“I question nothing of what you have said,” replied Mr. Jackson. “On the contrary, when I preach of Providence, I use as arguments whatever processes of co-operation and amelioration we can distinguish among the workings of nature, from the counteracting forces by which the planets are retained in their orbits, to the method by which the crevice of the rock exchanges, in due time, its carpet of moss for a crest of branching oaks. But nature is slow in her workings; and since the life of man is short, his business is to work with her, not to wait for her. Every acre of ground may in course of ages become capable of tillage; but our business meanwhile is to place our hungry brethren where nature’s work is forwardest. Among the many grades of fertility prepared by her, it is our wisdom to choose the highest. This is what I preach as the truest gratitude to Providence.” “I have rather wondered, I own, at the style of your preaching lately. It would strike a stranger as unusual.” “I do not preach for strangers, but for my own flock; and if they are not enlightened enough to apply abstract principles, I must help them to do so. I must not only tell them to be honest, but show that honesty can scarcely subsist under overwhelming temptations to theft and fraud. I must not only recommend the domestic affections, but warn against turning them to bitterness by rashly incurring the risk of that destitution under which parents and children learn to look coldly on each other. I must not only speak of gratitude to God, but show how it may be made to spring up by distributing to all a share of his gifts, instead of being starved out by want and woe. If, as I believe, it be true that hardness of the lot brings hardness of the heart, and that blasphemy is a disease of the spirit-broken, how can I and other ministers of the gospel promote its influences so well as by teaching how to bring about that state of society which is most congenial to those influences?” “Yours is a more likely way to gain your object than theirs who carefully separate the interests of the other world from those of the present.—Well! I am about to preach to the same effect by my actions as you from your pulpit.” “Then, if you would second my doctrines, you must do the thing I told you I meant to ask of you. You must take down the cottages inhabited by those about to emigrate; and it must be done immediately on their departure, or I shall have to publish the banns of nobody knows how many young couples the very next Sunday. Unless you have inquired into the fact, you will hardly believe how many marry just because there is a house ready. We have too many dwellings in proportion to our food.”