life; your children dress meagerly, and your house is scantily
furnished; you do not know whether or not work will be forthcoming
the following week. Your neighbour sees not, nor did he ever see,
want. House, wife and children are sumptuously provided for; his
barn is a palace to your kitchen. Step into his parlour and look at
him for a moment; papers surround him, blazing Lehigh floods the
grate, velvet carpets yield to the step; luxurious chairs invite to
rest--check the sigh of envy; there is a ring at the bell--hurrying
footsteps on the stairs--a jarring sound against the polished door,
and in bursts the rich man's son, his brow haggard, his eyes fierce
and red. He is a notorious profligate; gambling is his food and
drink, debauchery his glory and his ruin. Would you be that father?
Go back to your honest sons and look in their faces; throw the
bright locks from their brows, and bless God that there the angel
triumphs over the brute; be even thankful that you are not burdened
with corrupt gold, for their sakes; say not again that you suffer
more than your neighbour.

Do you toil, young girl, from daylight to midnight, while the little
sums eked out with frowns and reluctant fingers, hardly suffice to
provide for you food and raiment? And the wife of your rich
employer, who passes stranger-like by you, may sit at her marble
toilet-table for hours, and retouch the faded brow of beauty before
a gilded mirror; may lounge at her palace window till she is weary
of gazing, and being gazed at; do you envy your wealthier neighbour,
young sewing-girl? Go to her boudoir, where pictures and statuary,
silken hangings and perfumes delight every sense, and where costly
robes are flung around with a profusion that betokens lavish
expenditure; ask her which she deems happiest, and she will point
her jewelled finger towards you, and--if she speaks with