“We then turned towards the mountains; and as we went along, the desolate impresses of the evil agent began here and there to become visible.  On the road-side there were the humble traces of two or three cabins, whose little hearths had been extinguished, and whose walls were levelled to the earth.  The black fungus, the burdock, the nettle, and all those offensive weeds that follow in the train of oppression and ruin were here; and as the dreary wind stirred them into sluggish motion, and piped its melancholy wail through these desolate little mounds, I could not help asking myself—­if those who do these things ever think that there is a reckoning in after life, where power, and insolence, and wealth misapplied, and rancor, and pride, and rapacity, and persecution, and revenge, and sensuality, and gluttony, will be placed face to face with those humble beings, on whose rights and privileges of simple existence they have trampled with such a selfish and exterminating tread.  A host of thoughts and reflections began to crowd upon my mind; but the subject was too painful—­and after avoiding it as well as I could, we proceeded on our little tour of observation.

“How easy it is for the commonest observer to mark even the striking characters that are impressed on the physical features of an estate which is managed by care and kindness—­where general happiness and principles of active industry are diffused through the people?  And, on the other hand, do not all the depressing symbols of neglect and mismanagement present equally obvious exponents of their operation, upon properties like this of Castle Cumber?  On this property, it is not every tenant that is allowed to have an interest in the soil at all, since the accession of M’Clutchy.  He has succeeded in inducing the head landlord to decline granting leases to any but those who are his political supporters—­that is, who will vote for him or his nominee at an election; or, in other words, who will enable him to sell both their political privileges and his own, to gratify his cupidity or ambition, without conferring a single advantage upon themselves.  From those, therefore, who have too much honesty to prostitute their votes to his corrupt and selfish negotiations with power, leases are withheld, in order that they may, with more becoming and plausible oppression, be removed from the property, and the staunch political supporter brought in in their stead.  This may be all very good policy, but it is certainly bad humanity, and worse religion, In fact, it is the practice of that cruel dogma, which prompts us to sacrifice the principles of others to our own, and to deprive them of the very privilege which we ourselves claim—­that of acting according to our conscientious impressions.  ’Do unto others,’ says Mr. M’Clutchy and his class, as you would not wish that others should do unto you.’  How beautifully here is the practice of the loud and headlong supporter of the Protestant Church, and its political ascendancy, made