schoolmaster to teach them industry and thrift. Such as are merely unable, who are poor not by their fault-we do wrong to let them suffer; we do wickedly to leave them to perish. The little children who survive. are they to be left to become barbarians in the midst of our civilization? Want is not an absolutely needful thing, but very needful for the present distress, to teach us industry, economy, thrift and its creative arts. There is nature the whole material world-waiting to serve. "What would you have thereof?" says God. "Pay for it and take it, as you will; only pay as you go!” There are hands to work, heads to think; strong hands, hard heads. God is an economist: He economizes suffering; there is never too much of it in the world for the purpose it is to serve, though it often falls where it should not fall. It is here to teach us industry, thrift, justice. It will be here no more when we have learned its lesson. Want is here on sufferance; misery on sufferance; and mankind can eject them if we will. Poverty, like all evils, is amenable to suppression. Can we not end this poverty-the misery and crime it brings? No, not to-day. Can we not lessen it? Soon as we will. Think how much ability there is in this town, cool, far-sighted talent. If some of the ablest men directed their thoughts to the reform of this evil, how much might be done in a 31 single generation; and in a century-what could not they do in a hundred years? What better work is there for able men? I would have it written on my tombstone: "This man had but little wit, and less fame, yet he helped remove the causes of poverty, making men better off and better," rather by far than this: "Here lies a great man; he had a great place in the world, and great power, and great fame, and made nothing of it, leaving the world no better for his stay therein, and no man better off.” After all the special efforts to remove poverty, the great work is to be done by the general advance of mankind. We shall outgrow this as cannibalism, butchery of captives, war for plunder, and other kindred miseries have been outgrown. God has general remedies in abundance, but few specific. Something will be done by diffusing throughout the community principles and habits of economy, industry, temperance; by diffusing ideas of justice, sentiments of brotherly love, sentiments and ideas of religion. I hope every thing from that-the noiseless and steady progress of Christianity; the snow melts, not by sunlight, or that alone, but as the whole air becomes warm. You may in cold weather melt away a little before your own door, but that makes little difference till the general temperature rises. Still while the air is getting warm, you facilitate the pro cess by breaking up the obdurate masses of ice and putting them where the sun shines with direct and unimpeded light. So must we do with poverty. for any It is only a little that any of us can do thing. Still we can do a little; we can each do by helping towards raising the general tone of society: first, by each man raising himself; by industry, economy, charity, justice, piety; by a noble life. So doing, we raise the moral temperature of the whole world, and just in proportion thereto. Next, by helping those who come in our way; nay, by going out of our way to help them. In each of these modes, it is our duty to work. To a certain extent each man is his brother's keeper. Of the powers we possess we are but trustees under Providence, to use them for the benefit of men, and render continually an account of our stewardship to God. Each man can do a little directly to help convince the world of its wrong, a little in the way of temporizing charity, a little in the way of remedial justice; so doing, he works with God, and God works with him. X. PREACHED AT A SERMON OF THE MORAL CONDITION OF BOSTON. 1 SAMUEL VII. 12. Hitherto hath the Lord helped us. A MAN who has only the spirit of his age can easily be a popular man; if he have it in an eminent degree, he must be a popular man in it: he has its hopes and its fears; his trumpet gives a certain and well-known sound; his counsel is readily appreciated; the majority is on his side. But he cannot be a wise magistrate, a just judge, a competent critic, or a profitable preacher. A man who has only the spirit of a former age can be none of these four things; and not even a popular man. He remembers when he ought to forecast, and compares when he ought to act; he cannot appreciate the age he lives in, nor have a fellow-feeling with it. He may easily obtain the pity of his age, not its sympathy or its confidence. The man who has the spirit of his (364) own, and also that of some future age, is alone capable of becoming a wise magistrate, a just judge, a competent critic, and a profitable preacher. Such a man looks on passing events somewhat as the future historian will do, and sees them in their proportions, not distorted; sees them in their connection with great general laws, and judges of the falling rain not merely by the bonnets it may spoil and the pastime it disturbs, but by the grass and corn it shall cause to grow. He has hopes and fears of his own, but they are not the hopes and fears of men about him; his trumpet cannot give a welcome or well-known sound, nor his counsel be presently heeded. Majorities are not on his side, nor can he be a popular man. To understand our present moral condition, to be able to give good counsel thereon, you must understand the former generation, and have potentially the spirit of the future generation; must appreciate the past, and yet belong to the future. Who is there that can do this? No man will say, "I can." Conscious of the difficulty, and aware of my own deficiencies in all these respects, I will yet endeavor to speak of the moral condition of Boston. First, I will speak of the actual moral condition of Boston, as indicated by the morals of Trade. In a city like Rome, you must first feel the pulse of the church, in St. Petersburg that of the court, to deter |