HE HAD NO SHIRT!

The men who have caught this circling planet in the palms of their hands, as God grasps the inconceivable universes, were born poor and struggled in adversity; the men who have throttled the fiery lightning, and chained the fire and the water into willing servitude, were poor boys; the men who have developed the human imagination into a thing almost perfect and unapproachable were poor boys; the men who have led millions of their Maker’s feet, were poor both in youth and age.  Bear it then, in mind, that all honorable endeavors to ease the yoke of life are good; that all repinings whatsoever are totally ridiculous, and mostly dishonorable.

FACTS ABOUT PROGRESS.

Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.

Tennyson.

One of the pillars upon which the atheists and social iconoclasts and demolishers base their erroneous philosophy is a seeming belief that the men of to-day work harder for a living than the men of olden times.  Now I will lay hold of this pillar, and, although I be not Samson, I may yet hope to rend an ill-constructed edifice.  With the aid of a few figures and a little history the mind may possibly discern, through the centuries behind us, some evidence of that progress which Victor Hugo has called “the stride of God.”

It is reasonable to suppose that the poor man, during the period of his veritable history, has always, when not suffering severe privation, eaten nearly the same amount of food in any given number of hours.  We may, I think, judge of the amount of work cast to his lot if we can find the ruling values of several of the articles of food which have contributed to sustain his life.  I have chosen the earlier civilization of England in my examples, not because the Book of Exodus, the Pyramids, and the temples of Baalbec and Karnac fail to betray the needed evidences of almost super human toil, but because the authorities at my disposal touching upon earlier times fail to furnish me

THE SATISFACTORY COMMERCIAL DATA

also needed as a parallel.  Let us, then, put our laborer in England in the year 1350.  He had at that time so far progressed that, under certain very restricted circumstances, his life was preserved, and he was allowed to earn wages for his labor.  He worked fourteen hours for a legal day’s work in winter and fifteen hours in summer, but I have everywhere in the following statements computed his hours as fourteen.  If he were a common laborer he received one penny.  If he were

A SKILLED FIELD HAND,