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will not decide; nor is it necessary, in order to urging the duties that belong to both.

Let me offer it as a leading observation, that these duties, in this country, have assumed a new character, and a new importance. The relation of employers and employed among us is new. The workman here does not come to his employer, bowing and cringing for service, as the only thing that can keep him from starving. He stands before the great and powerful contractor or merchant, on a footing of comparative independence of such independence, at least, as was never before known in any country. His labour is in request; if one man does not want it, another does. He is not obliged to sell it on such terms, as often grind to the dust the artisan of Birmingham and Manchester, or the lazzaroni of Naples, or the palanquin-bearer of Calcutta. This state of things, indeed, suggests some admonitions to the labouring classes, which I shall not fail to address to them; but at the same time, it imposes on employers some things, which I shall ask them to do, more than submit to as a matter of necessity. It calls them to consider and respect, more than employers have ever before done, the great claims of a common humanity.

I protest, then, against all overbearing haughtiness, and everything that indicates a want of respect and kindness, on the part of the employer. I do not say how common this treatment of the poor man is. I do not say, that there are ten men in this assembly who are guilty of it; but if there is one, then I say, that upon that case, I lay the heaviest weight of moral reprobation. I plead the great cause of humanity. I tell you, that he who stands before you with a coarse garb and sweaty brow, is yet a man; and that he is to be regarded and felt for as a man. Must I resort to the very alphabet of Christianity to teach you what is due to him? Must I remind you, that "God hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on the face of the earth?" Must I tell you, that "God hath made the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of a kingdom," amidst whose splendours all the appendages of your condition are but perishing baubles? Must I tell you, that the man, whom you are liable in your power to treat with injustice or indignity, may be a nobler man than you; dearer to God; and more worthy of all true respect than you are? Must I say, in so many words, that he has feelings as keen and sensitive, it may be, as your own? Must I say, that all the touching and venerable claims of humanity are stamped upon him as well as upon you; that wife, and children, and home-happiness, and hope, and heaven, are as dear to him as to you? What right have you, and where did you find it, to treat him any otherwise than as a brother man? You are, indeed, to give directions, and he is to follow them. But that is a simple compact between you, and does not compromise the respectability of either; and beyond that, I say, there is no law of substantial courtesy and kindness which is not to be observed between you. It is true, that men, whose hands and eyes are occupied with strenuous toil or business, cannot be engaged with making bows to each other; and this is not what I insist upon. But I would make the labourer understand, that I respect him according to his merits, as truly as I respect the gentleman; and I would make the gentleman who had no merits, understand, that I respect the honest and worthy labourer a thousand times more. What! shall I bring down the prin

ciples of eternal truth and justice so low, that they may be buried in the plaited folds of a rich man's garment? Truth and justice forbid! Worth is worth; and no garb, before my eyes, shall ever clothe meanness with honour, or sink virtue to contempt.

We are all possessed, it is probable, with conventional notions on this subject, which expose us to do considerable injustice. Man looketh on the outward appearance. But I hold, that he who does not strive, in favour of principle and humanity, to correct the mistakes of worldly sense and fashion, is no noble or Christian man. And I say, too, that he who would assume all the airs of unfeeling superiority, which the spirit of society will tolerate, is either inexcusably thoughtless, or detestably unprincipled, and is just fit to be an oppressor in Russia, a tyrant in Constantinople, if not a man-stealer in Africa; and I maintain, moreover, that Christianity itself has made but little progress, where this care and consideration for our kind are not cherished. Vainly will you try to reconcile any man's claims to Christian virtue with harshness and insolence to his dependants. He may go from the very worship of God to this scorn and despite of man-it avails not. The spirit of Christ is the spirit of philanthropy. He who loveth not God whom he hath

his brother whom he hath seen; how doth he love not seen?"

