Having spoken of some of the duties of private persons, we come now to the great employers of labour. Would that they all saw the greatness of their position. Strange as it may sound, they are the successors of the feudal barons, they it is who lead thousands to peaceful conquests, and upon whom, in great measure, depends the happiness of large masses of mankind. As Mr. Carlyle says, “The Leaders of Industry, if Industry is ever to be led, are virtually the Captains of the World; if there be no nobleness in them, there will never be an Aristocracy more.” Can a man, who has this destiny entrusted to him, imagine that his vocation consists merely in getting together a large lump of gold, and then being off with it, to enjoy it, as he fancies, in some other place: as if that which is but a small part of his business in life, were all in all to him; as if indeed, the parable of the talents were to be taken literally, and that a man should think that he has done his part when he has made much gold and silver out of little? If these men saw their position rightly, what would be their objects, what their pleasures? Their objects would not consist in foolish vyings with each other about the grandeur or the glitter of life. But in directing the employment of labour, they would find room for the exercise of all the powers of their minds, of their best affections, and of whatever was worthy in their ambition. Their occupation, so far from being a limited sphere of action, is one which may give scope to minds of the most various capacity. While one man may undertake those obvious labours of benevolent superintendence which are of immediate and pressing necessity, another may devote himself to more remote and indirect methods of improving the condition of those about him, which are often not the less valuable because of their indirectness. In short, it is evident that to lead the labour of large masses of people, and to do that, not merely with a view to the greatest product of commodities, but to the best interests of the producers, is a matter which will sufficiently and worthily occupy men of the strongest minds aided by all the attainments which cultivation can bestow.