to come. You cannot confine yourself to the present generation. What, indeed, is the 'present generation,' when every day adds and takes away a thousand lives in this little corner of Britain alone? Every minute how many of the 'present generation' becoming numbered with the past-every minute the future generation coming into presence. Here is the basis of duty toward Humanity the duty which is imposed upon us as a moral law, a law of God-the duty which is the relation of a part to the whole. As well might the atoms of a diamond, or the several parts of a flower, deny their position with relation to the perfect diamond or the flower, as man deny his position as a part of Humanity,-disclaiming the duties which such position entails, refusing the service to which he is so bound, with the poor current excuse, that it is not his place' to perform such dutiful service. The common expression intimates the common duty. It is a man's place' to serve Humanity: the place of the part, in subservience to the whole. What shall he serve except this progressive development? What is the meaning of all history, if it is not this ?—that the struggles and sacrifices of one generation are made for another; that the triumphs of the Past are inherited by the Future; that a gain in any corner of the world spreads, slowly or rapidly, over the whole globe; and that To-day stores all the harvest of the former ages, not for its own consuming, but for transmission to the Future-borrowing the sustenance and support needful for its own brief journey, and repaying with the interest of whatever its own exertions can accumulate. To-day is but the steward, who hands the wealth of the Past to the real heir-the Future. Let us mount never so high over the piled-up-treasures of the Past, the summit of our achievement will be only a vantage ground, from which the Future shall start in quest of loftier worth. How shall one isolate himself from the Future or from the Past? How from the Future, when not a deed he may do, nor a word he may utter, nor a thought that stirs his innermost soul, but is as the first touch upon the electric wire, repeating its consequences to countless ages? How from the Past? Take any Englishman among us; is not his nature and organization, his very conformation, the result of ages? Is he nothing changed, in no way advanced from the first savage of the world? Have not Romans, Saxons, Danes, Normans, each and all, contributed to form him such as he is? Nor only Romans, Saxons, Danes, and Normans, but also all who had previously helped to form them. Is not his very physical structure a growth and combination, fed and collected from nearly every portion of the world? Is not his mind somewhat richer for the thoughts of all time; his knowledge the sum of the acquirements of all times? Be he never so poor, is he not a debtor to the Past? Have not the religions of the Past done something for him? has not the science of the Past done something too? Which of us taught himself to till the earth? Which of us has discovered, for his own behoof, the whole art and mystery of clothing? Which of us crosses the ocean without aid from those who have gone before? Which of us is not indebted for some of those high-soaring and holy thoughts, which light even the darkest hearts, and brighten even the dullest eyes, to the buried poets and prophets of Humanity? In infancy, youth, sickness, accident, and age, we depend, upon the services of others: in vigorous manhood we are no more independent, though sometimes we compel the contribution without which we should scarcely exist? What more argument is needed to prove that man is a part of Humanity a debtor to Humanity; that the part must bear relation to the whole, that the debtor owes has duties. Let the honest man pay his debt! This is the moral law imposed upon us; and the fulfilment of this consists in aiding to our uttermost by thought, and word, and act, 'the progressive development of human faculties and forces.' ASSOCIATION. We believe in association as the only regular means which can attain this end." How else? If men would navigate a ship they associate. If they would work a mine, or reclaim a waste land, they associate. If they would build a town, they associate. If they would make war, for conquest or in self-defence, still they must associate. The Laissez-faire (the let-alone) system can only suit those who have no recognition of Humanity as a whole, nor knowledge of any relation between men except that of buyers and sellers whose sole business is personal gain. Yet even in the market there is association, though it be only of some few over-crafty men, to monopolize, to steal an exaggerated price. If buying and selling be the end of society, the purpose and religion of life, and no matter how many of God's creatures are naked, starved, stunted, or trodden into the dust, then association may be of little consequence. But the human world has higher destinies than this. Yet the very wolves hunt in packs. The old fable of the bundle of sticks retains its significance: woe to the disunited; strength only to the combined. We believe in Association: that is to say, in Government-which is association of forces, Religion-association for the development of the moral law. Education-the application of that law, the association of intellect. The Nation—the association of all the divers faculties of man, in their natural and peculiar spheres. And Humanity—the association of nations. But the association we require is not a compulsory association. That was the way they built the pyramids; that has ever been the mode in which tyrants have used the masses—their slaves. We would