out with all machines: but may I not protest against such, at least, as are propelled by steam?'

'If you substantiate an objection to any class of machines, you strike at the root of my favourite science.'

'Indeed! How do you prove that, dear uncle?'

'We begin by assuming, that labour is the foundation of value; does it not follow, that whatever adds to the efficiency of labour, must increase that value?'

Why, certainly, if a cottager has only the produce of his week's labour for the subsistence of his family, any machine that doubles that produce, must tend to increase his temporal comforts.'

Unquestionably it must.

This is clearly the purpose of God, in permitting the invention of machines; but I am far from denying that this blessing, like all others, has been abused.'

6

Then, uncle, you do admit that we have too much machinery in this country?'

That is a leading question.'

'Well, do give me some little light on the subject of this distress among the labouring classes: for I assure you, uncle, it costs me many a painful thought. That, if any man will not work, neither shall he eat, is a decree evidently just and reasonable: but how comes it that so many are starving, not because they have no will to work, but only because they seek in vain the permission to labour for a morsel of bread?'

Your curiosity, my dear, based as it is on laudable sympathy, deserves to be gratified, though it will somewhat anticipate the application of our principles. When society is allowed to go on in what may be called its natural course, the progress of

machinery is comparatively slow. Now and then, an individual invents something of the sort; but anxious to appropriate as exclusively as he can its profits, he keeps his invention secret. The wages of labour are steady, and living workmen being always at hand, the want of machines is not felt. The prejudices, and perhaps we may say the good feelings, of society, are adverse to their multiplication; at least, experience has shewn that, in tranquil times, they have never been pushed to such an extent as materially to interfere with the market for manual labour. But on the breaking out of war, there is an immediate and artificial demand for soldiers. The army and navy must be supplied, which can only be done from the working classes, leaving society either to suffer the loss of their accustomed labour, or to find substitutes for them. The wages of labour rapidly rise, but workmen are so scarce, that machines to abridge it become indispensably necessary.'

Stop, for a moment, dear uncle. I can remember the time when we were in daily expectation that an invading army would land upon our shores: I was then a child, and being in delicate health, my father took a pleasant house, quite away from the town, adjoining a pretty large farm-yard, because it was deemed good for his poor sickly little girl to inhale the breath of cows.'

'I remember it perfectly too, my dear; but to what extent the events of the war, or the invention of machinery, were affected by the circumstance, is more than I can divine.'

Have a little patience, will you, sir? It is very provoking to be interrupted in an old story. The wooden walls, as you pretty well know, were to be

strongly manned : our troops on foreign service required powerful reinforcements: Ireland needed to be well garrisoned; and for the defence of dear old England, almost all the agricultural and other labourers were enrolled in local militia regiments, or regularly drilled in parochial and village corps; not unfrequently headed even by the clergyman of the place. Now, it was at this time, and during the dearth of manual labourers, that a prodigious invention made its appearance, just at the rear of our cottage. A threshing machine was erected at the door of a large barn; and well do I remember, uncle, how, hand-in-hand, my dear little brother and I used to stand at a safe distance, counting the revolutions of its clumsy wheel; and watching the solemn sleepy pace of an old blind horse, which, without any apparent exertions did the work of half a dozen threshers with flails.'

A valuable reminiscence indeed, my love; and a touching one to both of us, recalling, as it does, scenes and forms long passed away from our sight! Recalling too, what ought to tinge our cheeks with the deepest blush of guilty shame, when we consider how we are requiting the Lord for his most astonishing mercies to us. Ay, those wooden walls were strong, and bold were the hearts of oak which manned them our soldiers were true as steel to the cause of old England, and every shoe-black was a soldier then; but vain had been the arm of flesh, if the Almighty had not cast over us the shield which none could penetrate. It was not our sword that saved us the Lord of Hosts was with us; the God of Jacob was our refuge!'

Precious to my heart as are the thoughts and re

collections of those by-gone days, I felt that I must win the old gentleman back, from a theme always inspiring to him. I therefore said, 'Well, dearest uncle, my father used to look on also; and to explain to us the origin of this famous threshing machine, much, in the same way that you have been discoursing upon the subject.'

My uncle fetched a long sigh, and renewed his instructions. Inventions being, as you have well illustrated it, directed into that channel,-the discovery of one machine leads the way to another; and as fast as war calls for soldiers, their labour is supplied by machinery. Society thus sustains comparatively but little loss: the waste is supplied,-the blanks are filled up. But a different scene is at hand-the war ceases-the soldiers are disbanded, and returning to the place of their former labours, find machines doing what was once their work, and in possession of the market. By forced and artificial means, society has provided for as much labour as its wants require; in fact, as much as it can consume; and the labour of the soldiers is in surplusage. They who used to consume and destroy, now want to produce, and offer to work at low wages; thus superseding other labourers, and injuring them. The machines, meanwhile, neither receiving wages nor consuming produce, have a manifest advantage in the competition, and continue to work. In this state of things, we hear a great deal of markets overstocked with every thing calculated to promote the temporal comfort of man, and yet a general cry of distress, from the labouring poor, who are starving, in the midst of abundance.'

A painful picture, indeed, uncle; but I fear, a

very just one. I see clearly, what before, I did not comprehend the real, and I may say, unavoidable origin of the terrible competition between labourers and machinery which is now in progress.'

6

Such, alas! is the legitimate consequence of man's ambition and sin: thus does he bring a curse upon his blessings. Machinery was given him to lighten his toil, and to augment his comforts: he forces it unnecessarily into existence, by perverting the course of his own energies, and it becomes his competitor, ultimately producing an effect the very reverse of what the kindness of our Heavenly Father intended. When, oh! when, will man learn wisdom, and quaff the streams of instruction at the blessed fountain of revealed truth?'