266 LECTURES, &c. BY REV. F. W. ROBERtson. was not ashamed to love his country with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his mind, and with all his strength; a man whose every word, and every thought, and every act, were the words, and thoughts, and acts, of a manly, true-spirited, high-minded Englishman! NOTES OF A LECTURE Delivered at Hurstper-point, in 1851, to the Members of a Working Man's Reading Room. I AM here to-night through the invitation of your kind friends, with no right but that of unfeigned interest in every institution like yours. The subject I had proposed was the Progress of Society. I changed it for that of the Working Classes. But even this is too full of pre tension. Nevertheless, the mere fact of my standing here to-night is full of significance. More so than railways or electric telegraphs. That so many of the Working Classes should come here after a hard day's work is very significant. It proves the growing victory of the spirit over the animal: That the lower life of toil and animal indulgence is getting to be reckoned as not the all of man. It shows, too, that the Working Classes are becoming conscious of their own destinies. Any Society is in an advanced state when it begins to contemplate itself, and asks, "Whither do we tend?" Three thousand years ago, the centre of the World's civilization was in Eastern Africa. The monuments of this civilization still remain. The Pyramids. They are the wonder of travellers, whose report of their measurements excites, in turn, our astonishment and surprise. But to one considering the progress of the race, these Pyramids tell a different tale. They were built by the Working Classes, under coercion. They were built for Royal ostentation. Herodotus speaks of hundreds of thousands degraded into serfs. In the Metropolis of the World's present civilization, a structure stood this year almost as marvellous as these pyramids. Remarkable not for gigantic massiveness.But for punctuality and order. Built, too, under Royal auspices, and built by the Labouring Classes. But not built, like the pyramids, for Royal splendour. It was built for the exhibition of the works of Labouring Men. |