exciting in him the most horrid loathing. Joyfully did he indeed hail the first beam of the morning that broke through the crannies of this chamber of famine and disease; and when the keeper came to let him out, his bed-fellow was dead - had quitted her mortal coil, unshrived, unwept, unpitied, and unknown!"— London Monthly Magazine, July, 1841.

We have no statistical details of misery in the United States, but we give the following general view of its condition, which we believe is not an exaggerated picture. "Of the seventeen millions of human beings composing the population of the United States, it is certain that (leaving slaves out of the account) not less than three or four millions are at this moment, and a very large portion at all times, in circumstances of comparative or extreme destitution. We are confident that this is not an over-estimate; although the number of actual paupers and habitual beggars may not exceed half a million. But when we add to these the vast army of confirmed drunkards, who, with glassy eyes, burning brows, and shaking knees, are reeling on their downward road, with their dependant wives and children, subsisting from hand to mouth, Heaven only knows how a daily repetition of the miracle of the loaves and fishes, save that the baskets full of fragments are omitted, with the scarcely less number of immigrants from Europe, destitute of the means of subsistence, and of the intelligence and skill which would facilitate their acquirement; the wives and children of habitual idlers, loungers, and reprobates; the families of the crippled and diseased; of poor widows and persons out of employment-and the aggregate of human suffering from absolute want is frightful. Who can estimate it ?"

Besides this melancholy amount of destitution and suffering among the white population of this country, we must not forget that nearly three millions of negroes, who are barely supplied with a minimum of physical wants, are toiling in slavery, and sunk in hopeless ignorance and degradation.

But leaving aside these practical examples of misery, let us take a general view of the policy and condition of civilized nations. Here we see regions exhausted under the cultivation of a noxious plant, which is grown to furnish idleness and intellectual vacuity with the means of a momentary occupation and excitement. There, districts planted with grain, not to sustain life, but to yield a poisonous liquid, which shall afford to grovelling masses a brutal exhilaration, with its attendants, madness, folly, disease, and death. In one country we see black slaves, who labor from fear of the lash, producing the raw material which keeps at work the white slaves of another country,

who labor from fear of want and starvation. Here the vessels of one nation are engaged in stealing the children of Africa from their native land; there the vessels of another are cheating the simple natives of uncivilized regions out of their productions, and initiating them into the vices of civilization. In some countries we see destitute populations, deprived even of salt with their scanty vegetable food, to supply a small minority with the means of wasteful extravagance. In others we see them living and laboring merely to create products for capital and commerce to speculate upon.

The world is full of useless misery, which could easily be remedied, and which oppresses all classes, the rich as well as the poor. The rich are harassed by disease and physical debility, by apathy, melancholy, and hypochondria ; while the laboring mass are worn out physically and morally in the misery and drudgery of our false societies.

All classes are more or less miserable, and none can escape this condition, until a social organization is discovered, which will secure the happiness of all mankind. God sees in the human race a family of brothers, and he does not permit that a small minority shall be happy, and remain at the same time indifferent to the sufferings and miseries of their fellow-creatures. Let the rich and great discover the means of relieving the mass from their poverty and wretchedness, and they will discover at the same time the true means of their own social happiness.

There are, on the part of those who are at their ease in society, a selfishness and indifference, which are as reprehensible as they are disgusting. They pay no attention to human misery; they ask not if there is any remedy; they do not even give a thought to the subject. Freed from poverty, they never reflect how horrible it is to wear out life in a continual combat with want and anxiety. Little do they think that perhaps with every thread of the gay habiliments which they wear, is interwoven the sigh of a human soul; and that on the delicacies and comforts which surround them, are spent the life's energies and the vitality of exhausted frames, which have nerves that feel and suffer. Yes, the means of enjoyment, the luxuries of the world, are produced amidst want and suffering, and they come from the abodes of poverty and toil, laden with woes a hundred-fold greater than the delights which they give! The attention of political leaders, and of the influential, must be called to the subject of human misery. The condition of mankind demands, and demands urgently, alleviation. Their appeals go forth, sometimes in the stifled moans of hidden miseries, sometimes in the loud wails of desperate wo. Wars, revolutions, and famine stride alter

nately over nations, marking with characters of blood and devastation the annals of our societies. This state of things must cease; it is not the Destiny of Man. It has not its origin in the imperfection or depravity of human nature, but in a false organization of society, which deranges and misemploys all the elements of good in man, and produces discord, injustice, and misery, where order, justice, and happiness might and should prevail. What are the great statesmen and legislators of this and other countries doing for the elucidation of true social principles, and the elevation of the mass? Unfortunately, they are doing nothing. Their attention is exclusively directed to political reforms, and to changes of persons at the head of the administration. The vast problem of a Social Reform, which is so much deeper and more important than any political reform, is entirely neglected. Personal ambition, plans of self-aggrandizement, ephemeral party rivalries and triumphs, individual and sectional interests, absorb the energies and talents of the political leaders of nations! If they were animated by a true and noble ambition, how could they waste their lives and labors in secondary and trifling subjects, when so grand an object as a reorganization of society and the elevation of the human race was offered to their activity ?

