wrote in his diary: "News that the Factory Bill has just passed the
Third Reading. I am humbled that my heart is not bursting with
thankfulness to Almighty God--that I can find breath and sense to
express my joy. What reward shall we give unto the Lord for all the
benefits He hath conferred upon us?--God in His mercy prosper the work,
and grant that these operatives may receive the cup of salvation and
call upon the name of the Lord!"

The perfervid vein of philanthropic zeal which is apparent in this
extract animated every part of Lord Shaftesbury's nature and every
action of his life. He had, if ever man had, "the Enthusiasm of
Humanity." His religion, on its interior side, was rapt, emotional, and
sometimes mystic; but at the same time it was, in its outward
manifestations, definite, tangible, and, beyond most men's, practical.
At the age of twenty-seven he wrote in his diary: "On my soul, I believe
that I desire the welfare of mankind." At eighty-four he exclaimed, in
view of his approaching end, "I cannot bear to leave the world with all
the misery in it." And this was no mere effusive declamation, but the
genuine utterance of a zeal which condescended to the most minute and
laborious forms of practical expression. "Poor dear children!" he
exclaimed to the superintendent of a ragged school, after hearing from
some of the children their tale of cold and hunger. "What can we do for
them?"

"My God shall supply all their need," replied the superintendent with
easy faith.

"Yes," said Lord Shaftesbury, "He will, but they must have some food
directly." He drove home, and instantly sent two churns of soup, enough
to feed four hundred. That winter ten thousand basins of soup, made in