" "Why, sir,"
said the foreman, "this is Monday; and they have not spent all their
money yet." Dean Boyd, preaching at Exeter on behalf of the Devonshire
hospitals, expressed his belief that the annual loss to the workpeople
engaged in the woollen manufacture, the cotton trade, the bricklaying
and building trade, by Idle Monday, amounted to over seven millions
sterling. If man's chief end were to manufacture cloth, silk, cotton,
hardware, toys, and china; to buy in the cheapest market, and to sell in
the dearest; to cultivate land, grow corn, and graze cattle; to live for
mere money profit, and hoard or spend, as the case might be, we might
then congratulate ourselves upon our National Prosperity. But is this
the chief end of man? Has he not faculties, affections, and sympathies,
besides muscular organs? Has not his mind and heart certain claims, as
well as his mouth and his back? Has he not a soul as well as a stomach?
And ought not "prosperity" to include the improvement and well-being of
his morals and intellect as well as of his bones and muscles?
Mere money is no indication of prosperity. A man's nature may remain the
same. It may even grow more stunted and deformed, while he is doubling
his expenditure, or adding cent, per cent, to his hoards yearly. It is
the same with the mass. The increase of their gains may merely furnish
them with increased means for gratifying animal indulgences, unless
their moral character keeps pace with their physical advancement.
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