When we want a type of genuine manhood, let us leave the
lighted hall, where gilded folly revels, let us leave the solemn
chamber of science and of art, men have chilled it with the foul and
withering breath of infidelity and materialism, let us leave the busy
arena of commerce, men are gloating over gain and gold in their hidden
corners; let us rest with that sturdy, active, middle-class, where the
mechanic's ingenious conceptions puzzle and captivate the most
listless observer; let us watch the busy minds and busier fingers of
those men, so fascinated by their daily toil, that all the world
outside their own great pursuits has become a power beyond them, which
they neither flatter, nor defy. If the labour of the right hand be the
touchstone of men's inward morality, then how conclusively my theory
is sanctioned by the black and brawny fingers of the human industry,
whose praises I could sing forever; there is no treacherous ambush in
such natures, as I speak of now; no hidden recesses, where the animal
man may lay in wait to assault or overcome the spiritual man. Every
lurking tendency to evil is easily blighted by that stimulating
activity which brings moisture to the furrowed brow, which strengthens
the sinewy arm, and stamps its wholesome seal upon the broad and
hardened hand!
It seems odd enough, to say, that among such are found the greatest
and noblest phases of humanity, and yet, is it not so? Is not that man
great and noble, whose honest path lies straight within the precincts
of righteousness? who has lifted himself above the power of sordid
influences, who looks upon mortal throes as the stepping-stones to
immortal joys? that man to whose watchful eyes the shallow side of
nature is ever uppermost, he who serves but one master, whose only
policy is honesty, whose only stimulus is the ever-abiding promise of
a blissful hereafter, and whose attitude towards his fellow-creatures
is one of charity and kind forbearance?
I have wandered a little, while noting down the details of Alice
Merivale's fashionable wedding, and though I feel that it is doing Mr.
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