tiara are of gold, bracelets, brooches, chains, and other such solemn toys and follies flash out brightly— they are of gold: fond indeed we are of it, the books in our library we trick out with it, the letters over our shops, our names, we inscribe with it, with the ring of gold we wed our bride, and we close the coffins of the great with nails and studs of gold: yet the gold of our age bears no proportion in value to its iron. Poor shivering wretches, cowering cold around the glaring glittering eyes of the gold fiend, do they not know that the way to the gold mine is through the iron mine, and do they not know that the black smelting iron after all outweighs the gold? for as has been said just now, what cannot iron do? a country rich in gold mines alone would not be a rich country after all; suppose the foundations of our earth were the wedges of gold instead of the wedges of iron, alas ! for us! vain, that they would form a coronet-vain, that they would hang in the ears of proud beauties-vain that they would dazzle in the palace ;-fancy that curse, a world whose Iron was stricken into Gold. But iron from it we fashion the wedge, the lever, the hammer, the plough, the nail; the progress and weal of the world depends upon the workers in iron; thus the present is in a good and noble sense-the iron age. Why, look at those two men who have indeed both made noises in the world, the WARRIOR, and the BLACKSMITH, cover the warrior with his medals, and robes, and stars, and legions of honour; yet even he could not be, unless the blacksmith shaped for him his sword ;-stand by a blacksmith's anvil

when "the sparks rush out with their scarlet rout," his broad brawny arm rapidly descending amidst the flashing light of the forge, his creations lying there about him; say, is there any wonder that in early days he too had worshippers, as a god, a hero, a strong man amongst men? Is it wonderful that mythology had its Vulcan? and these two, gold and iron-the warrior and the blacksmith-furnish us with a key to states of society; where gold is honoured, society will be in its most unhealthy, and morally, in its most infantile state; as those persons most dazzled by pomps will ever be the lowest and meanest of the human family; so those kingdoms dazzled by the merely sensuous exterior in society, will ever be at the lowest ebb of civilization too; society when it puts on its gauds puts on its chains, the love of finery is the badge of slavery as well as vanity, it is the evidence of social caste and false distinction. Odin, the great chief of Teutonic mythology is described as performing his feats of valour with his hammer, Odin's hammer is fabled to have made earthquakes, and how can labour be so well symbolised as by the hammer; the man with the hammer, is not he the nearest ideal to civilization? he is the most kingly among the workers of the social state. The sword is borne before the civil magistrate the swords surround the queen when she appears in state before her people: it would be nobler and more appropriate, if there must be a symbol, to make the hammer the symbol, there is nothing truly royal in the sword, sword worship is fetischism, the idolatary of the demon principle of the

world; but the man with the hammer stands at the highway of all improvement-not a cottage, not a mansion, not a temple can rise without him. Let man learn to use the hammer, it is better than the sword, the thunder of its strokes will be the best bolts to destroy tyranny, raised aloft, it braces the muscle for bold encounter with fierce elements, moral as well as physical, nay, may it not almost be said, teach a man to wield the hammer, and he ceases to be a slave.

As men become producers they cease to be serfs, as they make nature more compliant with their demands, as they increase their facilities for production by looking more clearly and keenly through the mysteries of things,-as the auxiliaries of comfort are more numerously spread around them, they become less tolerant of impertinence and injustice, as the labourer looks upon the wonderful transformations effected by him, as he learns that nature has done nothing more for human improvement than to supply materials and powers, and that he is the agent by which power acts on the material; that fertility of soil, abundance of minerals, propitious climate, without habitual energy in labour, skill, knowledge and trustworthiness, that whether the labour be mediate or remote from the object in making tools or winning from nature the subjects of transformation, or in making the desirable article accessible; that in short, luxuries and necessities proceed alike from him: he regards himself as the main spring of the social world, and that knowledge, if he be a right-minded man,

teaches him to deprecate the luxurious tastes of society. The most elegant and costly gold watch in the shop of jeweller or goldsmith, or in the cabinet of the princess, depends on the small steel mainspring within the works, gold and jewels may be round it, but they may be dispensed with, that cannot, its removal is fatal to the whole mechanism, even there the iron in value outweighs the gold or in the social state, beneath the superincumbent weight of luxuries, have we not forgotten the mainspring, or have thought it a trivial matter that the rust and corrosion was there, but this neglect has been fatal to the whole mechanism. Only when the people are virtuous and respected and happy, can the social chronometer keep true time: Have they been respected? Are they virtuous? Are they happy? Our political economy has hitherto been a systematic breaking of them on the wheel our political science has struck them down with the brute mace of power-our religious law has been prompt to take from them tax and rate, but it has offered few consolations to the bowed and broken spirited-man.

Look at it well, this social state of ours; time was when every mouth in the land had a pair of hands; the sad fact of our day is, that there are now three mouths at the very least to one pair of hands; a fact still more sad is, that there are those who are willing enough to acknowledge that they have a mouth, but are ashamed to plead guilty to the charge of feeding themselves. It would be a happy land and happy world, far as human effort could make

it so, if every man and every woman would feed themselves, would do work, work of some kind, would sedulously find out what they were fit for, and set about it as soon as the task was found. Time was, when every child was born to labour: the first residents on our globe were neither idlers nor savages, and the eldest chronicles of history are the records of ancient inventions, and discoveries, and labours. STRENGTH and CUNNING have been the two foes to labour, the two chief tyrants and oppressors of mankind; the one made spears and cannons, the other priests and creeds; the one led on to battle-fields, fostered war, and sang battle-songs; the other invented the mysterious rite, erected the costly temple, the shrine, the vestment, the robe, and the imposing mummery; both have sheltered idleness, both have retarded civilization: the one forged a chain for the hand of the labourer, the other mingled an opiate to blind the eye and lull the senses to sleep, while the chain was rivetting; between these two, the working man, the serf of every age and day, stands petrified and powerless. Strength taxes, imprisons, murders; Cunning cajoles, exorcises, and deceives; the one racks and tortures the body in this world, but the other follows into the next with the threat of priestly power.

The happiness and well-being of a people have been entrusted to foresight, labour, and faith, but Strength and Cunning have inverted their intention, until the vision of foresight has been dimmed, and made rather tributary to the tactics of war, than to the teachings