Civilization smiles; Liberty is glad; Humanity rejoices; Piety exults-for the voice of industry and gladness is heard on every side. Working men! walk worthy of your vocation! You have a noble escutcheon; disgrace it not! There is nothing really mean and low but sin! Stoop not from your lofty throne to defile yourselves by contamination with intemperance, licentiousness, or any form of evil. Labour allied with virtue, may look up to heaven and not blush, while all worldly dignities, prostituted to vice, will leave their owner without a corner of the universe in which to hide his shame. You will most successfully prove the honor of toil by illustrating in your own persons, its alliance with a sober, righteous, and godly life. Be ye sure of this, that the man of toil, who works in a spirit of obedient, loving homage to God, does no less than Cherubim and Seraphim in their loftiest flights and holiest song! Yes, in the search after true dignity, you may point me to the sceptred prince, ruling over mighty empires; to the lord of broad acres teeming with fertility, or the owner of coffers bursting with gold; you may tell me of them or of learning, of the historian or the philosopher, the poet or the artist; and while prompt to render such men all the honour which in varying degrees may be their due, I would emphatically declare that neither power nor nobility, nor wealth, nor learning, nor genius, nor benevolence, nor all combined, have a monopoly of dignity. I would take you to the dingy office, where day by day the pen plies its weary task, or to the : shop, where from early morning till half the world have sunk to sleep, the necessities and luxuries of life are distributed, with scarce an interval for food, and none for thought. I would descend farther-I would take you to the ploughman plodding along his furrows; to the mechanic throwing the swift shuttle, or tending the busy wheels; to the miner groping his darksome way in the deep caverns of earth; to the man of the trowel, the hammer, or the forge and if, while he diligently prosecutes his humble toil, he looks up with a brave heart and loving eye to heaven-if in what he does he recognizes his God, and expects his wages from on high-if, while thus labouring on earth, he anticipates the rest of heaven, and can say, as did a poor man once, who, when pitied on account of his humble lot, said, taking off his hat, Sir, I am the son of a King, I am a child of God, and when I die, angels will carry me from this Union Workhouse direct to the Court of Heaven." Oh! when I have shown you such a spectacle, I will ask-" Is there not dignity in labour? Work! and pure slumbers shall wait on thy pillow- Work for some good, be it ever so slowly- REV. NEWMAN HALL. THE PASTOR AND VILLAGE SCHOOL MASTER. NEAR yonder copse, where once the garden smil'd, Nor e'er had changed, or wished to change his place : By doctrines fashion'd to the varying hour: Shoulder'd his crutch, and show'd how fields were won. Careless their merits, or their faults to scan, Thus, to relieve the wretched was his pride, He watch'd and wept, he pray'd and felt for all. Beside the bed where parting life was laid, And sorrow, guilt, and pain, by turns dismay'd, The reverend champion stood. At his control Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul; Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise, And his last faltering accents whisper'd praise. At church, with meek and unaffected grace, With ready zeal each honest rustic ran ; And pluck'd his gown, to share the good man's smile. D As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, Tho' round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, Eternal sunshine settles on its head. Beside yon straggling fence that skirts the way, And still they gaz'd, and still the wonder grew, But past is all his fame. The very spot GOLDSMITH. |