Page:The Moral and Religious Bearings of the Corn Law.djvu/11

11 there is none; the most sacred and tender memorials of life and love are bartered for a momentary satisfaction of the claims of natural appetite; there is "cleanness of teeth in all our cities;" and brave and noble hearts, almost worn out by deprivation, are saying, "They that be slain with the sword are better than they that be slain with hunger; for these pine away, stricken through for want of the fruits of the earth." And what is the cause of this? Is there no corn to be had? The earth yields enough for all that dwell upon it. God has made full provision for every living thing. "He crowns the year with his goodness; and his paths drop fatness. They drop upon the pastures of the wilderness, and the little hills rejoice on every side. The pastures are clothed with flocks; the valleys are covered over with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing." Are there no means of conveying or purchasing this corn? The providence of God and the ingenuity of man have made abundant provision for its safe and rapid transferance to our shores, and they that are perishing for want are in possession of that for which it might be obtained. Wherefore, then, the heart-rending and wide-spread misery? It is because men have made a law which practically says, "However rich and plentiful the corn of other countries, it shall not be admitted to our own except for that which we have not to give for it. It may be consumed by the brutes, it may rot upon the ground, it may be cast into the sea, but it shall not fill the hearts of our famishing millions with food and gladness." The cry of the destitute is rendered infinitely more distressing than it otherwise would be by the character and conduct of those from whom it comes. It is the cry of an active, energetic, and independent people, who, as Baptist Noel truly observes, "for no fault of theirs, are suffering the pain of hunger with all the physical and moral evils which accompany it. God has provided for them corn, not in their own crowded country, but in others less densely peopled. They have the ability to buy it by their labour, if the law forbids not," and they are ready