ot merely just? We speak more particularly of the
relations which exist between the owner of the land and those who till
it; and where benevolence is a duty, and not a virtue depending on the
will: not that they, in whose behalf it is ever exercised, regard it
in this light--very far from it! Their thankfulness for benefits is
generally most disproportioned to their extent; but we are dissatisfied
because our charity has not changed the whole current of their fortunes,
and that the favours which cost us so little to bestow, should not
become the ruling principle of their lives.

Owen reflected deeply on these things as he ascended the mountain-road.
The orphan child he carried in his arms pressed such thoughts upon
him, and he wondered why rich men denied themselves the pleasures of
benevolence. He did not know that many great men enjoyed the happiness,
but that it was made conformable to their high estate by institutions
and establishments; by boards, and committees, and guardians; by all
the pomp and circumstance of stuccoed buildings and liveried attendants.
That to save themselves the burden of memory, their good deeds were
chronicled in lists of "founders" and "life-subscribers," and their
names set forth in newspapers; while, to protect their finer natures
from the rude assaults of actual misery, they deputed others to be the
stewards of their bounty.

Owen did not know all this, or he had doubtless been less unjust
regarding such persons. He never so much as heard of the pains that
are taken to ward off the very sight of poverty, and all the appliances
employed to exclude suffering from the gaze of the wealthy. All his
little experience told him was, how much of good might be done within
the sphere around him by one possessed of affluence. There was not a
cabin around, where he could not point to some object claiming aid or
assistance. Even in seasons of comparative comfort and abundance, what a
deal of misery still existed; and what a blessing it would bring on him
who sought it out, to compassionate and relieve it! So Owen thought,
and so he felt too; not the less strongly that another heart then
beat against his own, the little pulses sending a gush of wild delight
through his bosom as he revelled in the ecstacy of benevolence. The
child awoke, and looked wildly about him; but when he recognised in
whose arms he was, he smiled happily, and cried, "Nony, Nony," the name
by which Owen was known among all the ch