Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 8.djvu/52

48 even greater, which comes of the mechanical and material tendency of our countrymen at this time. They ask a result which they can see and handle; and since wisdom and all manly excellence are not marketable nor visible commodities, they say they have no time for mental culture. A young mechanic, coming into one of our large country towns, and devoting all the spare time he could snatch from labour or sleep to hard study, was asked by an older companion, "What do you want to be?” supposing he wished to be a constable, or a captain, or a member of the “great and general court,” it may be. The answer was, “I wish to be a man.” “A man!” exclaimed the questioner, thinking his friend had lost his wits. “A man! are you not twenty-one years old, and six feet high?” Filled with this same foolish notion, men are willing to work so many hours of the blessed day that the work enslaves the man. He becomes hands, and hands only; a passive drudge, who can eat, drink, and vote. The popular term for working men, “hands,” is not without meaning; a mournful meaning, too, if a man but thinks of it. He reads little that of unprofitable matter, and thinks still less than he reads. He is content to do nothing but work. So old age of body comes upon him before the prime years of life, and imbecility of spirit long before that period. That human flesh and blood continue to bear such a state of things, whence change is easy, this is no small marvel. The fact that wise men and Christian men do not look these matters in the face, and seek remedies for evils so widespread, proves some sad things of the state of wisdom and Christianity with us.

Many labouring men now feel compelled to toil all of the week-days with such severity that no time is left for thought and meditation, the processes of mental growth, and their discipline of mind is not perfect enough to enable them to pursue this process while about their manual work. One man in the village, despising a manly growth of his whole nature, devotes himself exclusively to work, and so in immediate results surpasses his wiser competitor, who, feeling that he is not a body alone, but a soul in a body, would have time for reading, study, and the general exercise and culture of his best gifts. The wiser man, ashamed to be distanced by his less gifted neighbour; afraid, too, of public opinion, which