The profane history of our own country tells us that a princess, destined to be the greatest queen that ever sat on this throne, envied the milk-maid singing; and a profane poet, whose wisdom was only less than that of the inspired writers, represents the man who, by force--and wit, had risen to be a king sighing for the sleep vouchsafed to the meanest of his subjects,--all bearing out the words of the son of David, 'The sleep of the labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much; but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep.' "Amongst my brethren now present there is, doubtless, some one who has been poor, and by honest industry has made himself comparatively rich.
Let his heart answer me while I speak: are not the chief cares that now disturb him to be found in the goods he hath acquired?
Has he not both vexations to his spirit and trials to his virtue, which he knew not when he went forth to his labour, and took no heed of the morrow?
But it is right, my brethren, that to every station there should be its care, to every man his burden; for if the poor did not sometimes so far feel poverty to be a burden as to desire to better their condition, and (to use the language of the world) 'seek to rise in life,' their most valuable energies would never be aroused; and we should not witness that spectacle, which is so common in the land we live in,--namely, the successful struggle of manly labour against adverse fortune,--a struggle in which the triumph of one gives hope to thousands.

It is said that necessity is the mother of invention; and the social blessings which are now as common to us as air and sunshine have come from that law of our nature which makes us aspire towards indefinite improvement, enriches each successive generation by the labours of the last, and in free countries often lifts the child of the labourer to a place amongst the rulers of the land.

Nay, if necessity is the mother of invention, poverty is the creator of the arts.

If there had been no poverty, and no sense of poverty, where would have been that which we call the wealth of a country?
Subtract from civilization all that has been produced by the poor, and what remains ?--the state of the savage.

Where you now see labourer and prince, you would see equality indeed,--the equality of wild men.