelve month. If this evil were distributed uniformly over the community, it would give a little more than thirteen days of sickness to each man, woman, and child. How many are continually ailing with one malady or another ! What an army of doctors — allopathic, homoeopathic, hydropathic, sudoripathic, mixopathic, and pneumatopathic — are waging war on disease I What ammunition and medical weapons, terrible to look upon, are stored up in the great arsenals of this humane warfare, this really creative fight, tended by diligent apothecaries ! The amount of invalidism is frightful to contemplate. Look a moment at the consequences of sickness. First, there is the positive pain borne directly by the sick, and indirectly by their companions and friends. What a monstrous evil that is! It changes life from a delight to a torment, the natural functions of the body are ill performed, and this frame is found to be 230 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC not only " wonderfully " made, but also " fearfully." In their normal state all the senses are inlets of delight ; but sickness shuts gladness out from all these five doors of the human house, and fills it full of " horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy." Taken as a whole, the indirect pain of such as stand and wait, looking on with eyes of sympathy, and fold ing their unavailing hands, is more than the sick man directly encounters himself. What a vast amount of suffering from this direct and this reflected pain ! Then there is the pecuniary cost of sickness. The man's power of productive industry has gone from him. The mechanic's right hand has lost its cunning now. The faithful mother would, but cannot, care for hus band or for child. The great, nice brain of genius is like the soft encephalon of the fool. Let us estimate the cost as light as possible. Of the 41,468 perennial sick, suppose that 21,468 are persons whose power of productive industry is worth nothing to the country, even in their health that they only earn their living ; that 10,000 are men who, in health, would each earn $300 a year more than it costs to feed, clothe, house, comfort, and amuse them, and 10,000 more are women who, if well, would earn $150 apiece besides their sim ilar keep ; then the simple cessation of this industry costs the State $4,500,000 a year. If we should double these figures, and say $9,000,000, we think we should still be within the mark. Suppose that it costs but a dollar a day to nurse, diet, and doctor each of these 41,468 invalids — a quite moderate calculation — that amounts to $15,135,820. We may safely say that sickness costs the people of Massachusetts, directly, $20,000,000 a year in these two items alone. In other words, if all the people were healthy except the MATERIAL CONDITIONS 231 20,000 who die, Massachusetts would add $20,000,000 more to her annual increase of honest wealth, to her means of use and beauty. Besides, the effects of sickness on the higher faculties of man are commonly quite baneful. It weakens all the spiritual powers; the mind loses its activity; the quantity of thought is less, the quality poorer; the man of business cannot buy and sell to advantage ; the carpenter cannot plan his work or execute his plan; the scholar's genius is vanished into thin air; the dili gent wife, careful about many things, is now only troubled about herself; the moral faculty suffers as much as the inteUectual; the jaundiced eye sees nothing of its natural color. The sick man's conscience is abnormal as his digestion or appetite; he can take no just view of moral relations. As well might we expect a lame horse to race well, and leap a five-barred gate, as ask a sick man to have just intuitions of the eternal right, or a manly will to do it ; he would, but how can he? A sick judge, doctor, minister, schoolmaster, editor, politician — he does harm, and not good. So the affectional and religious talents lose their value, are clipped within the ring, sweated down, and cannot be taken at their former worth. Spite of himself, the sick man becomes selfish — the best of sick men. It is the order of nature: he should be selfish then. His body is sick; it tries to get well; all of its natural vigor is directed to that object, for the material basis of humanity must be preserved. When the ship at sea encounters a violent storm, leaks badly, is settling in the water, and likely to perish, men cut away the masts, let the costly anchors and unfastened chain- cable go down with the run ; the wealthy cargo is cast into the ocean, that they may save the ship and their SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC own lives. So in the storm of sickness, long continued, nature instinctively throws overboard all the costly spiritual freight gathered in a lifetime. The * " eye whose bend did awe the world Doth lose its lustre." The world's great warrior cries — " Give me some drink, Titinius, As a sick girl." There is little exercise of the higher religious faculty ; none of that aspiration to the seventh heaven of human devotion; no psalm of lofty gratitude, no deep contritions then; at most, only a dull and humble, passive trust in God. Even that often fails. The affections are often blunted. In health, how manly was this man's philanthropy! now, disarmed, it does not travel forth to look after the far-off heathen, the nearer slave — or black or white — the poor, the friend less, or the sick. Nay, the mother, tormented with her own pains — prophetic now of only death — for gets the very children that she bore; much more does the less affectionate man forget the wife he loved, and the dear babies who climbed his knee and pulled his healthy beard. Blame them not; the sick has only strength to keep his own soul and body together. All the river of life must then go to turn his own mill. We know well this is not what ministers preach in books, and write in many a romantic tale. But we too have seen much of life, and stood at many a death bed — beside noble men whom sickness did yet all unman. Have we not our own experience also? Lame feet must halt, and sick eyes will drop their lids in stinctively, and turn from the dear beauty of the MATERIAL CONDITIONS rising sun. Humanity lies low in the hand of sickness. StiU more commonly is the temper made sour by long- continued illness. If " a hungry man is an angry man," so is a sick man a peevish one, easily offended, not capable of controlling his wrathful emotions. A schoolmaster with the toothache, a judge with the gout, a bihous doctor, a dyspeptic minister, a sick horse, a dog with a wounded leg — we all know what these are. This ill-temper is a natural defense. If the arm be broke, the skin, the flesh, the bone itself, else so unfeel ing, all become exquisitely sensitive, so that pain may warn us against all things which would annoy and prevent the restoration of the limb. Irritability and peevishness perform the same function: they must guard and keep watch about the sick man's bed; these testy sentinels that so pace forth their nightly round. We have often wondered at the economy of Divine Providence in the healthy body — not less also thereat in this body when sick. All the higher faculties are disturbed. The wiU is weak and capricious, or else its resolution, adherence to conviction, is metamorphosed into obstinacy; per sistence is a subjective whim; the judgment is worth httle ; the opinions represent nothing truly — so warped is the intellectual mirror. What the sick scholar writes is as unwholesome as he is unhealthy ; it is tainted literature. One might as well eat the flesh of diseased swine as feed on the literature of sick moralists, historians, preachers, philosophers, poets. The delicate-minded reader feels the author's pulse in his writings. This literary woman has a disease in her spine; all her works, likewise, are tainted and un healthy. We taste tbe aloes in many a bitter sermon and bitterer prayer which we have heard. We smell SOCIAL CLASSES, IN A REPUBLIC the opium and the gin in much which passes for the literature of passion. Many a dark ecclesiastical dogma about man and God has had its inspiration in a diseased liver or obstructed bowels. Such things are seldom originated by a great, stout, hearty man, who has a wife and babies at home, and takes a manly relish in meat and drink; who can run and jump, and skate on ice, and swim in water, his eyes open for the cowslip and the violet of spring. No, they are the work of celibate monks, of sick-bodied ministers breath ing the bad air of cells or libraries, their feet cold, their head hot, their whole body in disorder. As poison toadstools grow out of rotten wood, so do the worser fungi of an evil theology shoot out from the mind of diseased ministers. He that has a bitter tongue is not likely to say sweet things of man or God. In matters of pure science it is of no con sequence who does the work; all rests on demonstra tion, deductive from a principle or inductive from facts. Hamilton's Quaternions and Loomis's Astron omy would be worth as much if writ by a sick as a sound man. A man with a dropsy may calculate the trajectory of the last comet, or teU the weight of the fifty-first asteroid: sickness does not vitiate the mathe matical demonstration. The nine digits take no man's disease, however infectious. An asymptote has no sympathy with a diseased stomach. But in all works of a moral or religious character the value is personal, not demonstrational ; it depends on the character of the writer; and that, at least for the time, depends on his health. What if we were told that Jeremiah had the dyspepsia when he wrote his " Lamentations ;" that Jonathan Edwards was laboring with the jaundice when he composed those ghastly sermons on eternal damnation ? MATERIAL CONDITIONS 235 Of course we know the exceptions to all this. There are men, and still oftener women, with such sweetness or truth, that the more sickness wilts their roses, the more will they give their precious sweetness out. We know also the function which sickness has to perform in calling forth the sympathy of man for man. We intended to say a word on the causes of ill- health, yet must forbear; but shaU instead ask our readers to attend to this extract from a document written by one of the most intelligent men in the State : — " In order to preserve the freshness and health of the body, we must observe the law which commands constant and rapid change of its integral particles. We die daily whether we will or not. But the extent to which we are born again daily depends much upon ourselves. The component particles of the body have but an ephemeral existence. Hundreds of generations of them go to make up our individual life. Multitudes of them are dying every hour and every moment; and fresh particles are constantly formed to replace them. " But this incoming multitude cannot have room and verge enough except the worn-out and effete particles are thrown off. Away, then, with the dead, to make room for the hving! is the law; and fortunately we cannot disobey it totally, because part of the work is done independently of our volition, and disobe dience to it would be death to the whole body. The removal is effected, that is, the waste particles are carried off, by various and complex organs of respiration, perspiration, and the like; but the pervading characteristic of ail is motion. . . . " The automatic motions remove only part of the effete atoms of the body. Voluntary motion must do the rest, or they remain, and clog the system. If people were fully aware of this, how much more briskly would they move about to get quickly rid of this dead matter. But how frantically would they fly about, if, instead of carrying the effete particles of their own bodies, each one was obliged to carry, as a burden, the dead particles of some other person. They would die of horror and disgust. As it is, however, very few are conscious of this operation; and thousands in civilized Ufe carry about with sweet complacency their own dead atoms, mixed up with the hving ones. They grow 236 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC feebler and feebler as the proportion of effete matter grows greater, and that of fresh, living matter less, until at last par tial death becomes total death. " Now, so long as the dead and effete particles are carried off by the various excretions just as rapidly as new and fresh ones are formed by wholesome nutrition, so long are we young and fresh. During the first third of life the vital force is very great, and though the supply through nutrition must exceed waste, in order that there may be growth and consolidation of the body, still the waste is very rapid also. New particles rush in swiftly, cast out the dead ones vigorously and utterly, so that the bodies of the young are fresh and alive all over. The swift-moving machinery of life throws the blood out to every part of the surface, and tinges the firm, elastic flesh with roseate hue. As long as this condition lasts, youth lasts, be the number of years what they may. . . . " The duration of youth depends upon obedience or disobedi ence of the laws of life. All excesses shorten it. Too much and too little work of brain and limb curtail it. It is shorter in women than in men, mainly because their blood is not duly oxygenated by exercise or work in the open air. It is usually much shorter in the blind than in those who see. In a class of a hundred blind youths there are very few who have the beauti ful characteristics of this period of life — the roseate hue, the rounded limb, the bounding step; and even among those few these beauties fade away earlier than among others. . . . " Exercise, too, being pretty much under his volition, is apt to be neglected, and so the waste and effete particles are not duly carried off. At first they linger a little in the system; then they linger longer. There now begin to be dead and effete particles among the living ones, and the system begins to be a httle clogged thereby. From this moment real manhood declines, and real age begins, be the years of life ever so few. " The spring of life having lost a little of its force, the blood is no longer thrown vigorously out to the periphery of the body; it therefore crowds the great internal vessels, and prepares the way for congestional and organic diseases. The surface becomes a little pale. The flesh loses its elasticity. It looks puttyish and feels flabby. Freshness is now gone, and with it beauty. Adieu youth, adieu manhood; age is here. " This change is seen sooner in women than in men. Sooner in the blind than in others. Most women in this country are as old at thirty or thirty-five, as they should be at forty-five or fifty. Suppose the years lost by each one to be only ten, what millions of years of bloom and beauty and vigor are lost to each genera- MATERIAL CONDITIONS 237 tion! But how can we calculate the billions of years lost to the next generation by reason of the diminished stock of vital force imparted to the offspring: " s VII. Of the Means for the Education of the People. — 1. Of the Common and High Schools. — There are 4,360 public schools in Massachusetts, open to all, free to aU persons, native or foreign, African or Caucasian, rich or poor. There are 4,838 teachers — a noble army of schoolmasters. In the summer 195,881 pupils attended the schools; 203,031 in the winter. The schools keep, on the average, seven months and a half in the year. The average attend ance of pupils is 177,775. There are in Massachusetts 221,478 children between the ages of five and fifteen. All the large towns, save one, have public high schools, where girls as well as boys can receive a superior edu cation. Boston is the only exception. Here the con- troUing men secure the monopoly of superior education for the daughters of the rich. 2. Of the Normal Schools. — Four normal schools, public and free to all, contain 345 pupils, 290 of them young women, all preparing to become teachers. These institutions have already received 3,434 pupils, of whom 1,937 graduated at the end of the course of study. 3. Of Private Schools and Academies. — There are 744 of these institutions, containing about 24,000 pupils. Here the cost is paid by the parents of the scholars. 4. Of the Colleges. — There are five colleges — four Protestant and one Catholic — containing about 1,100 students, all males. The schools for law, med icine, theology, and science, are attended by about 500 pupils. There is no college for young women; but yet one medical school is for them exclusively. 238 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC Thus it appears that about 230,000 young persons received instruction in the various schools of the State in 1857; one-fifth part of the whole population went to school. 5. Besides, the State has two industrial schools, one for boys, one for girls. (1.) In the Reform School for boys, at Westboro, there were 613 pupils on the 30th of last September. Three-fourths are Americans ; they are sent there by the courts, and average about 13 years of age. We are sorry to say we cannot speak very well of the plan or the influence of this school. (2.) In the Industrial School for Girls, at Lancas ter, there were 92. Their average age is about 14. A few years ago private benevolence established a little institution, called " The Guardian for Friendless Girls," in Boston ; it did much good work in the two years of its existence. Then the State took the matter in charge, and now reaches out a parental hand to these poor wretches, snatching them from a fate worse than the compulsory doom of the negro slave. It is one of the most significant and valuable charities of the Commonwealth, one of its most righteous acts of justice. There is no conscious antagonism between man and woman: on the whole, men are more tender to women than to each other. Women reciprocate the gentle feeling. Such is the law of nature. Female nurses indulge the male babies; were the nurses men, the girls would get the kinder treatment. But in our civilization hitherto brute force has prevailed, and as woman has less of it than man, only the inferior posi tion has been hers in the State, the Church, the com munity, and the market. Even now, she is by no means thought the equivalent of men. Accordingly, MATERIAL CONDITIONS 239' most cruel hardships fall to her lot. One day this wiU be changed. The terrible vice of prostitution — what a curse it is! In the future it will be as rare as leprosy and elephantiasis are now in Boston. But this will never be until the popular idea of woman undergoes a revolution. It was a great thing for Massachusetts to stretch out her arm to rescue these poor girls, and save them from the Dead Sea, which covers a whole Sodom and Gomorrah of wickedness. The institution seems weU planned, and thus far works weU. VIII. Of the Means foe Repressing Crime. — 1. Of Jails and Houses of Correction. — In the eleven months ending September 30, 1857, there were 13,072 persons committed to the various common jails and houses of correction in Massachusetts. We put the details into the following table : — Table XXII. — Punishment for Crime. Number 13,072 Foreigners ' 8,334 Natives 4,738 Males 10,649 Females 2,423 For Intemperance 5,445 All other Crimes 7,627 Addicted to habitual Intemperance 7,706 Not addicted to habitual Intemperance 5,366 But of this number of " criminals," 491 were wit nesses, kept in jail according to an ungodly custom which has become a law. 4,853 of the actual criminals were unable to read and write. The average number of prisoners on each day of the year was 1,733; but 1,876 were in jail on the 30th of last September; 3,358 had been in jail before. 240 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC 2. Of the State Prison. — On the 30th of September, this institution contained 440 convicts; 279 native Americans, 154 foreigners. Massachusetts sends to her own State prison nearly as many criminals as all foreign nations put together. The great crimes which are punished there are not committed by Irishmen, but by our own citizens. 349 men were there for crimes against property, only 91 for offenses against the person — crimes of wrath or lust. It is pleasant to see that with the advance of civilization crime is diverted from the substance of man to his accidents. The health of the convicts seems well cared for; few prisons in the world exhibit so small a mortality. There were but four deaths out of 440 persons. This is at the rate of 90 in 10,000. Now the rural popula tion of England, at the adult age, lose 77 out of 10,000; the town population of Manchester, 124 out of 10,000; and the British soldiers in barracks at home, from 110 to 204, in 10,000. We wish we could say some other good things of the State prison. 3. Of the Gallows. — During the last year the State did not stain her hands with the blood of a murderer: 101 killed themselves, but Massachusetts killed no man nor woman. We trust the days of the gallows are ended. On the whole, this is a gratifying result ; the experi ment of self-government works well; this is a great success in respect to numbers, health, property, intelli gence, morality. Out of New England it will not be easy to find a million and a quarter of people living so comfortably, with such industry and wealth, such com fort, intelligence, and manly virtue. Yet there are still great evils to be overcome. See how the good and ill get summed up in Boston. On this little spot MATERIAL CONDITIONS 241 — more than half of it made land, rescued from the sea — to speak in round numbers, there are 161,000 persons — 76,000 native Americans, 85,000 foreigners : such are the figures for 1855. 2,500 couples were married in 1856 — 1,500 foreign, 1,000 American. 5,900 were born here last year — 4,500 of foreign, 1,400 of native parents. There were 4,200 deaths, at the average of but 20. The taxable property in 1857 was $258,000,000. 