these shall avail, not in the Old Testament which he has received and believed in; no where save in the superstitions and traditions of the Rabbies; and in the last awful hour when all earthly things vanish from the view, the unhappy Israelite feels, like many of another faith, who have rested their hopes on the saine unstable foundation, he feels in its full plainness the vanity of the works of man to save him. Could we but watch the restlessness of the spirit hovering on the verge of the unseen world without a hope in One who is mighty to save, no fears that it is not our duty would prevent our seeking to offer to him a Saviour to comfort his sinking spirit, a Saviour to redeem. THE MERCHANT'S CLERK, PART VII. THE winter passed away without my going again to the theatre. Business was very brisk and we were often detained at the counting house till late at night. Stanley and I were glad to hasten home to our warm comfortable lodging, where we sat til bed time conversing and reading together, after our frugal supper had been sent up to us. On one of these evenings we agreed to read history together, and laid down a course which we followed up, with few interruptions for many months. Stanley entertained a sincere esteem for me, and his quiet determined steadiness was for sometime a safeguard to me, from many dangers which I was scarcely aware of, but my very ignorance protected me. Towards the end of the summer I went down to pay aunt and mother a visit at Tilford. At their request Stanley accompanied me. I felt myself a person of some importance, as I knew that my person and dress were considerably improved. To my astonishment, however, no one seemed surprised but myself. Nay, my aunt told me, I had grown something of a fop, and that she supposed I thought myself a very fine gentle man. My sister alone seemed to approve the change, though she did not say so, I had not been many days at home, however, before I returned to my old country ways. No circumstance worth mentioning occurred during our stay in the country, and with some little regret, I left the fresh and beautiful country for the smoky streets of London in hot weather. The Arnolds, I mean the female part of the family, had left town dnring my absence for Ramsgate. Who does not know, that has been obliged to pass the summer in London, what a dull and weary time it is! For my part I must own that for the few first years of my residence in London, I used to grow low spirited as soon as the hot summer came on, which I had enjoyed so heartily in the country. I received frequent invitations from Chillingworth, but something had always prevented my passing an evening at his lodgings. I did not feel much esteem for him, but I began to find him a far pleasanter companion than Stanley. Stanley wearied me with his correct, and methodical ways, and with his common place conversation. There was no want of head, but a want of mind about himn which made his society most unsatis factory. I knew not how to find fault with anything he said or did, all seemed right but all was dull; oh, most oppressively dull. If he tried to be sprightly, for such natures will have their frisky moods, the heaviness of his gambols made one yawn. It was just at the time that I began to decide on the fact that Stanley was too common-place to be always an agreeable companion, that I made two new acquaintances One Saturday morning on my coming into the counting-house a note was put into my hands by the porter, who told me that Mr. Maxwell had himself called with it, and that he should expect me to join him, if convenient, at his office in Old Broad Street, at two o'clock. I carried the note at once to Mr. Arnold, for it contained an invitation for me to accompany Mr. Maxwell to his house at Hampstead. I know all about it, cousin John, was Mr. Arnold's pleasant reply. Mr. Maxwell joined us at breakfast this morning, and as there is little for you to do this morning, shut up your books in an hour's time, and go back to your lodgings, and pack up a couple of shirts and a night cap, and take care to be at his door in Old Broad-street, as the clock strikes two, and you will find my worthy friend, John Maxwell, ready to start, and to give you, as he says in his note, a seat in his coach. And now I think of it lad, perhaps I can help you to something which you will find very handy when you have to pay these short visits. Here, come with me, he added, opening the door and leading the way to his dressing room. You are the youngest, so stoop down and open that cupboard, and he pointed to one of the doors of a range of mahogany cupboards beneath the long and well filled bookcase, which extended along one side of the room. There, he said, pull out that little valise, it will just do for you, and let me sit, here's the key for you. Now do you want anything else. By the by, have you a bible and prayer book? Yes, so I supposed. Well, you will want them there, for you will have plenty of