languishing and decrepit age; but when we affect to pity, as poor, those
who must labor or the world cannot exist, we are trifling with the
condition of mankind. It is the common doom of man, that he must eat his
bread by the sweat of his brow,--that is, by the sweat of his body or
the sweat of his mind. If this toil was inflicted as a curse, it is, as
might be expected, from the curses of the Father of all blessings; it is
tempered with many alleviations, many comforts. Every attempt to fly
from it, and to refuse the very terms of our existence, becomes much
more truly a curse; and heavier pains and penalties fall upon those who
would elude the tasks which are put upon them by the great Master
Workman of the world, who, in His dealings with His creatures,
sympathizes with their weakness, and, speaking of a creation wrought by
mere will out of nothing, speaks of six days of _labor_ and one of
_rest_. I do not call a healthy young man, cheerful in his mind and
vigorous in his arms, I cannot call such a man _poor_; I cannot pity my
kind as a kind, merely because they are men. This affected pity only
tends to dissatisfy them with their condition, and to teach them to seek
resources where no resources are to be found, in something else than
their own industry and frugality and sobriety. Whatever may be the
intention (which, because I do not know, I cannot dispute) of those who
would discontent mankind by this strange pity, they act towards us, in
the consequences, as if they were our worst enemies.

In turning our view from the lower to the higher classes, it will not be
necessary for me to show at any length that the stock of the latter, as
it consists in their numbers, has not yet suffered any material
diminution. I have not seen or heard it asserted; I have no reason to
believe it: there is no want of officers, that I have ever understood,
for the new ships which we commission, or the new regiments which we
raise. In the nature of things, it is not with their persons that the
higher classes principally pay their contingent to the demands of war.
There is another, and not less important part, which rests with almost
exclusive weight upon them. They furnish the means

"how War may, best upheld,
Move by her two main nerves, iron and gold,
In all her equipage."

Not that they are exempt from contributing also by their personal
service in the fleets and armies of their country. They do contribute,
and in th