2,500 persons entered the almshouses, yet only 670 were there on the average. The pauperism of Boston is small compared with the whole population: 670 per manent paupers out of 161,000 inhabitants, 85,000 of them Irish, is not alarming. Besides, it should be remembered that poverty has driven great shoals of poor people to this town within a dozen years. There are 267 pubhc schools: last year they took more than 26,000 pupils into their hospitable arms; over ,22,000 are there learning all the time; for the blessed doors stand open all the day to the children of all nations, all forms of religion, of any race. With universal justice do our democratic institutions distribute the great charity of education to all. Pri vate bounty opens evening schools also, for children of a larger growth, who are yet babies in knowledge. The dead hand of Mr. Lowell reaches out of his grave, and opens the door of science and letters to thousands of thoughtful men and women.6 [The amount of crime looks formidable at first, but it is not alarming for a great town so crowded with Irish Catholics and other strangers./ 270 quiet-look ing pohcemen keep the peace ofthe city; the sun never goes down on their watchful work. Four de tectives are on the lookout for suspicious persons. In VII— 16 242 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC 1857, 19,000 arrests were made, 9,000 commitments. Of the 19,000, 15,000 were foreigners, 4,000 Ameri cans ; 4,300 women. Of the 19,000, 10,000 were for drunkenness, less than 9,000 for all other offenses. One was punished for violating the liquor law. As there are 2,230 places where intoxicating spirit is sold to be drunk on the premises, it is only fair to infer that this man was a sinner above all that dwelt in the other 2,229 liquor-shops. The amount of property re ported as stolen was only $62,000, and of that $48,000 was recovered by the police, and restored to its lawful , owners. Hence, it seems that this brotherhood of thieves does but a small business; and as they do not keep quite a shilling where they steal three and nine- pence, it seems the profit is but little in comparison to the risk. We hardly think this branch of the trade is a " living business," certainly it is organized but ill. Of course our figures do not include the thefts com mitted by fraudulent merchants, bankers, and officers of incorporated companies, who belong to the same brotherhood of thieves, but do only the heavy stealing. It is a singular mixture of good and evil — 267 public schools, 245 public houses of ill-fame, 22,000 children daily in schools, 2200 tippling shops open all day, 10,000 men and women yearly taken up for public drunkenness. After all, it is a good town, this dear old puritanic Boston. We wish we may be mistaken, but yet we think it the best city in the world — the most moral, intelligent, charitable, and progressive — the most hospitable to a great, new truth of philosophy, morals, philanthropy, or religion. We hope there are better towns, but know not where to find them. At the end of this long paper we wish to make a MATERIAL CONDITIONS 243 few suggestions, which may serve as moral to the tale. 1. Our New England institutions have been sub jected to a very severe test. They were designed for Protestant Americans — men educated to freedom, with Teutonic blood in their veins. What if none else had come here in this century? We should have been a quite different people, with much less wealth — for the Irish labor has been a great industrial force, perhaps as valuable as the water-power of the mills on the Connecticut or the Merrimac. Our social de velopment we think would be far in advance of its present condition. But causes which none foresaw brought foreigners here by the thousand — men of a different nationality, chiefly Celtic people, nay, Irish, foreign in origin, manners, religion, ethnological dis position. What made it worse, they had vices which centuries of oppression fixed on these outcasts. They were poor and servile. Want, ignorance, oppression, the greatest evils which retard civilization, had bound them with a threefold chain. The Irish had the vices of their condition, wretchedness, beggary, drunkenness, deceit, lying, violence, treachery, malice, superstition ; they brought with them the most bigoted priesthood in aU Christendom. What should be done? Some men said: " Shut them out from all our political institutions. Let them be with us, not of us. De mocracy is for native Americans, not foreign Catholic Irish." But wiser counsels prevailed. After a few years, the foreigner who wills becomes a citizen. No property qualification is required, only an educational qualification. If he can read his neck-verse and write his name, he claims benefit of clergy, becomes a citizen in full, eligible to any office except the one he could not fill worse than it has been. The advent of a 244 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC quarter of a million foreigners — 200,000 of these Irishmen — has been a sore trial to our democratic institutions. No war would be so severe a test. They have stood it well. No doubt the presence of such a people has the same effect for a time on our civilization which it has on the parts of the town where they settle. Dirt and rum, with pestilence and blows, follow their steps ; their votes already have debauched the politics of the city, which they will degrade yet more in the next ten or twenty years. They have bad advisers of their own and of our own. Not an Irish newspaper in America is on the side of humanity, education, freedom, progress. Yet this evil is but temporary, like the malaria which follows draining a swamp, or flowing a meadow, or opening a canal. Our institutions will correct most of the ills we complain of — our industry, our schools, newspapers, books, and freedom of thought. The Irish have many excellent qualities ; the women are singularly virtuous, the men full of fun, wit, and joyous good humor. They accumulate property ; es caping from want little by little. Ignorance will dis appear, and then the oppression of the priest will also soon end. The next generation of Irish will be quite unlike this. The Catholic Church will not change; none escape the consequence of a first principle. The logic of its despotic idea is the manifest destiny of the Roman Church. In this age none enters that cave of Triptolemus, but he loses his manhood; the first step costs that. Mr. Brownson is the most distinguished Catholic in America, a man of very large intellectual talents, great power of acquisition, and the facile art to reproduce in distinct and attractive forms. He is powerful in speech, as with the pen, having also an MATERIAL CONDITIONS 245 industry which nothing daunts, or even tires. But compare the democratic Brownson, fighting (his life was always a battle, is, and will be) — fighting for hberty, for man and woman, with the Catholic Brown son,7 the " Saint Orestes " of some future mythology. " Tantum Religio potuit suadere malorum." The Catholic Church will not change — cannot change ; its future, like its past — " Horribili super aspectu mortalibus instans." But it may die; of this we are sure, it cannot stand against the free school, the free press, the free pulpit, the open vote of all the people. When the Irishmen escape from their two worst enemies — their priests and our demagogues — we shaU see a noble harvest of men ripening under the great sun of democracy. 2. The New Englanders set too httle value on physical health. They do not prize a strong body. Men in cities always decay in vigor; they are smaller in size, feebler in strength. The average age at death in Boston is not quite 20. In Dukes County it is over 45. So 20 men in Dukes County will live 900 years; in Boston, only 400. There is a great odds in the healthiness of towns. In Lowell 21 die out of 1000 each year ; in Boston, 24 ; in Baltimore, 25 ; in Phila delphia, 26 ; in Savannah, 41 ; in New Orleans, 81. Out of 1000 men at New Orleans, 60 more will die in a year than at Lowell. There is a similar odds in different parts of this city. Men take little notice of these things, and try to live where they are sure to die. They attend much to money, little to man ; and so, in getting the means of living, they lose life itself. Farmers die at 64; shoemakers at 43; printers at 36. 246 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC So 36 farmers will live as long as 43 shoemakers, or 64 printers. Why? The farmer breathes air; the shoemaker, wax and leather ; the printer, ink and type- metal. In schools great stress is laid on training the mind — always the mind, nothing but the mind. The most excessive stimulants are applied to make little girls learn the maximum of books in the minimum of time. We forget that God also made the body, and if this " earthen vessel " be cracked, that all the spirit ual " treasure " runs out, and perishes from the earth. For success in life there is needed a good brain and a good body. One is worth little without the other. What God hath joined, we are everlastingly putting asunder. But most of the eminent men in America have tough bodies ; what power of work is in them ! Look at the rich merchants, at our great lawyers and judges, men of science, politics, letters. They are men of vigorous health, who can eat dinners, and sleep o' nights, and work also days long ; they live to a decent and respectable age. A venerable doctor of medicine, more than eighty years old, may be seen every day in Boston walking his rounds, at that great age manfully representing not only the science, but also the charity, of that healing art he has done so much to improve as well as to apply ; we never look at Dr. James Jackson without reverent thankfulness for the wise and temperate vigor which has kept him useful so long. Mr. Quincy has a national reputation, not only for integrity, which never forsook him in times of trial, but also for that strength of body which holds nobly out in his eighty-seventh year. The happy old age of these two venerable and well-known men is due to their inheritance less than to their active, regular, and temperate habits ; because wise, their life is also long.8 MATERIAL CONDITIONS 247 The fashionable idea of what a woman should be is nearly as pernicious as the theological conception of what God is — almost as unnatural. She must be as feeble as a ghost. Hardly can she bear the burden of her ill-supported clothes. Steady and continuous toil is impossible to such a doll. She glories in her shame, and is as proud of weakness as Hercules and Samson are supposed to have been of their legs and great burly shoulders. But we doubt if it be natural that a " cultivated woman " should be a cross betwixt a ghost and a London doll. Charlemagne's daughter, on her shoulders carrying home her lover through the treacherous and newly-fallen snow, is a little nearer the natural type of the animal woman. " In the sweat of thy face shall thou eat bread," though reported as a curse for man alone, is a blessing which the Infinite pronounces also on woman ; the second benediction re corded in Genesis. A certain amount of work is necessary to keep the body sound. Our life is the dying of old particles, and their replacement by new ones. Part of the effete matter must be got rid of by perspiration, through the pores of the skin. The natural work of earning food, shelter, raiment, is also the natural means for health. If this be not done, there is an accumulation of dead matter, and the delicate woman, too proud to cook her dinner or wash her clothes, at length comes to this vile drudgery — the menial work of dragging about all day a piece of " a slovenly, unhandsome corse." Heaven save us from the righteous sentence to such hard labor for hfe ! No court of doctors can reverse the decision of that Infinite Chief-Justice whose law is the constitution of the universe. Let us suppose an average New England woman at her marriageable 248 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC age weighs 120 pounds, and a man 140 pounds. Sup pose two idle lovers of this bulk have so lived that ten per cent, of their bodies is thus effete — dead, but not buried. When they stand up and join hands in wedlock there is a. marriage of 234 pounds of live man and woman, and also of 26 pounds of male and female corpse. We know a family where one mother bore fourteen children — none of them died under 75 years of age. A woman who bears, breeds, and brings up a dozen, or half that number, of healthy, hardy, and long-lived sons and daughters, so far as that goes, is a mother worth being proud of. Had such a genera tion of women as now fill up our great towns lived in New England a hundred years ago, the Revolution would have been impossible. Puny women may become dry nurses to cowards, not mothers to great, brave, burly-bodied men. If we look into the church registers of the country towns for the last one hundred and fifty years, we find from eight to twelve births to a marriage. The children grew up : the parents did not think " a large family is a great curse ! " We know a man whose six male ancestors, now sleeping in New England soil, will average about seventy-seven years ; while the six female come up to about eighty. The first and the last of these women each bore her eleven children — one of them had but seven, and she became a widow at forty — and one had fourteen. In Boston, this year, 5,800 will be born; of these more than 1,000 will die before the 1st of January, 1859. Part of this monstrous mortality will come from bad management, bad air, bad food — from poverty ; want still prowls about the cradle, and clutches at the baby's throat — this ugly hyena of civilization ; but much of it also from the lack of vitality in the MATERIAL CONDITIONS 249 mother; yet more of it from the bad habits of men debauched by intemperance of various kinds, visiting the iniquity of the father upon the children, to the third and fourth generation. It is rather a puny set of men who grow up in our great towns — spindle-legged ("without visible means of support"), ashamed of their bodies (not wholly without reason), yet pampering them with luxuries. We have left off manly games, to our hurt ; 9 but it was refreshing to see men and women rejoice in skates last winter. The members of engine companies are the only men who can go faster than a walk ; but for the frequent fires, we fear running would become one of the " lost arts." Mihtary trainings are getting out of fashion, for war is deservedly hateful; and the intemperance which has always been the attendant, if not of military, at least of militia glory, has made the public a little fearful of that common sort of manly pastime. Our few soldiers have fine uniforms, they march weU — on a smooth road, a mile at a time — and perform their evolutions with the precision of clock-work: such regular uniformity we have never seen in the armies of France, Austria, or Prussia, or even England. But the city soldiers lack bodily power. In the time of Shays's rebellion, in the winter of 1786—7, a company of Boston light infantry had twelve hours' notice that they must march to Spring field. They started at daylight next morning — there were about ninety in rank and file. We had the story from one of them, a young carpenter then — an old merchant when he told the tale. Each man had his weapons, his blanket, and three days' provision on his back. By the roadside they ate their rough cold dinner, at Framingham, twenty-six miles off; they slept at 250 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC Worcester, eighteen miles further on. The next day it stormed, and through snow eight inches deep they marched forty-six miles more. They stopped their music — only a fife and drum — ten miles from their journey's end, and when at eight o'clock in the evening they wheeled into Springfield, the solid tread of the men was the first tidings the insurgents got that the troops had left Boston. If the " Tigers " of 1858 were to march ninety miles in two days, there would be nothing left of them — but a bear-skin ! 10 3. Drunkenness is still a monstrous evil. Of the 25,000 persons aided by public municipal charity last year, 15,000 were brought to poverty by drunkenness ; of the 13,000 more in the jails, 8,000 were " addicted to habitual intemperance :" 23,000 victims in almshouses or jails. Mother of want, ignorance, and crime, Drunkenness is also mother of the madman and the fool. She has her headquarters in Boston, where 2,200 dram-shops are on tap all the year. 10,000 men arrested for drunkenness ! Shall we wonder that babies die — 1 ,000 in their first year ? Drunkenness is a male vice; but the crudest sufferings thereof come on the unoffending mother, daughter, sister, wife! One other vice, the crime against woman, leaves its ghastly stain in all our great towns. This will not end till there is a revolution in the popular idea of woman. Then it will pass off, as other vices yet more monstrous and unnatural have vanished away before the rising sun of knowledge, which bears healing on its wings. The evils we have mentioned — crime, drunkenness, prostitution, such poverty in the midst of such wealth — show clearly enough how ill the social forces of the people are organized as yet. Natural rights are only to be had on condition that man performs his natural MATERIAL CONDITIONS 251 duties. In America we have organized the State for political purposes better than the community for the social development of the individual. But take Mas sachusetts as she is, much has been done to overcome our three great enemies, want, ignorance, oppression. Much more is now doing for the higher development of the noblest faculties of man. How much yet re mains to be done ! It is safe to say there are means now within the reach of this State, whereby in a few generations the average age of the people might be doubled, and one man then live as long as two live now. If a man sow death, he reaps it; if life, of such also is the harvest. We can abolish drunkenness — not all at once, not by violence, but by the gradual elevation of the people. Then what an increase there wiU be of plenty, knowledge, cleanliness, and peace ! How much will crime be diminished, and hfe lengthened out in beauty ! In common with all mankind, we have made one great mistake : we have thought education was to be mainly of the inteUect, understanding, imagination, reason. So we omit the moral and affectional faculties — the power to know right and to do right — the power to love a few, many, or all men. We cultivate the religious powers more poorly than any other — tying a man down with a theology which debases his nature, makes him a coward and a slave. This great river of God runs to waste. One day we shall correct all this. Great ideas of science, justice, and love, shall be the creed of a people who know and love the Infinite Father of aU mankind. Already we have a church without a bishop, a state without a king, a community without a lord, a family with no holder of slaves. One day we shall have also a community without 252 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC idleness, want, ignorance, drunkenness, prostitution, or crime — wherein all men and women who are by nature fit shaU be naturally wed, children be born according to nature, grow up healthy, and die mainly of old age. What is not behind us is before, and the future will be brighter than the past. VIII MORAL CONDITIONS Hitherto hath the Lord helped us. — 1 Samuel vii, 12. A man who has only the spirit of his age can easily be a popular man ; if he have it in an eminent degree, he must be a popular man in it: he has its hopes and its fears; his trumpet gives a certain and well-known sound; his counsel is readily appreciated; the majority is on his side. But he cannot be a wise magistrate, a just judge, a competent critic, or a profitable preacher. A man who has only the spirit of a former age can be none of these four things ; and not even a popular man. He remembers when he ought to forecast, and compares when he ought to act; he cannot appreciate the age he lives in, nor have a fellow-feeling with it. He may easily obtain the pity of his age, not its sympathy or its confidence. The man who has the spirit of his own, and also' that of some future age, is alone capable of becoming a wise magistrate, a just judge, a competent critic, and a profitable preacher. Such a man looks on passing events somewhat as the future historian will do, and sees them in their propor tions, not distorted ; sees them in their connection with great general laws, and judges of the falling rain not merely by the bonnets it may spoil and the pastime it disturbs, but by the grass and corn it shall cause to grow. He has hopes and fears of his own, but they are not the hopes and fears of men about him; his trumpet cannot give a welcome or well-known sound, nor his counsel be presently heeded. Majorities are not on his side, nor can he be a popular man. To understand our present moral condition, to be 253 254 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC able to give good counsel thereon, you must understand the former generation, and have potentially the spirit of the future generation; must appreciate the past, and yet belong to the future. Who is there that can do this? No man will say, "I can." Conscious of the difficulty, and aware of my own deficiencies in all these respects, I will yet endeavor to speak of the moral condition of Boston. First, I will speak of the actual moral condition of Boston, as indicated by the morals of trade. In a city like Rome, you must first feel the pulse of the Church, in St. Petersburg that of the court, to deter mine the moral condition of those cities. Now trade is to Boston what the Church is to Rome and the im perial court to St. Petersburg : it is the pendulum which regulates all the common and authorized machinery of the place ; it is an organization of the public con science. We care little for any Pius the Ninth, or Nicholas the First ; the dollar is our emperor and pope, above all the parties in the State, all sects in the Church, lord paramount over both, its spiritual and temporal power not likely to be called in question; revolt from what else we may, we are loyal still to that. A little while ago, in " A Sermon on Riches," speak ing of the character of trade in Boston, I suggested that men were better than their reputation oftener than worse ; that there were a hundred honest bargains to one that was dishonest. I have heard severe strictures from friendly tongues, on that statement, which gave me more pain than any criticism I have received before. The criticism was, that I overrated the honesty of men in trade. Now, it is a small thing to be convicted of an error — a just thing and a profitable to have it MORAL CONDITIONS 255 detected and exposed ; but it is a painful thing to find you have overrated the moral character of your towns men. However, if what I said be not true as history, I hope it will become so as prophecy; I doubt not my critics will help that work. Love of money is out of proportion to love of better things — to love of justice, of truth, of a manly character developing itself in a manly life. Wealth is often made the end to live for ; not the means to live by, and attain a manly character. The young man of good abilities does not commonly propose it to himself to be a nobleman, equipped with all the intel lectual and moral qualities which belong to that, and capable of the duties which come thereof. He is satisfied if he can become a rich man. It is the high est ambition of many a youth in this town to become one of the rich men of Boston ; to have the social position which wealth always gives, and nothing else in this country can commonly bestow. Accordingly, our young men that are now poor will sacrifice every thing to this one object; will make wealth the end, and will become rich without becoming noble. But wealth without nobleness of character is always vulgar. I have seen a clown staring at himself in the gorgeous mirror of a French palace, and thought him no bad emblem of many an ignoble man at home, surrounded by material riches which only reflected back the vul garity of their owner. Other young men inherit wealth, but seldom regard it as a means of power for high and noble ends, only as the means of selfish indulgence ; unneeded means to elevate yet more their self-esteem. Now and then you find a man who values wealth only as an instrument to serve mankind withal. I know some such men; 256 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC their money is a blessing akin to genius, a blessing to mankind, a means of philanthropic power. But such men are rare in all countries, perhaps a little less so in Boston than in most other large trading towns; still, exceeding rare. They are sure to meet with neg lect, abuse, and perhaps with scorn; if they are men of eminent ability, superior culture, and most elevated moral aims, set off, too, with a noble and heroic life, they are sure of meeting with eminent hatred. I fear the man most hated in this town would be found to be some one who had only sought to do mankind some great good, and stepped before his age too far for its sympathy. [Truth, justice, humanity, are not thought in Boston to have come of good family ; their followers are not respectable^ I am not speaking to blame men, only to show the fact ; we may meddle with things too high for us, but not understand nor appre ciate. [Now this disproportionate love of money appears in various ways. You see it in the advantage that is taken of the feeblest, the most ignorant, and the most exposed classes in the community. It is notorious that they pay the highest prices, the dearest rents, and are imposed upon in their dealings oftener than any other class of men ; so the raven and the hooded crow, it is said, seek out the sickliest sheep to pounce upon. The fact that a man is ignorant, poor, and desperate, / furnishes to many men an argument for defrauding the man. It is bad enough to injure any man; but to wrong an ignorant man, a poor and friendless man ; to take advantage of his poverty or his ignorance, and to get his services or his money for less than a fair return — that is petty baseness . under aggravated circumstances, and as cowardly as it is mean. You MORAL CONDITIONS 257 are now and then shocked at rich men telling of the arts by which they got their gold — sometimes of their fraud at home, sometimes abroad ; and a good man almost thinks there must be a curse on money meanly got at first, though it falls to him by honest inheritance. [This same disproportionate love of money appears in the fact that men, not driven by necessity, engage in the manufacture, the importation, and the sale of an article which corrupts and ruins men by hundreds; which has done more to increase poverty, misery, and crime, than any other qne cause whatever; and, as some think, more than all other causes whatever. I am not speaking of men who aid in any just and proper use of that article, but in its ruinous use. Yet such men, by such a traffic, never lose their stand ing in society, their reputation in trade, their char acter in the church. A good many men will think worse of you for being an abolitionist ; men have lost their ' place in society by that name; even Dr. Channing " hurt his usefulness " and " injured his reputation " by daring to speak against that sin of the nation ; but no man loses caste in Boston by making, import ing and seUing the cause of ruin to hundreds of families — though he does it with his eyes open, know ing that he ministers to crime and to ruin. I am told that large quantities of New England rum have already been sent from this city to California ; \it is notorious that much of it is sent to the nations of Africa — if not from Boston, at least from New England — as an auxihary in the slave trade. You know with what feelings of grief and indignation a clergyman of this city saw that characteristic manufacture of his town on the wharves of a Mahometan city. I suppose there VII— 17 258 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC are not ten ministers in Boston who would not " get into trouble," as the phrase is, if they were to preach against intemperance, and the causes that produce intemperance, with half so much zeal as they innocently preach " regeneration " and a " form of piety " which will never touch a single corner of the earth. [As the minister came down, the spirit of trade would meet him on the pulpit stairs to warn him : " Business is business ; religion is religion ; business is ours, religion yours; but if you make or even allow religion to in terfere with our business, then it wiU be the worse for you — that is all ! "J You know it is not a great while since we drove out of Boston the one Unitarian minister who was a fearless apostle of temperance. His pres ence here was a grief to that " form of piety ;" a dis turbance to trade. Since then the peace of the churches has not been much disturbed by the preaching of tem perance. The effect has been salutary ; no Unitarian minister has risen up to fill that place. This same disproportionate love of money appears in the fact that the merchants of Boston still allow colored seamen to be taken from their ships and shut up in the jails of another state. If they cared as much for the rights of man as for money, as much for the men who sail the ship as for the cargo it carries, I cannot think there would be brass enough in South Carolina, or all the South, to hold another freeman of Massachusetts in bondage, merely for the color of his skin. [_No doubt, a merchant would lose his repu tation in this city by engaging directly, in the slave trade, for it is made piracy by the law of the land. But did any one ever lose his reputation by taking a mortgage on slaves as security for a debt ; by becom ing, in that way, or by inheritance, the owner of slaves, and still keeping them in bondage? I MORAL CONDITIONS 259 You shaU take the whole trading community of Boston, rich and poor, good and bad, study the phe nomena of trade as astronomers the phenomena of the heavens, and from the observed facts, by the inductive method of philosophy, construct the ethics of trade, and you wiU find one great maxim to underlie the whole: Money must be made. Money-making is to the ethics of trade what attraction is to the material world; what truth is to the intellect, and justice in morals. Other things must yield to that ; that to noth ing. In the effort to comply with this universal law of trade, many a character gives way ; many a virtue gets pushed aside ; the higher, nobler qualities of a man are held in small esteem. This characteristic of the trading class appears in the thought of the people as well as their actions. You see it in the secular literature of our times, in the laws, even in the sermons ; nobler things give way to love of gold. So in an ill-tended garden, in some bed where violets sought to open their fragrant bosoms to the sun, have I seen a cabbage come up and grow apace, with thick and vulgar stalk, with coarse and vulgar leaves, with rank unsavory look ; it thrust aside the little violet, which, underneath that impenetrable leaf, lacking the morning sunshine and the dew of night, faded and gave up its tender life ; but above the grave of the violet there stood the cabbage, green, expanding, triumphant, and all fearless of the frost. Yet the cabbage also had its value and its use. There are men in Boston, some rich, some poor, old and young, who are free from this reproach ; men that have a well-proportioned love of money, and make the pursuit thereof an effort for all the noble qualities of a man. I know some such men, not very numerous 260 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC anywhere, men who show that the common business of life is the place to mature great virtues in; that the pursuit of wealth, successful or not, need hinder the growth of no excellence, but may promote aU manly life. Such men stand here as violets among the cabbages, making a fragrance and a loveliness all their own; attractive anywhere, but marvelous in such a neighborhood as that. Look next on the morals of Boston as indicated by the newspapers, the daily and the weekly press. Take the whole newspaper literature of Boston, cheap and costly, good and bad, study it all as a whole, and by the inductive method construct the ethics of the press, and here you find no signs of a higher morality in general than you found in trade. It is the same center about which all things gravitate here as there. But in the newspapers the want of great principles is more obvious, and more severely felt than in trade — the want of justice, of truth, of humanity, of sympathy with man. In trade you meet with signs of great power ; the highway of commerce bears marks of giant feet. Our newspapers seem chiefly in the hands of little men, whose cunning is in a large ratio to their wisdom or their justice. You find here little ability, little sound learning, little wise political economy; of lofty morals almost nothing at all. Here, also, the dollar is both pope and king; right and truth are vassals, not much esteemed, nor over-often called to pay service to their lord, who has other soldiers with more pliant neck and knee. A newspaper is an instrument of great importance; all men read it ; many read nothing else ; some it serves as reason and conscience too: in lack of better, why not? It speaks to thousands every day on matters of MORAL CONDITIONS 261 great moment — -on matters of morals, of politics, of finance. It relates daily the occurrences of our land, and of all the world. AU men are affected by it; hindered or helped. To many a man his morning paper represents more reality than his morning prayer. There are many in a community like this who do not know what to say — I do not mean what to think, thoughtful men know what to think — about any thing tiU somebody tells them ; yet they must talk, for " the mouth goes always." To such a man a news paper is invaluable ; as the idolator in the Judges had " a Levite to his priest," so he has a newspaper to his reason or his conscience, and can talk to the day's end. An able and humane newspaper would get this class of persons into good habits of speech, and do them a service, inasmuch as good habits of speech are better than bad. One portion of this literature is degrading ; it seems purposely so, as if written by base men, for base readers, to serve base ends. I know not which is most depraved thereby, the taste or the conscience. Obscene advertisements are there, meant for the licen tious eye ; there are loathsome details of vice, of crime, of depravity, related with the design to attract, yet so disgusting that any but a corrupt man must revolt from them; there are accounts of the appearance of culprits in the lower courts, of their crime, of their punishment; these are related with an impudent flip pancy, and a desire to make sport of human wretched ness and perhaps depravity, which amaze a man of only the average humanity. We read of Judge Jef freys and the bloody assizes in England, one hundred and sixty years ago, but never think there are in the midst of us men who, like that monster, can make 262 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC sport of human misery; but for a cent you can find proof that the race of such is not extinct. If a penny-a-liner were to go into a military hospital, and make merry at the sights he saw there, at the groans he heard, and the keen smart his eye witnessed, could he publish his fiendish joy at that spectacle — you would not say he was a man. If one mock at the crimes of men, perhaps at their sins, at the infamous punishments they suffer — what, can you say of him? It is a significant fact that the commercial news papers, which of course in such a town are the controU- ing newspapers, in reporting the European news, relate first the state of the markets abroad, the price of cotton, of consols, and of corn ; then the health of the English Queen, and the movements of the nations. This is loyal and consistent; at Rome the journal used to announce first some tidings of the Pope, then of the lesser dignitaries of the Church, then of the dis covery of new antiques, and other matters of great pith and moment; at St. Petersburg, it was first of the Emperor that the journal spoke; at Boston it is legitimate that the health of the dollar should be re ported first of aU. The political newspapers are a melancholy proof of the low morality of this town. You know what they will say of any party movement; that measures and men are judged on purely party grounds. The country is commonly put before mankind, and the party before the country. Which of them in political matters pursues a course that is fair and just; how many of them have ever advanced a great idea, or been constantly true to a great principle of natural justice; how many resolutely oppose a great wrong; how many can be trusted to expose the most notorious MORAL CONDITIONS 263 blunders of their party; how many of them aim to promote the higher interests of mankind? What ser vility is there in some of these journals, a cringing to the public opinion of the party ; a desire that " our efforts may be appreciated." In our politics every thing which relates to money is pretty carefully looked after, although not always well looked after; but what relates to the moral part of politics is commonly passed over with much less heed. Men would compliment a senator who understood finance in all its mysteries, and sneer at one who had studied as faithfully the mysteries of war, or of slavery. The Mexican War tested the morality of Boston, as it appears, both in the newspapers and in trade, and showed its true value. There are some few exceptions to this statement; here and there is a journal which does set forth the great ideas of this age, and is animated by the spirit of humanity. But such exceptions only remind one of the general rule. In the sectarian journals the same general morality appears, but in a worse form. What would have been political hatred in the secular prints, becomes theolog ical odium in the sectarian journals ; not a mere hatred in the name of party, but hatred in the name of God and Christ. Here is less fairness, less openness, and less ability than there, but more malice ; the form, too, is less manly. What is there a strut or a swagger, is here only a snivel. They are the last places in which you need look for the spirit of true morality. Which of the sectarian journals of Boston advocates any of the great reforms of the day? nay, which is not an obstacle in the path of all manly reform? But let us not dwell upon this, only look and pass by. 264 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC I am not about to censure the conductors of these journals, commercial, political, or theological. I am no judge of any man's conscience. No doubt they write as they can or must. This hterature is as honest and as able as " the circumstances will admit of." I look on it as an index of our moral condition, for a newspaper literature always represents the general morals of its readers. Grocers and butchers purchase only such articles as their customers will buy; the editors of newspapers reveal the moral character of their subscribers as well as their correspondents. The transient literature of any age is always a good index of the moral taste of the age. These two witnesses attest the moral condition of the better part of the city ; but there are men a good deal lower than the general morals of trade and the press. Other witnesses testify to their moral character. Let me now speak of your moral condition as in dicated by the poverty in this city. I have so recently spoken on the subject of poverty in Boston, and printed the sermon, that I will not now mention the misery it brings. I will only speak of the moral condition which it indicates, and the moral effect it has upon us. In this age, poverty tends to barbarize men ; it shuts them out from the educational influences of our times. The sons of the miserable class cannot obtain the intel lectual, moral, and religious education which is the birth-right of the comfortable and the rich. There is a great gulf between them and the culture of our times. How hard it must be to climb up from a cellar in Cove Place to wisdom, to honesty, to piety. I know how comfortable pharisaic self -righteousness can say, " I thank thee I am not wicked like one of these ;" and God knows which is the best before His eyes, the MORAL CONDITIONS 265 scorner, or the man he loathes and leaves to dirt and destruction. I know this poverty belongs to the state of transition we are now in, and can only be ended by our passing through this into a better. I see the medicinal effect of poverty, that with cantharidian sting it drives some men to work, to frugality and thrift; that the Irish has driven the American beggar out of the streets, and will shame him out of the almshouse ere long. But there are men who have not force enough to obey this stimulus; they only cringe and smart under its sting. Such men are made bar barians by poverty, — barbarians in body, in mind and conscience, in heart and soul. There is a great amount of this barbarism in Boston ; it lowers the moral char acter of the place, as icebergs in your harbor next June would chill the air all day. The fact that such poverty is here, that so little is done by public authority, or by the ablest men in the land, to remove the evil tree and dig up its evil root ; that amid all the wealth of Boston and all its charity, there are not even comfortable tenements for the poor to be had at any but a ruinous rent — that is a sad fact, and bears a sad testimony to our moral state. Sometimes the spectacle of misery does good, quick ening the moral sense and touching the electric tie which binds all human hearts into one great family; but when it does not lead to this result, then it debases the looker-on. To know of want, of misery, of aU the complicated and far-extended ill they bring; to hear of this, and to see it in the streets; to have the money to alleviate, and yet not to alleviate ; the wisdom to devise a cure therefore, and yet make no effort towards it — that is to be yourself debased and bar barized. I have often thought, in seeing the poverty of SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC London, that the daily spectacle of such misery did more in a year to debauch the British heart than all the slaughter at Waterloo. I know that misery has called out heroic virtue in some men and women, and made philanthropists of such as otherwise had been only getters and keepers of gain. We have noble examples of that in the midst of us; but how many men has poverty trod down into the mire; how many has this sight of misery hardened into cold world- liness, the man frozen into mere respectability, its thin smile on his hps, its ungodly contempt in his heart ! Out of this barbarism of poverty there come three other forms of evil which indicate the moral condition of Boston, — of that portion named just now as below the morals of trade and the press. These also I wiU call up to testify. One is intemperance. This is a crime against the body ; it is felony against your own frame. It makes a schism amongst your own members. The amount of it is fearfully great in this town. Some of our most wealthy citizens, who rent their buildings for the unlawful sale of rum to be applied to an i.item- perate abuse, are directly concerned in promoting tins intemperance ; others, rich but less wealthy, have sucked their abundance out of the bones of the poor, ana are actual manufacturers of the drunkard and the Ci'minal. Here are numerous distilleries owned, and some of them conducted, I am told, by men of wealth. The fire thereof is not quenched at all by day, and there is no night there ; the worm dieth not. There out of the sweetest plant which God has made to grow under a tropic sun, men distil a poison the most baneful to mankind which the world has ever known. Ihe MORAL CONDITIONS 267 poison of the Borgias was celebrated once ; cold-hearted courtiers shivered at its name. It never kiUed many; those with merciful swiftness. The poison of rum is yet worse ; it yearly murders thousands ; kills them by, inches, body and soul. Here are respectable and wealthy men, men who this day sit down in a Christian church, and thank God for His goodness, with contrite hearts praise Him for that Son of man who gave his Lie for mankind, and would gladly give it to mankind ; yet these men have ships on the sea to bring the poor man's poison here, or bear it hence to other men as poor; have distiUeries on the land to make still yet more for the ruin of their fellow-Christians; have warehouses full of this plague, which " outvenoms all the worms of Nile;" have shops which they rent for the Ulegal and murderous sale of this terrible scourge. Do they not know the ruin which they, work ; are they the only men in the land who have not heard of the effects of intemperance? I judge them not, great God! I only judge myself. I wish I could say, " They know not what they do ;" but at this day who does not know the effect of intemperance in Bos ton? I speak not of the sale of ardent spirits to be used in the arts, to be used for medicine, but of the needless use thereof; of their use to damage the body and injure the soul of man. The chief of your police informs me there are twelve hundred places in Boston where this article is sold to be drunk on the spot ; illegally sold. The Charitable Association of Me chanics, in this city, have taken the accumulated sav ings of more than fifty years, and therewith built a costly establishment, where intoxicating drink is need lessly but abundantly sold. Low as the moral stand- 268 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC ard of Boston is, low as are the morals of the press and trade, I had hoped better things of these men, who live in the midst of hard-working laborers, and see the miseries of intemperance all about them. But the dollar was too powerful for their temperance. Here are splendid houses, where the rich man or the thrifty needlessly drinks. Let me leave them ; the evil demon of intemperance appears not there; he is there, but under well-made garments, amongst educated men, who are respected and still respect themselves. Amid merriment and song the demon appears not. He is there, gaunt, bony, and destructive; but so ele gantly clad, with manners so unoffending, you do not mark his face, nor fear his steps. But go down to that miserable lane, where men mothered by misery and sired by crime, where the sons of poverty and the daughters of wretchedness are huddled thick together, and you see this demon of intemperance in all his ugli ness. Let me speak soberly; exaggeration is a figure of speech I would always banish from my rhetoric, here above all, where the fact is more appalling than any fiction I could devise. In the low parts of Boston, where want abounds, where misery abounds, intemper ance abounds yet more ; to multiply want, to aggravate misery, to make savage what poverty has only made barbarian, to stimulate passion into crime. Here it is not music and the song which crown the bowl; it is crowned by obscenity, by oaths, by curses, by violence, sometimes by murder. These twine the ivy round the poor man's bowl; no, it is the upas that they twine. Think of the sufferings of the drunkard himself, of his poverty, his hunger, and his nakedness, his cold; think of his battered body ; of his mind and conscience, how they, are gone. But is that all? Far from it. MORAL CONDITIONS 269 These curses shall become blows upon his wife; that savage violence shall be expended on his child. In his senses this man was a barbarian; there are centuries of civilization betwixt him and cultivated men. But the man of wealth, adorned with respecta bility, and armed with science, harbors a demon in the street, a profitable demon to the rich man who rents his houses for such a use. The demon enters our barbarian, who straightway becomes a savage. In his fury he tears his wife and child. The law, heedless of the greater culprits, the demon and the demon- breeder, seizes our savage man and shuts him in the jail. Now he is out of the tempter's reach; let us leave him; let us go to his home. His wife and children still are there, freed from their old tormentor. Enter: look upon the squalor, the filth, the want, the misery, stiU left behind. Respectability halts at the door with folded arms, and can no further go. But charity, the love of man which never fails, enters even there; enters to lift up the fallen, to cheer the de spairing, to comfort and to bless. Let us leave her there, loving the unlovely, and turn to other sights. In the streets, there are about nine hundred needy boys, and about two hundred needy girls, the sons and daughters mainly of the intemperate: too idle or too thriftless to work ; too low and naked for the public school. They roam about — the nomadic tribes of this town, the gipsies of Boston — doing some chance work for a moment, committing some petty theft. The temptations of a great city are before them. Soon they will be impressed into the regular army of crime, to be stationed in your jails, perhaps to die on your gallows. Such is the fate of the sons of intemperance ; but the daughters ! their fate — let me not teU of that. 270 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC In your Legislature they have just been discussing a law against dogs ; for now and then a man is bitten, and dies of hydrophobia. Perhaps there are ten mad dogs in the State at this moment, and it may be that one man in a year dies from the bite of such. Do the legislators know how many shops there are in this town, in this State, which all the day and all the yeai sell to intemperate men a poison that maddens with a hydrophobia still worse? If there were a thousand mad dogs in the land, if wealthy men had embarked a large capital in the importation or the production of mad dogs, and if they bit and maddened and slew ten thousand men in a year, do you believe your Legislature would discuss that evil with such fearless speech? Then you are very young, and know httle of the tyranny of public opinion, and the power of money, to silence speech, while justice still comes in, with feet of wool, but iron hands. There is yet another witness to the moral condition of Boston. I mean crime. Where there is such pov erty and intemperance, crime may be expected to follow. I will not now dwell upon this theme ; only let me say, that in 1848, three thousand four hundred and thirty- five grown persons, and six hundred and seventy-one minors, were lawfully sentenced to your jail and House of Correction; in all, four thousand one hundred and six; three thousand four hundred and forty-four per sons were arrested by the night police, and eleven thou sand one hundred and seventy-eight were taken into custody by the watch ; at one time there were one hun dred and forty-four in the common jail. I have al ready mentioned that more than a thousand boys and girls, between six and sixteen, wander as vagrants about your streets; two hundred and thirty-eight of these MORAL CONDITIONS 271 are children of widows, fifty-four have neither parent hving. It is a fact known to your police, that about one thousand two hundred shops are unlawfuUy open for retailing the means of intemperance. These are most thickly strewn in the haunts of poverty. On a single Sunday the police found three hundred and thirteen shops in the full experiment of unblushing and successful crime. These rum-shops are the fac tories of crime; the raw material is furnished by pov erty ; it passes into the hands of the rum-seller, and is soon ready for delivery at the mouth of the jail or the foot of the gallows. It is notorious that intemperance is the proximate cause of three-fourths of the crime in Boston; yet it is very respectable to own houses and rent them for the purpose of making men intemperate ; nobody loses his standing by that. I am not surprised to hear of women armed with knives, and boys with six- barreled revolvers in their pockets ; not surprised at the increase of capital trials. One other matter let me name — I call it the crime against woman. Let us see the evil in its type, its most significant form. Look at the thing of corrup tion and of shame — almost without shame — whom the judge, with brief words, despatches to the jail. That was a woman once. No ! At least, she was once a girl. She had a mother; perhaps beyond the hiUs, a mother, in her evening prayer, remembers still this one child more tenderly than all the folded flowers that slept the sleep of infancy beneath her roof ; remembers, with a prayer, her child, whom the world curses after it has made corrupt. Perhaps she had no such mother, but was born in the filth of some reeking cellar, and turned into the mire of the streets, in her undefended innocence, to mingle with the coarseness, the intemper- 272 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC ance, and the crime of a corrupt metropolis/ In either case, her blood is on our hands. The crime which is so terribly avenged on woman — think you that God will hold men innocent of that? But on this sign of our moral state I will not long delay. Put all these things together : the character of trade, of the press; take the evidence of poverty, intemper