The world requires new social guides, new measures and new plans of reform. The intelligence of the age demands higher, wiser, and more practical improvements; it demands effectual remedies for present evils, and a policy which will not always prove abortive and deceptive. Instead of conflicts of interests, anarchical competition, and envious rivalry and opposition, the world wants Association, Combination of action, and Unity of interests. Instead of the present repugnant, ill-requited, and degrading system of LABOR, it wants ATTRACTIVE INDUSTRY, and an equitable division of profits. Instead of endless controversies about the Currency, it wants increased Production, and the vast material economies, as well as moral blessings, of AssOCIATION.

Let those who are convinced of the defects of the present system of society, and who are tired of the vain and sterile strife of parties, be not discouraged in their hope of a better future, by philosophical, political, and moral doctrines, which teach that the earth is, and was intended to be, a valley of tears, an abode of misery, where man was placed to combat and suffer; that as evil has always existed, it will always continue to exist; that ignorance, poverty, and suffering form a part of the Destiny of Man, and enter into God's scheme with regard to His creation. Let not their hopes be dampened by these views, for they are all false. A God of Justice has not placed the Human Race upon

the earth to wear out a weary existence in a round of miseries, which outrage every sentiment of the heart, every desire and attraction of the soul, and added tantalization to injustice, by implanting in them a deep, unquenchable thirst for happiness. If he' has given us limbs which suffer from the cold, he intended that they should be clothed; if he has given us stomachs which require food, he intended that they should be fed; if he has implanted in us a love of Liberty and Justice, he did not design that Tyranny and Injustice should oppress and fetter us, and consume with their adder-fires the life-feelings within us. If the child comes into the world weak and ignorant, he intended that the strength and wisdom of mature age should extend it support, and call out all the capacities and talents with which it is endowed. But above all, if he has given man a Mind to comprehend the vast scheme of creation, and a Soul to feel its sublime harmonies, he did not intend that that Intelligence should be obscured by the gloom of ignorance, and those feelings harassed and worn out in the discords, conflicts, and anxieties of our false societies. He has assigned to man a high destiny, that of OVERSEER of the GLOBE, and of the creations upon it; he has given him noble aspirations, and it must be contrary to his design that he should be a poor and ignorant drudge-which is the case with nine tenths of the Race and crushed to the dust, as if the dust were his natural element. No, it cannot be! The present poor and degraded condition of the Human Race is not their Destiny. It is caused by a false system of Society and a false system of Industry, and it is only in a Social Reform that a remedy can be found.

The earth is fruitful enough to produce in abundance all that is necessary for the physical wants and comforts of man. Let labor, capital, and talent be rightly directed, and it will yield in superfluity its material riches, which are of primary importance to our happiness. The efforts of men are so miserably applied in our present system of industry and free competition, that the great majority live in a state of destitution,-their intellectual nature smothered, and their lives worn out in the anxieties of obtaining the means of a bare subsistence. Association and Attractive Industry are the remedies for the poverty which now exists, and the train of evils which it engenders.

In Association, Labor, Capital, and Skill, can be applied in the most efficient and judicious manner; great economies can be introduced, and a zest given to industry, which will increase production or real wealth to such a degree that abundance can be guarantied to all.

Association and Attractive Industry will guaranty to Man' riches-that is, a sufficiency of everything necessary to his

physical wants and comforts;-with riches will come pecuniary independence and education; and with education, intellectual development.

The mass have heretofore been tyrannised and oppressed, because they have been ignorant and pecuniarily dependant. Let them become enlightened and wealthy, and oppression under all its forms will cease; they will then be respected; they will obtain their rights, and know how to maintain them. He who is ignorant, poor, and dependant, is made use of as a tool, he is not respected, he is not looked upon as a MAN. He who is intelligent and independent is respected, it is felt that he was not created to be a beast of burden, he is a MAN! Riches and intellectual development are the foundation of human liberty and happiness; and Association and Attractive Industry will, and can alone, secure these precious advantages to all.

If the earth be fruitful enough to furnish man with all that is necessary to his physical happiness, has he not in his own heart and mind the elements of his moral and intellectual happiness? He has. He finds within himself emotions-such as friendship, love, ambition, and paternity—the true and harmonious satisfaction of which procure such high delights; and he finds also within himself intellectual powers which can surround him with wonders in the arts and sciences, and procure him the enjoyment of the harmonies of the one and the truths of the other. He wants a society which will develop the material riches of nature and the intellectual riches of the soul, and secure their possession to all mankind. If he can attain this double end, he attains his happiness.

Human happiness is not an Utopia, an illusive chimera, which can never be realized; the elements of it are in and around us; we only require a society which will call them out. All classes, at present, are in a miserable condition. The poor possess neither material nor intellectual riches, and their existence is a sickening combat against poverty, care, and anxiety. The rich have a sufficiency of material riches or physical comforts, it is true, but have little or no moral and intellectual riches; for our societies cannot secure even to a favored few the enjoyments — in a true and harmonious manner-of the emotions and sentiments, and the higher pleasures of the mind. They indulge so excessively in material pleasures, that their wealth is often a curse instead of a blessing. They are freed from the cares and anxieties of procuring the means of existence; but having few high intellectual occupations to engage their attention, they become tired of the trivial and insignificant round of pleasures which society offers them, and their minds become a prey to