So fails, so languishes, grows dim, and dies," The gray-haired Wanderer pensively exclaimed, All that this world is proud of. From their spheres The stars of human glory are cast down; These yield, and these to sudden overthrow : Frame Of social nature changes evermore Her organs and her members with decay The vast Restless, and restless generation, powers And by this law the mighty whole subsists: And expectations of self-flattering minds! "The courteous Knight, whose bones are here Lived in an age conspicuous as our own He who had seen his own bright order fade. And shook their tenants out into the fields, Like wild beasts without home! Their hour was come; But why no softening thought of gratitude, No just remembrance, scruple, or wise doubt? Benevolence is mild; nor borrows help, Save at worst need, from bold, impetuous force, But Human-kind rejoices in the might Dancing around her, hinder and disturb Is the sure consequence of slow decay. "Even," said the Wanderer, "as that courteous Knight, Bound by his vow to labor for redress now To stop, and yield our gracious Teacher thanks In God; and reverence for the dust of Man." ARGUMENT. Pastor's Apology and apprehensions that he might have detained his Auditors too long, with the Pastor's Invitation to his House. Solitary disinclined to comply; rallies the Wanderer; and playfully draws a comparison between his itinerant profession and that of the Knight-errant; which leads to Wanderer's giving an account of changes in the Country from the manufacturing spirit. - Favorable effects.· The other side of the picture, and chiefly as it has affected the humbler classes. - Wanderer asserts the hollowness of all national grandeur if unsupported by mcral worth. Physical Science unable to support itself.-Lamentations over an excess of manufacturing industry among the humbler Classes of Society. - Picture of a Child employed in a Cotton-mill. — Ignorance and degradation of Children among the agricultural Population reviewed. Conversation broken off by a renewed Invitation from the Pastor. Path leading to his House.-Its appearance described. His Daughter. His Wife. His Son (a Boy) enters with his Companion. Their happy appearance. - - The Wanderer how affected by the sight of them. |