ance, and crime — it all reveals a sad state of things. I call your attention to these facts. We are all affected by them more or less — all more or less accountable for them. Hitherto I have only stated facts, without making comparisons. Let me now compare the present condi tion of Boston with that in former times. Every man has an ideal, which is better than the actual facts about him. Some men amongst us put that ideal in times past, and maintain it was then an historical fact ; they are commonly men who have little knowledge of the past, and less hope for the future ; a good deal of rev erence for old precedents, little for justice, truth, humanity ; little confidence in mankind, and a great deal of fear of new things. Such men love to look back and do homage to the past, but it is only a past of fancy, not of fact, that they do homage to. They tell us we have fallen; that the golden age is behind us, and the garden of Eden ; ours are degenerate days ; the men are inferior, the women less winning, less witty, and less wise, and the children are an untoward gen eration, a disgrace, not so much to their fathers, but certainly to their grandsires. Sometimes this is the complaint of men who have grown old; sometimes of such as seem to be old without growing so, who seem born to the gift of age, without the grace of youth. Other men have a similar ideal, commonly a higher MORAL CONDITIONS 273 one, but they place it in the future, not as a histor ical reality, which has been, and is therefore to be wor shiped, but one which is to be made real by dint of thought, of work. I have known old persons who stoutly maintained that the pears, and the plums, and the peaches, are not half so luscious as they were many years ago ; so they bewailed the existing race of fruits, complaining of " the general decay " of sweetness, and brought over to their way of speech some aged juve niles. Meanwhile, men born young, set themselves to productive work, and, instead of bewailing an old fancy, realized a new ideal in new fruits, bigger, fairer, and better than the old. It is to men of this latter stamp that we must look for criticism and for counsel. The others can afford as a warning, if not by their speech, at least by their example. It is very plain that the people of New England are advancing in wealth, in intelligence, and in morality ; but in this general march there are little apparent pauses, slight waverings from side to side ; some vir tues seem to straggle from the troop ; some to lag be hind, for it is not always the same virtue that leads the van. It is with the flock of virtues, as with wild fowl ¦ — the leaders alternate. It is probable that the morals of New England in general, and of Boston in special, did decline somewhat from 1775 to 1790; there were peculiar but well-known causes, which no longer exist, to work that result. In the previous fifteen years it seems probable that there had been a rapid increase of morality, through the agency of causes equally pecul iar and transient. To estimate the moral growth or decline of this town, we must not take either period as a standard. But take the ^history of Boston from 1650 to 1700, from 1700 to 1750, thence to 1800, and VII— 18 274 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC you wiU see a gradual, but a decided progress in mo rality, in each of these periods. It is not easy to prove this in a short sermon; I can only indicate the points of comparison, and state the general fact. From 1800 to 1849, this progress is well marked, indisputable, and very great. Let us look at this a little in detail, pur suing the same order of thought as before. It is generally conceded that the moral character of trade has improved a good deal within fifty or sixty years. It was formerly a common saying, that " if a Yankee merchant were to sell salt water at high tide, he would yet cheat in the measure." The saying was founded on the conduct of American traders abroad, in the West Indies and elsewhere. Now things have changed for the better. I have been told by competent authority, that two of the most eminent merchants of Boston, fifty or sixty years ago, who conducted each a large business, and left very large fortunes, were no toriously guilty of such dishonesty in trade as would now drive any man from the Exchange. The facility with which notes are collected by the banks, compared to the former method of collection, is itself a proof of an increase of practical honesty; the law for settling the affairs of a bankrupt tells the same thing. Now this change has not come from any special effort, made to produce this particular effect, and, accord ingly, it indicates the general moral progress of the community. The general character of the press, since the end of the last century, has decidedly improved, as any one may convince himself of by comparing the newspapers of that period with the present; yet a publicity is nowadays given to certain things which were formerly kept more closely from the public eye and ear. This MORAL CONDITIONS 273 circumstance sometimes produces an apparent increase of wrong-doing, while it is only an increased publicity thereof. Political servihty and political rancor are certainly bad enough and base enough at this day, but not long ago both were baser and worse ; to show this, I need only appeal to the memories of men before me, who can recollect the beginning of the present century. Pohtical controversies are conducted with less bitterness than before; honesty is more esteemed; private worth is more respected. It is not many years since the Federal party, composed of men who certainly were an honor to their age, supported Aaron Burr, for the office of President of the United States — a man whose character, both public and private, was notoriously marked with the deepest infamy. Political parties are not very puritanical in their virtue at this day; but I think no party would now for a moment accept such a man as Mr. Burr for such a post. There is another pleasant sign of this improvement in political parties ; last autumn the victorious party, in two wards of this city, made a beautiful demonstration of joy at their success in the Presidential election; and on Thanks giving day, and on Christmas, gave a substantial din ner to each poor person in their section of the town.1 It was a trifle, but one pleasant to remember. Even the theological journals have improved within a few years. I know it has been said that some of them are not only behind their times, which is true, " but behind aU times." It is not so. Compared with the sectarian writings — tracts, pamphlets, and hard bound volumes of an earlier day — they are human, enlightened, and even liberal. In respect to poverty, there has been a great change for the better. However, it may be said in general, 276 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC that a good deal of the poverty, intemperance, and crime, is of foreign origin; we are to deal with it, to be blamed if we allow it to continue; not at all to be blamed for its origin. I know it is often said, " The poor are getting poorer, and soon will become the mere vassals of the rich ;" " The past is f uU of discourage ment : the future full of fear." I cannot think so. I feel neither the discouragement nor the fear. It should be remembered that many of the fathers of New Eng land owned the bodies of their laborers and domestics. The condition of the workingman has improved rela tively to the wealth of the land ever since. The wages of any kind of labor, at this day, bear a higher pro portion to the things needed for comfort and conven ience than ever before for two hundred years. If you go back one hundred years, I think you wul find, that in proportion to the population and wealth of this town or this State, there was considerably more suffering from native poverty then than now. I have not, however, before me the means of absolute proof of this statement ; but this is plain, that now public char ity is more extended, more complete, works in a wiser mode, and with far more beneficial effect; and that pains are now taken to uproot the causes of poverty — pains which our fathers never thought of. In proof of this increase of charity, and even of the exist ence of justice, I need only refer to the numerous be nevolent societies of modern origin, and to the estab lishment of the ministry at large, in this city — the latter the work of Unitarian philanthropy. Some other churches have done a little in this good work. But none have done much. I am told the Catholic clergy of this city do little to remove the great mass of poverty, intemperance, and crime among their follow- MORAL CONDITIONS 277 ers. I know there are some few honorable exceptions, and how easy it is for Protestant hostility to exag gerate matters; still I fear the reproach is too well founded, . that the Catholic clergy are not vigilant shepherds, who guard their sacred flock against the terrible wolves which prowl about the fold. I wish to find myself mistaken here. Some of you remember the " Old Almshouse " in Park Street; the condition and character of its in mates ; the effect of the treatment they have received. I do not say that our present attention to the subject of poverty is anything to boast of — certainly we have done little in comparison with what common sense de mands; very httle in comparison with what Chris tianity enjoins; still it is something; in comparison with " the good old times," it is much that we are doing. There has been a great change for the better in the matter of intemperance in drinking. Within thirty years, the progress towards sobriety is surprising, and so weU-marked and obvious that to name it is enough. Probably there is not a " respectable " man in Boston who would not be ashamed to have been seen drunk yesterday ; even to have been drunk in ever so private a manner; not one who would willingly get a friend or a guest in that condition to-day. Go back a few years, and it brought no public reproach, and, I fear, no private shame. A few years further back, it was not a rare thing, on great occasions, for the fathers of the town to reel and stagger from their intemperance — the magistrates of the land voluntarily furnishing the warning which a romantic historian says the Spar tans forced upon their slaves. It is easy to praise the fathers of New England; 278 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC easier to praise them for virtues they did not possess, than to discriminate and fairly judge those remark able men. Il admire and venerate their characters, but they were rather hard drinkers ; certainly a love of cold water was not one of their loves. Let me mention a fact or two. It is recorded in the probate office, that in 1678, at the funeral of Mrs. Mary Norton, widow of the celebrated John Norton, one of the ministers of the First Church in Boston, fifty-one gallons and a half of the best Malaga wine were consumed by the '•' mourners ;" in 1685, at the funeral of the Rev. Thomas Cobbett, minister at Ipswich, there were con sumed one barrel of wine and two barrels of cider — " and as it was cold," there was " some spice and gin ger for the cider." You may easily judge of the drunkenness and riot on occasions less solemn than the funeral of an old and beloved minister. Towns pro vided intoxicating drink at the funeral of their pau pers ; in Salem, in 1728, at the funeral of a pauper, a gallon of wine and another of cider are charged as " incidental ;" the next year, six gallons of rum on a similar occasion; in Lynn, in 1711, the town furnished " half a barrel of cider for the Widow Dispaw's funeral." Affairs had come to such a pass, that, in 1742, the General Court forbade the use of wine and rum at funerals. In 1673, Increase Mather published his " Wo to Drunkards." Governor Winthrop com plains, in 1630, that " the young folk gave them selves to drink hot waters very immoderately. "_) But I need not go back so far. Who that is fifty years of age does not remember the aspect of Boston on public days — on the evening of such days ? Com pare the " Election day," or the Fourth of July, as they were kept thirty or forty years ago, with such MORAL CONDITIONS 279 days in our time. Some of you remember the Cele bration of Peace, in 1783; many of you can recollect the similar celebration in 1815. On each of those days the inhabitants from the country towns came here to rejoice with the citizens of this town. Compare the riot, the confusion, the drunkenness then, with the order, decorum, and sobriety of the celebration at the introduction of water last autumn, and you see what has been done in sixty or seventy years for tem perance. A great deal of the crime in Boston is of foreign origin : of the one thousand and sixty-six children vagrant in your streets, only one hundred and three had American parents ; of the nine hundred and thirty- three persons in the House of Correction here, six hun dred and sixteen were natives of other countries ; I know not how many were the children of Irishmen, who had not enjoyed the advantages of our institu tions. I cannot tell how many rum-shops are kept by foreigners. Now, in Ireland, no pains have been taken with the education of the people by the Gov ernment; very little by the Catholic Church; indeed, the British Government for a long time rendered it impossible for the Church to do anything in this way. For more than seventy years, in that Catholic country, none but a Protestant could keep a school, or even be a tutor in a private family. A Catholic schoolmaster was to be transported, and, if he returned, adjudged guilty of high treason, barbarously put to death, drawn, and quartered. A Protestant schoolmaster is as repulsive to a Catholic as a Mahometan school master or an atheist would be to you. It is not sur prising, therefore, that the Irish are ignorant ; and, as a consequence thereof, are idle, thriftless, poor, in- 280 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC temperate, and barbarian; not to be wondered at if they conduct hke wild beasts when they are set loose in a land where we think the individual must be left free to the greatest extent. Of course they will vio late our laws, those wild bisons leaping over the fences which easily restrain the civilized domestic cattle; will commit the great crimes of violence, even capital offenses, which certainly have increased rapidly of late. This increase of foreigners is prodigious; more than half the children in your public schools are children of foreigners; there are more Catholic than Protestant children born in Boston. With the general and unquestionable advance of morality, some offenses are regarded as crimes which were not noticed a few years ago. Drunkenness is an example of this. An Irishman in his native country thinks little of beating another or being beaten; he brings his habits of violence with him, and does not at once learn to conform to our laws. Then, too, a good deal of crime which was once concealed is now brought to light by. the press, by the superior activity of the police; and yet, after all that is said, it seems quite clear that what is legally called crime, and committed by Americans, has diminished a good deal in fifty years. Such crime, I think, never bore so small a proportion to the population, wealth, and activity of Boston, as now. Even if we take all the offenses committed by these strangers who have come amongst us, it does not compare so very unfavorably, as some allege, with the " good old times." I know men often look on the fathers of this colony as saints ; but in 1635, at a time when the whole State contained less than one-tenth of the present population of Boston, and they were scat tered from Weymouth Fore River to the Merrimac, MORAL CONDITIONS 281 the first grand jury ever impaneled at Boston " found " a hundred bills of indictment at their first coming to gether. If you consider the circumstances of the class who commit the greater part of the crimes which get pun ished, you will not wonder at the amount. The crimi nal court is their school of morals ; the constable and judge are their teachers ; but under this rude tuition I am told that the Irish improve, and actually become better. The children who receive the instruction of our public schools, imperfect as they are, will be better than their fathers; and their grandchildren will have lost all trace of their barbarian descent. I have often spoken of our penal law as wrong in its principle, taking it for granted that the ignorant and miserable men who commit crime do it always from wickedness, and not from the pressure of circumstances which have brutalized the man ; wrong in its aim, which is to take vengeance on the offender, and not to do him a good in return for the evil he has done ; wrong in its method, which is to inflict a punishment that is wholly arbitrary, and then to send the punished man, over whelmed with new disgrace, back to society, often made worse than before, — not to keep him till we can correct, cure and send him back a reformed man. I would retract nothing of what I have often said of that; but not long ago all this was worse; the par ticular statutes were often terribly unjust; the forms of trial afforded the accused but little chance of justice ; the punishments were barbarous and terrible. The plebeian tyranny of the Lord Brethren in New Eng land was not much lighter than the patrician despotism of the Lord Bishops in the old world, and was more insulting. Let me mention a few facts, to refresh 282 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC the memories of those who think we are going to ruin, and can only save ourselves by holding to the customs of our fathers, and of the " good old times." In 1631, a man was fined forty pounds, whipped on the naked back, both his ears cut off, and then banished this colony, for uttering hard speeches against the Government and the Church at Salem. In the first century of the existence of this town, the magistrates could banish a woman because she did not like the preaching, nor all the ministers, and told the people why ; they could whip women naked in the streets, be cause they spoke reproachfully of the magistrates; they could fine men twenty pounds, and then banish them, for comforting a man in jail before his trial; they could pull down, with legal formality, the house of a man they did not like; they could whip women at a cart's tail from Salem to Rhode Island for fidelity to their conscience; they could beat, imprison, and ban ish men out of the land, simply for baptizing one another in a stream of water, instead of sprinkling them from a dish; they could crop the ears, and scourge the backs, and bore the tongues of men, for being Quakers — yes, they could shut them in jails, could banish them out of the colony, could sell them as slaves, could hang them on a gallows, solely for wor shiping God after their own conscience; they could convulse the whole land, and hang some thirty or forty men for witchcraft, and do all this in the name of God, and then sing psalms, with most nasal twang, and pray by the hour, and preach — I will not say how long, nor what, nor how. It is not yet one hundred years since two slaves were judicially burnt alive on Boston Neck, for poisoning their master. But why talk of days so old? Some of you remem- MORAL CONDITIONS 283 ber when the pillory and the whipping-post were a part of the public furniture of the law, and occupied a prominent place in the busiest street in town. Some of you have seen men and women scourged, naked and bleeding, in State Street; have seen men judicially branded in the forehead with a hot iron, their ears clipped off by the sheriff, and held up to teach human ity to the gaping crowd of idle boys and vulgar men. A magistrate was once brought into odium in Boston, for humanely giving back to his victim a part of the ear he had officially shorn off, that the mutilated mem ber might be restored and made whole. How long is it since men sent their servants to the " workhouse " to be beaten " for disobedience," at the discretion of the master? It is not long since the gallows was a public spectacle here in the midst of us, and a hanging made a hohday for the rabble of this city and the neighboring towns ; even women came to see the death- struggle of a fellow-creature, and formed the larger part of the mob. Many of you remember the proces sion of the condemned man sitting on his coffin, a pro cession from the jail to the gallows, from one end of the city to the other. I remember a public execution some fourteen or fifteen years ago, and some of the students of theology at Cambridge, of undoubted soundness in the Unitarian faith, came here to see men kill a f eUow-man ! Who can think of these things, and not see that a great progress has been made in no long time? But if these things be not proof enough, then consider what has been done here in this country for the ref ormation of juvenile offenders; for the discharged convict; for the bhnd, the deaf, and the dumb; for the insane, and now even for the idiot. Think of the 284 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC numerous societies for the widows and orphans; for the seamen ; the temperance societies ; the peace socie ties ; the Prison Discipline Society ; the mighty move ment against slavery, which, beginning with a few heroic men who took the roaring lion of public opin ion by the beard, fearless of his roar, has gone on now, till neither the hardest nor the softest courage in the State dares openly defend the unholy institution. A philanthropic female physician delivers gratuitous lec tures on physiology to the poor of this city, to enable them to take better care of their houses and their bodies ; an unpretending man, for years past, re sponsible to none but God, has devoted all his time and his toil to the most despised class of men, and has saved hundreds from the jail, from crime, and ruin at the last. Here are many men and women not known to the public, but known to the poor, who are daily ministering to the wants of the body and the mind. Consider all these things, and who can doubt that a great moral progress has been made? It is not many years since we had white slaves, and a Scotch boy was invoiced at fourteen pounds lawful money, in the in ventory of an estate in Boston. In 1630, Governor Dudley complains that some of the founders of New England, in consequence of a famine, were obhged to set free one hundred and eighty servants, " to our ex treme loss," for they had cost sixteen or twenty pounds each. Seventy years since, negro slavery prevailed in Massachusetts, and men did not blush at the institu tion. Think of the treatment which the leaders of the anti-slavery reform met with but a few years ago, and you see what a progress has been made ! I have extenuated nothing of our condition. I have said the morals of trade are low morals, and the morals MORAL CONDITIONS 285 of the press are low; that poverty is a terrible evil to deal with, and we do not deal with it manfully; that intemperance is a mournful curse, all the more melan choly when rich men purposely encourage it ; that here is an amount of crime which makes us shudder to think of ; that the voice of human blood cries out of the ground against us. I disguise nothing of all this; let us confess the fact, and, ugly as it is, look it fairly in the face. Still, our moral condition, is better than ever before. I know there are men who seem born with their eyes behind, their hopes all running into memory ; some who wish they had been born long ago — they might as well ; sure it is no fault of theirs that they were not. I hear what they have to tell us. Still, on the whole, the aspect of things is most decidedly encouraging ; for if so much has been done when men understood the matter less than we, both cause and cure, how much more can be done for the future? What can we do to make things better? I have so recently spoken of poverty that I shall say httle now. [A great change will doubtless take place before many years in the relations between capital and labor; a great change in the spirit of society. I do not believe the disparity now existing between the wealth of men has its origin in human nature, and therefore is to last for ever; I do not believe it is just and right that less than one-twentieth of the people in the nation should own more than ten-twentieths of the property of the nation, unless by their own head, or hands, or heart, they do actually create and earn that amount. I am not now blaming any class of men ; only stating a fact. There is a profound conviction in the hearts of many good men, rich as well as poor, that things are wrong; that there is an ideal right for 286 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC the actual wrong ; but I think no man yet has risen up with ability to point out for us the remedy of these evils, and deliver us from what has not badly been named the feudalism of capital. Still, without waiting for the great man to arise, we can do something with our littleness even now; the truant children may be snatched from vagrancy, beggary, and ruin ; tenements can be built for the poor, and rented at a reasonable rate. It seems to me that something more can be done in the way of providing employment for the poor, or helping them to employment./ In regard to intemperance, I wiU say we can end it by direct efforts. So long as there is misery there will be continued provocation to that vice, if the means thereof are within reach. I do not believe there wiU be much more intemperance amongst well-bred men ; among the poor and wretched it will doubtless long continue. But if we cannot end, we can diminish it, fast as we will. If rich men did not manufacture, nor import, nor sell ; if they would not rent their buildings for the sale of intoxicating liquor for improper uses ; if they did not by their example favor the improper use thereof, how long do you think your police would arrest and punish one thousand drunkards in the year? how long would twelve hundred rum-shops disgrace your town? Boston is far more sober, at least in ap pearance, than other large cities of America ; but it is still the headquarters of intemperance for the State of Massachusetts. In arresting intemperance, two-thirds of the poverty, three-fourths of the crime of this city • would end at once, and an amount of misery and sin which I have not the skill to calculate. Do you say we cannot diminish intemperance, neither by law, nor by righteous efforts without law? Oh, fie upon MORAL CONDITIONS 287 such talk! Come, let us be honest, and say we do not wish to, not that we cannot. It is plain that in sixteen years we can build seven great railroads radiating out of Boston, three or four hundred miles long; that we can conquer the Connecticut and the Merrimac, and all the lesser streams of New England ; can build up Lowell, and Chicopee, and Lawrence; why, in four years Massachusetts can invest eight-and fifty miUions of dollars in railroads and manufactures, and cannot prevent intemperance ! cannot diminish it in Boston! So there are no able men in this town ! I am amazed at such talk, in such a place, full of such men, surrounded by such trophies' of their work. When the churches preach and men believe that Mammon is not the only God we are practically to serve; that it is more reputable to keep men sober, temperate, comfortable, intelligent, and striving, than it is to make money out of other men's misery ; more Christian, than to seU and manufacture rum, to rent houses for the making of drunkards and criminals, then we shall set about this business with the energy, that shows we are in earnest, and by a method which wiU do the work. In the matter of crime, something can be done to give efficiency to the laws. No doubt a thorough change must be made in the idea of criminal legis lation; vengeance must give way to justice, police men become moral missionaries, and jails moral hospi tals, that discharge no criminal until he is cured. It will take long to get the idea into men's minds. You must encounter many a doubt, many a sneer, and expect many a failure, too. Men who think they " know the world," because they know that most men are selfish, will not believe you. We must wait for new 288 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC facts to convince such men. After the idea is estab lished, it will take long to organize it fittingly. Much can be done for juvenile offenders, much for discharged convicts, even now. We can puU down the gallows, and with it that loathsome theological idea on which it rests — the idea of a vindictive God. A remorseless court, and careful police, can do much to hinder crime; but they cannot remove the causes thereof. Last year a good man, to whom the State was deeply indebted before,2 suggested that a moral police should be appointed to look after offenders ; to see why they committed their crime ; and if only necessity compelled them, to seek out for them some employment, and so remove the causes of crime in detail. The thought was worthy of the age and of the man. In the hands of a practical man, this thought might lead to good results. A beginning has already been made in the right direction, by establishing the State Reform School for boys. It will be easy to improve on this experiment, and conduct prisons for men on the same scheme of correction and cure, not merely of punish ment, in the name of vengeance. But, after all, so long as poverty, misery, intemperance, and ignorance continue, no civil police, no moral police, can keep such causes from creating crime. What keeps you from a course of crime? Your morality, your re ligion? Is it? Take away your property, your home, your friends, the respect of respectable men; take away what you have received from education, inteUec- tual, moral, and religious ; and how much better would the best of us be than the men who will to-morrow be huddled off to jail, for crimes committed in a dram shop to-day? The circumstances which have kept you MORAL CONDITIONS 289 temperate, industrious, respectable, would have made nine-tenths of the men in jail as good men as you are. It is not pleasant to think that there are no amuse ments which lie level to the poor in this country. In Paris, Naples, Rome, Vienna, Berlin, there are cheap pleasures for poor men, which yet are not low pleas ures. Here there are amusements for the comfortable and the rich, not too numerous, rather too rare, per haps, but none for the poor, save only the vice of drunkenness ; that is hideously cheap ; the inward temp tation powerful ; the outward occasion always at hand. Last summer, some benevolent men treated the poor children of the city to a day of sunshine, fresh air, and frohc in the fields. Once a year the children, gathered together by another benevolent man, have a floral procession in the streets; some of them have charitably been taught to dance. These things are beautiful to think of; signs of our progress from " the good old times," and omens of a brighter day, when Christianity shall bear more abundantly flowers, and fruit even yet more fair. The morals of the current literature, of the daily press you can change when you will. If there is not in us a demand for low morals there will be no supply. The morals of trade, and of politics, the handmaid thereof, we can make better soon as we wish. It has been my aim to give suggestions, rather than propose distinct plans of action; I do not know that I am capable of that. But some of you are rich men, some able men ; many of you, I think, are good men. I appeal to you to do something to raise the moral character of this town. All that has been done in fifty years, or a hundred and fifty, seems very httle, while so much still remains to do; only a hint and an encouragement. You cannot do much, nor I VII— 19 290 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC much; that is true. But, after all, everything must begin with individual men and women. You can at least give the example of what a good man ought to be and to do to-day; to-morrow you wiU yourself be the better man for it. So far as that goes, you wiU have done something to mend the morals of Boston. You can tell of actual evils, and tell of your remedy for them; can keep clear from committing the evils yourself ; that also is something. Here are two things that are certain: We are aU brothers, rich and poor, American and foreign; put here by the same God, for the same end, and journey ing towards the same heaven, owing mutual help. Then, too, the wise men and good men are the natural guardians of society, and God will not hold them guiltless, if they leave their brothers to perish. I know our moral condition is a reproach to us; I wiU not deny that, nor try to abate the shame and grief we should feel. When I think of the poverty and misery in the midst of us, and all the consequences thereof, I hardly dare feel grateful for the princely fortunes some men have gathered together. Certainly it is not a Christian society, where such extremes exist ; we are only in the process of conversion ; proselytes of the gate, and not much more. There are noble men in this city, who have been made philanthropic by the sight of wrong, of intemperance, and poverty, and crime. Let mankind honor great conquerors, who only rout armies, and " plant fresh laurels where they kill ;" I honor most the men who contend against misery, against crime and sin ; men that are the soldiers of humanity, and in a low age, amidst the mean and sordid spirits of a great trading town, hft up their serene foreheads, and tell us of the right, the true, first good, first perfect, and first fair. From such men I hear MORAL CONDITIONS 291 the prophecy of the better time to come. In their example I see proofs of the final triumph of good over evil. Angels are they who keep the tree of hfe, not with flaming sword, repelling men, but with friendly hand, plucking therefrom, and giving unto all the leaves, the flower, and the fruit of life, for the healing of the nations. A single good man, kindling his early flame, wakens the neighbors with his words of cheer; they, at his lamp, shall light their torch and household fire, anticipating the beamy warmth of day. Soon it will be morning, warm and light ; we shall be up and a- doing, and the lighted lamp, which seemed at first too much for eyes to bear, will look ridiculous, and cast no shadow in the noonday sun. A hundred years hence, men will stand here as I do now, and speak of the evils of these times as things past and gone, and wonder that able men could ever be appaUed by our difficulties, and think them not to be surpassed. Still, all depends on the faithfulness of men — your faithful ness and mine. The last election has shown us what resolute men can do on a trifling occasion, if they will.3 You know the efforts of the three parties — what meetings they held, what money they raised, what talent was em ployed, what speeches made, what ideas set forth; not a town was left unattempted; scarce a man who had wit to throw a vote, but his vote was solicited. You see the revolution which was wrought by that vigorous style of work. When such men set about reforming the evds of society, with such a determined soul, what evil can stand against mankind? We can leave noth ing to the next generation worth so much as ideas of truth, justice, and religion, organized into fitting in stitutions; such we can leave, and, if true men, such we shall. IX SPIRITUAL CONDITIONS By their fruits ye shall know them. — Matthew viii, 20. Last Sunday I said something of the moral condi tion of Boston ; to-day I ask your attention to a ser mon of the spiritual condition of Boston. I use the word spiritual in its narrower sense, and speak of the condition of this town in respect to piety. A little while since, in " A Sermon of Piety," I tried to show that love of God lay at the foundation of aU manly excel lence, and was the condition of all noble, manly develop ment; that love of truth, love of justice, love of love, were respectively the condition of inteUectual, moral, and affectional development, and that they were also respectively the inteUectual, moral, and affectional forms of piety; that the love of God as the Infinite Father, the totality of truth, justice, and love, was the general condition of the total development of man's spiritual powers. But I showed that sometimes this piety, intellectual, moral, affectional, or total, did not arrive at self-consciousness ; the man only unconsciously loving the Infinite in one or all these modes, and in such cases the man was a loser by frustrating his piety, and allowing it to stop in the truncated form of uncon sciousness. Now what is in you wiU appear out of you ; if piety be there in any of these forms, in either mode, it will come out ; if not there, its fruits cannot appear. You may reason forward; or backward; if you know piety exists, you may foretell its appearance; if you find fruits thereof, you may reason back, and be sure of its existence. Piety is love of God as God; and as 292 SPIRITUAL CONDITIONS 293 we only love what we are like, and in that degree, so it is also a likeness to God. Now it is a general doc trine in Christendom that divinity must manifest itself ; and, in assuming the highest form of manifestation known to us, divinity becomes humanity. However, that doctrine is commonly taught in the specific and not generic form, and is enforced by an historical and concrete example, but not by way of a universal thesis. It appears thus: The Christ was God; as such He must manifest himself ; the form of manifestation was that of a complete and perfect man. I reject the con crete example, but accept the universal doctrine on which the special dogma of the trinity is erected. From that I deduce this as a general rule: if you fol low the law of your nature, and are simple and true to that, as much of godhead as there is in you, so much of manhood will come out of you; and, as much of manhood comes out of you, so much of godhead was there within you; as much subjective divinity, so much objective humanity. Such being the case, the demands you can make on a man for manliness must depend for their "answer on the amount of piety on deposit in his character; so it becomes important to know the condition of this town in respect of piety, for if this be not right in the above sense, nothing else is right; or, to speak more clericaUy, " Unless the Lord keep the city, the watch man waketh but in vain ;" and unless piety be developed or a-developing in men, it is vain for the minister to sit up late of a Saturday night to concoct his sermon, and to rise up early of a Sunday morning to preach the same; he fights but as one that beateth the air, and spends his strength for that which is naught. They are in the right therefore, who first of all things 294 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC demand piety; so let us see what signs or proof we have, and of what amount of piety in Boston. To determine this, we must have some test by which to judge of the quality, distinguishing piety from im piety, and some standard whereby to measure the quan tity thereof; for though you may know what piety is in you, I what is in me, and God what is in both and in all the rest of us, it is plain that we can only judge of the existence of piety in other men, and measure its quantity by an outward manifestation thereof, in some form which shall serve at once as a trial test and a standard measure. Now, then, as I mentioned in that former sermon, it is on various sides alleged that there are two outward manifestations of piety, a good deal unlike; each is claimed by some men as the exclusive trial test and standard measure. Let me say a word of each. I. Some contend for what I call the conventional standard; that is, the manifestation of piety by means of certain prescribed forms. Of these forms there are three modes or degrees, namely: first, the form of bodily attendance on public worship ; second, the behef in certain doctrines, not barely because they are proven true, or known without proof, but because they are taught with authority; and, third, a passive acquies cence in certain forms and ceremonies, or an active per formance thereof. II. The other I call the natural standard; that is, the manifestation of piety in the natural form of morality in its various degrees and modes of action. It is plain that the amount of piety in a man- or a town, will appear very different when tested by one or the other of these standards. It may be that very little water runs through the wooden trough which SPIRITUAL CONDITIONS 295 feeds the saw-mill at Niagara, and yet a good deal, blue and bounding, may leap over the rock, adown. its natural channel. In a matter of this importance, when taking account of a stock so precious as piety, it is but fair to try it by both standards. Let us begin with the conventional standard, and examine piety by its manifestation in the ecclesiastical forms. Here is a difficulty at the outset, in determin ing upon the measure, for there is no one and general ecclesiastical standard, common to all parties of Chris tians, from the Catholic to the Quaker; each measures by its own standard, but denies the correctness of all the others. It is as if a foot were declared the unit of long measure, and then the actual foot of the chief- justice of a State were taken as the rule by which to correct all measurements ; then the foot would vary as you went from North Carolina to South, and, in any one State, would vary with the health of the judge. However, to do what can be done with a measure thus uncertain, it is plain that, estimated by any eccle siastical standard, the amount of piety is small. There is, as men often say, " a general decline of piety ;" that is a common complaint, recorded, and registered. But what makes the matter worse to the ecclesiastical philosopher, and more appaUing to the complainers, is this : it is a decline of long standing. The disease which is thus lamented is said to be acute, but is proved to be chronic also ; only it would seem, from the la mentations of some modern Jeremiahs, that the decline went on with accelerated velocity, and, the more chronic the disease was, the acuter it also became. Tried by this standard, things seem discouraging. To get a clearer view let us look a little beyond our own borders at first, and then come nearer home. The 296 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC Catholic Church complains of a general defection. The majority of the Christian Church confesses that the Protestant Reformation was not a revival of re ligion, not a " great awakening," but a great f ailing to sleep; the faith of Luther and Calvin was a great decline of rehgion — a decline of piety in the eccle siastical form ; that modern philosophy, the physics of Galileo and Newton, the metaphysics of Descartes and of Kant mark another decline of religion — a de cline of piety in the philosophical form; that all the modern democracy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries marks a yet further decline of religion — a decline of piety in the political form ; that all the mod ern secular societies for removing the evils of men and their sins, mark a yet fourth dechne of religion — a de cline of piety in the philanthropic form. Certainly, when measured by the medieval standard of Catholi cism, these mark four great declensions of piety, for in aU four, the old principle of subordination to an external and personal authority is set aside. All over Europe this decline is still going on ; eccle siastical establishments are breaking down ; other estab lishments are a-building up. Pius the Ninth seems likely to fulfil his own prophecy, and be the last of the popes ; I mean the last with temporal power. There is a great schism in the North of Europe; the Germans will be Catholics, but no longer Roman. The old forms of piety, such as service in Latin, the withhold ing of the Bible from the people, compulsory confes sion, the ungrateful celibacy of a reluctant priesthood — aU these are protested against. It is of no avail that the holy coat of Jesus, at Treves, works greater miracles than the apostolical napkins and aprons ; of no avail that the Virgin Mary appeared on the 19th SPIRITUAL CONDITIONS 297 of September, 1846, to two shepherd-children, at La Salette, in France. What are such things to Ronge and Wessenberg? Neither the miraculous coat, nor the miraculous mother, avails aught against this un toward generation, charm they never so wisely. The decline of piety goes on. By the new Constitution of France, all forms of religion are equal; the Catholic and the Protestant, the Mahometan and the Jew are equally sheltered under the broad shield of the law. Even Spain, the fortress walled and moated about, whither the spirit of the Middle Ages retired and shut herself up long since, womanning her walls with un manly priests and kings, with unfeminine queens and nuns — even Spain fails with the general failure. British capitalists buy up her convents and nunneries, to turn them into woolen mills. Monks and nuns for get their beads in some new handicraft; sister Mary, who sat still in the house, is now also busy with serving — careful, indeed, about more things than formerly, but not cumbered nor troubled as before. Meditative Rachels and Hannahs, long unblest, who sat in soli tude, have now become hke practical Dorcas, making garments for the poor; the bank is become more im portant than the Inquisition. The order of St. Fran cis d'Assisi, of St. Benedict, even of St. Dominic him self, is giving way before the new order of Arkwright, Watt, and Fulton, — the order of the spinning jenny and the power-loom. It is no longer books on the miraculous conception, or meditations on the five wounds of the Saviour, or commentaries on the song of songs which is Solomon's, that get printed there; but fiery novels of Eugene Sue and George Sand ; and so extremes meet. Protestant establishments share the same peril. A 298 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC new sect of Protestants rises up in Germany, who dis sent as much from the letter and spirit of Protestant ism, as the Protestants from Catholicism; men that will not believe the infaUibility of the Bible, the doc trine of the trinity, the depravity of man, the eternity of future punishment, nor justification by faith — a justification before God, for mere belief before men. The new spirit gets possession of new men, who cannot be written down, nor even howled down. Excommuni cation or abuse does no good on such men as Bauer, Strauss, and Schwegler; and it answers none of their questions. It seems pretty clear, that in all the North of Germany, within twenty years, there will be entire freedom of worship, for all sects, Protestant and Cath olic. In England, Protestantism has done its work less faithfully than in Germany. The Protestant spirit of England came here two hundred years ago, so that new and Protestant England is on the west of the ocean; in England, an established church lies there still, an iceberg in the national garden. But even there the decline of the ecclesiastical form of piety is appar ent : the new bishops must not sit in the House of Lords till the old ones die out, for the number of lords spiritual must not increase, though the temporal may ; the new attempt, at Oxford and elsewhere, to restore the Middle Ages, wiU not prosper. Bring back all the old rites and forms into Leeds and Manchester ; teach men the theology of Thomas Aquinas, or of St. Bernard; bid them adore the uplifted wafer as the very God, men who toil all day with iron mills, who ride in steam- drawn coaches, and talk by lightning in a whisper, from the Irk to the Thames, — they will not consent to the philosophy or the theology of the Middle Ages, SPIRITUAL CONDITIONS 299 nor be satisfied with the old forms of piety, which, though too elevated for their fathers in the time of Elizabeth, are yet too low for them, at least too an tiquated. Dissenters have got into the House of Commons ; the Test Act is repealed, and a man can be a captain in the army, or a postmaster in a village, without first taking the Lord's Supper, after the fash ion of the Church of England. Some men demand the abandonment of tithes, the entire separation of Church and State, the return to " the voluntary principle " in rehgion. " The battering ram which leveled old Sarum," and other boroughs as corrupt, now beats on the Church, and the " Church is in danger." Men complain of the dechne of piety in England. An intelligent and very serious writer, not long ago, lamenting this dechne, in proof thereof relates that formerly men began their last wills, " In the name of God, Amen;" and headed bills of lading with, " Shipped in good order, by the grace of God ;" that indictments for capital crimes charged the culprit with committing felony, " At the instigation of the devil," and now, he complains, these forms have gone out of use. In America, in New England, in Boston, when measured by that standard, the same decline of piety is apparent. It is often said that our material con dition is better than our moral; that, in advance of our spiritual condition. There is a common clerical complaint of a certain thinness in the churches; men do not give their bodily attendance, as once they did ; they are ready enough to attend lectures, two or three in a week, no matter how scientific and abstract, or how little connected with their daily work, yet they cannot come to the church without teasing beforehand, 300 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC nor keep awake while there. It is said the minister is not respected as formerly. True, a man of power is respected, heard, sought, and followed, but it is for his power, for his words of grace and truth, not for his place in a pulpit; he may have more influence as a man, but less as a clergyman. Ministers lament a prevalent disbelief of their venerable doctrines ; that there is a concealed scepticism in regard to them, often not concealed. This, also, is a well-founded complaint; the well-known dogmas of theology were never in worse repute; there was never so large a por tion of the community in New England