Republic. With the increase of wealth and commerce comes the
growing power of gold, and it is a fearful truth for states as
well as for individual men that 'gold rusts deeper than iron.'
Wealth breeds sensuality, degradation, ignorance, and crime.

"The first object and duty of the true patriot should be to elevate
and educate the poor. Ignorance is the modern devil, and the
inkstand that Martin Luther hurled at his head in the Castle of
Wartburg is the true weapon to fight him with."

This helps us to understand his desire that Wellesley should
welcome poor girls and should give them every opportunity for
study. Despite his aristocratic tastes he was a true son of
democracy; the following, from an address on "The Influences of
Rural Life", delivered by him before the Norfolk Agricultural
Society, in September, 1859, might have been written in the
twentieth century, so modern is its animus:

"The age of iron is passed and the age of gold is passing away;
the age of labor is coming. Already we speak of the dignity of
labor, and that phrase is anything but an idle and unmeaning one.
It is a true gospel to the man who takes its full meaning; the
nation that understands it is free and independent and great.

"The dignity of labor is but another name for liberty. The chivalry
of labor is now the battle cry of the old world and the new. Ask
your cornfields to what mysterious power they do homage and pay
tribute, and they will answer--to labor. In a thousand forms
nature repeats the truth, that the laborer alone is what is called
respectable, is alone worthy of praise and honor and reward."