Here, then, is a method of substantially benefiting the condition of the working classes, that is certainly much more full of interest and of promise than all the combinations and strikes that have ever been. Among the arrangements that mainly contribute to its success are these: the system of ready-money payment, and the fact that each member must to some extent-it may be to a very small extent-be an owner of capital. Both of these are most important arrangements, as we shall endeavour to show in our next chapter. To make the workman a capitalist, seems, to us, to lie at the foundation of every trustworthy plan for the enlargement of his means. A very good plan some will no doubt say, but how are they to get the capital? We believe the question to be capable of a satisfactory answer, but meanwhile we must adjourn it to another chapter.

And, in the mean time, we close by saying a few words on what Dr. Chalmers, who was a great political economist as well as theologian and philosopher, regarded as the best and safest road for the elevation of the condition of workmen. The substance of his view is contained in the following passage from his work on the Economy of Large Towns:-"We believe it to be in reserve for society, that of the three component ingredients in value,

the wages of labour will at length rise to a permanently larger proportion than they now have either to the profit of stock or to the value of land, and that thus workmen will share more equally than they do at present, with capitalists and proprietors of the soil, in the comforts and even the elegancies of life. But this will not be the achievement of desperadoes: it will be come at through a more peaceful medium; through the medium of a growing worth and a growing intelligence among the people. It will bless and beautify that coming period, when a generation, humanized by letters, and elevated by the light of Christianity, shall, in virtue of a higher taste and a larger capacity than they now possess, cease to grovel as they do at present among the sensualities of a reckless dissipation." The view held by the author of this passage was, that the true way for the working classes to raise their wages and better their condition was to rise in the scale of intelligence and worth.

Let us take an illustration of the actual operation of this law. A workman, animated by the desire to raise his family and himself to a higher platform, will strive to attain the highest degree of skill and excellence in his department of labour. As skill, steadiness, and civility increase the value of labour, he will be under a constant inducement to cultivate

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these qualities. His mind will be on the alert to find out the best modes of doing his work. He will be careful both of his time and his money; most anxious to lose no time, not a day, nor even an hour; he will avoid extravagant habits, such as drinking, smoking, snuffing; he will abstain from worthless and expensive amusements, like gambling and theatregoing; and without being necessarily stingy or narrow, will often deny himself passing indulgences, with the reflection, "I can do easily without them." It is just such a man, too, that will look with favour on the scheme of co-operation we have been considering; he will regard it as a useful instrument for attaining the laudable object he has in view; its rule of ready-money payments will not frighten him; its demand for a little capital to be sunk in its business will not upset him; he will patiently and cheerfully set himself to meet all its requirements. Doubtless it is because the middle class of Scotchmen have usually had a larger share than others of these qualities, that they have in so many instances improved their worldly condition. And it is because the Irish poor have been so wanting in these qualities that they have usually handed down unimpaired to their children, the poverty, the squalor, and the misery which were bequeathed to them by their fathers.

But this reminds us that there is a Scylla as well as a Charybdis in the sea over which we are now endeavouring to steer the workman, and we must take care not to dash him against the rock of worldliness while trying to keep him clear of the gulf of waste and want. It is a difficult thing to use the world as not abusing it. Some friends of the working man, in trying to guide him to the improvement of his temporal condition, do so in a miserably worldly spirit. . They speak to him as if rising in the world were the chief end of man; as if the highest possible object of life were to make a comfortable nest for one's-self and one's family,—to extract from this passing world all the good which it is capable of yielding. From the bottom of our heart, we deprecate this spirit. We know no character more contemptible than Mr. Worldly Wiseman, and no form of idolatry more withering, more fatal to everything pure and lovely and noble, than the worship of money. Where money is the chief good, all forms of miserable parsimony, all the low arts of paltry saving, will come like a cloud between the miser and his duty. Worthy parents will be left to drag out their old age in struggling penury, while their children are saving and rising in the world; brothers and neighbours waxen poor and fallen into decay, will be allowed to sigh in vain for the trifle

that would set them on their feet; and when the claims of some noble Christian enterprise are presented, ingenuity will be taxed to discover some plausible excuse for giving nothing in its support. Miserable, miserable! God forbid that anything now said should be perverted to an end so contemptible.

But difficult though it be to find the middle channel between Scylla and Charybdis, between waste and worldliness, it does exist, and may be found. On the one hand, money is not to be despised. Mr. Henry Taylor says with great truth, "The philosophy which affects to teach us a contempt of money does not run very deep; . . . there are few things in the world of greater importance. And so manifold are the bearings of money upon the lives and characters of mankind, that an insight which should search out the life of a man in his pecuniary relations, would penetrate into almost every cranny of his nature. He who knows, like St. Paul, both how to spare and how to abound, has a great knowledge; for if we take account of all the virtues with which money is bound up-honesty, justice, generosity, charity, frugality, forethought, self-sacrifice-and of their co-relative vices, it is a knowledge which goes near to cover the length and breadth of humanity; and a right measure and manner in getting, saving, spending, taking, lending,