praying and psalmsinging. I met the significant glance which accompanied these words with a smile. But as I was going away, Mr. Arnold called me back. “Stop, young man," he said, "I was wrong to treat with anything like ridicule the religious practices of Mr. Maxwell's house, In all the circle of my friends, and that circle is very large, I cannot name a friend whom I value and respect as I do John Maxwell, for plain manly consis tency, for genuine truth, and for hearty unaffected kindness I know not his equal. You may look as marrowly as you will into his own 'ways and the ways his household, and you will find as I have found, that if he aims high, his life has always the same high direction. He carries out into temper and active duties the profession he makes. He does not merely put up a sail, but he carries ballast. His wife too, Gel bless her! is just what John Maxwell's wife ought to be. of The clock of the Royal Exchange wanted a quarter to two when I entered Old Broad Street, and I had not been long pacing up and down before Mr. Maxwell's door, when a plain, but handsome coach, drawn by two very strong fine horses came somewhat slowly into the street. I saw the coachman take out his watch as he approached Mr. Maxwell's house, but he did not stop; he passed along to the end of New Broad Street, and there turned, and then came back, and having thus passed and repassed several times, almost as the clock struck two he drew up before the door. At the same time Mr. Maxwell and two young men come out. I was waiting with my little valise in my hand. Mr. Maxwell smiled when he saw me, and shook me heartily by the hand, and then introduced me to his two sons. opened the coach door, let down the steps, taken my valise from me, and we were driving off. And in another minute the footman had Mr. Maxwell had taken a house at Hampstead for a few months in the summer, for the sake of one of his younger children, whose health had been in a declining state, and required a fresh bracing air. I must own that with all my respect for the character of Mr. M. and wth all my personal liking for himself, I felt a kind of mysterious dread come over me on entering his house, a dread of their religion. However this dread soon passed away. The Maxwells were much like other people in many respects, only there was more of the reality of kindness and good temper about them. Nothing struck me so much as the manners of the elder children towards their parents, there seemed to be the happiest understanding between them, the most perfect confidence, the most tender affection. I took a walk with some of the party after dinner, but Mr. Maxwell did not accompany us, he expected the arrival of a young relation from Scotland that evening, and wished to be at home to welcome him. He was, I afterwards found, a poor relation, almost friendless, and an orphan; but he was received from that evening as a son into the bosom of that excellent family. Mr. Maxwell then told me, as he introduced us to one another, that he hoped Angus Murray and I would be good friends, as we were likely to pass some years together. I particularly wished to meet for the first time, he added, under you my roof, and I hope you may both feel inclined to come to us often, and to look upon us all as old friends. Angus is to become what you are, a clerk in Mr. Arnold's Counting House, and will, if it please God, accompany you thither on Monday morning. I must own that the very first sight of Augus Murray, the first sound of his voice, made me think well of him. There was a fire and a sweetness, and yet an ingenuousness about his sunburnt countenance, such as I had seldom or ever seen before. He was tall and rather slight, but his frame was evidently strong and muscular from healthy exercise. He was dressed in very deep mourning, for his father had died suddenly, only a few weeks before he left Scotland. I confess with shame, that until I became Mr. Maxwell's guest I had never been the inmate of a house where family prayer was offered up. So strange did the practice at first appear to me, and so careless was I even to give it common consideration, that I looked upon it as a methodistical observance, and thought that it was only to be met with in the families of the over-religious, or I ought rather to say the ultra religious. Alas, where God is not worshipped by a family, God is not really acknowledged in that family. I was much struck by the reverent and devout manner with which Mr. Maxwell read a short portion of the Holy Bible, and then offered up a plain but fervent prayer, and I thought I had never heard such sweet singing as when that whole family stool up to sing a fine but very solemn hymn. My time passed so agreeably, that I felt heavy at heart when I found myself returning to town on Monday morning. Murray accompanied me to the counting house. Mr. Maxwell told me that he should put him under my care, as he had an engagement which prevented his going