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Nor is it enough to refrain from oppression and insolence. There are duties belonging to the relation of the employer. He is bound to feel an interest in his dependants, beyond that of obtaining their services. This interest he takes in his horse or his ox. This is not enough to be felt for a human being. The man who labours in your garden, or in your warehouse, or your manufactory, is not to be looked upon as a mere machine that is accomplishing so much work, and after it is done to be dismissed without a further thought. You ought to think kindly of that man, and to consider how you can, as a fellowbeing, act towards him a brotherly part. You may find ways enough of doing this without going out of your sphere, and without being officious, or ostentatious, or offensively patronising in your kindness. Your very manners, inspiring in those who labour for you, good will, cheerfulness, and self-respect, may do much. Yes, your very manners may do more for their happiness and virtue, than if you doubled their wages, or gave them the most liberal presents. You may also speak kindly to them of their welfare, and of their families. You may be come their adviser and friend. You may induce them to deposit a portion of their earnings in a savings' bank; and that money, so laid up and gradually accumulating, will be one of the best securities for their growing virtue, and courage, and self-respect. You may sometimes give them an interesting book to read-at least, during the lei sure of Sunday, if they have no other time-and it will be a means both of safety and improvement on that holy day. You may make them feel that they have, in you and in your family, those who know them, and take a friendly interest in their respectability and good conduct; and they might be made to know, that if you should some day go home to your splendid dwelling, and say, that such or such an one had been that day intoxicated, or a brawler in the streets, it would spread a sadness over the face of that bright and happy circle. Your children might sometimes go to their children in sickness or in trouble, and

kindly take them by the hand. No fear that the hand, nurtured and softened in the bosom of luxury, would be soiled by that contact. There is a work of our greatest sculptor, which represents a child-angel as conducting another child to heaven. Were it not a beautiful vision realized into life? Oh! when I think what rich families might do for poor families, what ministering angels they might be, to raise up the low and the fallen to comfort, to virtue, and to heaven, my heart swells at the contemplation, and I say, when shall the vision be realized into life?

Yet, let us not despair. There are things already done in our noble city which forbid despair. I say, in our noble city; and when I say this, I am not thinking of our splendid dwellings, of our wealth pouring in through a thousand channels, of our commerce spreading the sounding banners of its prosperous march over every sea, nor of that mighty repairing of our desolations, which the last year has witnessed; but I am thinking of the works of mercy that are done in this city. It is a fact, and I must state it with some formality, because to most persons it will be new and astonishing, that there is scarcely a poor family in our city which is not regularly visited by some Sunday-school teacher, or tract distributor, or minister at large, with a view to its moral enlightening and renovation. God bless and prosper the noble band who have thus gone forth into our waste places!-they are young men, many of them, rising into life, with their own cares and affairs to attend to; they are young women, some of them of our wealthiest families, and others who depend upon the labours of their needle for their subsistence; noble missionaries of mercy! fair sisters of charity!— again I bid them God speed! I bless them for my own sake, and for your sake-and in the name of Christ. When I came to this city, a little more than two years ago, I confess that the mighty mass of what seemed to me its desperate wickedness and misery, weighed upon my mind as a heavy burthen. It was a professional feeling, if you please so to consider it: my office called me to look upon the moral interests of men; and I almost shrunk from a residence in the presence of evils so stupendous, and, I thought, so incapable of any but the most distant relief. But within two years, I have learned that the dread wastes which stretched out before me in darkness and silence, are filled with benevolent action; that their long-neglected thresholds are tracked thickly over with footsteps of mercy, and their desolate walls are echoing the voices of Christian truth and love. Let the good work be deepened in any proportion to its extent; and this city will present the long-desired example of a great commercial emporium, purified by the beneficent instrumentality of its own prosperous inhabitants.

But to return; there is another sphere for female talent and virtue which I wish to point out; and that is beneath the domestic roof. I say talent; for to regulate a family of domestics in this country, is really an achievement of intellect as well as of virtue. The difficulties springing from the state of domestic service among us, I need not dwell upon. They are well known. They are, in fact, the great palpable difficulties of domestic life throughout the country. The real difficulties, indeed, are not those which are palpable: they lie deeper; they lie in

* Greenough.

