TH

'HE misery of man appears like childish petulance, when we explore the steady and prodigal provision that has been made. for his support and delight on this green ball which floats him through the heavens.

Commodity.

DEBT, grinding debt, whose iron face

the widow, the orphan, and the sons. of genius fear and hate-debt, which consumes so much time, which so cripples and disheartens a great spirit with cares that seem so base, is a preceptor whose lessons cannot be foregone, and is needed most by those who suffer from it most. Moreover, property, which has been well compared to snow-'if it fall level to-day, it will be blown into drifts to-morrow.'

THE young man, on entering life, finds

the way to lucrative employments blocked with abuses. The ways of trade. are grown selfish to the borders of theft, and supple to the borders (if not beyond

Enough for All

Property

Base

ness
of Trade

Base

ness

of Trade

the borders) of fraud. The employments
of commerce are not intrinsically unfit for
a man, or less genial to his faculties, but
these are now in their general course so
vitiated by derelictions and abuses at which
all connive, that it requires more vigor and
resources than can be expected
of every
young man, to right himself in them; he
is lost in them; he cannot move hand or
foot in them. Has he genius and virtue?
the less does he find them fit for him to
grow in, and if he would thrive in them,
he must sacrifice all the brilliant dreams of
boyhood and youth as dreams; he must
forget the prayers of his childhood; and
he must take on him the harness of rou-
tine and obsequiousness. If not so minded,
nothing is left him but to begin the world
anew, as he does who puts the spade into
the ground for food. We are all implicated,
of course, in this charge; it is only neces-
sary to ask a few questions as to the prog-
ress of the articles of commerce from the
fields where they grew, to our houses, to
become aware that we eat and drink and

wear perjury and fraud in a hundred com-
modities.
Man the Reformer.

S

UPPOSE a man is so unhappy as to be born a saint, with keen perceptions but with the conscience and love of an angel, and he is to get his living in the world; he finds himself excluded from all lucrative works; he has no farm, and he cannot get one; for, to earn money enough to buy one requires a sort of concentration toward money, which is the selling himself for a number of years, and to him the present hour is as sacred and inviolable as any future hour. Of course, whilst another man has no land, my title to mine, your title to yours, is at once vitiated. Inextricable seem to be the twinings and tendrils of this evil, and we all involve ourselves in it the deeper by forming connections, by wives, and children, by benefits and debts. Man the Reformer.

Do not wish to be absurd and pedantic in reform. I do not wish to push my

All Are Responsible

Each
Man's

Part

Love Gives the Key

criticism on the state of things around me to that extravagant mark, that shall compel me to suicide, or to an absolute isolation from the advantages of civil society. If we suddenly plant our foot and say - I will neither eat nor drink nor wear nor touch any food or fabric which I do not know to be innocent, or deal with any person whose whole manner of life is not clear and rational, we shall stand still. Whose is so? Not mine; not thine; not his. But I think we must clear ourselves each one by the interrogation, whether we have earned our bread to-day by the hearty contribution of our energies to the common benefit; and we must not cease to tend to the correction of these flagrant wrongs, by laying one stone aright every day.

Man the Reformer.

ET our affection flow out to our fellows;

LET

it would operate in a day the greatest of all revolutions. It is better to work on institutions by the sun than by the wind. The state must consider the poor man, and

all voices must speak for him. Every child that is born must have a just chance for his bread. Let the amelioration in our laws of property proceed from the concession of the rich, not from the grasping of the poor. Let us begin by habitual imparting. Let us understand that the equitable rule is, that no one should take more than his share, let him be ever so rich.

R

Man the Reformer.

EFORMS have their high origin in an ideal justice, but they do not retain the purity of an idea. They are quickly organized in some low, inadequate form, and present no more poetic image to the mind than the evil tradition which they reprobated. They mix the fire of the moral sentiment with personal and party heats, with measureless exaggerations, and the blindness that prefers some darling measure to justice and truth.

Lecture on the Times.

Failure of Re

forms