ke this opportunity
to remark, that Frank Martin entered the factory, as had been arranged,
and was most cordially welcomed by the boys. He had been less with Nat,
since the latter became a bobbin boy, than before, but their friendship
was not abated. We have seen that they were on very intimate terms
before, and were much in each other's society. Frank's entrance into the
factory was suited to strengthen that friendship. The fact that each of
the boys was poor and obliged to work for a living, and that each, also,
was a factory boy, was enough to cause their sympathies to run together.
It is natural for the rich to seek the society of the rich, and for the
poor to seek the society of the poor, because their sympathies blend
together. Hence, we generally find in communities that the rich and poor
are usually separated, in some measure, by social barriers. This is not
as it should be by any means; and this distinction between the rich and
poor often becomes obnoxious to every kind and generous sentiment of
humanity. Still, to some extent, the very experience of the rich begets
a fellow-feeling with the rich, and so of the poor. The same is true,
also, of trials. The mother who has lost her babe can sympathize with
another bereaved mother, as no other person can. The sorrowing widow
enters into the bitter experience of another wife bereft of her husband,
as no other weeper can. And so it is of other forms of human experience.
Then, the occupations of individuals comes in to influence the
sympathies. A farmer meets a stranger, and finds, after cultivating his
acquaintance, that he is a farmer, and this fact alone increases his
interest in the individual. A sailor falls into company with an old man
of four-score years, and finds that he was once a sailor, and this item
of news draws him towards the aged man at once. A lawyer or clergyman is
introduced to a gentleman in a foreign land, and he learns that the
stranger is a lawyer or clergyman, as the case may be, and this
knowledge itself makes him glad to see him.

Now this principle had a place in the hearts of these three factory
boys, and bound them together by very strong ties of friendship. No
three boys in the village thought so much of each other, nor were so
much in each other's society, as they. There is no doubt that their
intimate acquaintance and intercourse had much to do in forming the
character of each. It certainly opened the way for some experiences that
hel