with us. I could not help reinarking the manly, yet modest ease of my young companion in a situation altogether new and strange to him. Young as he was, I suppose a year or two younger than myself, humble as he was, I think I never saw in any one such deep unaffected humility, he had learned to respect himself. I have often felt that when a man has learned both to know himself and to respect himself, he had learned much of the secret of true wisdom. When I speak thus of Angus, I do not mean that I came to this conclusion about his character, or that I thought so highly of him, or even did him justice at first. On the contrary, I often took offence at his plain speaking in what he said, and his godly decision in what he did, but I now bear this testimony to his character and conduct, that of all the men I ever met with, young or old, no one seemed to have so clear a knowledge of the difference between right and wrong on every subject, and no one was ever so resolute to do the right, and to have nothing to do with the wrong. A very opposite character was he whose acquaintance also made about this time. On seeing a Bee fall from a lime branch into the River, and carried down the stream. Illfated insect, it is thine to know, And thou unhappy sinner dost thou see Naught in that insect that resembles thee? In those vain struggles does there not appear, A mimic picture of thy own career? Thine was the beaming morn, the sunny prime, And thine the paths of pleasure and of crime. There on the stream of passion wildly hurled, Dupe of a tempting, but a treacherous world, There may'st thou see thy onward course, and there The bootless writhings of thy own despair; Content to drive where'er thy tyrants please The sport of every wave of every breeze. E. N. S. The People's Charter, and Old England for Ever.* FARMER STEADY, Good day Dick Dudgeon, you look tired and sleepy as if you had been up half the night. Dudgeon. I went with Will Grumble to hear the speeches on Brandon Hill, and it was near two in the morning before we got home. Farmer. Foolish indeed to walk so far, and stand ont so long in a cold damp night, to hear those fellows talk seditious trash by the hour. I doubt whether you would have taken the pains to hear a good sermon. And how many might have been at the meeting? Dudgeon. Part of the time I dare say near a thousand. Farmer. Aye, including women and children; and for effect they will say ten thousand; tis only adding a cypher. Old England's loyalty is not at so low an ebb as these Democrats would make you believe. Dudgeon. The Chartists are the friends of the people. Farmer. So they tell you; I judge by their conduct. Their meetings by night are to plot deeds of darkness that must end in mischief and misery. Dudgeon, What the People's Charter? Farmer, Very fine words, Dudgeon; I've read and often heard my father tell about the "Friends of the People," that some forty or fifty years ago, tried to make Old England like Young France. The French Democrats of that day used to talk and write like your Chartists about the tree of Liberty, the Cap of Liberty, aud the right of all men to be equal. Their Tree of Liberty proved to be the gallows; the Cap was put on by the hands of the executioner; and they made tall men like you equal to short, by chopping off their heads with an instrument called a guillotine, which was invented because they put such numbers to death, that the old methods of execution would not perform the bloody work of slaughter fast enough for their wicked purpose. Aye, Dudgeon, you may well stare with astonishment; but you may read it all, and much more, in any good history of the horrors of the French revolution. They shut up the Churches; melted the bells to make cannon; abolished Sunday in France; murdered their King and Queen; set up a NATIONAL CONVENTION-hard task-masters, who ruled the nation by terror and bloodshed, quarrelled, and assassipated some of their own body; and then went to war to force French liberty and equality upon other nations, with the sword and bayonet. Depend upon it, Dudgeon, these Chartists are chips of the old block. Their National Convention, and national rent, and liberty and equality are just after the French fashion. They are not the friends but the enemies of the people of England. Dudgeon. But, Farmer Steady, (as one of the speakers said last night) we are all oppressed. "Don't the Aristocracy, said he, trample upon us? Have not the Lords and gentlefolks, the merchants and manufacturers, and shopkeepers, all the land and money, and the labouring classes hard work and often poor pay?" Farmer. Are not borses horses, and geese geese? are not the rich rich, and the poor poor? What, man, do you think to alter the order of nature and of Providence ? Does not the Bible tell you that "the poor will never cease out of the land?" Somebody must work, that's clear, for the earth is no longer Paradise; and if you and I happen to be born among the working