262 



MY LIFE 



[Chap. 



They rob and leave you helplessly, 

 For help of Heaven to cry and call : 



Heaven did not make your misery, 

 When Earth was given for all ! 



" Behold in bonds your Mother Earth ! 



The rich man's prostitute and slave ! 

 Your Mother Earth that gave you birth, 



You only own her for a grave. 

 And will you die like slaves, and see 



Your Mother left a bounden thrall ; 

 Or live hke men to set her free 



As Heritage for all?" 



Gerald Massey. 



Here we have the same idea expressed in different forms 

 by two of our sweetest singers ; and it is to be specially 

 noted that they are both much more than poets ; while 

 Gerald Massey has mastered one of the most difficult of 

 modern studies — Egyptology — on which he has published 

 two very bulky works ; and even the specialists, who reject 

 some of his conclusions, admit that his presentation of the 

 facts shows an enormous amount of research. 



Another of our supporters from an early date was Grant 

 Allen, a man of the very highest talents, who, had he not 

 been compelled by circumstances to write novels, reviews, 

 and magazine articles for a living, would probably have 

 become one of our greatest philosophical naturalists and 

 expounders of evolution. But, like myself, he was more than 

 a land nationalizer, and my first knowledge of his political 

 and social views was derived from an article he wrote on the 

 condition of India somewhere about 1880. Through my 

 friend, the late Sir David Wedderburn, I had become aware 

 of the terrible defects of our government of that country 

 owing to the ever-increasing influence of European planters, 

 manufacturers, and capitalists ; and I was also a reader of 

 The Statesman, a paper brought out by a gentleman who had 

 been for many years editor of one of the most advanced 

 Calcutta newspapers, and who established it for the purpose of 

 letting Englishman know the real facts as to the government 



