Under such circumstances, what marvel that the poor man becomes unthrifty, reckless and desperate? I know how common it is to complain of the extravagance of the poor. Often there is reason for the complaint. It is a wrong thing, and immoral, for a man with a dependent family to spend all his earnings, if it be possible to live with less. I think many young men are much to be blamed, for squandering all their wages to please a dainty palate, or to dress as fine as a richer man, making only the heart of their tailor foolishly glad. Such men may not be poor now, but destine themselves to be the fathers of poor children. After making due allowance, it must be confessed that much of the recklessness of the poor comes unavoidably from their circumstances; from their despair of ever being comfortable, except for a moment at a time. Every one knows that unmerited wealth tempts a man to squander, while few men know, what is just as true, that hopeless poverty does the same thing. As the tortured Indian will sleep, if his tormentor pause but a moment, so the poor man, grown reckless and desperate, forgets the future storms, and wastes in revel the solitary gleam of sunlight which falls on him. It is nature speaking through his soul. Now consider the moral temptations before such men. Here is wealth, food, clothing, comfort, luxury, gold, the great enchanter of this age, and but a plank betwixt it and them. Nay, they are shut from it only by a pane of glass thin as popular justice, and scarcely less brittle! They feel the natural wants of man; the artificial wants of men in cities. They are indignant at their social position, thrust into the mews and the kennels of the land. They think some one is to blame for it. A man in New England does not believe it God's will he should toil for ever, stinting and sparing only to starve the more slowly to death, overloaded with work, with no breathing time but the blessed Sunday. They see others doing nothing, idle as Solomon's lilies, yet wasting the unearned bread God made to feed the children of the poor. They see crowds of idle women elegantly clad, a show of loveliness, a rainbow in the streets, and think of the rag which does not hide their daughter's shame. They hear of thousands of baskets of costly wine imported in a single ship, not brought to recruit the feeble, but to poison the palate of the strong. They begin to ask if wealthy men and wise men have not forgotten their brothers, in thinking of their own pleasure! It is not the poor alone who ask that. In the midst of all this, what wonder is it if they feel desirous of revenge; what wonder that stores and houses are broken into, and stables set afire! Such is the natural effect of misery like that; it is but the voice of our brother's blood crying to God against us all. I wonder not that it cries in robbery and fire. The jail and the gallows will not still that voice, nor silence the answer. I wonder at the fewness of crimes, not their multitude.