"Two men I honour, and no third. First, the toilworn Craftsman that
with earth-made Implement laboriously conquers the Earth, and makes
her man's. . . . A second man I honour, and still more highly: Him
who is seen toiling for the spiritually indispensable; not daily
bread, but the Bread of Life. . . . Unspeakably touching is it,
however, when I find both dignities united; and he that must toil
outwardly for the lowest of man's wants, is also toiling inwardly
for the highest."[4]

[Footnote 4: Carlyle, _Sartor Resartus_.]

To understand the many and bewildering changes which followed one
another in rapid succession during the early years of Victoria's
reign it is necessary to read the literature, more especially the
works of those writers who took a deep and lasting interest in the
lives and work of the people.

Democracy, the people, or the toiling class, was engaged in a fierce
battle with those forces which it held to be its natural enemies.
It was a battle of the Rich against the Poor, of the masters against
the men, of Right against Might. England was a sick nation, at war
with itself, and Chartism and the Chartists were some of the signs
of the disease. The early Victorian age is the age of Thomas Carlyle,
the stern, grim prophet, who, undaunted by poverty and ill-health,
painted England in dark colours as a country hastening to its ruin.

His message was old and yet new--for men had forgotten it, as they
always have from age to age. This was an age of competition, of
'supply and demand'; brotherly love had been forgotten and 'cash
payment' had taken its place. Carlyle denounced this system as "the
shabbiest gospel that had been taught among men." He urged upon
Government the fact that it was their _duty_ to educate and to uplift
the masses, and upon the masters that they should look upon their
workers as something more than money-making machines. The old system
of Guilds, in which the apprentice was under the master's direct care,
had gone and nothing had been put in its place.

The value of Carlyle's teaching lies in the fact that he insisted
upon the sanctity of work. "All true work is religion," he said, and
the essence of every true religion is to be found in the words, "Know
thy work and do it."

The best test of the worth of every nation is to be found in their
standard of life and work and their rejection of a life of idleness.
"To make some nook of God's Creation a little fruitfuller, better,