who were doubtful of the trinity, of eternal damnation, of total depravity, of the atonement, of the godhead of Jesus, of the miracles of the New Testament, and of the truth of every word of the Bible. A complaint is made that the rites and forms which are sometimes called " the ordinances of rehgion," are neglected; that few men join the church, and though the old hedge is broken down before the altar, yet the number of communi cants diminishes, and it is no longer able-headed men, the leaders of society, who come; that the ordinances seem haggard and ghastly to young men, who cannot feed their hungry souls on such a thin pittance of spiritual aliment as these afford; that the children are not baptized. These things are so: so in Europe, Catholic and Protestant ; so in America ; so in Boston. Notwithstanding the well-founded complaint that our modern churches are too costly for the times, we do not build temples which bear so high a proportion to our wealth as the early churches of Boston; the attendance at meeting does not increase as the popu lation ; the ministers are not prominent, as in the days of Wilson, of Cotton, and of Norton ; their education SPIRITUAL CONDITIONS 301 is not now in the same proportion to the general cul ture of the times. Harvard College, dedicated to " Christ and the Church," designed at first chiefly for the education of the clergy, graduates few ministers; theological literature no longer overawes all other. The number of church members was never so small in proportion to the voters as now; the number of Protestant births never so much exceeded the number of Protestant baptisms. Young men of superior abil ity and superior education have little affection for the ministry; take little interest in the welfare of the Church. Nay, youths descended from a wealthy family seldom look that way. It is poor men's sons, men of obscure family, who fill the pulpits; often, likewise, men of slender ability; eked out with an education proportionately scant. The most active members of the churches are similar in position, ability, and cul ture. These are undeniable facts. They are not peculiar to New England. You find them wherever the voluntary principle is resorted to. In England, in Cathohc countries, you find the old historic names in the established Church; there is no lack of aristocratic blood in clerical veins; but there and everywhere the Church seems falling astern of aU other craft which can keep the sea. Since these things are so, men who have only the conventional standard wherewith to measure the amount of piety, only that test to prove its existence by, think we are rapidly going to decay; that the tabernacle is fallen down, and no man rises to set it up. They complain that Zion is in distress; theological news papers lament that there are no revivals to report; that " the Lord has withheld His arm," and does not "pour out His Spirit upon the churches." Ghastly 302 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC meetings are held by men with sincere and noble heart, but saddened face; speeches are made which seem a groan of linked wailings long drawn out. Men mourn at the infidelity of the times, at the coldness of some, at the deadness of others. All the sects complain of this, yet each loves to attribute the deadness of the rival sects to their special theology ; it is Unitarianism which is choking the Unitarians, say their foes, and the Unitarians know how to retort after the same fashion. The less enlightened put the blame of this misfortune on the good God, who has somehow " with held His hand," or omitted to " pour out His Spirit," — the people perishing for want of the open vision. Others put the blame on mankind ; some on " poor human nature," which is not what might have been expected, — not perceiving that if the fault be there, it is not for us to remedy, and if God made man a bramble-bush, that no wailing will make him bear figs. Yet others refer this condition to the use made of human nature, which certainly is a more philo sophical way of looking at the matter. Now there is one sect which has done great service in former days; which is, I think, stiU doing some thing to enlighten and liberalize the land ; and, I trust, will yet do more, more even than it consciously intends. The name of Unitarian is deservedly dear to many of us, who yet wiU not be shackled by any denominational fetters. This sect has always been remarkable for a certain gentlemanly reserve about all that pertained to the inward part of religion; other faults it might have, but it did not incur the reproach of excessive enthusiasm, or a spirituality too sublimated and tran scendental for daily use. This sect has long been a speckled bird among the denominations, each of which SPIRITUAL CONDITIONS 303 has pecked at her, or at least cawed with most un- melodious croak against this new-fledged sect. It was said the Unitarians had " denied the Lord that bought them ; " that theirs was the Church of unbelief — not the Church of Christ, but of no-Christ; that they had a Bible of their own, and a thin, poor Bible, too ; that their ways were ways of destruction ; " Touch not, taste not, handle not," was to be written on their doc trines ; that they had not even the grace of lukewarm- ness, but were moral and stone cold; that they looked fair on the side turned towards man, but on the God- ward side it was a blank wall with no gate, nor window, nor loop-hole, nor eyelet for the Holy Ghost to come through; that their prayers were only a show of devotion to cover up the hard rock of the flinty heart, or the frozen ground of morahty. Their faith, it was said, was only a conviction after the case was proven by unimpeachable evidence, and good for nothing; while belief without evidence, or against proof, seems to be the right ecclesiastical talisman. For a long time the Unitarian sect did not grumble unduly, but set itself to promote the cultivation of reason, and apply that to religion ; to cultivate moral ity and apply it to life ; and to demand the most entire personal freedom for all men in all matters pertaining to religion. Hence came its merits; they were very great merits, too, and not at all the merits of the times, held in common with the other sects. I need not dweU on this, and the good works of Unitarianism, in this the most Unitarian city in the world; but as a general thing the Unitarians, it seems to me, did neglect the culture of piety ; and of course their moral ity, while it lasted, would be unsatisfactory, and in time would wither and dry up because it had no deep- 304 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC ness of earth to grow out of. The Unitarians, as a general thing, began outside, and sought to work inward; proceeding from the special to the general, by what might be called the inductive mode of religious culture : that was the form adopted in pulpits, and in families so far as there was any religious education attempted in private. That is not the method of nature, where all growth is the development of a living germ, which by an inward power appropriates the outward things it needs, and grows thereby. Hence came the defects of Unitarianism, and they were cer tainly very great defects; but they came almost un avoidably from the circumstances of the times. The sensational philosophy was the only philosophy that prevailed. The orthodox sects had always rejected a part of that philosophy, not in the name of science, but of piety; and they supplied its place not with a better philosophy, but with tradition, speaking with an authority which claimed to be above human nature. It was not in the name of reason that they rejected a false philosophy, but in the name of religion often denounced all philosophy and the reason which de manded it. The Unitarians rejected that portion of orthodoxy, became more consistent sensationalists, and arrived at results which we know. Now it is easy to see their error ; not difficult to avoid it ; but forty or fifty years ago it was almost impossible not to faU into this mistake. Sometimes it seems as if the Uni tarians were half conscious of this defect, and so dared not be original, but borrowed orthodox weapons, or continued to use Trinitarian phrases, long after they had blunted those weapons of their point, and emptied the phrases of their former sense. In the controversy between the orthodox and Unitarians, neither party SPIRITUAL CONDITIONS 305 was whoUy right: the Unitarians had reason to charge the orthodox with debasing man's nature, and repre senting God as not only unworthy, but unjust, and somewhat odious; the Trinitarians were mainly right in charging us with want of conscious piety, with beginning to work at the wrong end; but at the same time it must be remembered that, in proportion Jo their numbers, the Unitarians have furnished far more philanthropists and reformers than any of the other sects. It is time to confess this on both sides. For a long time the Unitarian sect did not complain much of the decline of piety; it did not care to have an organization, loving personal freedom too well for that ; and it had not much denominational feeling. Indeed, its members were kept together, not so much by an agreement and unity of opinion among them selves, as by a unity of opposition from without; it was not the hooks on their shields that held the legion together with even front, but the pressure of hostile shields crowded upon them from all sides. They did not believe in spasmodic action ; if a body was dead, they gave it burial, without trying to galvanize it into momentary life, not worth the spark it cost; they knew that a small cloud may make a good many flashes in the dark, but that many lightnings cannot make light. They stood apart from the violent efforts of other churches to get converts. The converts they got commonly adhered to their faith and in this respect differed a good deal from those whom " revivals " brought into other churches, with whom Christianity sprang up in a night, and in a night also perished. Some years ago, when this city was visited and rav aged by revivals, the Unitarians kept within doors, gave warning of the danger, and suffered less harm VII— 20 306 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC and loss from that tornado than any of the sects. Unitarianism seems, in this city, to have done its original work ; so the company is breaking up by degrees, and the men are going off, to engage in other business, to weed other old fields, or to break up new land, — each man following his own sense of duty, and for himself determining whether to go or stay. But at the same time an attempt is made to keep the company together ; to cultivate a denominational feeling ; to put hooks and staples on the shields which no longer offer that formidable and even front ; to teach all trumpets to give the same sectarian bray, all voices to utter the same war-cry. The attempt does not succeed; the ranks are disordered, the trumpets give an uncer tain sound, and the soldiers do not prepare themselves for denominational battle; nay, it often happens that the camp lacks the two sinews of war — both money and men. Hence the denominational view of religious affairs has undergone a change — I make no doubt a real and sincere change, though I know this has been denied, and the change thought only official. The men I refer to are sincere and devout men ; some of them quite above the suspicion of mere official conduct. This sect is now the loudest in its wailing ; these Chris tian Jeremiahs tell us that we do not realize spiritual things, that we are all dead men, that there is no health in us. These cold Unitarian Thomases crowd un- wontedly together in public to bewail the spiritual weather, the dearth of piety in Boston, the " general decline of religion " in New England. Church unto church raises the Macedonian cry, " Come over and help us ! " The opinion seems general that piety is in a poor way, and must have watchers, the strongest medicine, and nursing quite unusual, or it will soon SPIRITUAL CONDITIONS 307 be all over, and Unitarianism wiU give up the ghost. Various causes have I heard assigned for the malady; some think that there has been over-much preaching of philosophy, though perhaps there is not evidence to convict any one man in particular of the offense; that philosophy is the dog in the manger, who keeps the hungry Unitarian flock from their spiritual hay and cut straw, which are yet of not the smallest use to him. But look never so sharp, and you do not find this dangerous beast in the neighborhood of the fold. Others think that there has been also an excess of moral preaching, against the prevalent sins of the nation, I suppose ; but few individuals seem liable to conviction on that charge. Yet others think this decline comes from the fact that the terrors have not been duly and sufficiently administered from the pulpit ; that while Cathohcs and Methodists thrive under such influences, the Unitarian widows are neglected in the weekly ministration of terror and of threat; that there has not been so much an excess of lightning in the form of philosophy or morality, but only a lack of thunder. This temporary movement among the Unitarians of Boston is natural; in some respects it is what our fathers would have called " judicial." The Unitarians have been cold, have looked more at the outward man ifestations of goodness than at the inward spirit of piety which was to make the manifestations ; they have not had an excess of philosophy, or of morality, but a defect of piety. They have been more respectable than pious. They have not always quite rightly ap preciated the enthusiasm of sterner and more austere sects; not always done justice to the inwardness of religion those sects sought to promote. When their churches get a little thin, and their denominational 308 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC affairs a little disturbed, it is quite natural these Uni tarians should look after the cause, and pass over to lamentations at the present state of things ; while look ing at the community from the new point of view, it is quite natural that they should suppose piety on the decline, and religion dying out. Yes, in general it is plain that if men have no eyes but conventional eyes, no spirit but that of the ecclesiastical order they serve in, and of the denomination they belong to, it is natural for them to think that because piety does not flow in the old ecclesiastical channel, it does not flow anywhere, and there is none at all to run. Thus it is easy to explain the complaint of the Catholics at the great defection of the most enlightened nations of Europe; the lamentation of the Protestants at the heresy of the most enlightened portion of their sect; and the Unitarian wail over the general decline of piety in the city of Boston. Some men can only judge the present age by the conventional standard of the past, and as the old form of piety does not appear, they must conclude there is no piety. Let us now recur to the other or natural standard, and look at the manifestation of piety in the form of morality. Last Sunday I spoke of our moral con dition; and it appeared that morals were in a low state here when compared with the ideal morals of Christianity. Now, as the outward deed is but the manifestation of the inward life, and objective human^ ity the index of subjective divinity, so the low state of morals proves a low state of piety; if the heart of this town was right towards God, then would its hand also be right towards man. I am one of those who for long years have lamented the want of vital piety in this people. We not only do not realize SPIRITUAL CONDITIONS 309 spiritual things, but we do not make them our ideals. I see proofs of this want of piety in the low morals of trade, of the public press ; in poverty, intemperance, and crime; in the vices and social wrongs touched on the last Sunday. I judge the tree by its fruit. But it is not on this ground that the ecclesiastical com plaint is based. Men who ihake so much ado about the absence of piety, do not appeal for proof thereof to the great vices and prominent sins of the times ; they see no sign of that in our trade and our politics; in the misery that festers in putrid lanes, one day to breed a pestilence, which it were even cheaper to hinder now, than cure at a later time; nobody mentions as proof the Mexican War, the political dishonesty of officers, the rapacity of office-seekers, the servility of men who will tamely suffer the most sacred rights of three millions of men to be trodden into the dust. Matters which concern millions of men came up before your Congress ; the great senator of Massachusetts loitered away the time of the session here in Boston, managing a lawsuit for a few thousand doUars, and no fault was publicly found with such neglect of public duty: but men see no lack of piety indicated by this fact, and others hke it; they find signs of that lack in empty pews, in a deserted communion table, in the fact that children, though brought up to reverence truth and justice, to love man and to love God, are not baptized with water; or in the fact that Unitarianism or Trinitarianism is on the decline. How many waUings have we aU heard, or read, because the Puritan churches of Boston have not kept the faith of their grim founders; what lamentations at the rising up of a sect which refuses the doctrine of the trinity, or at the appearance of a few men who, 310 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC neglecting the common props of Christianity, rest it, for its basis, on the nature of man and the nature of God: though almost all the eminent philanthropy of the day is connected with these men, yet they are stiU called " infidel," and reviled on all hands ! The state of things mentioned in the last sermon does indicate a want of piety, a deep and a great want. I do not see signs of that in the debt and decay of churches, in absence from meetings, in doubt of theological dogmas, in neglect of forms and ceremonies which once were of great value; but I do see it in the low morals of trade, of the press, in the popular vices. On a national scale I see it in the depravity of political parties, in the wicked war we have just fought, in the slavery we stiU tolerate and support. Yes, as I look on the churches of this city, I see a want of piety in the midst of us. If eminent piety were in them, and allowed to follow its natural bent, it would come out of them in the form of eminent humanity; they would lead in the philanthropies of this day, where they hardly follow. In this condition of the churches I see a most signal proof of the low estate of piety; they do not manifest a love of truth, which is the piety of the intellect ; nor a love of justice, which is the piety of the moral sense ; nor a love of love, which is the piety of the affections ; nor a love of God as the Infinite Father of all men, which is the total piety of the whole soul. For lack of this internal divinity there is a lack of external humanity. Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? This is what I complain of, what I mourn over. The clergymen of this city are most of them sincere men, I doubt not; some of them men of a superior culture; many of them laborious men; most, perhaps SPIRITUAL CONDITIONS 311 aU of them, deeply interested in the welfare of the churches, and the promotion of piety. But how many of them are marked and known for their philanthropy, distinguished for their zeal in putting down any of the major sins of our day, zealous in any work of reform? I fear I can count them aU on the fingers of a single hand; yet there are enough to bewail the departure of monastic forms, and of the theology which led men in the dimness of a darker age, but cannot shine in the rising hght of this. I find no fault with these men; I blame them not; it is their pro fession which so blinds their eyes. They are as wise and as valiant as the churches let them be. What sect in aU this land ever cared about temperance, education, peace betwixt nations, or even the freedom of aU men in our own, so much as this sect cares for the baptizing of children with water, and that for the baptizing of men ; this for the doctrine of the trinity, and all for the infallibility of the Bible? Do you ask the sects to engage in the work of extirpating concrete wrong? It is in vain; each reformer tries it — the mild sects answer, " I pray thee have me ex cused ;" the sterner sects reply with awful speech. A distinguished theological journal of another city thinks the philanthropies of this day are hostile to piety, and declares that true spiritual Christianity never prevaUs where men think slavery is a sin. A distinguished minister of a highly respectable sect declares the temperance societies unchristian, and even atheistical. He reasons thus : The Church is an instru ment appointed by God and Christ to overcome all forms of wrong, intemperance among the rest; to neglect this instrument and devise another, a temper ance society, to wit, is to abandon the institutions of 312 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC God and Christ, and so it is unchristian and athe istical. In other words, here is intemperance, a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense, in our way ; there is an old wooden beetle, which has done great service of old time, and is said to have been made by God's own hand; men smite therewith the stone or smite it not ; still it lies there a stone of stumbling and a stone of shame ; other men approach, and with a sledge-ham mer of well-tempered steel smite the rock, and break off piece after piece, smoothing the rough imprac ticable way ; they caU on men to come to their aid, with such weapons as they will. But our minister bids them beware ; the beetle is " of the Lord," the iron which breaks the rock in pieces is an unchristian and atheistical instrument. Yet was this minister an earnest, a pious, and a self-denying man, who sin cerely sought the good of men. He had been taught to know no piety but in the Church's form. I would not do dishonor to the churches ; they have done great service, they still do much; I would only ask them to be worthy of their Christian name. They educate men a little, and allow them to approach emancipation, but never to be free and go alone. I see much to complain of in the condition of piety ; yet nothing to be alarmed at. When I look back, it seems worse still, far worse. There has not been " a decline of piety " in Boston of late years. Rehgion is not sick. Last Sunday I spoke of the great prog ress made in morality within fifty years ; I said it was an immense progress within two hundred years. Now, there cannot be such a progress in the outward mani festation without a corresponding and previous devel opment of the inward principle. Morality cannot grow without piety, more than an oak without water, SPIRITUAL CONDITIONS 313 earth, sun, and air. Let me go back one hundred years ; see what a difference between the rehgious aspect of things then and now! certainly there has been a great growth in spirituality since that day. I am not to judge men's hearts ; I may take their out ward lives as the test and measure of their inward piety. WiU you say the outward life never com pletely comes up to that? It does so as completely now as then. Compare the toleration of these times with those ; compare the intelligence of the community ; the temperance, sobriety, chastity, virtue in general. Look at what is now done in a municipal way by towns and States for mankind ; see the better provision made for the poor, for the deaf, the dumb, the blind, for the insane, even for the idiot ; see what is done for the education of the people — in schools, academies, coUeges, and by public lectures ; what is done for the criminal, to prevent the growth of crime. See what an amehoration of the penal laws; how men are saved and restored to society, who had once been wholly lost. See what is done by philanthropy still more eminent, which the town and State have not yet over taken and enacted into law; by the various societies for reform — those for temperance, for peace, for the discipline of prisons, for the discharged convicts, for freeing the slave. See this anti-slavery party, which, in twenty years, has become so powerful throughout all the Northern States, so strong that it cannot be howled down, and men begin to find it hardly safe to howl over it ; a party which only waits the time to hft up its million arms, and hurl the hateful institution of slavery out of the land! All these humane movements come from a divine piety in the soul of man. A tree which bears such fruits 314 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC is not a dead tree ; is not wholly to be despaired of ; is not yet in a " decline," and past all hope of recovery. Is the age wanting in piety, which makes such efforts as these? Yes, you will say, because it does no more. I agree to this ; but it is rich in piety compared to other times. Ours is an age of faith; not of mere belief in the commandments of men, but of faith in the nature of man and