sometimes become arrant coxcombs, 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 shopkeeper 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 labour 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, knowing 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 labour, 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 ability to be idle as the most desirable and honourable 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 common 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 foolish notion finds favour with many here. It is a remnant of those barbarous times when all labour was performed by serfs and bondsmen, and exemption from toil was the exclusive sign of the freeborn. But this notion, that labour is disgraceful, conflicts as sharply with our political institutions, as it does with common sense, and the law God has writ on man. old author, centuries 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 labouring man, who ploughs the earth by night and day, to call his life most noble. If he is good and true, he offers continual sacrifice to God, and is not so lustrous in his dress as in his heart."

An

Manual labour is a blessing and a dignity. But to state the case on its least favourable 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 labour were hateful, as the proud would have ⚫ us believe, then they who bear its burthens, and feed and clothe the human race, and fetch and carry for them, should be honoured 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 honoured 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 superior 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 honour 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 labour were so hard and disgraceful as some fancy, the sluggard in fine raiment, and that trim figure—which, like the lilies 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 honourable 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 labour, though an unavoidable duty, though designed as a blessing, and naturally both a pleasure and a dignity, is often abused, till, by its terrible 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 perfection in wisdom, virtue, affection, and religion,-labour would never interfere with the culture of what is best in each man. His daily business would be a school to aid in developing the whole man, body and soul, because he would then do what nature fitted him to do. Then his business would be really his calling. The diversity of gifts 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 labour, each at his proper vocation, 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 labouring 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.

In labour, 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 circumstances 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 labour is needed to supply its demands; 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 escape from their share of this labour by superior intelligence, shrewdness, and cunning; others by fraud and lies, or by inheriting the result of these qualities in their ances tors. So their share of the common burthen, thus increased, must be borne by other hands, which are laden. already with more than enough. Still further, this class of mouths, forgetting how hard it is to work, and not hav

ing their desires for the result of labour checked by the sweat necessary to satisfy them, but living vicariously by other men's hands, refuse to be content with the simple gratification of their natural appetites. So Caprice takes the place of Nature, 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 allayed 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 burthens 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.

Thus, by the treachery of one part of society in avoiding their share of the work, by their tyranny in increasing the burthen of the world, an evil is produced 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 family, must work with his hands so large a part of his time, that nothing is left for intellectual, moral, æsthetic, 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 experiment. 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 and faithful, it demands twelve, or six