IRST.

WORKER AND TRADE.

In that antiquity which we who only are the real ancients look back upon
as the elder world, counting those days as old which were but the
beginning of the time we reckon, there were certain methods with workers
that centuries ago ceased to have visible form. The Roman matron, whose
susceptibilities from long wear and tear in the observation of fighting
gladiators and the other mild amusements of the period, were a trifle
blunted, felt no compunction in ordering a disobedient or otherwise
objectionable slave into chains, and thereafter claiming the same
portion of work as had been given untrammelled. The routine of the day
demanded certain offices; but how these offices should be most easily
fulfilled was no concern of master or mistress, who required simply
fulfilment, and wasted no time on consideration of methods. In the homes
of Pompeii, once more open to the sun, are the underground rooms where
wretched men and women bowed under the weight of fetters, whose
corrosion was not only in weary flesh, but in the no less weary soul;
and Rome itself can still show the same remnants of long-forgotten wrong
and oppression.

That day is over, and well over, we say. Only for a few barbarians still
unreached by the march of civilization is any hint of such conditions
possible, and even for them the days of darkness are numbered. And so
the century moves on; and the few who question if indeed the bonds are
quite broken, if civilization has civilized, and if men and women may
claim in full their birthright of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness," are set down as hopeless carpers,--unpleasant, pragmatic,
generally disagreeable objectors to things as they are. Or if it is
admitted that there are defects here and there, and that much remains to
be remedied, we are pointed with pride to the magnificent institutions
of modern charity, where every possible want of all sorts and conditions
of men is met and fulfilled.

"What more would you have?" cries the believer in things as they are.
"What is higher or finer than the beautiful spirit that has taken
permanent form in brick and mortar? Never since time began has charity
been on so magnificent a scale; never has it been so intelligent, so
far-seeing. No saints of the past were ever more vowed to good works
than these uncanonized saints of to-day who give their lives to the
poor and count them well lost. Shame on man or woman who questions the
b