is such an
institution, and, as far as it goes, is founded on pure and just
motives, and is calculated to do much good. We should never despair for
the wicked, but we should also hope all things for the good. Suppose now
a strong, healthy, and industrious young man, of excellent character,
ready and willing to work, but desirous of receiving good instruction in
his way of life, were to present himself at the place you are speaking
of--this farm of reclaimed thieves--well, the first question would be,
'Well, my chap, are you a rogue and a vagabond?' 'No!' 'Oh, then we
can't receive you here--we've no room for honest lads.'"

"What you say, father, is right, every word of it," rejoined Jean Rene.
"Rascals are provided for, while honest men want; and beasts are
considered, and their condition continually improved, while men are
passed over and left in ignorance and neglect."

"It was purposely to remedy what you complain of, my brave lad, that our
master took this farm (as I was mentioning to our blind visitor). 'I
know very well,' said he, 'that honest men will be rewarded on high, but
then, you see, it is far and long to look forward to, and there are many
(and much to be pitied are they) who can neither look to such a
distance, nor wait with patience the indefinite period which bids them
live on hope alone. Then how are these poor, depressed, and toil-worn
creatures to find leisure thus to seek religious comfort? Rising at the
first dawn of day, they toil and labour with weary limbs, till night
releases them and sends them to their wretched hovels. Sunday is spent
by them at the public-house, drinking to drive away the recollections
both of their past and future wretchedness. Neither can these poor
beings turn their very hardships to a good account by extracting a
useful moral from them. After a hard day's work does their bread seem
less coarse and black, their pallet less hard, their infants less sickly
and meagre, their wives less worn down by giving nourishment to the
feeble babes of their breast? No, no, far from it. Alas, the thin,
half-starved mother is but ill calculated to nourish another, when she
is obliged to yield her slender share of the family meal to still the
clamours of her famishing children. Yet all this might be endured, aye,
even cheerfully, for use has familiarised them with hardships and
privations; their bread is food, though coarse and homely, their straw
bed rests their weary limbs, and their