class, is that any reason why we should quarrel with God's appointment? Work we must or else starve, till by our industry we get enough to keep ourselves and our children without work. ing. There are many below and some above us, Dudgeon. I have been placed, or have been able to climb a few steps higher up the ladder of life than you. There is no reason why you should not strive to get up to me, or above me if you can honestly. But it would be very unfair to pull either of us down by force to the lowest step. Why, *The above dialogue is abriged from a tract which we have much pleasure in recommending; it is published by Seeley, &c. then should a Lord or a Gentleman any more than you or I be cast down from his own proper station to the level of beggars and gipsies? Pride and envy are at the bottom of all these wild notions of liberty and equality, and you will observe the men that propose the levelling system are ever striving to climb up themselves. Even when the Chartists stand on a tub or waggon to make speeches they are above the heads of the crowd, and it gratifies the vanity of tailors and knife-grinders * to be followed, and to have it mentioned in the newspapers that they spoke at one place, and were pelted at auother. They fret and fume and talk big like the frog in the fable, that fancied it could puff itself up to the size of the ox, with swelling words and wind. So they abuse every body that is greater and wiser and better than themselves, and fancy themselves to be greater and wiser and better than every body, and every thing they abuse. I saw a little book the other day with these lines in it, which I thought very good:The truest characters of ignorance, Are vanity and pride and arrogance, As blind men use to bear their noses higher Than those that have their ears and sight entire. But who oppresses and tramples on you, Dudgeon, or on me? I rent a snug farm from my Lord here, and you a smithy and beerhouse. Who is there to make us afraid or injure us, while we obey the laws? The law will protect an Englishman of low degree, in life, limb, and property against the first Nobleman in the land, or the Monarch on the throne. Dudgeon. That's something to be sure. Dudgeon. He's apprenticed to a saddler. Farmer. Well, there was a journeyman saddler named Richard Birnie, who went to London seeking employment, and rose by his abilities and good conduct to be foreman, and then a partner. He took to studying the laws, and the duties of a magistrate, and at length was appointed head magistrate of Bow-street, with a handsome salary, and made Sir Richard Birnie by the King. I dare say you have often head of him, he died only five or six years ago. There was a Mayor of London that paved the very streets, over which he afterwards rode in a state carriage. Many a poor lad taught in a charity school has risen to be a rich and respectable merchant. The sons of many a man in humble station have become Gen erals, Admirals, Bishops, Lord Chancellors. Now if your son Dick should succeed as Sir Richard Birnie did, and become Sir Richard Dudgeon, or Lord Mayor of London, would you tell your Radical friends that the son of a man who is a smith and keeper of a beer-shop, had no right to ride the high horse: would you call upon them to bring down your son to his old station by physical force? Dudgeon hesitates. Farmer. Rather a puzzling question I see. Dudgeon. Well, if my Dick ever gets to the top of his trade and is made Sir Richard, it will be by the dint of his own deservings. But you can't say as much for lorés and gentlefolks, most of whom got their rank and fortone because their fathers had the same before them. Farmer. And so if your wife's uncle, who is said te Among the most violent of the English democrats about time of the French Revolution were John Frost, an attorney, (who took a present of shoes to the French convention), and Man rice Margarot, a kuife-grinder. There were also three tails who held a meeting and sent forth an address, beginning "We the people of England !!!" If be well off, and has no family of his own, should take a fancy to make a will in your favour, you would not take an acre of his land, nor a farthing of his money, not you; you would hand it over to the Poor Law Commissioners, or to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, to reduce the public burdens, like a true levelling patriot! What do you say to that Dudgeon? What no answer. There is nothing like applying the golden rule, "Do unto others as you would they should do unto you." A wise Providence has ordered the world far better than the Chartists. It is true the sins of the fathers are visited on the children. a father is a spend-thrift, a drunkard, or a rogue, he brings disgrace and poverty on his family. But then, when he is honest, upright, and prosperous, why should they not also profit by his good name and success. And what greater spur can there be to honest industry than this? Now if you at the