ourselves? Surely, after having thus ennobled selfishness into a science, it is simply sentimentalism in us to grieve, with gentle-hearted Hood,

"That bread should be so dear,

And flesh and blood so cheap!"

We should rather cry Glory to Adam Smith! and lose sight of the misery of mere men and women, in the progress and wealth of the nations.

One of the most popular and striking writers of the day, Mr. Carlyle certainly a man of genius, though he has written a great deal which might not seem so novel or profound, I think, if it were done out of German into English-seems to have established, as the basis of his moral and philosophical system, that our purpose in this world is to do something; and that provided we are always doing, and in earnest, it makes no great matter what we do. The somewhat incongruous deductions which he draws from this fundamental idea, he calls the "Evangel," and sometimes the "Gospel, of Labor"; and it is this blessed message to humanity which, for the most part, he goes about proclaiming. I wonder it should never have occurred to so clever and acute a man, that such a "Gospel,”—if it means anything but words—is but a message to our race of the primeval curse of the Old Dispensation, unrelieved and unredeemed by any of the charities or covenants of the New. I know no parallel to it, in point of consolation, except the discourse of the ranting preacher to the gipsy, in one of Hood's novels:-" Woman," cried he, "behold, I bring you glad tidings! You are an accursed race!" I do not marvel that in pursuing such a system to its

legitimate conclusions, Mr. Carlyle should have blended in one picture, as heroes, the Founder of Christianity and the Prophet of Mecca.

But the economists and moral philosophers of our generation have not the "Evangel of Labor" altogether to themselves. The poets have been far too wise to allow the mere dealers in prose to monopolize so much available capital; and the most of the songs that are sung to us, now, have a perpetual refrain of "work, work, work "-very elevated and grand, and occasionally unintelligible, of course, as sublime things ought to be-but still "work!" It has been ascertained, beyond a doubt, as you are aware, that every human being has what is called a "mission;" and the result of the most profound and recent poetical investigation seems to be, that our "mission" is "work." There are shrewd suspicions afloat, it must be admitted, that mankind received some hints, and not of a congratulatory character, either, concerning this destiny of theirs, as far back as the times of "the gardener Adam and his wife"; but still the poets of the day insist on singing it, not merely as a truth, but as an attractive novelty. Mr. Tennyson, for instance, is full of it. Addressing himself to the world at large, he has no title more endearing than

"Men my brothers-men the workers!"

Of course, all the Tennysonians-and they are the great majority of bards—though they toil not, neither do they spin, in their peculiar vocation, but steal from the laureate, outright are yet fuller of the toilsome mission of humanity than even their great prototype. Our own countryman, Mr. Longfellow, from whose delightful genius we might expect

something better and more original, has established for himself a perfect speciality in the regard of which I speak; and one would think, from the burden of his music, that the destiny of mankind is chiefly to do two things-" to labor and to wait," and "suffer and be strong❞—a heroic destiny, to be sure, and well adapted to versification, but nevertheless not altogether refreshing in an experimental point of view.

While moralists and political economists thus combine to teach, and poets to sing, the sanctity of work, it would be quite unreasonable to expect that those who are called the "practical men" of the day should lag behind. I dare say you have all heard and read many discourses, in your time, concerning the dignity and nobility of labor. I myself have had the benefit of a great many; but I confess that the feeling which they have generally awakened, has been that of very profound disgust. The most of us understand, I am sure, from our own experience, the very unpleasant though indispensable relation between the sweat of our brows and our daily bread. Upon that point, we certainly need no prompting; but to go beyond that—to collect a crowd of weary and toil-worn men together, and talk to them about the elevation and grandeur of the burden which weighs them daily to the ground-"no blessed leisure for love or hope"-is to pass, in my poor judgment, into the region of unmitigated cant and twaddle. No man, I believe, who is chained by necessity, along with the rest of the galley-slaves of this earth, to his toiling oar, can acquire from his own experience, unless he be strangely constituted, or from his observation of other people, any very lofty idea of the dignity of labor in itself. Respecting, for one, as far as respect can go, the manhood which

treads the path of toil, however humble, to honorable independence-admiring, with heartiest admiration, the vigor and the constancy which hold men, through difficulty, sacrifice and pain, unswervingly close to the duties and responsibilities of social and domestic life-I still can but regard the absorbing labor which makes the sum total of most men's existence, as one vast pool of Lethe, into which high faculties and generous feelings, joyous susceptibilities and graceful tastes, noble and gentle aspirations and priceless hours, go down, and are drowned out of hope and memory forever! I make no exclusion of any calling whatever, in this respect. I mean none. One may be more intellectual than another. One may give play to higher faculties than another. One may develop more of the purer and better nature than another. But I mean to say, that the tendency of any exclusive calling or profession which a man pursues for his bread, or for money, after he has bread enough an occupation in which he merges himself and his thoughts-which dawns on him with the morrow's daylight, as it folded its raven wings above him, when he sank to his needful rest-is a plague and a scourge to him-his descended share of the hereditary blight of his race-bear it with what resignation and cheerfulness he may. And when I hear men peddling rhetoric about its dignity and its nobility, I am lost in surprise that the patience of the world should abide such infinite imposition. I wonder how people bear to be taught, as philosophy-as the economy of individual and national life that their noblest earthly purpose and occupation is to toil up a weary hill, from which, when they reach the summit, they behold nothing but a descent, perhaps precipitous and sudden, on the other side! And yet there is small cause

for wonder at such patience, when we look around and see and feel that the doctrines, thus promulgated and applauded, are the law which governs you, and me, and all of us; and that the whole mass of the society in which we live, and the nation of which we are citizens, are moving onward to the quickstep of that false and fatal music. Who that is well thought of, or desires to be, can afford to pause in the mighty onward movement of labor and, as we call it, progress? Who is allowed to stop? A man who will not mount the hurrying train, is left behind, in despised and despairing isolation. He who has once mounted, let him grow ever so weary or be ever so sated with travel and anxious for repose, finds no resting point at which to leave it, and cannot leap from it without peril of destruction. Onward, forward, like Mazeppa:

"So fast they fly-away-away—

That they can neither sigh nor pray."

Can this be life? the life of men and nations? the intended orbit of a world which rolled into existence amid the songs of the morning stars, and arched over whose advancing pathway is the beauty of the bow of promise? It cannot be. We are living under a false philosophy, and are beguiled by a false science and by specious but empty words. The theory of our social progress, in its relation to individuals, is a mere delusion. We have taken fever for high health, and intoxication for happiness. We are sacrificing ourselves to our work. We are bartering life for the appliances of living. "We are pulling down our houses," as has been said, "to build our monuments." We have begun, socially and nationally, to feel the consequences. Can we not tear ourselves awhile,