"How many natural ties are there between even the humblest scene of labor, and the noblest affections of humanity! In this view, the employment of mere muscular strength is ennobled. There is a central point in every man's life, around which all his toils and cares revolve. It is that spot which is consecrated by the names of wife, and children, and home. A secret and almost imperceptible influence from that spot, which is like no other on earth, steals into the breast of the virtuous laboring man, and strengthens every weary step of his toil. Every blow that is struck in the work-shop and the field, finds an echo in that holy shrine of his affections. If he who fights to protect his home, rises to the point of heroic virtue, no less may he who labors, his life long, to provide for that home. Peace be within those domestic walls, and prosperity beneath those humble roofs! But should it ever be otherwise; should the time ever come when the invader's step approaches to touch those sacred thresholds, I see in the labors that are taken for them, that wounds will be taken for them too; I see in every honest workman around me, a hero. "So material do I deem this point--the true nobility of labor, I mean--that I would dwell upon it a moment longer, and in a larger view. Why, then, in the great scale of things, is labor ordained for us? Easily, had it so pleased the great Ordainer, might it have been dispensed with. The world itself might have been a mighty machinery for the production of all that man wants. The motion of the globe upon its axis might have been the power, to move that world of machinery. Ten thousand wheels within wheels might have been at work; ten thousand processes, more curious and complicated than man can devise, might have been going forward without man's aid; houses might have risen like an exhalation, ----'with the sound Of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet, Built like a temple.'