For the trades by which the British people has believed it
to be the highest of destinies to maintain itself, cannot now long
remain undisputed in its hands; its unemployed poor are daily becoming
more violently criminal; and a certain distress in the middle classes,
arising, _partly from their vanity in living always up to their
incomes, and partly from, their folly in imagining that they can
subsist in idleness upon usury_, will at last compel the sons and
daughters of English families to acquaint themselves with the
principles of providential economy; and to learn that food can only be
got out of the ground, and competence only secured by frugality; and
that although it is not possible for all to be occupied in the highest
arts, nor for any, guiltlessly, to pass their days in a succession of
pleasures, the most perfect mental culture possible to men is founded
on their useful energies, and their best arts and brightest happiness
are consistent, and consistent only, with their virtue.
This, I repeat, gentlemen, will soon become manifest to those among us,
and there are yet many, who are honest-hearted. And the future fate of
England depends upon the position they then take, and on their courage
in maintaining it.
There is a destiny now possible to us--the highest ever set before a
nation to be accepted or refused.
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