Year: 1859

order proper minute to be made of its proceedings
and now adjourn.
LECTURE OF s. TEACKLE WALLIS. ESQ


BEFORE THE MERCANTILE LIBRARY AS


SOClATlON, ON THE MORAL AND POLITI-


CAL ECONOMY OF LEISURE.


We have all read, many times, and there are few
of us who have not dropped a tear, now and then
over that wonderful and painfully suggestive
poem, "The Song of the Shirt" A brother hu
morlst, whose praise is almost fame has said of
1t, with truthful sympathy, that at may surely
rank as great act of charity to the world j.
You remember, of course, its wild and touching
burden


Work, work work.


From weary chime to chime


Work, work, work


As prisoners work for crime"


ana vet, now few there are, who pause to fathom
all the depths of the story which it tells. Our
hearts are wrung, and our eyes fill, as we gaze up-
on the single picture which it paints of toll, and
hopeless and torsaken wretchedness and we FORGET
that the woman who


-''sits in unwomanly rags,


, Plving her needle and thread"


Is only the melancholy extreme and unhanpv Int
legitimate consummation, of social and political
philosophy, which throws its universal shadow over
the most prosperous developments of modern civil
ization. We lose sight in our pity, of the fact
that "work, work, work !' is the great moral and
maxim OF the age in which we live-going home, it
Is true, with cruelest severity, to the comfortess
dwellings of humble and -paid toll but LAYING its
IRON hand nevertheless upon the lives and the des
tnles OF almost all classes of society. Is it not the
theme OF the books that men write for all ofus. and
OF the teachings that are vOuchsafed to u.s. for the
practical guidance of life at the dom este reside
from the professors chair and the chambers of egis
latlonF There is no ditty of our childhood which
rings more familiar jingle in our ears than that
which warned us, amid our playthings, how


satan finds some mischief still


For idle hands to do :"


DO we not all remember the traditionary wisdom
of "Poor Richards Almanac Chat precious vol
ume OF unnspired proverbs-whence we learned
In our maturer boyhood, that monev-gettng was a
secular religion-rather more important than the
other II anythng-and were taught by a sort of
parody on the warnings of Scripture that we
should ''work while it is called to-day for we know
not now much we may be hindered to morrow 90
Have we not pored over treatises more or less
pro'9und pro and listened, more or less proftaby, to
our lectures upon Political Economv-to the cdify-
ing and elevatng eilect-that the great social end
OF man and the only true policy of nations, is to
produce as much as possible, and consume as little
to get as much as we can for what we SELL and
pay as little possible for what we buv-to starve
our neghbor, in other words and eat his substance
ourselves? Surely, after having thus ennobled
seih:hness into science-itis is simple sentimental
Ism IN us to grieve, with gentle hearted Hood


THAT bread should be dear


And flesh and blood cheap!r


we should rather cry glory to Adam Smith, and
lose sight OF the misery of mere men and women,
In the progress and wealth of the nations.


One OF the most popular and striking writers of
the day, Mr.. Carl yle-certainly man of qenius
though he has written great deal which might not
seem so novel or profound think, if it were done
out OF German into English-seems to have estab-
llshed, as the basis of his moral and phosophical
system, that our purpose in this world is to do
somethlng-and that provided we are ALWAYS doing
and In earnest, it makes great matter what we
do. The somewhat incongruous deductions which
he makes from this fundamental idea he calls the
"Evangel, and sometimes the .'Gospel of Labor"
ana 1t Is this blessed message to humanity which
or the most part, he goes about procaiminr |
wonder 1t should never have occurred to so clever
and acute a man, that such a "Gospel IF II
means anything but words-is but message to our
race OF the primeva curse of the Old Dispensation
unrelieved and unredeemed by any of the charities
or covenants of the New. know no parallel to it,
in point of consolation, except the discourse of the
ranting preacher to the gipsy, in one of Hoods
novels-'W oman," cried he, ''behold bring You
glad tldlngs! You are accursed racep' | do
not marvel that in pursuing such system to its
legitimate conclusions, Mr.. CARLYLE should have
blended in one picture, heroes, the Founder of
christianity and the Prophet of Mecca


But the economists and moral philosophers of our
generation have not the "Evangel of labor" al
together to themselves. The poets have been far
too wise to allow the mere dealers in prose to mo-
nopolize so much available capital and the most of
the songs that are sung to us, now, have a perpet-
ual refrain OF ''work, work, work"-very elevated
and grand and occasionally unintellpible of coursa
as sublime things ought to be-but still nworkp'
1t has been ascertained, beyond doubt as YOU are
aware, that every human being has what is called
mission, and the result of the most profound
and recent poetical investigation seems to be
that "work" is that "mission." There are sbrewd
suspicious afoat, it must be admitted that man
Kind received some hints-and not of congratu
iatory character either-concernng this destiny of
theirs, as far back the times of othe gardener
Adam and his wife"-but still the poets of the day
insist on singing it, not merely as truth but as an
edIiying novelty. Mr.. Tenny son. for instance, is
OF It, Addressing himself to the world at large
ne mas no title more endearing than


Men my brothers-men the workers,,
Of course, all the ennysonians-and thev are tho
great majority of ds-though they toll not
neither do they spin, in their peculiar vocation
but steal from the laureate, outrght-are vet fuller
OF the tolsome mission of humanity than even
their great prototype. Our own countryman, Mr..
Longfellow-trom whose deli ghtfu genius we might
expect something better and more oririnaI-has
established for himself perfect speciality in the
regard OF which l speak-and one would think
from the burden of his music that the destiny of
mankind is chiefly to do two things-to sslabor and
to wait" and "suffer and be strong"-a heroic
destiny to be sure, and well adapted to versifca-
tion but nevertheless not altogether refreshing in
an. experimental point of view.


While moralists and political economists thus
combine to teach and poets to sing the sanctity of
work, it would be quite unreasonable to expect that
those who are called the "practical men, of the
day should lag behind. 1 dare say you have all
heard and read many discourses, in your time,
concerning the dignity and nobility of labor. /
myself have had the benefit of great manv but |
oohSsS lnaI 'ne ieeiinS Wnlch they nave generally
awakened, has been that OF very profound disgust.
The most of us understand, ain sure, from our
own experience, the very unpleasant though indis-
pensable relation between the sweat of our brows
and our daily bread Upon that point, we GER
tainly need no prompting-but to go beyond that
TO collect a crowd of weary and toilworn men to-
gether, and talk to them about the elevation and
grandeur of the burden which weighs them daily
to the ground-"no blessed leisure for love or
hope is to pass, in my poor judgment, into the
region OF unmitigated cant and twaddle No man
believe, who Is chained by necessity, along with