THE "WORKING CLASSES" AND THEIR LITERATURE:
WHAT IT IS, AND WHAT IT OUGHT To be.

No. I.

IN modern phraseology, the term "working-class" signifies only one section of that large body politic which men call the "state." In the present limited acceptation of the term, we behold but one phase of our social condition, and recognise under that designation only those sons and daughters of manual toil, of whom it is indeed literally true that they eat their bread in the'sweat of their brow; but who, regarded from a political stand- | point, are seen to be the very marrow and sinews of a commercial country. The limitation to which we refer will at once appear too narrow and contracted. "Work" is not confined, as a curse or a privilege, to one class of the community, but is equally necessary to all. It is universal in its demands. The sovereign, amid the ceremonies and tedious routine of royal life; the legislator, amid the intrigues, cares, and responsibilities of government; the merchant in his counting-house or on the exchange; the man of science, amid his profound speculations and experiments, which in after years, it may be, when the grass of the churchyard is waving above his head, will carry throughout his own, and to many a distant land, great and glorious benefits; the physician, as he passes from sick-room to sick-room, striving by his skill and experience to alleviate distress, to smooth the couch and ease the aching head; the lawyer, amid the multifarious duties of his responsible position; the man of letters and philosophy, as he opens up new avenues of thought, knowledge, and pleasure for coming generations; the man, too, of ancestral peerage and lordly domain, standing amid that narrow circle, the nobles of the land,-all these, every one of them, belong to that large and ever-busy tribe, the universal “workingclass." "The working classes!" says an author, whose recent publications, both in the departments of romance and jurisprudence, have placed him among the

foremost men of England, "the working classes! are those not worthy of the name, and in its very highest sense, few comparatively in number though they be, who, by their noble powers of thought, make those discoveries in science which have given tenfold efficacy and value to labour, turned it suddenly into a thousand new channels, and conferred on all classes of society new conveniences and enjoyments? Are we to overlook those great intellects which have devoted themselves to statesmanship and jurisprudence, to morals, to the science of medicine, securing and advancing the permanent interests of mankind, and relieving them from physical anguish and misery; the genius devoted to literature, refining, expanding, and elevating the minds of all capable of it, and whose immortal works are glittering like stars of the first magnitude in the hemisphere of thought and imagination?" No! these men are as truly "working men" as the mechanic, whose mind is never devising though his hand is ever acting, the railway-stoker, the coalheaver, the pitman, the dustman, the wayside stone-breaker, and any of the "hewers of wood and drawers of water," wherewith the world is stored. But there is yet one other member of the "working-class," though modern phraseology excludes him. Where can we go to find a better specimen of a true" workman" than to him who, amid the toils, and cares, and anxieties of that sacred sphere to which Providence has called him, to bear the vessels of the sanctuary, and minister at the altar in holy things, is ever active, "in season and out of season," labouring among that flock over which he has been appointed overseer, striving by precept and example, by words of love, as well as words of terror, by a holy life, by purity, zealousness, gentleness, forbearance, and charity, to turn many to righteousness. There is no labourer on the surface of the wide

world so diligent and honoured as the faithful minister of God. Angels guard his every step, and hover round him in his going out and coming in, and for him there is reserved a golden crown of heavenly mould which shall never be dimmed; and his brows will be encircled by that laurel chaplet, whose leaves, plucked from the tree beside the clear crystal stream, will never wither through eternity's long and endless ages. Yes! he is a true labourer; a labourer in that field, the world, and when like Ruth he has gleaned there until the evening, he will return to his Master's house rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.

tural occupations,-" from the foreman in the factory to the shepherd boy on the green hill side." It is unnecessary to say any thing regarding the importance of this class of the community. Adam Smith has told us all that can be said, and personal experience, whose testimony is as good at least as Adam Smith's, bears out what he affirms. The working man is absolutely necessary to our present social condition. So long as the human body requires its daily sustenance, and man, woman, and child feel it incumbent on them to be clothed; so long, in fact, as humanity is not regenerated; and until a second and better golden age arrives than poets have sung,-when the morning streaks of the millennial sun light up the mountain tops of earth, and the saints of God live and reign here below, then, perhaps, but certainly not before it, must there be in every circumstance, under every condition, in every state, bond or free, monarchical or republic, Utopian or real,-a working population. Nay, before man fell, he was a working man; the very object for which he was placed in the garden was to till and to dress it, and, when he did fall, the command to labour was not imposed, but only intensified. If that mighty mass of our working population was to suspend its operations for one single week, the whole fabric of our commercial greatness would fall with a world- appalling crash. It is on that mighty mass that it all rests, even as the globe was said to rest on the broad

All of us, high and low, rich and poor, young and old, have work assigned to us here below; it may be tedious, toilsome, and cheerless, but work we must, and the wearied labourer is encouraged in all his arduous toils by the whisper which ever soundeth in his ear: "There is a rest remaining for the people of God,"-a place where the “great and the small are gathered," and "the servant is free from his master." "Work !-work!-work!" is stamped on all things under the sun; for nature in this work is our companion constant and gay. We may read it in all its changes and evolutions; from the falling leaf of autumn to the bursting bud of spring; from the calm, blue cloudless summer sky to the black tempest-covered heaven, pealing and crashing with the awful thunder, and flinging to and fro the vivid lightning flash; from the gentle ripple of the tide, which glides with crisp-shoulders of old Atlas. If there was one ing gurgle over the white sand; or as in wide-echoing roar, wave after wave dashes and breaks in showers upon the gray cliffs;-all these speak of a constant work, a mighty universal "current through all the kingdoms of vegetable, animal, and mineral existences.

