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cal, is plain from the experiment of Lord George Hill, in the Gweedore district on the sea-shore of Donegal, referred to on p. 269. In that district, nine thousand people resided without a market, without a store, and without many of the necessaries of life. After Lord George came into possession of the property by purchase, he endeavored to abolish the system of petty leases for the sake of introducing a better. At first he met with much opposition from the ignorant tenantry, who supposed that he meant to deprive them of their rights. But beginning with a few, he caused cabins to be erect ed at regular intervals, and the land belonging to each to be marked off by ditches, so that each tenant might know his own boundaries. Next he erected a store at which he agreed to purchase at the market price, oats and other produce, engaging to sell in turn at the lowest rates whatever commodities the tenantry should need. What now was the result? In 1839, there was paid at the store for oats raised upon the premises, £479 9s. 6 d., and in 1844, £1100. In 1840, there were among the tenantry thirty-six competitors for agricultural prizes; and in 1844, there were two hundred and thirty-nine. Contrast this state of things with the description of Gweedore given in our last article, and see whether the renovation of Ireland is impossible.

"Tuscany was once in the same destitute state as Ireland. But by an arrangement with the nobles, what is called the Meteyer system of husbandry was introduced; the principle of which is the following. The landlord, in addition to the land, finds houses, oxen, and farming implements, and the tenant seed, labor, and other necessaries. In other words, the landlord finds the capital -the tenant the labor. The crop is then equally divided, the tenant taking one half, the landlord the other.

From the time that this impetus was given to industry, the land

has gone on steadily improving, and in this way land within ten or twelve miles of Florence returns 3 per cent. and beyond that distance 4 per cent. to the landlord."

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Some such scheme as this, by which capital can be well employed and labor well rewarded, is what is needed in Ireland. The first great requisite is capital-capital to be invested upon the soil, so that the laboring classes can find employ. ment for wages. But in order that capital should be invested in Ireland, instead of being withdrawn to be employed in England, there must be confidence, security, law, a strong government. The present feverish state of Ireland is fatal to all plans of improvement. The government therefore, having first gained the confidence of the people by reasonable concessions, should favor judicious systems of improvement in agriculture, in trade, and in manufac tures. In our own country we prefer to leave these things to private enterprise. They do not properly fall within the province of government. But with the British government in Ireland, every thing is an exception. Government must as far as possible, repair the evils of the unwholesome legislation of centuries. For example; we have seen how Parliament in the reign of William III. prohibited woollen manufactures in Ireland. It was a small compensation for this that the linen manufactures were fostered; for the seat of these manufactures was Ulster, so that the Protestant interest was fostered at the expense of the Catholic. These prohibitions have now been removed, but it is the duty of government, by way of atonement, to encourage the manufacturing interest of Ireland till it shall be established upon a firm foundation.

But the encouragement of gov. ernment should not be limited to

*Laing's "Notes of a traveler in France, Italy," &c. Quoted by Browne.

any one interest. The agriculture of Ireland is capable of much improvement. The soil could probably be made to produce three times its present returns. But cultivation should not be stimulated beyond capital, or beyond the demands of the market. It should be made for the private interest of the landlord and of the tenant to develop the agricultural resources of the country in their fullest extent. This may be facilitated by government bounties, and more especially by agricultural societies. But the grand measure of government for this purpose, should be the construction of railroads, judiciously located, which should bring the remote parts of the country near to a market. If one half the money squandered upon public works that will either be wholly unproductive, or the benefit of which can not be realized for years, if one-half or one-fourth that sum had been given to encourage the building of railroads, while the same incidental benefit of affording labor to the destitute poor would have been secured, Ireland would have been furnished with those means of easy and cheap intercommunication which are the life of enterprise and of trade.

Something may be done also for the improvement of fisheries, for the encouragement of mining, and for the reclaiming of waste lands by draining and by other agencies.

In all this it may be thought that we are prescribing a Herculean task to the British government. But our suggestions cover a wide range and do not leave out the important element of time. Much of what we have now proposed could be gradu. ally accomplished by private enter. prise, aided by the sanction and the credit of government. But the hand of government must be distinctly seen in these reforms, to inspire confidence and to ensure success. The great problem is, "How to transform a nation of paupers into

laborers for wages?" This plainly must be the work of time. But a prerequisite to it is the restoration of quiet and order in the country. And in order to this, the government must enter in good faith upon the business of ameliorating the condition of Ireland, as the first great work to be accomplished. It must feel that it has something else to do in Ireland besides silencing the mouth of sedition, and overawing the spirit of insurrection. In the sententious language of one of her own sons, what is now needed for Ireland is, "less politics and more ploughing, less argument and more action, less debating and more doing.