not even have the finest compulsory association, though it might be regulated by the patriarchs; nor the most admirable community of beavers, content so long as every one can take what he deems his just share out of the common storehouse. Not chance association either. We would not trust to the accidental partnerships of men combined for some special end: an East India Company, or a classgovernment, associating to rob the world. We need an association bound together by faith and identity of purpose, rather than by so weak a tie as that of interest,'-an association that shall be expansive, with power of growth, not stationary,—an association in which the tyranny of a centre shall be impossible, in which the fullest growth and widest range of the individual shall be held compatible with the most devoted service to the Republic,-yet an association kept together not only by the careful protection of individual rights, but rather by the harmonious rendering and ordering of social duties, every member of the State intent upon building up the glory and advanc ing the progress of the whole, even as he would build an altar to the Eternal, or advance his own progress toward the perfection of the Most Perfect. We need the organized association of the People-the universality of the citizens free and equal in the several spheres of family, city, and country; and the association of countries. And we need this in order to develope, to economise, and to direct all the faculties and forces of Humanity-to make the whole one strong life, healthily educated, maturely wise, self-sustained, and self-collected, surely aimed. Association would leave no powers unused, no efforts undirected. Without association men either bury themselves in miserable egotisms, or, but too often, waste valuable energies in foolish-albeit generous-endeavours to serve their race. Without association the brotherhood of Humanity would be 'an unrealizable programme,' and the progression of Humanity a never-accomplished dream. FAMILY-CITY-COUNTRY. We believe in Family, City, and Country, as so many progressive spheres in which man ought to successively grow in the knowledge and practice of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, and Association.' THE first sphere of association is the Family,-the first step out of self, the first phase in the practical education of the mature human being. The child lives for itself: is, (or should be) employed, not for Humanity, but for itself. The natural course of a child's life is the perception, the search, and the gathering, of good for itself, in order to perfect its own nature, to prepare it for serving Humanity. To this end parents and friends wait upon it, and minister to it, requiring no return. Hope sings to it his sweetest songs, furling his vast wings, and walking, as if he were an earthly playmate, with the inexperienced young one. All great and joyous influences are but its playthings, the world its foot-ball, and delights its proper food. For the child's business is not to do, nor to suffer (truly, it must both do and suffer, but that is not its business), but to be fostered, and so enabled to grow to its full strength and stature. Childhood over, the world claims the fresh worker, God calls his martyr. Self perfected, the sacrifice of Self (that is to say-service) is next. The child enjoys -the adult loves. For enjoyment is neither the object nor the end of love. Ask of any man who has truly loved,-or rather ask of any woman who has loved (not merely accepted a husband) whether the passion meaned possession-enjoyment; whether it was not utterly independent of possession or enjoyment, an adoration rather than a desire; whether it was not a sublime soaring out of Self, the first endeavour to realize a good not necessarily to be shared, and rather strengthened than diminished if bringing suffering instead of joy. God has given us love to lead us from the narrowness of Self to the divine width and grandeur of the unselfish spirit of the true worker-the worshipper and realizer of beauty. The lovers are united, and the two becoming one, in their very union is danger of stepping back to selfishness; but now children preach the doctrine of sacrifice of duty and service. In these two relations of life are the types of the present, and future, in which is involved the whole of human duty. The Beloved, it is the Present, the beautiful Humanity of our own age, to be loved and laboured for even as one would love and labour for a mistress. The Child, it is the Future, for which the Present toils and accumulates, for which it freely gives its restless days and sleepless nights; for which, if needful, in harness, on Liberty's battle field, or on that most holy altar kings call the scaffold, it would cheerfully render up its life. In one's own family are first learned the lessons of true Republicanism: the equality between the loving, the equal rights of the young souls which we call our children, but which are God's children, even as ourselves, not property, but unpossessable human lives as important as our own, by whose cradles we kneel to proffer homage, foreseeing that they shall be greater than ourselves, that we are but their ministers; the freedom of growth which we see to be so needful for them (alas! one cannot forget the poor factory children when one speaks of the free growth which children ought to have), without which the very race deteriorates, and God's promise of the progression of Humanity through them is made a lie and an impossibility; and the fraternal association which is prophecied in the days of simple childhood,-the parents themselves but as elder children