have not heart enough to adventure any opposition to it.
Thus, by dwelling upon the magnitude of the evils we long to lessen, we are frightened and soothed into letting our benevolent wishes remain as wishes only. But surely a man may find a sphere small enough, as well as large enough, for him to act in. In all other pursuits, we are obliged to limit the number and extent of our objects, in order to give full effect to our endeavours: and so it should be with benevolence. The foolish sluggard stares hopelessly into the intricacies of the forest, and thinks that it can never be reclaimed. The wiser man, the labourer, begins at his corner of the wood, and makes out a task for himself for each day. Let not our imaginations be employed on one side only. Think, that large as may appear the work to be done—so too the result of any endeavour, however small in itself, may be of infinite extent in the future. Nothing is lost.
And why should we despair? A great nation is never in extreme peril until it has lost its hopeful spirit. If, at this moment, a
foreign enemy were on the point of invading us, how strenuous we should be: what moral energy would instantly pervade us. Faster than the beacon lights could give the intelligence from headland to headland; from city to city would spread the national enthusiasm of a people that would never admit the thought of being conquered. Trust me, these domestic evils are foes not less worthy of our attention than any foreign invaders. It seems to me, I must confess, a thing far more to be dreaded, that any considerable part of our population should be growing up in a state of absolute ignorance, than would be the danger, not new to us, of the combined hostility of the civilized world. Our trials, as a nation, like our individual ones, are perpetually varied as the world progresses.
“The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils himself in many ways.”
We have not the same evils to contend with as our ancestors had; but we need the same stoutness of heart that bore them through the contest. The sudden growth of things, excellent in themselves, entangles the feet of
that generation amongst whom they spring up. There may be something, too, in the progress of human affairs like the coming in of the tide, which, for each succeeding wave; often seems as much of a retreat as an advance: but still the tide comes on.
The settled state of things attendant upon peace, and an unquestioned dynasty, is good, as it enables men to look more to civil affairs; but it has, perhaps, a drawback in a certain apathy which is wont to accompany it. The ordinary arrangements of social life, for a long time uninterrupted by any large calamity, appear to become hardened into certainties. A similar course of argument would, on a large scale, apply not only to this country, but to the world in general. Security is the chief end of civilization, and as it progresses, the fortunes of individuals are, upon the whole, made less liable to derangement. This very security may tend to make men careless of the welfare of others, and, as Bacon would express it, may be noted as an impediment to benevolence. I have often thought, whether in former times, when men
looked to those immediately around them as their body guard against sudden and violent attacks, they ventured to show as much ill-temper to those they lived with as you sometimes see them do now, when assistance of all kinds is a purchasable commodity. Considerations of this nature are particularly applicable when addressed to persons living in a great capital like London. All things that concern the nation, its joys, its sorrows, and its successes, are transacted in this metropolis; or, as one might more properly say, are represented in transactions in this metropolis. But still this often happens in such a manner as would be imperceptible even to people of vast experience and observation. The countless impulses which travel up from various directions to this absorbing centre sometimes neutralize each other, and leave a comparative calm; or they create so complex an agitation, that it may be next to impossible for us to discern and estimate the component forces. Hence the metropolis may not at times be sufficiently susceptible in the case either of manufacturing or agricultural distress, or of any colonial perturbation. This
metropolitan insensibility has some great advantages, but it is well for us to observe the corresponding evil, and, as far as may be, to guard our own hearts from being rendered apathetic by its influence.