Facilities for emigration to the colonies would yield some present relief to Ireland. The emigration to this country is already quite as large as is consistent with the good either of the country or of the emigrants themselves.

We have devoted so much space to the physical condition of Ireland, that we can not now enter at length upon the topics of education and re ligion as related to the improvement of her people, but the necessity for the general education and for the thorough evangelization of the people of Ireland is so obvious as to require no comment. The system of national schools is working admira. bly, so that there are few of the ris ing generation in Ireland who can not read. The lad of whom we spoke at the beginning of our arti cle, had saved out of the wreck of poverty itself, a library comprising the Bible, the Catechism, the Book of Common Prayer, bound volumes of tracts, a grammar, a geography, Young's Night Thoughts, and the Lady of the Lake. These he unrolled from a torn and dirty handkerchief, with evident pride. His education was that of the national school. Mrs. Nicholson testifies that

* Richard Bourke.

the national schools are doing much good. We trust that Tullaghobegley itself has shared in the general improvement at Gweedore.

The evangelization of Ireland is yet to be undertaken in such a spirit and with such resources as shall warrant the expectation of success. The system of church dependence upon the state being abolished in every form, and the word of God, with the Bible-reader and the itiner

ant missionary being sent everywhere through the land, we may look for the emancipation even of the Roman Catholic mind, and the moral regeneration of Ireland.

We turn toward the emerald isle with hope; we wait with patience; believing that she will yet shine forth from the mists that surround her, as one of the brightest gems of the sea.

THE MISSION OF LABOR.

AGRICULTURAL Chemistry is throw. ing light upon the work of subduing the earth. It is doubtful whether any mind has received the full import of the command of God to Adam, Go forth from the garden, and till the ground.' Doubtless Adam thought it a hard sentence. It wore the aspect of a heavy curse. Thenceforward he was to toil in the sweat of his brow, and not merely to dress the garden. In the earth before him lay his means of subsistence, and he must win it by severe labor. Heretofore his work had been easy; for God had made every thing ready at his hands. He had only to pluck and eat. Now he must dig or starve. A flaming sword guarded the entrance to Eden;-he could not go back. He was forced out. Toil was now his lot; for a tough soil was to be cultivated, a thorny earth to be subdued. No terrestrial paradise, unless hard work could make one, was any longer possible for man. When God spoke to Adam, he spoke to the race. The doctrine of federal headship is true here, if false elsewhere. Adam received his commission of labor, as the representative of his race. In speak. ing to him, God addressed the whole family of man. And the import of his words, is this;VOL. VI.

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There is the world before you; it is your field of labor. You will find in it all the materials for your subsistence, though, in consequence of sin, it will yield its support only to constant toil. Enter this field and subdue it.

Labor is necessary

to your health, your happiness, and above all, to your character. Make the rough places smooth; the crook. ed, straight; the barren, fruitful. Your course must henceforth be one of toil and sorrow, alleviated with many comforts and joys; flow. ers you will find, though thorns will everywhere spring up. The whole earth is yours,-subdue it all. By faithfully doing this work, you will acquire not only a livelihood but mental and moral discipline. Idleness and ease will prove injurious, both to your physical and moral nature. You have been taught how the ground should be cultivated. Make it all beautiful like Eden; and in that consummation earth and man shall be restored from their ruin, the mission of labor be accomplished, and the praise of God be universal.'

Were it within the compass of our plan, we might show from numerous passages of Scripture, that such is the import of God's sending our race forth to till the earth. We believe the earth is to be worked

back into a garden like Eden, highly cultivated and fruitful, where every thing shall abound that can minister to human happiness. We believe also that the work of subduing the earth will keep pace with the progress of the race in all that is lovely and of good report, because God has appointed this work as one essential means of the elevation and perfection of man. If on account of the fall, God made the world a hard field of labor for man's good; if hard toil is a necessary means of his recovery, which all grant ;-then, it is not too much to suppose that, as the race advances in industry and skill, and as progress is made in the art of cultivation, the time will come when the whole earth will be a garden, and the entire race holy. The latter event is clearly predicted, and in this prediction the other is embraced. We may also confidently anticipate it as the result of causes already in operation. Thus far in the history of the world the subjugation of the earth has kept pace with the general improvement of our race. Every event which has promoted the advancement of man toward his primitive character has resulted in a corresponding improvement of the earth; and every discovery and invention which have imparted a new impulse to agriculture, has also reacted favorably upon human progress. Guizot asserts this fact in his history of civilization. And the fact is more apparent now than it has hitherto been. Man who was taken from the earth, has his destiny in this life linked with that of the earth. Melioration in his physical and social condition is indispensable to his intellectual and moral advancement; and he can find such melioration only in a more general and perfect cultivation of the soil. More properly, perhaps, it might be said that such progress in the cultivation of the soil is itself an intellectual and moral advance

