is placed
on our table, not an article which supplies the means of labour, not
one thing which is required by us as civilised beings, but involves
the labours and the sacrifices of others in our behalf; while by the
same law we cannot choose but contribute to their well-being. The
cotton which the artisan weaves or wears has been cultivated by
brothers beneath a tropical sun, and possibly beneath a tyrant's lash.
The tea he drinks has been gathered for him by brothers on the unknown
hill-sides of distant China. The oil which lights his lamp has been
fetched for him out of the depths of the Arctic seas by his sailor
brothers; and the coal that feeds his fire has been dug out by swarthy
brethren who have been picking and heaving for him amidst the darkness
and dangers of the mine. If the poorest mother writes a letter to her
son in some distant spot in India and puts it into the window-slit of
a village post-office, without a word being spoken, how much is done
for her before that letter reaches its destination! The hands of
unknown brethren will receive it, and transmit it; rapid trains will
hurry it over leagues of railways; splendid steamships will sail with
it, and hundreds of busy hands will pass it from port to port, from
land to land. It is watched day and night, through calm and hurricane,
and precious lives are risked to keep it in security, until in silence
and in safety, after months of travel, it is delivered from the
mother's hand into the hand of her child.

And thus it is that, whether we choose it or not, we are placed by God
as "members one of another," so that we cannot, if we would, separate
ourselves from our brother. For good or evil, prosperity or adversity,
we are bound up with him in the bundle of this all-pervading and
mysterious life. If one member suffers or rejoices, all are compelled
in some degree to share his burden of joy or sorrow. Let disease, for
example, break out in one district or kingdom, and, like a fire, it
will rush onward, passing away from the original spot of outbreak, and
involving families and cities far away in its desolating ruin. Let war
arise in one portion of the globe, it smites another. The passion or
the pride of some rude chief of a barbarous tribe in Africa or New
Zealand, or the covetousness and selfish policy of some party in
America, tell upon a poor widow in her lonely garret in the darkest
corner of a great city; and she may thus be deprived of her labour
thro