CONDITION OP THE POOR AND LABOURING CLASSES. 295

degree bound to provide for them from the estate, which theycultivated and protected. Things in this respect are changed;now the holders of large estates, who seem every whereactuated exclusively by a commercial spirit, feel no fartherbound to their labourers, than to manage their estate in theleast expensive mode possible, to take every advantage of thecompetition in the labour market, and get their work performedas cheaply as possible; and then, having got their labouraccomplished, and having paid their labourers, in money, themiserable pittance promised, dismiss them without any fartherconcern for them. This grows out of the modern refinementsof political economy, which measures all good and all valuesby a pecuniary standard. A state of South Carolina slavery, asfar as the physical comforts of the labourer are concerned,has many advantages over this.

All expectations of any great changes or improvements inthe institutions of society are, in my humble opinion, vain.There is not wisdom enough, nor virtue enough, to effect, or,if effected, to maintain them. Ambition, the love of power,avarice, vanity, and pride, those mighty passions, which swaythe heart, and whose power increases in correspondence withthe means of indulgence, impose insurmountable impedimentsto the progress and influence of the true principles of Chris-tian equality, equity, and kindness. Men without powerfancy they should not abuse it, if acquired; but the posses-sion soon contradicts this promise. Poor men persuadethemselves, if they were rich, their wealth would be usedonly to do good, and make others happy; but the acquisitionof wealth too often dries up all the springs of sympathy andkindness, and stimulates inordinately the thirst for fartheracquisition.

Violent revolutions present remedies full of terror andalarm ; sometimes only open new sources of wretchedness,and are but the change of one tyranny for another, and thateven more severe and terrible. We may hope something