anvil, and I at the plough, can honestly get land or money for our wives and children after us, it would be a cruel, and unjust law that should deprive them of it, even though some of them might not make the very best use of it. Dudgeon. I must admit there's much truth in what you say, Farmer Steady. Farmer. Well then, don't you see that a good government ought to protect property not only for a man's self, but for his children and his children's children, from one generation to another. Don't you see that this is the strongest motive to industry, good conduct, bravery, and skill in every station, both public and private; that it calls out all the activity of individuals for the common good. Who would labour and strive, who would expose his life to danger, who would puzzle his brains in writing books, or making great discoveries, such as the steam engine, if he could hope for no certain reward, if all the fruit of his exertions must be taken from him, to be divided, share and share alike, with lazy rogues and drunken vagabonds, and turbulent agitators and Chartists? The security of property, whether in the Funds, or land, or houses, the reward which labour and good conduct and talents get in a free country like ours, is one principal reason why Eng. land bas become so very great and prosperous a kingdom. To meddle with property, and do away with public honors and rewards, would soon ruin the country. The Radicals and Chartists talk about liberty. Why if such brave officers as Lord Nelson and the Duke of Wellington had not fought for us, we should all have been the slaves of the French. Did they not deserve to be rewarded? They have both done far more for England than England has done for them, though the country has greatly rewarded them. You can't convince me that his Grace has not as good a right to be called the Duke of Wellington, as you have to be called Richard Dudgeon; that he has not as good a right to his estate of Strathfieldsay, as I have to my house and garden. And what a man gets for himself he gets for his children, 'Tis natural, and right, and the law of the laud that it should be so. Dudgeon. The Chartists say all men are equal by pature, and 'tis all owing to bad government that one is so mach above another. Farmer. Downright nonsense! You may as well say an ant is equal to an elephant, or a molehill to a mountain. In the works of creation there's such a difference that scarcely any two are alike, and so it is with men. Are Hottentots and savages that eat raw meat and drink train oil equal to Englishmen? Are all Englishmen equal in size and strength and wisdom? Is drunken Bill Grumble as clever a workman or as sober a man as you are? A pretty figure he would cut in a Judge's gown and wig at the assizes, addressing the gentlemen of the Jury. What would have become of the British fleet at Trafalgar, or our army at Waterloo, if you or I had commanded? I believe it is both easier and happier to guide a plough than a kingdom. The nation would go all wrong in such hands as yours or mine, and I'd be very loth to trust my plough to any of her Majesty's Ministers." Dudgeon. I'd not be apt to complain if all lords and gentlefolks had come by their land and money as the Duke of Wellington did, but they say some of them robbed the Church, and their weaker neighbours, in by-gone days. Farmer. In old times things were not always settled according to law. Might sometimes prevailed against right. That is just the state to which your, physical force men wish to bring us back, now that we are more honest and orderly and peaceable. Many a tradesman drives bard bargains, and don't get his money very honestly. That will all be set right in a better world. But as things are not perfect here, we cannot discover and send back every ill got penny to the man who has been wronged of it, even in our own time. Neither can we find out and restore every acre that has parted from its right owner hundreds of years ago. Those that took it, and those that lost it, have gone to their great account, together with the witnesses to prove and defend. The law has therefore wisely determined not to open up questions which can't be decided now, for such attempts to unsettle property would only end in robbery and confusion. Dudgeon. In one of his letters Mr. Frost says that 113 of the Privy Council swallow up as much as half the wages of the working men of Monmouth and Brecon. ་་ Farmer. And if the Privy Council were to throw the money into the sea, it would be a dead loss sure enough. But Mr. Frost knows very well that if one of these Privy Councillors were to spend £200 or £300 a year at his shop, Mr. Frost would make a handsome profit out of it; that the journeyman tailor, the farmer, the woolstapler, the dyer, the clothier, and many more would gain by those purchases. If he means to say that a Privy Councillor should not spend more than a working man, Mr. Frost, at least, is at liberty to practise his own rule. If