THE Y0 LTNG AJIERICAN 353

particulars are so crushed and straitened, and find it s0 hard to live. She flung us out in her plenty, but We cannot shed a hair or a paring of a nail but instantly she snatches at the shred and appropriates it to the general stock. Our condition is like that of the poor wolves : if one of the flock Wound him~ self or so much as limp, the rest eat him up incon- tinently.

That serene Power interposes the check upon the caprices and officiousness of our wills. Its charity is not our charity. One of its agents is our will, but that which expresses itself in our will is stronger than our will. ‘We are very forward to help it, but it will not be accelerated. It resists our meddling, eleemosynary contrivances. “Te de- vise sumptuary and relief laws, but the principle of population is always reducing wages to the low- est pittance on which hiunan life can he sustained. We legislate against forestalling and monopoly; we would have a common granary for the poor; but the selfishness which hoards the corn for high prices is the preventive of famine ; and the law of self-preservation is surer policy than any legislation can be. We concoct eleemosynary systems, and it turns out that our charity increases pauperism. We inflate our paper currency, we repair commerce with unlimited credit, and are presently visited with unlimited bankruptcy.

VOL. z. 23