fresh, clear, spring water, and
sunshine--three inestimable privileges that they enjoy all the year
round, and which are denied to so many of the inhabitants of this
globe--there would be little grumbling in the Cotswolds.

"From toil he wins his spirits light,
From busy day the peaceful night;
Rich from the very want of wealth
In heaven's best treasures, peace and health."

GRAY.

"But these villages are so _dull_, and life is so monotonous there," is
the constant complaint. But what part of this earth is there, may I ask,
that is not dull to those who live there, unless we drive out dull care
and _ennui_ by that glorious antidote to gloom and despondency, a fully
occupied mind? There are two chapters in Carlyle's "Past and Present"
that ought to be printed in letters of gold, set in an ivory frame, and
hung up in the sleeping apartment of every man, woman, and child on the
face of this earth. They are called "Labour" and "Reward." In those few
short pages is embodied the whole secret of content and happiness for
the dwellers in quiet country villages and smoky towns alike. They
contain the philosopher's stone, which makes men cheerful under all
circumstances, but especially those who are poor and down-trodden. The
secret is a very simple one; but if the educated classes are continually
losing sight of it, how much easier is it for those who have only the
bare necessaries of life and few of the comforts to become deadened to
its influence! It lies first of all in the realisation of the fact that
the object of life is not to get, still less to enjoy, riches and
pleasure. It teaches for the thousandth time that the humblest and the
highest of us alike are immortal souls imprisoned for threescore years
and ten in a tenement of clay, preparing for a better and higher
existence. It reverses the position of things on earth--placing the
crown of kings on the head of the toiling labourer, and making "the last
first and the first last." Its very essence lies in the dictum of the
old monks, "_Laborare est orare_" ("Work is worship").

It was one of the chief characteristics of the Roman people in the time
of their greatness that their most successful generals were content to
return to the plough after their wars were over. Thus Pliny in his
"Natural History" remarks as follows: "Then were the fields cultivated
by the hands of the generals themselves, and the earth rejoiced, tilled
as it was by a