Note 46 — JOURNAL. (continued 3)

This country is in one respect blessed above all others, and above all others deserving of blessing. There are no poor—I say there are none, there need be none; none here need lift up the despairing voice of hopeless and helpless want towards that Heaven which hears when men will not. No father here need work away his body's health, and his spirit's strength, in unavailing labour, from day to day, and from year to year, bowed down by the cruel curse his fellows lay upon him. No mother need wish, in the bitterness of her heart, that the children of her breast had died before they exhausted that nourishment which was the only one her misery could feel assured would not fail them. None need be born to vice, for none are condemned to abject poverty. Oh, it makes the heart sick to think of all the horrible anguish that has been suffered by thousands and thousands of those wretched creatures, whose want begets a host of moral evils fearful to contemplate; whose existence begins in poverty, struggles on through care and toil, and heart-grinding burdens, and ends in destitution, in sickness,—alas! too often in crime and infamy. Thrice blessed is this country, for no such crying evil exists in its bosom; no such moral reproach, no such political rottenness. Not only is the eye never offended with those piteous sights of human suffering, which make one's heart bleed, and whose number appals one's imagination in the thronged thoroughfares of the European cities; but the mind reposes with delight in the certainty that not one human creature is here doomed to suffer and to weep through life; not one immortal soul is thrown into jeopardy by the combined temptations of its own misery, and the heartless selfishness of those who pass it by without holding out so much as a finger to save it. If we have any faith in the excellence of mercy and benevolence, we must believe that this alone will secure the blessing of Providence on this country.