which men may be bound together. One is similarity of class, the other is identity of nature. The class feeling is a feeble bond; for he who feels awe for another man because he is in a rank above him, will cease to feel that awe if ever the man should cease to belong to that class. The pauperized aristocrat and the decayed merchant are soon neglected by their class. The man who respects another because he is in the same rank as himself, may cease to feel respect in one of two ways, either by his own elevation, in which case he tries to keep the distinction broad between himself and the class that he has left, or else by the depression of that other man, through any misfortune.

Now, there is another and a broader bond of union to be found in identity of nature. When all external differences have passed away, one element remains intact, unchanged, the everlasting basis of our common nature, the human soul by which we live. "We all are changed by slow degrees. All but the basis of the soul." Our tendencies to evil, our capacities of excellence are the same in all classes. It is just in proportion as men recognize this real, original identity of all human nature, that it is possible on this earth to attain the realization of human brotherhood. It is the only possible ground of

union for the race. It was because this was not felt by the Jews of ancient times that they held themselves and their race proudly distinct from their Gentile brothers, and by that bigotry worked out their own inevitable downfall. The Christian of the middle ages tortured his Jew brother just because he did not recognize the same identity of sentiment and moral nature, which the great poet of our country has put so passionately and so touchingly into the lips of Shylock. "Hath not

a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian?" Had the feudal lord believed this he would not have put an iron collar round his serf's neck, nor made one law for the serf and another for the free-born. In our own times, if men who have been crying for the rights of our common humanity and the duties of our common brotherhood had understood the deep glorious meaning of their own cry, we should have heard nothing of those human tortures and that infernal cannibalism which have disgraced the cause of freedom. Get this deeply by heart, and all that is galling in artificial distinctions will pass away. Well do I know that this language I am

using now respecting brotherhood and the equality of our human nature, is language that passes into cant. It has been defiled by cruelty; it has been polluted by selfishness; but we will not be ashamed of it for all that. In an age in which it has become suspicious, we will dare to believe in it and love it. It is buried deep in the eternal truth of things. That truth can no more pass away from the things that are, than heaven and earth can pass away. Sooner or later it must be realized in a more substantial form that it has yet ever assumed. All gradual improvements, all violent convulsions in the world are only doing their part in bringing this about. The thunder storm is terrible to look upon; but it leaves behind it a purer air and a serener sky. Let us hear the Ayr

shire ploughman in his high prophetic strain:—

"For a' that, and a' that,

It's coming yet for a' that,

That man to man the world o'er

Shall brothers be for a' that.”

Therefore it is that passing by all those abortive attempts which would fain produce a feeling of union by the false idea of similarity of class, I have fastened my attention on the real equality of our common nature, and called you "brother men."

In my address to-night, I propose to let its topics be suggested by the expressions of your own

sentiments contained in the paper which your Committee put into my hand. That paper specifies the objects of your institution, and the spirit in which it has been established.

The objects of the Institution are two: it is intended to provide the working men of this town with the means of mental, and besides that, with the means of moral, improvement. Farther down I find mental improvement separated by you into two divisions. Mental improvement, you say, is the information of the intellect, and the elevation of the taste. You wish to inform the intellect. I confine myself to-night to one branch of this improvement, political information. I do it for several reasons. First of all, the means of acquiring knowledge which your Institution places in your hands are in a very preponderating degree of a political character. By works of history and the newspapers of the day, you will have that which will inform you of the constitution of your country.

My second reason for dwelling chiefly upon this branch of mental improvement is, that political science is the highest education that can be given to the human mind. Let me explain myself. When we in popular phraseology speak of politics, we ascribe to that word a narrow meaning. When we say that two men are talking

politics, we often mean that they are wrangling about some mere party question. When I use the term "politics" this evening, I use it in the sense in which it was used by all the great and noble authors of the ancient world, who meant by the science of politics the intelligent comprehension of a man's position and relations as a member of a great nation. You will observe that in this sense politics subordinate to themselves every department of earthly science. A man who understands nothing of agriculture, nothing of trade, nothing of human nature, nothing of past history, nothing of the principles of law, cannot pretend to be more than a mere empiric in political legislation. Every thing that man can know is subservient to this noble science. Understood in this sense, the working men of this country have an interest in politics. For, in the first place, political ignorance is not a safe thing for this or any other country. The past is a proof of that. What was it but political ignorance which dictated a few years ago the letters signed "Swing," when the labouring men burned the hay rick and the corn stack in the wise expectation of bettering their own condition by that?

It needed very little political economy to teach them that all the wages in the world would not make a country rich, when its real resources are