Here I close this chapter, and this department of my work,—the habits and amusements of the people. It is a subject to which I attach no common importance. The people make the majority of our race; and if they are all equally the objects of that divine care which created them, they must be equally the objects of our truest sympathies. This has not hitherto been sufficiently considered: but every day that consideration must be forced more and more upon us; and we shall be made to feel that no philosophy is good which does not include the poor in its theory; no religion is sound which does not recognise their kinship; no legislation is wise which does not operate for their physical and intellectual benefit; and no country can be said to be truly prosperous, where the multitude is not respectable, enlightened, moral, and happy.
Let us all endeavour to hasten this period, as a living proof that Christianity is really preached to the poor; and that our knowledge has produced the most felicitous of its genuine fruits, in peopling this great nation with a race such as no nation has yet possessed; such as may eat,
Well earned, the bread of service, yet may have
A mounting spirit;—one that entertains
Scorn of base action, deed dishonourable,
Or aught unseemly.
Charles Lamb.
CHAPTER XIV.
SUNDAY IN THE COUNTRY.
Sonst stuerzte sich der Himmels-Liebe Kuss
Auf mich herab, in ernster Sabbathstille;
Da klang so ahndungsvoll des Glockentones Fuelle,
Und ein Gebet war bruenstiger Genuss:
Ein unbegreiflich holdes Sehnen
Trieb mich durch Wald und Wiesen hinzugehn,
Und unter tausend heissen Thraenen,
Fuehlt’ ich mir eine Welt entstehn.
Faust.
In other days, the kiss of heavenly love descended upon me in the solemn stillness of the Sabbath; then the full-toned bell sounded so fraught with mystic meaning, and a prayer was vivid enjoyment. A longing, inconceivably sweet, drove me forth to wander over wood and plain, and amid a thousand burning tears, I felt a world rise up to me.
Hayward’s Translation.