the commandments of God. This prevailing and contagious complaint about the decline of religion is not one of the new things of our time. In the beginning of the last century, Dr. Colman, first minister of the church in Brattle Street, lamented in small capitals over the general decline of piety : — " The venerable name of religion and of the Church is made a sham pretense for the worst of viUainies, for uncharitableness and unnatural oppression of the pious and the peaceable." " The perilous times are come, wherein men are lovers only of their own selves." " Ah ! calamitous day," says he, " into which we are fallen, and into which the sins of our infatuated age have brought us ! " He looks back to the founders of New England; they " were rich in faith, and heirs of a better world ; " " men of whom the world was not worthy ;" " they laid in a stock of prayers for us which have brought down many blessings on us already." Samuel Willard bewailed " the checkered state of the gospel Church ; " it was " in every respect a gloomy day and covered with thick clouds." We retire yet further back, to the end of the sev enteenth century ; a hundred and sixty or seventy years ago, Dr. Increase Mather, not only in his own pulpit, but also at "the great and Thursday lecture," la mented over "the degeneracy, and departing glory SPIRITUAL CONDITIONS 315 of New England." He complained that there was a neglect of the Sabbath, of the ordinances, and of family worship; he groaned at the lax discipline of the churches, and looked, says another, " as fearfully on the growing charity as on the growing vices of the age." He called the existing generation " an uncon verted generation." "Atheism and profaneness," says he, " have come to a prodigious height; " " God wiU visit " for these things ; " God is about to open the windows of heaven, and pour down the cataracts of His wrath ere this generation ... is passed away." If a comet appeared in the sky, it was to admonish men of the visitation, and make " the haughty daughters of Zion reform their pride of apparel." " The world is full of unbelief " (that is, in the malignant aspect and disastrous influence of comets), " but there is an awful Scripture for them that do profanely condemn such signal works ! " One of the present and weU-known indications of the decline of piety, that is often thought a modern luxury, and ridiculously denounced in the pulpit, which has done its part in fostering the enjoyment, was practised to an extent that alarmed the prim shepherds of the New England flock in earlier days. The same Dr. Mather preached a series of sermons " tending to pro mote the power of godliness," and concludes the whole with a discourse " of sleeping at sermons," and says : " To sleep in the pubhc worship of God is a thing too frequently and easily practised; it is a great and a dangerous evil." " Sleeping at a sermon is a greater sin than speaking an idle word. Therefore, if men must be caUed to account for idle words, much more for this ! " " Gospel sermons are among the most precious talents which any in this world have conferred 316 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC upon them. But what a sad account will be given concerning those sermons which have been slept away ! As light as thou makest of it now, it may be con science will roar for it upon a death-bed ! " " Verily, there is many a soul that will find this to be a dismal thought at the day of judgment, when he shall re member, so many sermons I might have heard for my everlasting benefit, but I slighted and slept them all away. Therefore consider, if men aUow themselves in this evil their souls are in danger to perish." " It is true that a godly man may be subject unto this as well as unto other infirmities ; but he doth not allow himself therein." " The name of the glorious God is greatly prophaned by this inadvertency." " The support of the evangelical ministry is dis couraged." He thought the character of the pulpit was not sufficient explanation of this phenomenon, and adds, in his supernatural way, " Satan is the external cause of this evil ; " " he had rather have men wakeful at any time than at sermon time." The good man mentions, by way of example, a man who " had not slept a wink at a sermon for more than twenty years together; " and also, but by way of warn ing, the unlucky youth in the Acts who slept at Paul's long sermon, and fell out of the window, and " was taken up dead." Sleeping was " adding something of our own to the worship of God ; " " when Nadab and Abihu did so, there went out fire from the Lord and consumed them to death." " The holy God hath not been a little displeased for this sin." " It is not punished by men, but therefore the Lord himself will visit for it." " Tears of blood will trickle down thy dry and damned cheeks for ever and ever, because thou mayest not be so happy as to hear one sermon, SPIRITUAL CONDITIONS 317 or to have one offer of grace more throughout the never-ending days of eternity." Other men denounced their " Woe to sleepy sinners," and issued their " Pro posals for the revival of dying religion." Dr. Mather thought there was " a deluge of pro- phaneness," and bid men " be much in mourning and humiliation, that God's bottle may be filled with tears." He thought piety was going out because surplices were coming in ; it was wicked to " consecrate a church ; " keeping Christmas was " like the idolatry of the calf." The common prayer, an organ, a musical instrument in a church, was " not of God." Such things were to our worthy fathers in the ministry what temperance and anti-slavery societies are to many of their sons — an " abomination," " unchristian and atheistic." The introduction of " regular singing " was an indication to some that " all religion is to cease ; " " we might as well go over to popery at once." Inoculation for the smaUpox was as vehemently and ably opposed as the modern attempt to abolish the gallows ; it was " a trusting more to the machinations of men than to the aU-wise providence of God." " When the enchantments of this world," says the ecclesiastical historian, " caused the rising generation more sensibly to neglect the primitive designs and interests of rehgion propounded by their fathers, a change in the tenor of the divine dispensation towards this country was quickly the matter of every one's observation." " Our wheat and our peas fell under an unaccountable blast." " We were visited with mul tiplied shipwrecks." " Pestilential sicknesses did some times become epidemic among us." " Indians cruelly butchered many hundreds of our inhabitants, and scattered whole towns with miserable ruins." " The 318 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC serious people throughout the land were awakened by these intimations of divine displeasure to inquire into the causes and matters of the controversie." Accord ingly, in 1679, a synod was convened at Boston, to " inquire into the causes of the Lord's controversie with His New England people," who determined the matter. A little later, in 1690, the General Court considered the subject anew, and declared that " A corruption of manners, attended with inexcusable degeneracies and apostacies ... is the cause of the controversie." We " are now arriving at such an extremity, that the axe is laid to the root of the trees, and we are in imminent danger of perishing, if a speedy reformation of our provoking evils prevent it not." In 1702, Cotton Mather complains that " Our manifold indis positions to recover the dying power of godliness were successive calamities, under all of which our apostacies from that godliness have rather proceeded than abated." " The old spirit of New England has been sensibly going out of the world, as the old saints in whom it was have gone ; and, instead thereof, the spirit of the world, with a lamentable neglect of strict piety, has crept in upon the rising generation." You go back to the time of the founders and fathers of the colony, and it is no better. In 1667, Mr. Wil son, who had " a singular gift in the practice of dis cipline," on his death-bed declared, that " God would judge the people for their rebellion and self-willed spirit, for their contempt of civil and ecclesiastical rulers, and for their luxury and sloth ; " and before that he said, " People rise up as Corah, against their ministers." " And for our neglect of baptizing the children of the church, ... I think God is pro voked by it. Another sin I take to be the making SPIRITUAL CONDITIONS 319 hght ... of the authority of the synods." John Norton, whose piety was said to be " grace grafted on a crab-stock " in 1660, growled, after his wont, on account of the " heart of New England, rent with the blasphemies of this generation." John Cot ton, the ablest man in New England, who " hked to sweeten his mouth with a piece of Calvin, before he went to sleep," and was so pious that another could not swear whUe he was under the roof, mourned at " the condition of the churches ; " and, in 1652, on his death-bed, after bestowing his blessing on the Presi dent of Harvard College, who had begged it of him, exhorted the elders to " increase their watch against those declensions which he saw the professors of re ligion falling into." In 1641, such was the condition of piety in Boston, that it was thought necessary to banish a man, because he did not believe in original sin. In 1639 a fast was appointed, " to deplore the prevalence of the smallpox, the want of zeal in the professors of rehgion, and the general decay of piety." " The church of God had not been long in this wilder ness," thus complains a minister, one hundred and fifty years ago, " before the dragon cast forth several floods to devour it; but not the least of these was one of the antinomian and f amihstical heresies." " It is in credible what ahenations of mind, and what a very calenture the devil raised in the country upon this odd occasion." " The sectaries " " began usually to seduce women into their notions, and by these women, like their first mother, they soon hooked in the husbands also." So, in 1637, the synod of Cambridge was convened, to despatch " the apostate serpent ; " one woman was duly convicted of holding " about thirty monstrous opinions," and subsequently, by the civil 320 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC authorities, banished from the colony. The synod, after much time was " spent in ventilation and empty ing of private passions," condemned eighty-two opin ions, then prevalent in the colony, as erroneous, and decided to " refer doubts to be resolved by the great God." Even in 1636 John Wilson lamented "the dark and distracted condition of the churches of NeW England." " The good old times," when piety was in a thriving state, and the churches successful and contented, lay as far behind the " Famous Johns," as it now does behind their successors in office and lamentation. Then, as now, the complaint had the same foundation : minis ters and other good men could not see that new piety will not be put into the old forms, neither the old forms of thought nor the old forms of action. In the days of Wilson, Cotton, and Norton, there was a gradual growth of piety ; in the days of the Mathers, of Col- man, and Willard, and from that time to this, there has been a steady improvement of the community, in intellectual, moral, and religious culture. Some men could not see the progress two hundred years ago, because they believed in no piety, except as it was manifested in their conventional forms. It is so now. Mankind advances by the irresistible law of God, under the guidance of a few men of large discourse, who look before and after, but amid the wailing of many who think each advance is a retreat, and every stride a stumble. Nowadays nobody complains at " the ungodly cus tom of wearing long hair; " no dandy is dealt with by the Church for his dress ; the weakest brother is not offended by " regular singing " — so it be regular, — " by organs and the like ; " nobody laments at " the SPIRITUAL CONDITIONS 321 reading of Scripture lessons," or "the use of the Lord's Prayer" in public rehgious services, or is offended because a clergyman makes a prayer at a funeral, and solemnizes a marriage, — though these are " prelatical customs," and were detested by our fathers. Yet, other things, now as much dreaded, and thought " of a bad and dangerous tendency," will one day prove themselves as innocent, though now as much mourned over. Many an old doctrine will fade out, and though some think a star has fallen out of heaven, a new truth wiU rise up and take its place. It is to be expected that ministers will often complain of " the general decay of religion." The position of a clergyman, fortunate in many things, is unhappy in this: he seldom sees the result of his labors, except in the conventional form mentioned above. The lawyer, the doctor, the merchant and mechanic, the statesman and the farmer, aU have visible and palpable results of their work, while the minister can only see that he has baptized men, and admitted them to his church ; the visible and quotable tokens of his success are a large audience, respectable and attentive, a thriving Sunday-school, or a considerable body of communi cants. If these signs fail, or become less than for merly, he thinks he has labored in vain, that piety is on the decline: for it is only by this form that he commonly tests and measures piety itself. Hence, a sincere and earnest minister, with the limitations which he so easily gets from his profession and social position, is always prone to think iU of the times, to undervalue the new wine which refuses to be kept in the old bottles, but rends them asunder; hence he bewails the decline of religion, and looks longingly back to the days of his fathers. VII— 21 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC But you will ask, Why does not a minister demand piety in its natural form? Blame him not; uncon sciously he fulfils his contract, and does what he is taught, ordained, and paid for doing. It is safe for a minister to demand piety of his parish, in the con ventional form; not safe to demand it in the form of morality — eminent piety, in the form of philan thropy : it would be an innovation ; it would " hurt men's feelings ; " it might disturb some branches of business; at the North, it would interfere with the liquor-trade ; at the South, with the slave-trade ; every where it would demand what many men do not hke to give. If a man asks piety in the form of bodily attendance at church, on the only idle day in the week, when business and amusement must be refrained from, — in the form of belief in doctrines which are commonly accepted by the denomination, and com pliance with its forms, — that is customary ; it hurts nobody's feelings ; it does not disturb the liquor-trade, nor the slave-trade ; it interferes with nothing, not even with respectable sleep in a comfortable pew. A min ister, like others, loves to be surrounded by able and respectable men; he seeks, therefore, a congregation of such. If he is himself an able man, it is well; but there are few in any calling whom we designate as able. Our weak man cannot instruct his parishioners ; he soon leams this, and ceases to give them counsel on matters of importance. They would not suffer it, for the larger includes the less, not the less the larger. He is not strong by nature; their position overlooks and commands his. He must speak and give some counsel ; he wisely limits himself to things of but little practical interest, and his parishioners are not offended : " That is my sentiment exactly," says the most worldly SPIRITUAL CONDITIONS 323 man in the church, " rehgion is too pure to be mixed up with the practical business of the street." The original and effectual preaching in such cases, is not from the pulpit down upon the pews, but from the pews up to the pulpit, which only echoes, consciously or otherwise, but does not speak. In a solar system, the central sun, not barely power ful from its position, is the most weighty body — heavier than all the rest put together; so with even swing they aU revolve about it. Our little ministerial sun was ambitious of being amongst large satellites; he is there, but the law of gravitation amongst men is as certain as in matter; he cannot poise and swing the system; he is not the sun thereof, not even a primary planet, only a httle satellite revolving with many nutations round some primary, in an orbit that is obhque, complicated, and difficult to calculate; now waxing in a " revival," now waning in a " decline of piety," now totaUy eclipsed by his primary that comes between him and the light which lighteth every man. Put one of the cold thin moons of Saturn into the center of the solar system, — would the universe revolve about that little dot? Loyal matter with irresistible fealty gravitates towards the sun, and wheels around the balance-point of the world's weight, be it where it may, called by whatever name. While ministers insist unduly on the conventional manifestation of piety, it is not a thing unheard of for a layman to resolve to go to heaven by the ecclesiastical road, yet omit resolving to be a good man before he gets there. Such a man finds the ordinary forms of piety very convenient, and not at all burdensome; they do not interfere with his daily practice of injus tice and meanness of soul; they seem a substitute for SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC real and manly goodness; they offer a royal road to saintship here and heaven hereafter. Is the man in arrears with virtue, having long practised wickedness and become insolvent? This form is a new bankrupt law of the spirit, he pays off his old debts in the ecclesiastical currency — a pennyworth of form for a pound of substantial goodness. This bankrupt sinner, cleared by the ecclesiastical chancery, is a solvent saint ; he exhorts at meetings, strains at every gnat, and mourns over " the general decay of piety," and teaches other men the way in which they should go — to the same end. " So morning insects, that in muck begun, Shine, buzz, and fly-blow in the evening sun." I honor the founders of New England; they were pious men — their lives proved it ; but domineered over by false opinions in theology, they put their piety into very unnatural and perverted forms. They had ideas which transcended their age; they came here to make those ideas into institutions. That they had great faults, bigotry, intolerance, and superstition, is now generally conceded. They were picked men, " wheat sifted out of three kingdoms," to plant a new world withal. They have left their mark very deep and very distinct in this town, which was their prayer and their pride. It may seem unjust to ourselves to com pare a whole community like our own with such a com pany as filled Boston in the first half century of its ex istence, — men selected for their spiritual hardihood; but here and how, in the midst of Boston, are men quite as eminent for piety, who as far transcend this age as the Puritans and the Pilgrims surpassed their time. The Puritan put his religion into the ecclesiastical SPIRITUAL CONDITIONS 325 form ; not into the form of the Roman or the English Church, but into a new one of his own. His descend ant, inheriting his father's faith in God, and stern self-denial, but sometimes without his bigotry, intoler ance, and superstition, with little fear but with more love of God, and consequently with more love of man, puts his piety into a new form. It is not the form of the old Church ; the Church of the Puritans is to him often what the Church of the Pope and the prel ates was to his ungentle sire. He puts his piety into the form of goodness ; eminent piety becomes philan thropy, and takes the shape of reform. In such men, in many of their foUowers, I see the same trust in God, the same scorn of compromising right and truth, the same unfaltering aUegiance to the eternal Father, which shone in the Pilgrims who founded this new world, which fired the reformers of the Church; yes, which burned in the hearts of Paul and John. Piety has not failed and gone out; each age has its own forms thereof; the old and passing can never under stand the new, nor can they consent to decrease with the increase of the new. Once men put their piety into a church, Cathohc or Protestant ; they made creeds and beheved them ; they devised rites and symbols, which helped their faith. It was well; but we cannot beheve those creeds, nor be aided by such symbols and such rites. Why pretend to drag a weighty crutch about because it helped your father once, wandering alone and in the dark, sounding on his dim and perilous way? Once earthen roads were the best we knew, and horses' feet had shoes of swiftness; now we need not, out of reverence, refuse the iron road, the chariot and the steed of flame; nor out of irreverence need we spurn the path our fathers trod; sorely bested and 326 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC hunted after, tear-bedewed and travel-stained, they journeyed there, passing on to their God. If the mother that bore us were never so rude, and to our eyes might seem never so graceless now, still she was our mother, and without her we should not have been born. Wives and children may men have, and mani fold ; each has but one mother. The great institution we call the Christian Church has been the mother of us aU; and though in her own dotage she deny our piety, and call us infidel, far be it from me to with hold the richly earned respect. Behind a decent veil, then, let us hide our mother's weakness, and ourselves pass on. Once piety built up a theocracy, and men say it was divine; now piety, everywhere in Christen dom, builds up democracies ; it is a diviner work. The piety of this age must manifest itself in moral ity, and appear in a church where the priests are men of active mind and active hand; men of ideas, who commune with God and man through faith and works, finding no truth is hostile to their creed, no goodness foreign to their litany, no piety discordant with their psalm. The man who once would have built a convent and been its rigorous chief, now founds a temperance society, contends against war, toils for the pauper, the criminal, the madman, and the slave, for men bereft of senses and of sense. The synod of Dort and of Cambridge, the assembly of divines at Westminster, did what they could with what piety they had; they put it into decrees and platforms, into catechisms and creeds. But the various conventions for reform put their piety into resolves and then into philanthropic works. I do not believe there has ever been an age when piety bore so large a place in the whole being of New England as at this day, or attendance on SPIRITUAL CONDITIONS 327 church forms so smaU a part. The attempts made and making for a better education of the people, the lectures on science and hterature abundantly attended in this town, the increased fondness for reading, the better class of books which are read — all these indi cate an increased love of truth, the intellectual part of piety; societies for reform and for charity show an increase of the moral and affectional parts of piety ; the better, the lovelier idea of God, which all sects are embracing, is a sign of increased love of God. Thus all parts of piety are proving their existence by their work. The very absence from the churches, the disbelief of the old sour theologies, the very neglect of outward forms and ceremonies of religion, the de chne of the ministry itself — under the present circum stances — shows an increase of piety. The baby-clothes were well and wide for the baby; now, the fact that he cannot get them on shows plainly that he has out grown them, — is a boy, and no longer a baby. Once Piety fled to the Church as the only sanctuary in the waste wide world, and was fondly welcomed there, fed and fostered. When power fled off from the Church — "Wilt thou also go away?" said she. "Lord," said Piety, "to whom shall we go? Thou only hast the words of everlasting life." Once con vents and cathedrals were what the world needed as shelter for this fair child of God; then she dwelt in the grim edifice that our fathers built, and for a time counted herself " lodged in a lodging where good things are." Now is she grown able to wander forth fearless and free, lodging where the night overtakes her, and doing what her hands find to do, not un attended by the Providence which hitherto has watched over and blessed her. I respect piety in the Hebrew SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC saints, prophets, and bards, who spoke the fiery speech, or sung their sweet and soul-inspiring psalm : — "Out from the heart of nature rolled The burdens of the Bible old." I honor piety among the saints of Greece, clad in the form of philanthropy and art, speaking stiU in dramas, in philosophies, and song, and in the temple and the statue too : — 'Not from a vain or shallow thought His awful Jove young Phidias brought." I admire at the piety of the Middle Ages, which founded the monastic tribes of men; which wrote the theologies, scholastic