In speaking, however, of the "working classes," what we now mean is that limited section to which, as we have said, modern phraseology confines the definition,-those who by manual labour contribute to the prosperity of the country, whether that labour is accomplished in the factories of dark, dingy, unhealthy cities, or in the more genial sphere of rural and agricul

universal and continued strike, what would become of our merchants, our manufacturers, our shipowners, our landed proprietors, our farmers, and all other classes in the empire; and where, too, would go the accumulated capital of the wealthiest nation of the world? We ever desire to speak with deepest veneration and most cordial affection of the nobles of the land; we know the good which they have done, and are still doing; we look with proud delight on such illustrious names blazing on the scroll of our nobility as Shaftesbury, Argyle, Eglinton, Derby, Lansdowne, Carlisle,—but still, disguise it as we may, it is to the pea

santry and working class of our country, of God not descend and burn up this that, under God, Britain owes her great- world." Well may the spirit of the godly ness in the past, her glory in the present, and will owe her power in time to come. And if this be true; if it be true that we are indebted to that portion of our brethren for wealth, comfort, luxury, greatness, safety, and glory, is there nothing which it can demand at our hands in return? Our obligation to the labouring classes is not discharged when we pay them their wages for value received: it goes farther. It follows the workman from the factory or the field to the domestic circle; it finds for him sufficient recreation and innocent enjoyment; it cautions, it counsels, it instructs him. But it does more. It sees that his children are educated as well as fed, that his dwelling is wholesome and well ventilated; but greater still, it sees that the means of spiritual instruction are placed within his reach. In short, we must look on the labourer as a MAN, not as a MACHINE; as a being with a soul, which throughout eternity is destined either to sing with God's triumphant church in heaven the song of Moses and the Lamb; or, dreadful alternative, to join its wailings with the wailings of the lost. And there are men who do look on their fellows as mere machines, who pay them their fair day's wage for their fair day's work, but as to whose temporal and eternal weal a question is never asked. Such men there are; shame be on their name-theirs is an awful responsibility! It may be that the souls of the workmen will be required at the hands of the master, and what excuse will he plead for his neglect, when assembled worlds are listening for his reply, and that scrutinising eye, which reads the deepest secrets of man's heart, is fixed upon his thoughts. The masters of Britain have been too careless in regard to the upbringing of those beneath them in the social scale. They have neglected to provide for the intellectual, moral, and spiritual necessities of the masses of the population. And what has been the result? To that neglect we may trace an immense proportion of the immorality, crime, and infidelity at the survey of which the Christian stands appalled, and asks: "Can these things be, and the fire

man faint within him at the spectacle. Thousands and thousands of his countrymen growing up in destitution of the water and bread of life; not only devoid of principle, but trained up into every vice which exists under the sun. We do not speak now of the cities of Scotland,— of the crime of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Paisley, Dundee, or Aberdeen,―reserving that for an article by itself; but let us glance at London. A few years ago, it was calculated that, deducting infants and parties left necessarily in charge of house property, at least 1,312,500 of the population might and ought to attend church or chapel; but the fact appears to be, that the number of sittings is less than one-half the number specified as necessary for those who might attend; and the actual attendance on public worship would not reach by one-third the accommodation provided; while that accommodation is less than one-half of what ought to be required, and could be made use of, did all possessing the opportunity to attend church use that opportunity. The London City Magazine, so far back as 1846, says that the number of churches in London was 799. "But if we reckon them," the writer continues, "at 800, and allow 70 communicants for each church and chapel, (which is more than an average, seeing many of the churches are nearly empty, and many of the chapels very small,) 800 times 70 will give but 56,000.” Since that time church accommodation has been greatly extended; but has not the population multiplied in a far greater ratio? "Once more," says Vanderkeste, "it is proved that in three of the South Sea Islands, numbering 18,000 inhabitants, the attendance on public worship was 9000, or one-half, whilst in Islington, the most favoured parish in London, with a population in 1841 of 55,600, the whole of the churches were capable of seating only ONE-HALF, or 27,850, and many of these churches were and are very far from being well filled." The occupations of those who do not attend public worship, it is needless to say, are drunkenness, sensuality, robbery, theft, sometimes even

"WEE PAWNS."