sincere in his opinions he will begin to live on 12s. a week, and give away the rest of his income. But, after all, the Queen, and lords and gentlemen can spend little more on their own bodies, than you and I. Sure all they eat and all they wear must be paid for. Their maids, footmen, butlers, grooms, and gardeners, the workmen that build their houses, mend their carriages and keep their grounds in order, get their livelihood by them. Only think, Dudgeon, what a fortune you would make if you could get appointed Smith and Tinker to her Majesty, and had to shoe all the horses in the royal stud, and to mend the pots and pans in the palace kitchen. But if you could pare and keep down all fortunes and incomes to the bare level of what is necessary (which is impossible), there would be no such thing as capital. Now, without capital, farms could not be stocked and cultivated, nor those various branches of trade and manufactures carried on, which maintain our population, make our towns prosperous, and give us vast resources and strength in peace and war. The land would be a wilderness; we should have no public roads, no mails, canals, steam-vessels, and railways, no ships, colonies, and commerce. Persons who have accumulated capital and wealth distribute it also, by which all classes are largely benefited; as the clouds above us that collect the rain, shower it down on the fields below and make them fruitful. Dudgeon. Here is another letter, signed John Frost, in which he says, "Is there any divine authority that one man shall command and that another shall obey? I should like to see this authority. I should like to hear whence it is derived. A man who should attempt to utter stuff of this sort, in any intelligent assembly, would be laughed at.” Farmer. If he will consult a far higher authority than the thing called the People's Charter; if he will consult the Charter of our Salvation, he will find there, "the powers that be are ordained of God; whosever resisteth the ordinance of God, and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation.” And again; “Submit yourselves it every ordinance of man, for the LORD's sake, whether to be to the KING as supreme, or unto GOVERNORS, as iunto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of them that do well," And among the principal offenders to be punished at the day of judgment are mentioned, chiefly those that "despise government, presumptuous are they, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities. But as natural brute beasts made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not, and shall utterly perish in their own corruption." That, and much more to the same effect, is contained in the Bible; and if Chartists or any other men laugh at these solemn truths now, they will certainly have cause to mourn for the neglect of them hereafter. Dudgeon. But the leaders of the Chartists say they are well acquainted with the science of government, and the only just principles of government are Universal Suffrage, No property Qualification, Equal Representation, and Vote by Ballot, There is more about it here.-(Taking out some numbers of a paper.) Farmer. Leaders of the Chartists! why, according to their own principles they ought to be all equals. But Democracy has its rulers and demagogues, who govern the multitude, and please them with the vaju idea that all the while they are governing themselves. Let me see these papers. So these are some of the publications by which the Leaders of the Chartists are trying to deceive the people and stir them up to discontent and violence, which will make them dissatisfied, and unhappy, and will bring all who follow their advice into heavy trouble. Here is an advertisement from one of them offering himself as a Candidate for a Scat in Parliament at the next Election. Just as I said, self interest and ambition hard at work under the name and disguise of "friendship for the people," to be sure. Now for the politics of this would-be member of parliament. (Reads) "Those who possess political power will ever legislate for their own benefit." Mark that well. That is the maxim of a mock patriot. But pray take him at his word, and never let him or any of his brother Chartists get the political power after which they are grasping. For they tell you plainly they will use it FOR THEIR OWN BENEFIT." (Farmer Steady reads again.) "I do not claim Universal Suffrage for the people upon their abstract right alone. There is the broad question of utility to be called; and, inasmuch as every section or class of which a nation is composed will each strive, under any government, for the advancement of its own peculiar interest-it follows that all classes and sections should be placed upon an equal footing under the government, whatever its form may be." Aye, and our Constitution has provided a Parliament, in which there are Members of the Government, Officers of the Army and Navy, Lawyers, Landlords, Merchants, Bankers, Manufacturers, persons