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Show USE AND ABUSE OF BLESSINGS. 325 labor I have been feeding and clothing them, until they also have comfortable situations, and means to live. I have this farm, which I am willing to sell to enable me to advance my other improvements." " Well," says the rich man, " how much must I give you for it?" "Five hundred thousand dollars," and perhaps it has not cost him more than one hundred thousand. He takes the money and builds up three or four such farms, and employs hundreds of his brethren who are poor. Money is not real capital, it bears the title only. True capital is labor, and is confined to the laboring classes. They only possess it. It is the bone, sinew, nerve, and muscle of man that subdue the earth, make it yield its strength and administer to his varied wants. This power tears down mountains and fills up valleys, builds cities and temples, and paves the streets. In short, what is there that yields shelter and comfort to civilized man, that i3 not produced by the strength of his arm the making elements bend to his will ? I will not ask the question again-How much must a man possess to authorize him to waste anything ? Three or four years ago money was of little value in this country; you might go round exhibiting a back load of gold, and hold out a large piece to a man, I was going to say, almost as big as this Bible, and ask him to work for you, but he would laugh at your offer, and tell you he was looking for some one to work for him. He would then hail another man who had been in Nauvoo, and passed through the pinches there, and had scarcely a shirt to his back, but he would reply-" I was looking for some man to work for me." Gold could not purchase labor, it was no temptation whatever, but those times are passed. It is not now as it was then. I con- |