142 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



acquired, are as just as those of the poorest man to the crust 

 which feeds or the coarse garment which covers him ; but, in 

 every condition of society, the rights of the rich and the poor 

 are reciprocal, and their dependence mutual and absolute. If the 

 poor are compelled, under the arbitrary institutions of society, 

 and I use the term arbitrary in no offensive sense, more sensibly 

 to feel their dependence, the upper classes in society, with that 

 spirit of justice and kindness which constitutes the highest 

 grace of power, and wealth, and rank, should be prompt to show 

 their sense of how much they owe even of all this power, and 

 wealth, and rank, to the labors, and services, and fealty, of the 

 poor ; and, without losing sight, as far as is consistent with the 

 spirit of Christianity, of what is called their position in society, 

 to endeavor to soften the severity of those distinctions, which, 

 if they mark the elevation of their own condition, equally 

 indicate the depressed condition of others. In that beautiful 

 language, to which every serious mind will listen with pro 

 found reverence, &quot; The eye must not say unto the hand, I have 

 no need of thee, nor yet the head to the feet, I have no need 

 of you ; &quot; seeing that even those parts of the body which are least 

 &quot; comely,&quot; are as essential to the perfect and healthy organiza 

 tion of the machine, as those on which the Creator has im 

 pressed the highest attributes of grace, expression, and beauty, 

 and must be equally nourished from the great central reservoir 

 of life and strength, or the whole must suffer from weakness or 

 decay. 



I do not mean to imply that there is any greater disregard of 

 these principles than is to be expected in a condition of society 

 so highly artificial as that which exists here, and where the 

 accumulations of individual wealth, and of what, from its heredi 

 tary and inalienable character, may be termed class-property, are 

 so enormous. I do not mean, as I have already said, to express 

 any apprehension or alarm for the safety of the present institu 

 tions of England ; for, though the flood of population is rising with 

 a continually accelerated force, and in almost a geometrical ratio, 

 yet wealth here is so strong, and poverty so powerless, and the 

 safety of the whole is so essentially concerned in the mainte 

 nance of the integrity of its present form of society, and, above 

 all, the experience of a neighboring nation, on the subject of 

 revolution, is so admonitory and terrific, that almost every thing 