in and out of trade, able to attend to foreign, naval, and military affairs, questions affecting the various branches of trade, farming, and other domestic concerns. They represent and are elected by all classes of the community. This Radical writer tries to persuade you that the Parliament is useless, and does not represent the nation, because it does not contain a large proportion of uneducated and working men. being Members of Parliament they would cease to be working men and become law-making men. Though many Members of Parliament have risen from the working class, they cannot remain in it and be Members of Parliament also. But have the working classes and the poor no representatives and no friends, in Parliament? Had not the poor African slaves warm and successful friends in Wilberforce, and Pitt, and Fox, and many athers? Is not Lord Ashley, a nobleman, with many other members, now zealously endeavouring to improve the condition of the factory children? Yes, the claims But by Here of justice and humanity have often been pleaded in Parlia ment, till they were heard and granted. The proper business of the working classes is not to debate and to make laws; but in large numbers they vote for representatives through whom their just and reasonable demands meet with attention, and their proper interests are protected, what. ever these Chartists may say to the contrary. again, this Chartist writer says, “Universal Suffrage can alone realise the true end of representation, by giving to each individual his proper influence in the body politie." Just the contrary in my opinion. With a vote for every man, and Annual Parliaments, we should be electionering all the year round. London with its 1,200,000 inhbitants would be like a sea of trouble, in coustant agitation. Is a thing right or wrong because multitudes are for or against it? On the contrary the Bible warns us against following the multitude to do evil, and against the broad road that leadeth to destruction. At present if a man wishes to have a vote it is a reason for him to be indus trious, by which he may soon get property enough to entitled him to vote. And don't you think the right of election will be better and more independently exercised by those who have so far prospered in the world as to have a stake in the country, than by those that are living from hand to mouth, and have nothing to lose? Surely, men who have some property of their own to manage, and who contribute most towards the public burdous have the best right, and are best able, to elect the managers of the national property and affairs. No doubt there ere some men without property who would give an honester and better vote than some who have property, for there are exceptions to most rules. But the question is, if, by allowing every body to vote and be elected, whether they have Property or not, such a Parliament would be chosen as would be able to govern the Country better. Now ! am very sure that the happiness, and the liberty, and security of all classes, and of the whole kingdom, are increased by a Property Qualification both for Electors and Representatives. Dudgeon. But if a Property Qualification were not required, the working classes, from their great numbers, would carry all before them, and appoint a Parliament of their own choosing. Farmer. And Such a Parliament would not represent all classes, but only one class. It would therefore misrepresent the nation. The Chartist writer says, all classes should be represented; but he knows very well that if they could get Universal Suffrage it would have the save effect as a law preventing every man who had property above a certain value from voting; for Universal Suffrage would make numbers every thing, and property of no weight whatever, in deciding Elections. And what kind of a Parliament would be chosen by the multitude? They are soon stirred up to violence; that was proved eight years ago at the Bristol Riots, which did so much harm to the town and neighbourhood. But it is quite imposi ble for the multitude to keep a steady watch over public affairs. They must go and attend to their own business; therefore they very soon give up the power they have gained into any hands that are strong enough to seize it. But the Agitators and Demagogues, men like the speechmaking and fighting Members of the National Convention of France, who have made use of the People's name, and the People's strength to gain power and property for themselves, watch the time when they may seize upon power and property and enslave the people. The Chartists and their Convention are keeping a sharp look ont for that time, which I hope will never come. But if it should come. they would act upon that fue maxim or principle of their's which I read before. I will read it again for it ought not to be forgotten. "Those who possess political power will ever legislate for their own benefit."-Aye, and for the People's oppression and the |