TRAT

COMMUNISM-ILLUSTRATIVE VERSES.

What is a Communist? one who hath yearnings
For equal division of unequal earnings ;

Idler or bungler, he's one who is willing

To fork out his penny and pocket your shilling!

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And the following Communist's prayer is admirable :-

Lord send us weeks of Sundays,

A saint's day every day!

Shirts gratis, ditto breeches,

Less work, and double pay.

And the following verse, how tender, strong, and true:

Sad it is to be weak,

And sadder to be wrong;

But if the strong God's statutes break,
'Tis saddest to be strong.

And again :

Companionship in toil or sorrow

Makes every man a brother;

Till we have wept and prayed together
We do not know each other.

CHAPTER VI.

THE MIND AND THE HAND.-MENTAL LABOUR REALLY

PRODUCTIVE.

ES, Mind, indeed rules all; the Hand could not do without the Mind, but neither could the Mind without the Hand. Mind gives the con

ception and the plan, but the Hand gives to the Mind execution and permanence; in fact, in our true sense, men could achieve neither Literature nor Labour without both of these in combination. How is it that in the course of these latter ages these two have diminished their respect for each other? The Head has said to the Hand, "I have no need of thee;" and the Hand has said to the Head, "I have no need of thee." How is it that these two, who ought to be indissoluble friends, have been thus disunited? The Political Economist, indeed, speaks of the Producing Classes; but he cuts off from this appellation all the children of Genius-all the Poets, Historians, and Men of Science. Yet, indeed, the Man of Genius produces all. A man like Sir Walter Scott, for instance, affects considerably the material condition of his times; to say nothing of his contributions towards refining the manners and improving the tastes of the country; he increases its resources; he creates a demand for its material productions. As the wonderful creations come teeming forth from his prolific mind, men must read them; Novels, Poems, they will read them, here and in America, and over the whole of Europe, by hundreds of thou

GENIUS A GREAT PRODUCING POWER. 131

sands thus, Lead is demanded for Types, and Foundries for Casting; the Paper Mill is employed; the Printer is set to work; Artists, Engravers, Binders, -and all these persons must live. And thus one man may, by his own force of genius, be the means of giving employment to hundreds of thousands of men, through successive generations. Thus, then, we must widen and liberalize the term Labour and we must extend the meaning of the term, the Labouring Classes. The Working Classes, the Industrious Classes, the Self-educated Classes, are all very ambiguous terms, and none of them convey precisely the idea we would wish to convey. All,-it may be said, in one sense-all who give to Society any value in return for their existence in it, or for the protection they derive from it-all must labour; some with the hand, some with the head, some with the foot. There are some men who sit in inglorious idleness, neither sowing nor reaping, but employing a whole world, it may be, to serve them. Such men-moral blisters, or rather contagious beings as they are-do yet benefit some way; but they are not to be included in the grand ranks of the Labouring Classes. But the man who really has work to do is a Labourer; he may be a Lucifer-Match Maker, or a Street Sweeper; he may be a Surgeon, and may set broken bones; a Physician, and by his knowledge of chemical properties and substances, and their relation to human bodies, he may lengthen human life ; he may be a Carpenter, or a Mason; he may be a Contractor, or a Merchant; he may be a Captain, and walk the quarter-deck; or he may be a Sailor before the mast he is a Productive Labourer. He may be a Poet, like Wordsworth or Scott; a Novelist, like Dickens ; a Clergyman, like Dr. Arnold. He may popularize philosophical subjects, as a Lecturer; he may fill a Chair in an University he is a Productive Labourer. He is adding to the amount of Social Wealth; he is increasing the amount of Social Confidence; he is adding to the proportion of Social Intelligence; he is giving firmness to the guarantees

of social rectitude by his sagacity and wisdom, by his probity and consistency, by his perseverance and courage: he is a Social Labourer. It is not sufficiently remembered that, if a man work worthily in any way, as a Minister of public instruction, he is really a Worker, although not spoken of as popularly belonging to the Labouring Class.

But when we speak of the Labouring Class, we do attach to it a distinct meaning and idea, and we mean by it, for the most part, not merely those whose lives are devoted to Labour, but who toil upon those pursuits which are indispensable to the very sustenance and foundation of society; who plod in the field behind the plough; who harrow and dig; who delve in the mine; who fell the tree; who excavate the road; who weave and knit; who build and hew; who win the stone from the quarry, and the metal from the fire; in fine, who prepare the raw material for society, who make the City or the Village; the climbers of the Ladder, the constructors of the Scaffold. These classes have been looked upon with contempt by their brother workers; they have been little more than the Serfs of the social system-the Carriers of the human race; they have been regarded as only ignorant and debased by the other orders of society; in battle, from this class have sprung the soldiers, the main body of those who perished in the field; in peace they have borne the principal burden of the taxation imposed by the wars. If it had not been for these men, and such as these, there could have been no civil state. "The King himself is served from the field;" yet their elevation has been very slow indeed. By the webs woven through a series of ages they have been kept in bondage; and very few, indeed, believe that from this order have ever sprung any of those who have possessed intelligence or moral power: yet, from the lowly Valleys of Humiliation and Poverty have ascended those who, in every walk of life, have conferred the most lasting and important obligations on the world. From those valleys came Legislators, who conferred upon nations the wisest laws; Prophets, who uttered the augury of the future; Poets, who chaunted the

MAN AND THE WORLD CONSTRUCTED FOR WORK. 133

most stirring and inspiring songs; Sages, who proclaimed the truths of highest wisdom; Philosophers, who read deeply the mystery and the meaning of nature.

The most worthy positions in literature, or art, or science, have been often attained from the lowest round of the ladder of labour; there is no royal road to any really worthy place or post. Mind is matured and made strong only by the patient, the persevering, the diligent exercise of all its powers. The city does not rise upon the waste without labour, without the sound of hammers, and the voices of industry. So neither will Mind become vigorous without vigilant watchfulness and training. The most wealthy man who ever attained to any place of intellectual honour did so by labour, equally with the humble being who fought with unnumbered difficulties, in order that he might attain to some of the pleasures of knowledge, of refinement and taste. Bodily labour, too-the power of endurance— sharpens the wit and energies of the mind, and calls its resources forth into activity and play.

It is worth noticing that God has constructed the moral world upon the principle of labour; he has sent Man into. a workshop; He has given him his ten fingers as tools wherewith to work: He has not rained down upon man the pleasures and the charms of life, without demanding from him a proportionate degree of exercise in order to obtain them. Some things lie near at hand; they are indispensable, and are therefore soon obtained: but other things, of permanent value too, lie more remote, and the exertion to procure them is long and severe thus the most valuable and important circumstance about every one of us is our education-and that is a life-long business; and men who have been many years at school find themselves as far from the mark and standard of a perfect life, as when they begun the exercise and the discipline of the soul. Great things can only be purchased by great Labour. The actual time of the composition of "Paradise Lost" might be trifling, compared with the magnificence of the production;