natural sights and sounds which God has given as a heritage even
to the gipsy on the moor; and of which no man can be deprived
without making his life a burden to himself, perhaps a burden to
those around him.

But it will be asked: Will such improvements pay? I respect that
question. I do not sneer at it, and regard it, as some are too
apt to do, as a sign of the mercenary and money-loving spirit of
the present age. I look on it as a healthy sign of the English
mind; a sign that we believe, as the old Jews did, that political
and social righteousness is inseparably connected with wealth and
prosperity. The old Psalms and prophets have taught us that
lesson; and God forbid that we should forget it. The world is
right well made; and the laws of trade and of social economy, just
as much as the laws of nature, are divine facts, and only by
obeying them can we thrive. And I had far sooner hear a people
asking of every scheme of good, Will it pay? than throwing
themselves headlong into that merely sentimental charity to which
superstitious nations have always been prone--charity which
effects no permanent good, which, whether in Hindostan or in
Italy, debases, instead of raising, the suffering classes, because
it breaks the laws of social economy.

No, let us still believe that if a thing is right, it will sooner
or later pay; and in social questions, make the profitableness of
any scheme a test of its rightness. It is a rough test; not an
infallible one at all, but it is a fair one enough to work by.

And as for the improvements at which I have hinted, I will boldly
answer that they will pay.