Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 7.djvu/8

4 good steward and financier. Not to strike a hard blow, out to make a good bargain is the thing. Formerly the most enterprising and hopeful young men sought fame and fortune in deeds of arms; now an army is only a common sewer, and most of those who go to the war, if they never return, "have left their country for their country's good." In days gone by, constructive art could build nothing better than hanging gardens, and the pyramids—foolishly sublime; now it makes docks, canals, iron roads, and magnetic telegraphs. St. Louis, in his old age, got up a crusade, and saw his soldiers die of the fever at Tunis; now the King of the French sets up a factory, and will clothe his people in his own cottons and woollens. The old Douglas and Percy were clad in iron, and harried the land on both sides of the Tweed; their descendants now are civil-suited men who keep the peace. No girl trembles, though "All the blue bonnets are over the border." The warrior has become a shopkeeper.

Of merchants there are three classes

I. Merchant-producers, who deal in labour applied to the direct creation of new material. They buy labour and land, to sell them in corn, cotton, coal, timber, salt, and iron.

II. Merchant-manufacturers, who deal in labour applied to transforming that material. They buy labour, wool, cotton, silk, water-privileges, and steam-power, to sell them all in finished cloth. III. Merchant-traders, who simply distribute the article raised or manufactured. These three divisions I shall speak of as one body. Property is accumulated labour; wealth, or riches a great deal of accumulated labour. As a general rule, merchants are the only men who become what we call rich. There are exceptions, but they are rare, and do not affect the remarks which are to follow. It is seldom that a man becomes rich by his own labour employed in producing or manufacturing. It is only by