y
their vices, by idleness, by gaming, by drinking, by squandering; but,
the far greater part by bodily ailments, by misfortunes to the effects
of which all men may, without any fault, and even without any folly, be
exposed: and, is there a man on earth so cruelly unjust as to wish to
add to the sufferings of such persons by stripping them of their
political rights? How many thousands of industrious and virtuous men
have, within these few years, been brought down from a state of
competence to that of pauperism! And, is it just to strip such men of
their rights, merely because they are thus brought down? When I was at
ELY, last spring, there were in that neighbourhood, _three paupers_
cracking stones on the roads, who had all three been, not only
rate-payers, but _overseers of the poor_, within seven years of the day
when I was there. Is there any man so barbarous as to say, that these
men ought, merely on account of their misfortunes, to be deprived of
their political rights? Their right to receive relief is as perfect as
any right of property; and, would you, merely because they claim _this
right_, strip them of _another right_? To say no more of the injustice
and the cruelty, is there reason, is there common sense in this? What!
if a farmer or tradesman be, by flood or by fire, so totally ruined as
to be compelled, surrounded by his family, to resort to the parish-book,
would you break the last heart-string of such a man by making him feel
the degrading loss of his political rights?

342. Here, young man of sense and of spirit; _here is the point_ on
which you are to take your stand. There are always men enough to plead
the cause of the rich; enough and enough to echo the woes of the fallen
great; but, be it your part to show compassion for those who labour, and
to maintain _their rights_. Poverty is not _a crime_, and, though it
sometimes arises from faults, it is not, even in that case, to be
visited by punishment beyond that which it brings with itself. Remember,
that poverty is decreed by the very nature of man. The Scripture says,
that 'the poor shall never cease from out of the land;' that is to say,
that there shall always be some very poor people. This is inevitable
from the very nature of things. It is necessary to the existence of
mankind, that a very large portion of every people should live by manual
labour; and, as such labour is _pain_, more or less, and as no living
creature likes pain, it must be, that