Page:The Parochial System (Wilberforce, 1838).djvu/117

 But there are many who have far greater cause to think seriously upon this subject. There are hundreds among us who have made fortunes as manufacturers. How does the case stand with them? They have set up a factory, it may be, in some sequestered spot, where a village has immediately arisen. The population has increased from year to year; the capital of the manufacturer has increased with it; his works been extended; new labourers have arrived; and in the evening of his days he retires with a handsome property honourably gained, and it is his joy that he owes nothing to any man. But is this indeed the case? He has paid his labourers for their time and their strength; but how has he remunerated them for their souls? He invited them from their country villages, from the homes and the church of their fathers; he allured their children from school to his factory; and what has he given them instead? Has he not too often left them, in a situation of peculiar danger and temptation, without a church, without a pastor, without a school? Can he acquit himself of having grown rich upon the ruin of immortal souls? "Woe unto him that buildeth a town with blood, and stablisheth a city by iniquity:"—and is the destruction of men's souls a less evil and sin, in the sight of God, than the oppression of their bodies ?