Christian mechanics and pious young women, who would not hurt the hair of an innocent head, have I seen at Springfield, making swords to slaughter the innocent citizens of Vera Cruz and Jalapa. The ships of respectable men carry rum to intoxicate the savages of Africa, powder and balls to shoot them with; they carry opium to the Chinese; nay, Christian slaves from Richmond and Baltimore to New Orleans and Galveston. In all commercial countries, the average vice of the age is mixed up with the industry of the age, and unconsciously men learn the wickedness long intrenched in practical life. It is thought industrial operations are not amenable to the moral law, only to the law of trade. "Let the supply follow the demand" is the maxim. A man who makes as practical a use of the golden rule as of his yard-stick, is still an exception in all departments of business. Even in the commercial and manufacturing parts of America, money accumulates in large masses; now in the hands of an individual, now of a corporation. This money becomes an irresponsible power, acting by the laws, but yet above them. It is wielded by a few men, to whom it gives a high social position and consequent political power. They use this triple form of influence, pecuniary, social and political, in the spirit of commerce, not of humanity, not for the interest of mankind; thus the spirit of trade comes into the state. Hence it is not thought wrong in politics to buy a man, more than in commerce to buy a ship; hence the rights of a man, or a nation, are looked on as articles of trade, to be sold, bartered, and pledged; and in the Senate of the United States, we have heard a mass of men, more numerous than all our citizens seventy years ago, estimated as worth twelve hundred millions of dollars. In most countries business comes more closely into contact with men than the state, or the church, or the press, and is a more potent educator. Here it not only does this, but controls the other three forces, which are mainly instruments of this; hence this form of evil is more dangerous than elsewhere, for there is no power organized to resist it as in England or Rome; so it subtly penetrates everywhere, bidding you place the accidents before the substance of manhood, and value money more than man. * * * * *