fact, to live more harmoniously
together. If our sympathies were duly enlightened and enlarged, we
should find that we did not need one doctrine for our conduct to friends,
another for our conduct to dependents, and another for our conduct to
neighbours. One spirit would suffice to guide us rightly in all these
relations. The uninstructed man looking around him on the universe, and
seeing a wonderful variety of appearances, is inclined to imagine that
there are numberless laws and substances essentially different, little
knowing from how few of either the profusion of beauty in the world is
formed. But the creative energy of what we call Nature, dealing with few
substances, breaks out into every form and colour of loveliness. Here,
we have the dainty floweret which I would compare to the graceful
kindnesses passing among equals; there, the rich corn-field like the
substantial benefits which the wise master-worker confers on those around
him; here again, the far-spreading oak which, with its welcome depth of
shade, may remind us of the duties of protection and favour due from the
great to the humble; and there, the marriage of the vine to the elm, a
similitude for social and domestic affection. The kindnesses to which I
have compared these various products of Nature, are also of one spirit,
and may be worked out with few materials. Indeed, one man may in his
life manifest them all. No new discovery, no separate teaching, for each
branch of this divine knowledge, is needed.

I do not say that there may not be physical discoveries, or legislative
measures, which may greatly aid in improving the condition of the
labouring classes. But, if we observe how new things come, in our own
life for instance, or in the course of history, we shall find that they
seldom come in the direction in which we are looking out for them. They
fall behind us; and, while we are gazing about for the novelty, it has
come down and has mingled with the crowd of old things, and we did not
know it. Let us begin working on the old and obvious foundations, and we
shall be most ready to make use of what new aid may come, if we do not
find an almost inexhaustible novelty in what we deemed so commonplace.
There is no way of burnishing up old truths like acting upon them.

You may rely upon it that it is one of the most unwholesome and
unworkmanlike states of mind to be looking about for, and relying upon,
some great change which is all of a sudde