ment; for God never designed the tilling of the earth any more than the dressing of the garden, to be a mere work of the hands ;-the mind and heart were to be culti vated by the same means. But these points will come in more nat urally in another connection, and we proceed to offer such considera. tions, (waiving the argument from the Scriptures,) as convince us that man's mission of labor implies the complete subjugation of the earth; that fertility and beauty are yet to take the place of barrenness and deformity, to the extent of chang ing the whole earth into an Eden.

The means for realizing this change are inexhaustible. Thanks to agricultural chemistry, and other kindred sciences, for putting the fact beyond dispute, that there is no exhausting the productive resources of the earth. Indolence and ignorance of the art of cultivation may long continue to "run out" the richest lands; but it is now demonstrated that intelligent labor can readily restore their fertility. The Maker of the earth has provided, and everywhere distributed, the means of making it indefinitely productive. Within it and around upon its surface, science points to materials in unmeasured quantities, and of easy access, sufficient to produce an abundance of the necessaries and luxuries of life, for any amount of population: and also for every pur pose of taste and ornament. The pleasure and improvement arising from the proper use of these means, are the sure inheritance of the fu ture. God has indeed left man to work out for himself this destiny. But in this he manifests his benevolence. He designs that we should have the pleasure of discovery to lighten our toil, and labor fit to exercise our faculties. Otherwise labor would have been a double curse. He provides the materials and gives us capacity to discover and use them. Man was placed after the

fall in a part of the world where he could easily gain a subsistence. Then he knew comparatively little of the necessary conditions of the most productive crops. Nearly six thousand years have passed away, without any great progress in subduing the earth. For the earth, dependent upon man for its culture, can not advance faster than its cultivator. And the “ progress of the species," thus far, gives little occasion for boasting. But let us hope. Nature must have time. God is never in haste. With him a thousand years are as one day.

By means of chemical experiments upon the nature of soils, and the constituent elements of all kinds of animal and vegetable productions, more real progress has been made in the science of cultivation within a few years than during all the centuries of the past. What is called the age of discovery is passed, and that of invention, experiment, induction and genuine "Baconian fruit," has arrived. The whole earth has been discovered. Any school-boy can open his atlas and point to every continent and island, every ocean, lake and stream, accurately laid down. That work is done, and Columbus may rest in peace. The next great problem is, How can the earth be subdued? Its equitable division among nations and individuals, is a subordinate question; though what battle-fields and law-suits lie in the way of its final settlement ! We turn from these contests praying for their mitigation, and look with hope to the peaceful and beneficent array of geologists, chemists and practical scientific agriculturists, armed with hammers, retorts and spades, the van of an innumerable host of strong and cheerful men who bear aloft upon their standard the motto"Let the earth be subdued for man.” This body of men from civilized nations, is destined to march through all lands.

And what a declaration

of rights have they put forth ! God gave this earth to man, for his support; it is his field of labor and enjoyment. Not only his phys. ical necessities, but his happiness and virtue require that it should be appropriated according to this original design. It must not, it shall not be forever turned into a field of slaughter, or kept from cultivation for the gratification of the few, while the millions need it for their sustenance. Let it be subdued, tilled, dressed, like Eden, for there are means of doing it.'

A few facts are now settled— enough to show that no insurmountable obstacles lie in the way of what may be considered perfect cultiva tion. It is known what the soil, or what the properties of the soil, must be, to secure any particular crop in the greatest abundance. A few elementary substances-or what are called such-compose everything within and around us. The rock and the lily, the savory draught and the metal goblet which contains it, the sickle, the grain and the reaper, the costly diamond and the black coal upon the hearth, contain some of the same elements in different degrees and combinations. The mineral has been analyzed, and its component parts discovered so accurately, that the analyzer having obtained the elements from other substances, has produced the mineral itself. It has been demonstrated, that all parts. of the animal body are found in the food which nourishes it. And that the elements of this food are contained in the earth, (always taking into view what is furnished by air and water.) That is, what is called the "principle of life" in man or in animals, produces nothing. All that is appropriated by the life-process in the growth and support of living bodies, must be introduced. It is still literally true that man comes from the earth, and in his physical nature remains strictly earthy. The chem

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