and mystic both, stiU speaking to the mind of men, or in poetic legends insinuated truth ; which built that heroic architecture, overmastering therewith the sense and soul of man : — "The passive Master lent his hand To the vast soul that o'er him planned; And the same power that reared the shrine Bestrode the tribes that knelt within." But the piety which I find now, in this age, here in our own land, I respect, honor, and admire yet more; I find it in the form of moral life; that is the piety I love, piety in her own loveliness. Would I could find poetic strains as fit to sing of her — but yet such "Loveliness needs not the foreign aid of ornament, But is, when unadorned, adorned the most." Let me do no dishonor to other days, to Hebrew or to Grecian saints. Unlike and hostile though they were, they jointly fed my soul in earhest days. I would not underrate the medieval saints, whose words SPIRITUAL CONDITIONS and works have been my study in a manlier age; yet I love best the fair and vigorous piety of our own day. It is beautiful, amid the strong, rank life of the nine teenth century, amid the steam mills and the telegraphs which talk by lightning, amid the far-reaching enter prises of our time, and amid the fierce democracies, it is beautiful to find this fragrant piety growing up in unwonted forms, in places where men say no seed of heaven can lodge and germinate. So in a June meadow, when a boy, and looking for the cranberries of another year, faded and tasteless, amid the pale but coarse rank grass, and discontented that I found them not, so I have seen the crimson Arethusa or the Cymbidium shedding an unexpected loveliness o'er all the watery soil, and all the pale and coarse rank grass, a prophecy of summer near at hand. So in October, when the fields are brown with frost, the blue and fringed gentian meets your eye, fiUing with thankful tears. There is no decline of piety, but an increase of it; a good deal has been done in two hundred years, in one hundred years, — yes, in fifty years. Let us ad mit, with thankfulness of heart, that piety is in greater proportion to all our activity now than ever before; but then compare ourselves with the ideal of human nature, our piety with the ideal piety, and we must confess that we are little and very low. Boston is the most active city in the world, the most enterprising. In no place is it so easy to obtain men's ears and their purses for any good word and work. But think of the evils we know of and tolerate; think of an ideal Christian city, then think of Boston; of a Christian man, — ay, of Christ himself, — and then think of you and me, and we are filled with shame. If there were 330 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC a true, manly piety in this town in due proportion to our numbers, wealth and enterprise, how long would the vices of this city last? How long would men com plain of a dead body of divinity and a dead Church, and a ministry that was dead? How long would intemperance continue, and pauperism, in Boston ; how long slavery in this land? Last Sunday, in the name of the poor, I asked you for your charity. To-day I ask for dearer alms; I ask you to contribute your piety. It will help the town more than the little money aU of us can give. Your money will soon be spent ; it feeds one man once ; we cannot give it twice, though the blessing thereof may linger long in the hand which gave. Few of us can give much money to the poor ; some of us none at all. This we can aU give: the inspiration of a man with a man's piety in his heart, hving it out in a man's life. Your money may be ill spent, your charity misapplied, but your piety never. After aU, there is nothing you can give which men wiU so readily take and so long remember as this. Mothers can give it to their daughters and their sons; men, after spending thereof profusely at home, can coin their inexhausted store into industry, patience, integrity, temperance, justice, humanity, a practical love of man. A thou sand years ago, it was easy to excuse men if they chiefly showed religion in the conventional pattern of the Church. Forms then were helps, and the nun has been mother to much of the charity of our times. It is easy to excuse our fathers for their superstitious reverence for rites and forms. But now, in an age which has its eyes a little open, a practical and a handy age, we are without excuse if our piety appears not in a manly life, our faith in works. To give this SPIRITUAL CONDITIONS 331 piety to cheer and bless mankind, you must have it first, be cheered and blessed thereby yourself. Have it, then, in your own way ; put it into your own form. Do men tell you, " This is a degenerate age," and "Rehgion is dying out?" tell them that when those stars have faded out of the sky from very age, when other stars have come up to take their place, and they too have grown dim and hoUow-eyed and old, that rehgion will still live in man's heart, the primal, ever lasting light of all our being. Do they tell you that you must put piety into their forms ; put it there if it be your place; if not, in your place. Let men see the divinity that is in you by the humanity that comes out from you. If they will not see it, cannot, God can and will. Take courage from the past, not its counsel; fear not now to be a man. You may find a new Eden where you go, a river of God in it, and a tree of life, an angel to guard it ; not the warn ing angel to repel, but the guiding angel to welcome and to bless. It was four years yesterday since I first came here to speak to you; I came hesitatingly, reluctant, with much diffidence as to my power to do what it seemed to me was demanded. I did not come merely to pull down, but to build up, though it is plain much theo logical error must be demolished before any great re form of man's condition can be brought about. I came not to contend against any man, or sect, or party, but to speak a word for truth and religion in the name of man and God. I was in bondage to no sect; you in bondage to none. When a boy I learned that there is but one religion though many theologies. I have found it in Christians and in Jews, in Quakers and in 332 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC Catholics. I hope we are all ready to honor what is good in each sect, and in rejecting its evil not to forget our love and wisdom in our zeal. When I came I certainly did not expect to become a popular man, or acceptable to many. I had done much which in all countries brings odium on a man, though perhaps less in Boston than in any otJher part of the world. I had rejected the popular theology of Christendon. I had exposed the low morals of society, had complained of the want of piety in its natural form. I had fatally offended the sect, small in numbers, but respectable for intelligence and good ness, in which I was brought up. I came to look at the signs of the times from an independent point of view, and to speak on the most important of all themes. I thought a house much smaller than this would be much too large for us. I knew there would be fit audience; I thought it would be few, and the few would soon have heard enough and go their ways. I know I have some advantages above most clergy men : I am responsible to no sect ; no sect feels re sponsible for me ; I have rejoiced at good things which I have seen in all sects; the doctrines which I try to teach do not rest on tradition, on miracles, or on any man's authority; only on the nature of man. I seek to preach the natural laws of man. I appeal to his tory for illustration, not for authority. I have no fear of philosophy. I am willing to look a doubt fairly in the face, and think reason is sacred as con science, affection, or the religious faculty in man. I see a profound piety in modern science. I have aimed to set forth absolute religion, the ideal religion of hu man nature, free piety, free goodness, free thought. I call that Christianity, after the greatest man of the SPIRITUAL CONDITIONS world, one who himself taught it ; but I know that this was never the Christianity of the churches in any age. I have endeavored to teach this religion and apply it to the needs of this time. These things certainly give me some advantages over most other ministers. Of the disadvantages which are personal to myself, I need not speak, in public, but some which come from my position ought to be noticed with a word. The walls of this house, the associations connected with it ; furnish httle help to devotion; we must rely on our selves whoUy for that. Other clergymen, by their occasional exchanges, can present their hearers with an agreeable variety in substance and in form. A single man, often heard, becomes wearisome and un profitable, for " no man can feed us always." This I feel to be a great disadvantage which I labor under. Your kindness and affectionate indulgence make me feel it aU the more. But one man cannot be twenty men. When I came here I knew I should hurt men's feel ings. My theology would prove more offensive and radical than men thought ; the freedom of speech which men liked at a distance would not be pleasing when near at hand; my doctrines of morality I knew could not be pleasing to all men; not to all good men. I saw by your looks that in my abstractions I did not go too far for your sympathy, or too fast for your f oUowing. I soon found that my highest thought and most pious sentiment were most warmly welcomed as such ; but when I came to put abstract thought and mystical piety into concrete goodness, and to translate what you had accepted as Christian faith into daily life ; when I came to apply piety to trade, politics, life in general, I knew that I should hurt men's feelings. 334 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC It could not be otherwise. Yet I have had a most patient and faithful hearing. One thing I must do in my preaching: I must be in earnest. I cannot stand here before you and before God, attempting to teach piety and goodness and not feel the fire and show the fire. The. greater the wrong, the more popular, the more must I oppose it, and with the clearer, abler speech. It is not necessary for me to be popular to be acceptable, even to be loved. It is necessary that I should tell the truth. But let that pass. You come hither week after week, it is now year after year that you come, to listen to one humble man. Do you get poor in your souls? Does your religion become poor and low? Are you getting less in the qualities of a man? If so, then leave me to empty seats, to cold and voiceless walls ; go elsewhere and feed your souls with a wise passiveness, or an activity wiser yet. Such is your duty ; let no affection for me hinder you from performing it. The same theology, the same form suits not all men. But if it is not so, if I do you good, if you grow in mind and conscience, heart and soul, then I ask one thing — Let your piety become natural life, your divinity, become humanity. NOTES NOTES I THE MERCANTILE CLASSES This sermon was preached at the Melodeon on Sun day, November 22, 1846, and was shortly afterwards printed in pamphlet form. It appeared in Volume I of the 2nd series of Parker's Speeches, Addresses, and Oc casional Sermons published in 1852 and in Volume 7 of Miss Cobbe's edition of Parker's works. Page 2, note 1. This allusion is to the famous bank ing house of the Rothschilds. Page 8, note 2. Parker's contempt for the calhng of the soldier was unnatural for the grandson of Cap tain Parker of Lexington and was obviously fostered by his hatred of the Mexican War which was being fought when this sermon was preached. Page 10, note 3. This quotation is from the seventh hne of the poem called " The Bastard," printed in 1728 and written by Richard Savage (1697-1743). Page 11, note 1/.. This allusion to the struggle of a poor man's son to obtain an education is obviously a reflection of Parker's own experience. Page 16, note 5. The Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, in Article Thirty-five, prescribe the " Book of Homilies " which is " to be read in churches by the ministers, diligently and distinctly, that they may be understanded of the people." Page 20, note 6. The repeal of the Corn Laws, which established Free Trade in Great Britain, passed the House of Commons on May 15, 1846. Page 21, note 7. This reference is again to the war with Mexico. Page 22, note 8. In his inaugural address on Jan uary 5, 1846, Hon. Josiah Quincy, Mayor of Bos- VII— 22 337 338 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC ton, dealt with the need of improving the water supply of the city. Ground was broken for an aqueduct to bring the waters of Lake Cochituate to the city on August 20, 1846, three months before this sermon was preached, and the work was completed on October 28, 1848. Page 23, note 9. The reference is to the report of M. Villerme in the MSmoires de Vlnstitut, Vol. LXXI. Page 24, note 10. In 1844, Governor Briggs of Massachusetts appointed Samuel Hoar and Henry Hub bard to be agents of the Commonwealth of Massachu setts respectively in South Carolina and Louisiana to care for the interests of citizens of Massachusetts in those two States. They were particularly to interest themselves in the welfare of colored seamen who were Massachusetts citizens and who might be in trouble in Charleston or New Orleans. Both gentlemen endeav ored to fulfil their commission and both had the same experience. Mr. Hoar was forcibly expelled from Charleston and Mr. Hubbard was driven from New' Orleans on the assurance that his life there was in im minent peril. Page 26, note 11. It is impossible to accept Park er's theory that the abolition of the slave-trade was brought about primarily by commercial considerations. The moral arguments, and not the mercantile, were paramount. Page 26, note 12. This phrase, which Abraham Lincoln afterwards immortalized in a slightly different form, frequently occurred in Parker's sermons. See Historic Americans, note 1, page 430. Page 28, note 13. This reference is to Daniel Web ster concerning whose subserviency to the " Mercantile Classes " Parker cherished some stubborn and unjust prejudices. For Webster's real relation to his rich constituents, see Historic Americans, note 67, page 458. NOTES 339 Page 30, note lJf.. At a meeting of Unitarian min isters held in May, 1845, a committee was appointed to " draw up and circulate for signature among the ministers of the Unitarian body a Protest against the institution of American Slavery." This Protest was signed by one hundred and seventy-three ministers. It is printed in the Christian Examiner for January 1846. Page 32, note 15. This is one of the exaggerated statements in which Parker too frequently indulged. For the time being Parker forgot such political writ ings as those of Hamilton and Jefferson, Webster and Clay, which certainly contained nothing which can justly be called " an imitation of a foreign type." He forgot Irving's Sketch Book, and Emerson's Nature, and Whittier's New England Ballads, and Bryant's Water Fowl. All these and many more standard works of American literature had been published and they certainly reflect not only American morals and man ners but also American mountains and skies. Page 3 If., note 16. Ann Street, in the North End of Boston, was a region of boarding houses and low sa loons chiefly resorted to by sailors. II THE LABORING CLASSES This essay was published in Dial for April, 1841, under the title " Thoughts on Labor." It is reprinted in Parker's Critical and Miscellaneous Writings in 1843 and is included in Volume 9 of Miss Cobbe's edi tion of Parker's works. SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC III THE EDUCATION OF THE LABORING CLASSES This was a lecture given before the American Insti tute for Instmction in August, 1841. It was printed in the " Critical and Miscellaneous Writings " in 1843, and is included in Volume 8 of Miss Cobbe's edition of Parker's works. Page 91, note 1. This reference is undoubtedly to Frederick William III of Prussia, who died in 1840, the year before this lecture was delivered. IV THE PERISHING CLASSES This sermon was preached at the Melodeon on Sun day, August 30, 1846. It was printed in pamphlet form shortly after its delivery and again in 1847. It is included in Volume I of the Speeches, Addresses and Occasional Sermons and in Volume 8 of Miss Cobbe's edition. Page 10 4, note 1. This phrase is a curious illustra tion of the swing of the balance in philanthropic councils. Parker pleads that the question What shall be done for people? should be substituted for the question What shall be done with them? In sixty years the emphasis has returned to the older form. Modern philanthropy deprecates doing things " for " people except in dire emergencies, but urges working " with " the destitute or vicious. The emphasis is upon the personal, sacrifice and cooperation of the strong with the weak, helping them to achieve for them selves self-respect and self-support. Page 115, note 2. The ignominy and shame of the war with Mexico appeared in practicaUy all of Park er's discourses of this period. NOTES 341 Page 122, note 3. The Washingtonian movement was a famous temperance crusade which started in Baltimore in April, 1840, and, under the leadership of John H. W. Hawkins, spread rapidly to other cities and states. By the end of 1841 more than a hundred thousand men had signed the Washington pledge. After 1842 the movement declined, though Mr. Hawk ins continued the work of a temperance agitator until his death. Page 122, note 4- In a note in the pamphlet edi tion of the sermon Parker gives the credit of this reform to President Edward Everett. " For this," he wrote, " he deserves the hearty thanks of the whole community." Page 123, note 5. Reference to the case of the Rev. John Pierpont and the Hollis St. Church was almost as frequent in Parker's Sermons as the denunciation of the Mexican War. Page 128, note 6. The suggestion of a State Farm School for Juvenile Offenders was made in 1846, by Mr. Theodore Lyman of Boston. Originally known as the State Reform School it was opened in 1848, the first school for the prevention of crime maintained by any State or country in the world. It was later liberally endowed by Mr. Lyman and is now famous as the Lyman School. Page 131, note 7. This reference is doubtless to the brothers Charles and John Murray Spear, who were active in behalf of discharged prisoners and who later (1848—1857) conducted a monthly magazine de voted to Prison Reform and allied subjects, entitled " The Prisoner's Friend." Page 132, note 8. This reference is to the work of Mr. John Augustus; Page 135, note 9. This allusion is to the death of Mr. Nathaniel F. Thayer, a young and active sup porter of Mr. Parker's. SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC V THE DANGEROUS CLASSES This sermon was preached at the Melodeon on Sun day, January 31, 1847, and at once printed in pam phlet form. It is included in Volume I of the Speeches, Addresses and Occasional Sermons and in Volume 8 of Miss Cobbe's edition of Parker's works. Page 143, note 1. It is a curious reminder of the great change in social and industrial conditions in Mas sachusetts to find Parker classing the " Irish " with " negroes, Indians, Mexicans and the like." In the sixty years since that phrase was written Boston has become almost an Irish city, and the Irish, far from being " Gibeonites," are among the political and in dustrial leaders of the Commonwealth. Page 154, note 2. Parker's desire for the abohtion of capital punishment in Massachusetts has not been fulfilled. Other States that have for a time abolished it have been obliged by pressure of circumstances and increase of crime to reenact the statute. Page 162, note 3. The principle of the indetermi nate sentence had been only just suggested in Parker's day. It would have abundantly satisfied him, for in motive and practice it is just what he advocated. Page 172, note 4- This reference is to Horace Mann, who was elected Secretary of the State Board of Education on June 29, 1837, at a salary of $1,000 a year. Page 178, note 5. This allusion is to the gift of Mr. Theodore Lyman for " a manual labor school for the employment, instruction and reformation of juve nile offenders." See page 128, note 6. Page 178, note 6. Parker here had reference to the reformatory work of the prisons at Stretton in War wickshire, England ; at Mettray in France, and at Horn in Germany. NOTES 343 VI THE AGED This sermon was preached at Music Hall, Boston, on Sunday, January 29, 1854. It was immediately printed as a pamphlet. It is contained in Volume 2 of the " Additional Speeches, Addresses and Occasional Sermons " and in Volume 3 of Miss Cobbe's edition. VII THE. MATERIAL CONDITION OF THE PEOPLE OF MASSACHUSETTS The essay was originally printed as an article in the Christian Examiner for July, 1858. It was reprinted as a pamphlet in 1860 and is contained in Volume 8 of Miss Cobbe's edition of Parker's works. The essay was in the main a review of the Fifteenth Report to the Legislature of Massachusetts relating to the Registry and Return of births, marriages and deaths in the Commonwealth for the year 1856, pre pared by the Secretary of the Commonwealth, — Frances DeWitt. The tables and statistics are de rived from Curtis's Report on the Census of Boston for 1855; the Annual Report of the Chief of Police of Boston for 1858; the Annual Report of the Board of Inspectors of the Massachusetts State Prison for 1857; the Eleventh Annual Report of the Trustees of the State Reform School, 1857; the Report of a Gen eral Plan for the Promotion of Public and Personal Health, prepared by a Commission appointed under the resolve of the Legislature of Massachusetts in 1850; the Twenty-fifth Annual Report of the Trustees of the State Lunatic Hospital at Worcester, 1857 ; the Fourth Annual Report of the Trustees of the State Lunatic Hospital at Taunton, 1857; and other pubhc documents of a similar character. 344 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC Page 207, note 1. This quotation is from Emer son's Ode to Channing. Page 218, note 2. These statements Parker took from the article on Age in New American Encyclo paedia. Page 219, note 3. This fact Parker derived from Jackson's History of Newton, page 9. Page 221, note 4- The Governor thus praised was the Hon. Nathaniel P. Banks, whose anti-slavery prin ciples especially commended him to Parker. Page 237, note 5. This quotation is from the twenty-sixth Annual Report of the Perkins Institu tion and School for the Blind, written by Dr. Samuel G. Howe. Page 241, note 6. This reference is to the Lowell Lectures established in Boston in 1839 under the wnl of John Lowell, Jr. (1799^1836). Page 245, note 7. Orestes A. Brownson (1803- 1876) was a well-known religious, pohtical and social agitator, a preacher and journalist. Trained in strict orthodoxy he was for four years (1825—1829) a Uni versalist and for another four years (1832-1836) a Unitarian minister. Then he became a Lyceum lec turer and a writer on many subjects. In 1837 he established, edited, and practically wrote the Boston Quarterly Review to which Parker was a contributor. The last number of the Quarterly was a review of Parker's " Discourse of Religion." ( See Parker's let ter in Brownson's Life, I, 238.) In 1844 Brownson was received into the Roman Catholic Church and for more than thirty years was active in that communion as an author and editor. Page 246, note 8. At the time this essay was writ ten Dr. Jackson was eighty-one years of age and lived to be ninety. Mr. Quincy was eighty-six and lived to be ninety-two. Page 249, note 9. These comments on the decline NOTES 345 of physical vigor in the city-born and the lack of at tention to physical exercise indicate how rapidly con ditions and Jiabits change in American Society. In the last half century the pendulum has swung to the other extreme and the modern problem is found in the exag geration of sports and athletics. Page 250, note 10. The " Tigers " was a nickname for the Boston Light Infantry, a company that had been, says Hon. John D. Long in the Memorial History of Boston, " the School of Boston soldiers since 1798." VIII MORAL CONDITIONS This sermon was preached at the Melodeon on Sun day, February 11, 1849, and was shortly afterwards printed as a pamphlet. It appeared in Volume I of the " Speeches, Addresses and Occasional Sermons " and in Volume 7 of the Cobbe edition of Parker's works. Page 275, note 1. — The election of 1848 resulted in the choice of General Taylor to the Presidency. It is a curious anomaly to find a man of Parker's sturdy sense applauding the performance of a political com mittee in furnishing free dinners to the poor. Page 288, note 2. The reference is probably to Horace Mann. Page 291, note 3. The Whig triumph in the elec tion of 1848 was the occasion of great jubilation in Massachusetts and other northern States. IX SPIRITUAL CONDITIONS This sermon was preached at the Melodeon on Feb ruary 18, 1849, a week after the sermon on " Moral 346 SOCIAL CLASSES IN A REPUBLIC Conditions." 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