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the mind; and it is to the removal of these, that I would solicit your attention. And let it be considered, that the difficulties of the case, so far as they lie in the situation of the parties, cannot be removed; and that if any relief is to be found, it must be found in the mind. The relation of householders and domestics in this country is new. latter are not dependant on the former, as they are in other countries; they have not the same interest to satisfy you; they have not the same anxiety to keep their place, as if the alternative were penury or starvation; and I trust they never will have. Whether you are satisfied, is not the only question. If they are not satisfied too, they may retire from your service, and readily find employment elsewhere. What, then, amidst all the difficulties of this situation, is to be done? Perpetual changes in a domestic establishment; no security against its being half broken up almost any day; no necessity on the part of those who temporarily compose it, of holding their place longer than the caprice or the whim of the moment may dictate; no bond of necessity for their good behaviour, like that which presses upon every other occupation, since they do not look upon their station as a permanent one, nor feel that they are taking a character to live and die by: they are looking to better their condition, to establish themselves in life, to pursue an independent course:-all these things, I say, occasion immense inconvenience, and the severest trials of temper. What, then, is to give us relief? I say, plainly and firmly, that I do not regret this independence of the class of domestics. I am glad that they can look to separate and permanent establishments. It is a fortunate condition for them. But even if it were not, it is theirs beyond recovery; and, therefore, the only relief must come through a consideration towards them, hitherto unknown in the world—a consideration respectful, wise, Christian-like, and kind. And here is the field for female talent and virtue, to which I have already referred. She who has the immediate charge of a family, should make her assistants feel, from the first, that she does not wish to regard them as hirelings, but as faithful friends. If, hardened by custom, or puffed up with pride, or absorbed in fashion, she never thinks of them but to exact from them their tasks, she must not wonder if they never think of her but to earn the price of those tasks. Committed to her care, subjected in a measure to her influence, as fellow-beings, she is bound to respect, cherish, and love them. She ought to study their character; to consider their situation, wants, and feelings; to promote the improvement of their minds and hearts; to provide for their gratification and entertainment; to make them cheerful and happy, if possible; to make them feel that her interest is common with theirs; and, in fine, to treat them, as she might reasonably wish to be treated in change of circumstances. Will you tell me that, when all this is done, many of them will prove extremely ungrateful? I must be allowed to doubt, when such is the result, whether all this is done. That is the very point to be reached: the removal of that ingratitude; the removal of that soured and irritated feeling that often settles at the bottom of the heart, even when there is the effervescence of many kind emotions on the surface. And it is not to be forgotten, that there are grievances, too, in the condition of the employed, which furnish some ground for this irritated feeling. Those who listen to me, may imagine that all the complaint, since they hear no other, is on one side. What

incessant trials, you say, there are with servants! But I can tell you of places where all the complaint is on the other side of departments in the domestic establishment, where all the confidential communings together are filled with complaints of the master or mistress, or of their children.

This is a case, in short, where there are faults on both sides; and this is the impression, in fine, which I wish to make on the heads of families. I know that there are families where all is going on kindly and quietly, and I think that the number of such is increasing. But where it is not, I would admonish you against the injustice of supposing that all is right on your part. It was Pestalozzi, I think, who had the generosity to say, when his pupils did not learn, that the fault was his own; and this, doubtless, as a general maxim, is partly true; and this, without doubt, if not equally, is, in a measure, true of the masters of families, who fail in their office. If they would generously admit this, instead of constantly complaining of their difficulties, they would be prepared resolutely to address themselves to the task of working out that great reform in domestic manners and morals, which the very constitution of society among us demands. The general, who cannot command men; the contractor or overseer, who is always vexed by the insubordination and insolence of his workmen, is usually reported to be guilty of some fault or deficiency on his part; and this, I think, must be accounted equally true of the heads of a family who fail in like manner. I will only add, that the mighty power which controls all human beings, whether in the camp, the manufactory, or the workshop, is judicious kindness; and that this must be the controlling power in all well-ordered and happy families.

Let me now say one word to the class of the employed; and, especially, of domestics. Why should it be thought a hardship or a degradation, to minister to the comfort and happiness of our fellowbeings? It is the high office, the noble bond of humanity, to assist, to serve one another. It appears to me, that I could take a sincere pleasure in ministering to the daily and hourly satisfactions of any one, with whom circumstances had for a time connected me; in smoothing his path for him; in relieving him from annoyances and vexations; in facilitating his business, his studies, or his enjoyments. What an affection, in this domestic relation, what a true friendship, might one win from another, never to end but with life! And what a happiness would this be to carry away from a family, rather than to retire in anger, and to have one's retirement felt as a relief!

I say, that it is no disgrace to give this domestic assistance. It is not slavery; it is a respectable compact, which one finds it expedient to make with another; and the only real disgrace is in being unfaithful to the terms of that compact. We are made to serve one another. We are all servants. The man who stands in his warehouse, or behind his counter, and sells goods to another, is his servant for the time. The lawyer is the servant of his clients, the physician of his patients, and the clergyman of his people. The highest in the land is only so much more the servant of all.

The domestic but stands in one of the many relations of service; one that is alike ordained of Heaven, and which, therefore, cannot be intrinsically dishonourable. He is apt, I know, to imagine that the

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