ly some few
builders, taking to heart the present miserable accommodation for the
poor, which few know better than they do, would, in their building
enterprises, speculate also in houses of the smaller kind, and take a
pride in doing the utmost for them.

One might easily multiply instances where individual exertion would come
in; but each man must in some measure find out the fit sphere of action
for him. "The Statesman" tells us that the real wealth of a state is the
number of "serviceable" minds in it. The object of a good citizen should
be to make himself part of this wealth. Let him aid where he can in
benevolent associations, if well assured of their utility, and at the
same time mindful of the duty of private endeavour; but do not let him
think that he is to wait for the State's interference, or for
co-operation of any kind. I do not say that such aids are to be
despised, but that they are not to be waited for, and that the means of
social improvement are in every body's hands. For warfare, men are
formed in masses, and scientific arrangement is the soul of their
proceedings. But industrial conquests and, especially, the conquests of
benevolence, are often made, here somewhat and there somewhat, individual
effort struggling up in a thousand free ways.

* * * * *

The individual freedom which we possess is a great reason for individual
exertion. How large that freedom is, it needs but a slight acquaintance
with the past to estimate. Through what ages have we not toiled to the
conviction that people should not be burnt for their opinions. The
lightest word about dignities, the slightest claim to freedom of thought
or speech upon those matters which, perhaps, angelic natures would hardly
venture to pronounce upon, even the wayward play of morbid imagination,
were not unlikely in former times to lead to signal punishments. A man
might almost in his sleep commit treason, or heresy, or witchcraft. The
most cautious, official-spoken man amongst us, if carried back on a
sudden to the days of Henry the Eighth, would, at the end of the first
week, be pursued by a general hue and cry from the authorities, civil and
ecclesiastical, for his high and heinous words against King, Church, and
State. While now, Alfred Tennyson justly describes our country as

"The land, where girt with friends or foes,
A man may say the thing he will."

There is danger of our losing this fre