s
office which is intended for their hands. I said, just now, that wealth
ill-used was as the net of the spider, entangling and destroying: but
wealth well used is as the net of the sacred fisher who gathers souls of
men out of the deep. A time will come--I do not think even now it is
far from us--when this golden net of the world's wealth will be spread
abroad as the flaming meshes of morning cloud are over the sky; bearing
with them the joy of light and the dew of the morning, as well as the
summons to honourable and peaceful toil. What less can we hope from your
wealth than this, rich men of England, when once you feel fully how, by
the strength of your possessions--not, observe, by the exhaustion, but
by the administration of them and the power,--you can direct the
acts--command the energies--inform the ignorance--prolong the existence,
of the whole human race; and how, even of worldly wisdom, which man
employs faithfully, it is true, not only that her ways are pleasantness,
but that her paths are peace; and that, for all the children of men, as
well as for those to whom she is given, Length of days is in her right
hand, as in her left hand Riches and Honour?

ADDENDA

Note, p. 18.--"_Fatherly authority._"

121. This statement could not, of course, be heard without displeasure
by a certain class of politicians; and in one of the notices of these
lectures given in the Manchester journals at the time, endeavour was
made to get quit of it by referring to the Divine authority, as the only
Paternal power with respect to which men were truly styled "brethren."
Of course it is so, and, equally of course, all human government is
nothing else than the executive expression of this Divine authority. The
moment government ceases to be the practical enforcement of Divine law,
it is tyranny; and the meaning which I attach to the words "paternal
government," is, in more extended terms, simply this--"The executive
fulfilment, by formal human methods, of the will of the Father of
mankind respecting His children." I could not give such a definition of
Government as this in a popular lecture; and even in written form, it
will necessarily suggest many objections, of which I must notice and
answer the most probable.

Only, in order to avoid the recurrence of such tiresome phrases as "it
may be answered in the second place," and "it will be objected in the
third place," etc., I will ask the reader's leave to arrange the
disc