The Claims of Labour
From Content: "It is a thing so common, as almost to be ridiculous, for a man to express self-distrust at the commencement of any attempt in speech or writing.- And yet, trite as this mode of beginning is, its appropriateness makes each one use it as heartily as if it were new and true for him, though it might have been a common-place for others.- When he glances hurriedly across the wide extent of his subject, when he feels how inadequate his expression will be even to his conception, and, at t
...he same time, has a yearning desire to bring his audience into the same mind with himself, it is no wonder if he begins with a few, hesitating, oft repeated, words about his !-- page 2--own insufficiency compared with the greatness of his subject. Happily, I have not occasion to dwell much upon the importance of the subject to which I am anxious to engage attention.- For a long time it has been gradually emerging from the darkness in which it had been left.- The claims of labour and the rights of the humble and the poor have necessarily gained more of the attention of mankind, as Christianity has developed itself.- That power was sure, in its gradual encroachments upon the evil nature of man, to make its voice heard in this matter.- It is a voice which may come out of strange bodies, such as systems of ethics, or of politics; but men may call it what they please, it goes on doing its appointed work, -conquering and to conquer.--- Persons of a thoughtful mind seeing closely the falsehood, the folly, and the arrogance, of the age in which they live, are apt, occasionally, to have a great contempt for it: and I doubt not that many a man looks upon the present time as one of feebleness and degeneracy.- There are, however, signs of an-increased solicitude for the claims of labour, which of itself is a thing of the highest promise, and more to be rejoiced over than all the mechanical triumphs which both those who would magnify, and those who would depreciate, the present age, would be apt to point to as containing its especial significance and merit. But what do all these mechanical triumphs come to?- It is in vain that you have learned to move with double or treble the velocity of your immediate predecessors: it is in vain that you can show new modes of luxury, or new resources in art.- The inquiring historian will give these things their weight, but will, nevertheless, persevere in asking how the great mass of the people were fed, and clothed, and taught: and whether the improvement in their condition corresponded at all with the improvement of the condition of the middle and upper classes.- What a sorry answer any one, replying for this age, would have to give him.- Nor would it be enough, indeed, if we could make a satisfactory reply to his questions about the physical state of the people.- We ought to be able to say !-- page 4--that the different orders of society were bound together by links of gratitude and regard: that they were not like layers of various coloured sand, but that they formed one solid whole of masonry, each part having its relation of use and beauty to all the others."
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