Thrift of the heart, thrift of the emotions--how are they wasted in these days in reading sensation novels! while British literature--all that the best hearts and intellects among our forefathers have bequeathed to us--is neglected for light fiction, the reading of which is the worst form of intemperance--dram-drinking and opium-eating, intellectual and moral. _Lecture on Thrift_. True Penance. November 19. "Senor," said Brimblecombe, "the best way to punish oneself for doing ill seems to me to go and do good; and the best way to find out whether God means you well is to find out whether He will help you to do well." _Westward Ho_! chap. xxv. Political Economy of the Future. November 20. I can conceive a time when, by improved chemical science, every foul vapour which now escapes from the chimney of a manufactory, polluting the air, destroying the vegetation, shall be seized, utilised, converted into some profitable substance, till the black country shall be black no longer, the streams once more crystal clear, the trees once more luxuriant, and the desert, which man has created in his haste and greed, shall in literal fact once more blossom as the rose. And just so can I conceive a time when by a higher civilisation, formed on a political economy more truly scientific, because more truly according to the will of God, our human refuse shall be utilised like our material refuse; when man as man, down to the weakest and most ignorant, shall be found (as he really is) so valuable that it will be worth while to preserve his health, to develop his capabilities, to save him alive, body, intellect, and character, at any cost; because men will see that a man is, after all, the most precious and useful thing on the earth, and that no cost spent on the development of human beings can possibly be thrown away. _All Saints' Day Sermons_. 1870. God's Pleasure. November 21. The world was not made for man: but man, like all the world, was made for God. Not for man's pleasure merely, not for man's use, but for God's pleasure all things are, and for God's pleasure they were, created. _All Saints' Day Sermons_. 1869. The Hospital Nurse. November 22. Fearless, uncomplaining, she "trusted in God and made no haste." She did her work and read her Bible; and read, too, again and again at stolen moments of rest, a book which was to her as the finding of an unknown sister--Longfellow's "Evangeline." _Two Years Ago_, chap. xxviii. Let us learn to look on hospitals not as acts of charity, supererogatory benevolences of ours towards those to whom we owe nothing, but as confessions of sin, and worthy fruits of penitence; as poor and late and partial compensation for misery which _we_ might have prevented. _National Sermons_. 1851. No Work Lost. November 23.