DIGNITY OF LABOR. 71 



scions of it. You can laugh to yourselvcs,»no doubt, and think 

 of many of your neighbors besides the drunkards who live shut 

 up in their own glass bottles, living regardless of all the duties 

 of life, selfish churls, without friendships or affections, who can 

 never grow better, or wiser, or more kindly, but only a little 

 more selfish and cold as they grow older. Let them remain 

 there ; the country will have no useful influences for them. 

 They would barter their birthright in the stars, and exchange 

 all that sweet, holy beauty for a single tallow candle to light 

 their gloomy dens. They would rob the sunset clouds of their 

 gold, if it would but make a little dollar for their pockets. 

 Every rose bush would bear thorns only, and not flowers, could 

 they but make the laws of creation. Such churls are not good 

 men, nor good farmers either. Nature hates a churl and a 

 miser ; his fields are traitors to him — his crops rebel against 

 him — his fruits fail him ; it is but another illustration of the 

 doctrine, " No work, no wages !" A farmer who thinks only 

 of himself — of crops and of money, and forgets the duties of 

 man, of life, and home, is false to himself, because he is true to 

 himself alone, and by the sure, slow, certain, and inevitable 

 laws of life, his fields and his farm will betray him, and be false 

 to him also. But I repeat it, these are not the representatives 

 of our farmers, nor the results of rural life. 



I have often noticed this general difference, that in the country 

 men reflect more, are more conservative and thoughtful. In 

 the city men live by the railroad, and the telegraph ; the morn- 

 ing newspaper thinks for them ; the excitement of to-day is 

 forgotten in to-morrow's news ; they do business by steam and 

 electricity, and decide on the spur of the moment; they are all 

 fast men. 



But in the country there is more reflection and thought. 

 The deep, pastoral solitudes have their uses, and their profound 

 instructions. There is always food for thought here. In the 

 city, if we pause and step aside from the current, and shut our 

 ears to the rush and roar of life, we see only the works of man 

 — not the beautiful, the elevating and refining works of God. 

 Even at night, when we creep home through the streets, tired 

 and worn, if we look up at the holy stars, there come to us 

 weary hopes and despondencies, which are not to be spoken or 



