its abolition will be blessed, like the abolition of other
slaveries, by the freeing both of the slaves and of their masters.

Lastly, if, besides attaining to simplicity of life, we attain also
to the love of justice, then will all things be ready for the new
springtime of the arts. For those of us that are employers of
labour, how can we bear to give any man less money than he can
decently live on, less leisure than his education and self-respect
demand? or those of us who are workmen, how can we bear to fail in
the contract we have undertaken, or to make it necessary for a
foreman to go up and down spying out our mean tricks and evasions?
or we the shopkeepers--can we endure to lie about our wares, that we
may shuffle off our losses on to some one else's shoulders? or we
the public--how can we bear to pay a price for a piece of goods
which will help to trouble one man, to ruin another, and starve a
third? Or, still more, I think, how can we bear to use, how can we
enjoy something which has been a pain and a grief for the maker to
make?

And now, I think, I have said what I came to say. I confess that
there is nothing new in it, but you know the experience of the world
is that a thing must be said over and over again before any great
number of men can be got to listen to it. Let my words to-night,
therefore, pass for one of the necessary times that the thought in
them must be spoken out.

For the rest I believe that, however seriously these words may be
gainsayed, I have been speaking to an audience in whom any words
spoken from a sense of duty and in hearty goodwill, as mine have
been, will quicken thought and sow some good seed. At any rate, it