What is man's future policy? Is there not still plenty of labor for him to perform? Is there not an ocean of enigmas yet to be fathomed, a gold-mine of knowledge yet to be explored? Is there not poverty to be remedied, pain to be alleviated, ignorance to be removed? The reformer has yet something to inspire his fervid soul; the philanthropist plenty to touch his generous heart. Why even now the wealthy rogue struts pompously upon the stage of life in grand attire, and fares sumptuously every day; while honest poverty in rags lies hungry and fainting at his door. Even now the rich own all the land, and many poor have not where to lay their head. Even now all men are not equal in the sight of the law; and one man gets pensioned for work for which another is incarcerated in gaol. Even now our sisters are outraged and turned adrift upon the world to be the playthings of vicious men for evermore. Even now our workhouses are filled with men and women who are able to work for an honest living--if they could get it--but cannot because labor is cheap, and there are too many waiting to perform it. Even now our gaols are filled with society-made criminals, that education and better circumstances might have rescued from a life of misery and crime. Even now youth is stunted and starved, and men and women pine away, racked with some terrible disease which thoughtless and careless parents have transmitted to them. Reformers abate not your enthusiasm, but work bravely on. Through the world diffuse the glorious light of knowledge, let men learn that all crime is a mistake, that effects always follow causes, and that a good effect never follows from a bad cause in a nation that is governed on the principles of truth and justice. Remove poverty by sound advice to the poor and by strenuous efforts to improve men's surroundings. Stay the drunkard in his downward course, and assist unceasingly all social and political progress. Popularity you may never attain; even praise for your unselfish labor may be denied you while you live. But good work must leave its influence in the world; and your children's children will assuredly profit by it. For as Carlyle truly says: "Beautiful it is to see and understand that no worth, or known or unknown, can die even on this earth. The work an unknown good man has done is like a hidden vein of water flowing underground, secretly making the ground green. It flows and flows; it joins itself with other veins and veinlets, and one day it will start forth as a visible perennial well." End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Natural Man, by Arthur B. Moss