It would be a great mistake to suppose that in our higher society there are no good Manners, none that are really good in essence and purpose, as well as in form; and it would be an equal mistake to suppose, that in all society of lower caste there is either a want of true refinement or an envy and distrust of all that is above it; but it is also true that there is a magic circle known as "genteel," and a perpetual antagonism prevails here between those who are within and those who desire admittance, but are refused; as there are literary circles where contentions and envyings arise between pedantic scholarship and assuming ignorance. The ill-breeding so often complained of in the intercourse between the different classes of society, and by none more indignantly than those who exercise it most, results from the factitious value set upon the externals of life by those who estimate them in proportion as they give distinction among men, and not as they increase the means of happiness and usefulness in this world, and so prepare us for the usefulness and happiness of the world to come. Those among the poor, the ignorant, and the vulgar, whose hearts are burning with envy and hatred; and those among the rich, the learned, and the fashionable, who are rendered arrogant and supercilious by their possessions, are alike unconscious of the true worth of the blessings that excite the covetousness of the one class and the exultation of the other. Each party values man for his possessions, and not for the use that he makes of them; for what he has, and not for what he is. Where this is the case, mutual aversion ultimating itself on both sides in acts of discourtesy, will ever keep alive a spirit of antagonism among the various classes of society; and this will disappear in proportion as society becomes sufficiently Christianized to perceive and acknowledge that every human being is worthy of respect so far as he fulfils the duties of his station; and that we cannot be discourteous even towards the evil and the unfaithful, without indulging feelings of pride and disdain that are incompatible with Christian meekness.