“Well, ma’am,” the man replied, “I see what you mean, and I will think it over, for I have begun to see lately that I am not always so overright myself. But, ma’am, I don’t think this ill judging that you complain of is all on one side. If we poor men do make the mistake of judging the rich too harshly, I am sure the rich don’t forget to ‘pay us back in our own coin.’”
“I am afraid there is much truth in what you say. This want of consideration for one another is a general evil that pervades all society and is at the present time causing a great deal of unhappiness in this country. I have no doubt you have had masters whose conduct towards you seemed to be entirely influenced by the amount of work they could get out of you; but whilst you could justly charge them with this, must you not at the same time have pleaded guilty if you had been accused of entertaining much the same sentiment towards them? It is not because one man is rich and another poor that there is so little kindly feeling between the two classes, neither is it altogether that one is learned and the other unlearned; for much as there is to deplore in the present state of society, we have still beautiful instances of the most faithful and genuine friendship existing between the serving and the served. It is not, I am persuaded, this difference of position that is at the root of the mischief; it is the mistaken feeling that one class bears to another. It is the hard words that you speak, and the unjust thoughts that you and your comrades encourage each other to entertain towards the rich, that help to make society wrong; and it is because the higher classes do not honour you for your skill, industry, and ability, and acknowledge their dependence upon you, that this wrong is perpetuated.”
I have sometimes wondered, if an angel were to be sent from heaven to endeavour to set us all right on the subject of our duties and feelings one towards another, whether he would give his first lesson to the employers or the employed; but neither party need wait for the extraordinary teaching of a celestial visitant. An angel would bring with him no new lesson-book—he would point out to us for our guidance a few verses from an old and inspired volume; that have been trying to make themselves heard amongst us for the last eighteen hundred years.
“For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”
“But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.”
“And be ye kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”
“Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another; love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous.”
“The workshop must be crowded
That the palace may be bright;
If the ploughman did not plough,
Then the poet could not write.
Then let every toil be hallow’d
That man performs for man,
And have its share of honour
As part of one great plan.“Ye men who hold the pen,
Rise like a band inspired;
And, poets, let your lyrics
With hope for man be fired;
Till the earth becomes a temple,
And every human heart
Shall join in one great service,
Each happy in his part.”
CHAPTER V.
Homes and No Homes.
“The grief that aits beside the hearth,
Life has no grief beside.”