“Melancholy,” says the writer, “is the result of centuries of mischievous and often wicked legislation, in the impression it has left upon the mind of the public. Long after a government has ceased to do evil, it is left powerless for good by the universal distrust with which it is regarded. The people have yet to learn to place confidence in their own servants, and to support when needed in their persons their own authority, instead of seeking to overturn it as that of tyrants or masters. So numerous have been the evils which have arisen from unwise interference, that an opinion very widely prevails that a government can do nothing but mischief; and the almost universal prayer of the people is to be left alone.” Again he says, “Why should it not be borne in mind that there are higher objects for human exertion, whether for individuals or communities, than the greatest possible aggregate of wealth? And although the realization of those objects in our time may be but the visionary dream of the philanthropist, let no one say that good will not arise from keeping them steadily in view.” And to explain his sentiments upon the subject of the elevation of the labouring classes, he quotes the following paragraph from Dr Channing’s first lecture, delivered at a meeting of the Mechanic Apprentices’ Library Association at Boston: “By the elevation of the labourer I do not understand that he is to be raised above the need of labour. I do not expect a series of improvements by which he is to be released from his daily work. Still more, I have no desire to dismiss him from his workshop and farm, to take the spade and axe from his hand, and to make his life a long holiday. I have faith in labour, and I see the goodness of God in placing us in a world where labour alone can keep us alive. I would not change, if I could, our subjection to physical laws, our exposure to hunger and cold, and the necessity of constant conflicts with the material world. I would not, if I could, so temper the elements that they should infuse into us only grateful sensations, that they should make vegetation so exuberant as to anticipate every want, and the minerals so ductile as to offer no resistance to our strength or skill. Such a world would make a contemptible race. Man owes his growth, his energy, chiefly to that striving of the will, that conflict with difficulty, which we call effort. Easy, pleasant work does not make robust minds, does not give men a consciousness of their powers, does not train them to endurance, to perseverance, to steady force of will, that force without which all other acquisitions will avail nothing. Manual labour is a school in which men are placed to get energy of purpose and character--a vastly more important endowment than all the learning of all other schools. They are placed indeed under hard masters, physical sufferings and wants, the power of fearful elements, and the vicissitudes of all human things; but