the hope of becoming free." Blessing on thee, Man! Sacred, venerable thy name! Thou shalt live—the divine germ of thy nature shall yet expand and grow and bear celestial fruit, God's own Freedom and Truth and Love-God speed the rescue." To millions now humanity has become a charmed word, and the most careless observer of the spirit of his time must discern that this spirit is rapidly gaining sway.

If a great change is proposed in the structure of society or the administration of power, humanity is alleged as the reason. The press talks of ignorance, of oppression, of suffering; it urges no reason for their removal but sympathy for the sad condition of fellow men. Even religion is not now urged so much as a duty and a truth, as a remedy for man's suffering, bruised nature-a consolation amid the ills of life, and a hope in the dying hour. It is this high Humanity that forms the pretence, the basis, the motive, to all great undertakings of the age. It is even a better, a higher principle than truth;-truth can but discern the duty of man and the means of alleviating his condition; but humanity gives enthusiasm to the execution of that duty and the relief of that condition. Truth, like the daylight, only shows the mariner struggling with the waves; it never prompts the bold adventurer to plunge in and rescue him from death. When Truth has performed its office, a greater principle must come behind to

complete the work.

The heart of man must

prompt him to act when his intellect has taught him to understand.

In the appearance and diffusion of this humane spirit in modern times, is treasured up the hope of the world. Intelligent philanthropy is now watching over the interests of the people, and the time has come when even they are looking back with a nobler feeling than idle curiosity, on the past history of the race. The story of oppression excites indignation against the oppressor, and a firmer purpose than ever to work the regeneration of man.

There has never been a time when in this country and in Europe, so general an interest has been exerted in favour of the working classes; or when inquiries into their condition, have met with such universal favour. It will be necessary, before we consider particularly the present condition of the lower classes in Great Britain, to bestow a few thoughts on their condition in past times. It will, however, be impossible, as well as unnecessary, in such a work as this, to enter into the inquiry very minutely. The entire space allotted to these volumes would not contain a full picture of the wrongs and the sufferings of the British people, even since the times of Cromwell -much less from the origin of the British government. In another part of this work I shall review the history of the suffering and wrong Ireland has endured at the hand of England. That

subject is of too much interest to be crowded into the brief limits of this chapter. We must content ourselves with some general statements of the burdens and injustice that have pressed on the poor of England up to the present time, and the introduction of a few specific facts for illustration.

It is probably well known to every reader, that in all ages the great majority of the British people have been entirely subjected to the control of the throne and the aristocracy; that their rights have been disregarded and trampled down; that neither they, nor the tyrants who made their fetters, seem ever to have thought that the great object of government and civilized society should be the greatest good of the greatest number. In tracing back the history of England, we find that in the early ages, the people were in a state of abject slavery. At the Norman Conquest, the Feudal System, which had been partially introduced into England, was fully established, and continued for several centuries in all its vigor and despotism. A false conception of the Feudal System seems very generally to prevail, even at the present time. All the charms of romantic legends have been thrown around this grand, but gloomy structure; and in the gorgeous array of Chivalry, Crusades, Knights, and Tournaments, the imagination of the reader is dazzled into forgetfulness of the uninstructed, neglected, degraded masses, the story of whose wrongs no one has been found willing to tell-for we find it no where written.

ants.

After one of the victorious battles of the American Revolution, as Washington and Lafayette were walking over the field of blood, the Father of his Country, with one hand resting on the shoulder of the young French soldier, and the other pointing to the dead bodies of his brave men, said: "My brave Marquis, the time will come when the memory of these fallen men will be an inheritance worth more than gold to their descendIt seems to be the decision of God that history should preserve the names and the remembrance of patriots who die for liberty and their country, while those who fall in conquests of blood and ambition shall be forgotten. The memory of these men who have fallen to-day will never be forgotten." How few of those who have died in battle have fallen in the cause of liberty! All through the dark ages the people of England were driven from their homes to shed their blood, not in the defence of their freedom, but in gratifying the ambition of their rulers. Few things are more lamentable in history than this tyrannical power the few have exercised over the multitude. The game and policy of war is well described by the humane Carlyle; "What, speaking in quite unofficial language, is the net purport and upshot of war? To my own knowledge, for example, there dwell and toil in British village of Dumdrudge usually some five hundred souls. From these, by certain 'natural enemies' of the French, there are successively selected during the French war, say thirty

able-bodied men. Dumdrudge, at her own expense, has suckled and nursed them; she has, not without difficulty and sorrow, fed them up to manhood, and even trained them to crafts, so that one can weave, another build, another hammer, and the weakest can stand under thirty stone avoirdupois. Nevertheless, amid much weeping and swearing, they are selected, all dressed in red, and shipped away at the public charges, some two thousand miles, or say only to the south of Spain; and fed there till wanted. And now, to that same spot in the south of Spain, are thirty similar French artisans, from a French Dumdrudge, in like manner wending; till at length, after infinite effort, the two parties come into actual juxtaposition; and thirty stands fronting thirty, each with a gun in his hand. Straightway the word 'fire!' is given; and they blow the souls out of one another; and in place of sixty brisk, useful craftsmen, the world has sixty dead carcasses, which it must bury, and anew shed tears for. Had these men any quarrel? Busy as the devil is, not the smallest! They lived far enough apart; were the entirest strangers. Nay, in so wide a universe, there was even, unconsciously, by commerce, some mutual helpfulness between them. How then? Simpleton! their governors had fallen out; and instead of shooting one another, had the cunning to make these poor blockheads shoot." This is a real picture-its like has been seen on many thousand battle-fields. What cares the master for the sacri