in a blessed hierarchy, reverently looked up to, loved, and freely and gladly obeyed, not merely because they are called parents, but because they are felt and believed to be the wisest and the best. Equality, Liberty, and Brotherly Association, must have their first seeds planted in the Family. Whoever would destroy this would destroy the very nursery of republican virtue. But the Family is only the nursery. We may not bound our sympathies within the walls of home. Though we need not our fellows' help, yet they need us. In the continual battle of life not one soldier can be spared: in the world's work the labourers are ever few (spite of Malthus and the like) compared with the harvest that awaits them. Is Humanity only to be served by those who have no family? Can Society afford that they who have had the best opportunities of learning the worth of Equality, Liberty, and Fraternity, shall be excused from teaching what they have learned, by the example of an extended practice? But our special question here is not so much the duty of the individual to Humanity, as the spheres in which that duty can most advantageously be fulfilled. We say that the first sphere, or inner circle, is the Family; the next the City -the village, parish, or commune; and the Country next. The Family is the simplest method of association, the most natural, the easiest, and the most binding. We do not believe that it could be loosened without violating the best instincts of our nature, without a loss of influence for good which no other method of association could replace. The association of locality and common occupation we hold to be also worth preserving. A fishing community, a shipping community, a manufacturing community, an agricultural community, either of these will naturally grow up on the spot where its work be best done. The peculiar habits of their lives impress a peculiarity of character. That and the identity of occupation beget a spirit of companionship, and the brotherly feeling has a wider extension through that growth of natural circumstances than from any arbitrary arrangement for mere economical purposes. We believe in the worth of such local attachments, of such local schools, in whose narrow precincts men may first learn something of the fervour, the devotedness, may the intense passion of patriotism. Let the hamlet or the township be a rallying point, a larger home, and a pride to its inhabitants; let them toil for the increase of its importance and its renown, jealous of it as a child of the honour of its family. Let the Family be the nursery of republican virtue, the Village-or the City-the first public school for the republican life. Each is the Republic in miniature, complete in itself. Complete, but not incapable of expansion. As each Individual is but a part of the Family, so each Family is but a member of the Township, Parish, or Commune; and so again each Township, Parish, or Commune, is but a member of the Country. There, on that broad scale, the value of local sympathies, the force of similarity of nature, habit, and idea, are more plainly discernible: and little need be said to prove their importance. History and tradition, habits of thought, modes of life, identity of aim,—all these stamp the men of one country as better fitted to work together than to work with the men of another country; all these indicate the essential differences in human character, which help to preserve variety, necessary for the improvement of the race. Language itself, which is but the outward manifestation of character, is not so different as the character beneath. These are the spheres of human work, not necessarily of disunion. Because the men of one craft labour in one workshop, and those of another craft in another, their different work being so best performed, is that any reason why they should be at variance, or any hinderance to their meeting on any common ground to do together that which requires their combined efforts, or that for which one has no more special aptitude than the other? Need Italy and England be less close in the brotherhood of nations, because each shall be distinct as a nation, each having its special task to accomplish in the world's work, each having something to do which can be better done by each in its own sphere, than through any cosmopolitan fusion or confusion of the two? We believe that Family, City, and Country, have not been arbitrarilyestablished spheres of human activity; but that they are the natural, the Godappointed modes of human organization, which through republican institutions shall be harmonized together. And we believe this none the less though, under patriarchal despotism the Family has been abused, children treated as property, as if they were for the parents and not the parents for them; though in the hard and foolish competition of an untaught and unorganized individualism, the City has been walled up, town contending against town, even to the destruction of a common nationality: and though kings and diplomatic apes have made the sacred name of Country a mere bye-word of unpatriotic antagonism. Such is the power of the false principle of monarchy, which perverts the truest means of life. In the Republic it shall be otherwise. The nation of many families shall be as a brother in the great family of the world, as a loyal township in the human commonwealth. 'We believe in the holiness of work, in its inviolability, and in the property which proceeds from it as its sign and its fruit.' The holiness of work, its inviolability. We mean that, as work is a social duty, every one has a right to the means of fulfilling it, a right to the instruments and |