Practice Book | Page 9

best place, take his feeble
neighbor by the shoulder, and turn him out of it into the back
seats or the street. You would be equally indignant if you saw a
stout fellow thrust himself up to a table where some hungry
children are being fed, and reach his arm over their heads and
take their bread from them.
0. But you are not the least indignant, if, when a man has stoutness of
thought and swiftness of capacity, and, instead of being
long-armed only, has the much greater gift of being
long-headed--you think it perfectly just that he should use his
intellect to take the bread out of the mouths of all the other men
in the town who are in the same trade with him; or use his
breadth and sweep of sight to gather some branch of the
commerce of the country into one great cobweb, of which he is
himself the central spider, making every thread vibrate with the
points of his claws, and commanding every avenue with the
facets of his eyes. You see no injustice in this.
0. But there is injustice; and, let us trust, one of which honorable men
will at no very distant period disdain to be guilty. In some degree,
however, it is indeed not unjust; in some degree it is necessary
and intended. It is assuredly just that idleness should be surpassed
by energy; that the widest influence should be possessed by those
who are best able to wield it; and that a wise man at the end of his
career, should be better off than a fool. But for that reason, is the
fool to be wretched, utterly crashed down, and left in all the
suffering which his conduct and capacity naturally inflict? Not
so.
0. What do you suppose fools were made for? That you might tread
upon them, and starve them, and get the better of them in every
possible way? By no means. They were made that wise people
might take care of them. That is the true and plain fact
concerning the relations of every strong and wise man to the
world about him. He has his strength given him, not that he may

crush the weak, but that he may support and guide them. In his
own household he is to be the guide and the support of his
children; out of his household he is still to be the father, that is,
the guide and support, of the weak and the poor; not merely of
the meritoriously weak and the innocently poor, but of the guilty
and punishably poor; of the men who ought to have known
better--of the poor who ought to be ashamed of themselves.
0. It is nothing to give pension and cottage to the widow who has lost
her son; it is nothing to give food and medicine to the workman
who has broken his arm, or the decrepit woman wasting in
sickness. But it is something to use your time and strength in war
with the waywardness and thoughtlessness of mankind to keep
the erring workman in your service till you have made him an
unerring one; and to direct your fellow-merchant to the
opportunity which his dullness would have lost.
0. This is much; but it is yet more, when you have fully achieved the
superiority which is due to you, and acquired the wealth which is
the fitting reward of your sagacity, if you solemnly accept the
responsibility of it, as it is the helm and guide of labor far and
near. For you who have it in your hands, are in reality the pilots
of the power and effort of the State. It is entrusted to you as an
authority to be used for good or evil, just as completely as kingly
authority was ever given to a prince, or military command to a
captain. And according to the quantity of it you have in your
hands, you are arbiters of the will and work of the nation; and the
whole issue, whether the work of the State shall suffice for the
State or not, depends upon you.
0. You may stretch out your sceptre over the heads of the laborers, and
say to them, as they stoop to its waving, "Subdue this obstacle
that has baffled our fathers; put away this plague that consumes
our children; water these dry places, plough these desert ones,
carry this food to those who are in hunger; carry this light to
those who are in darkness; carry this life to those who are in
death;" or on the other side you may say: "Here am I; this power
is in my hand; come, build a mound here for me to be throned
upon, high and wide; come, make