I have sometimes wondered, if an angel were to be sent from heaven to endeavour to set us all right on the subject of our duties and feelings one towards another, whether he would give his first lesson to the employers or the employed; but neither party need wait for the extraordinary teaching of a celestial visitant. An angel would bring with him no new lesson-book—he would point out to us for our guidance a few verses from an old and inspired volume; that have been trying to make themselves heard amongst us for the last eighteen hundred years.
“For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”
“But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.”
“And be ye kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”
“Finally, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another; love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous.”
“The workshop must be crowded That the palace may be bright; If the ploughman did not plough, Then the poet could not write. Then let every toil be hallow’d That man performs for man, And have its share of honour As part of one great plan.
“Ye men who hold the pen, Rise like a band inspired; And, poets, let your lyrics With hope for man be fired; Till the earth becomes a temple, And every human heart Shall join in one great service, Each happy in his part.”
“The grief that aits beside the hearth, Life has no grief beside.”
TOWARDS the close of 1853, I commenced a Mothers’ Society, and the following letter will be found to contain an account of its establishment and early progress. It is addressed to a dear friend, in answer to a letter of inquiries from her. As similar inquiries have frequently been made since, by persons interested in the same way, I think it best to give the letter entire:—
MY VERY DEAR FRIEND,—I fear you must have thought me very dilatory in replying to your last kind letter, containing so many inquiries respecting the Mothers’ Society. In consequence of your asking for a _minute_ history of its rise and progress, and putting, besides, so many definite questions, I felt that the limit of a common letter would be quite insufficient, and I have therefore been compelled to wait for a day of more than ordinary leisure. As, I see, you request me to go back so far as to tell you what made me think such a thing desirable or possible, I must, indeed, lose no time in beginning.