indirect assistance, the allowance,' of the non-interveners.' Will you tell us that the Hungarians will have' their boy emperor, that he has no power but what the Magyars 'surrender to him,' or that the Romans are the 'willing tools' of the Pope? When the Cossacks march on London, it may be different; then truly they will not make slaves: thanks to the 'Peace'-preserving, they will find them ready made.

Not having the 'Orations of Thomas Cooper,' nor any elementary work on "Peace," I am unable to invoke their arguments to disabuse me of my present conviction. Some of the readers of the Reasoner may be in the same predicament. Will One of the People,' or, if not he, any other of the Peace'-society, earnest enough to desire to win proselytes, endeavour to meet what I have said on this question? I will not flee conviction; nor be slow to recant, if convinced.

The concluding remarks on expediency, &c., are very good, but little to the purpose: as I did not, and never do, defend expediency. I hold Duty to be above all expediencies-even the most peaceful. W. J. LINTON.

THE STONE-BREAKER.

dedicated, WITHOUT PERMISSION, TO THe 'friends of ORDER.' Ir would seem that the wrongs of the labourer will never be redressed. Many things are brought to pass, both good and evil, but he still lives uncertain of the morrow-his means of existence constantly in jeopardy. Science, Philosophy, and Art have striven so hard, and performed such wondrous feats, that the law and the prophets are no longer what they were; but, like the miracles of old, they have assumed a new guise. Yes, much has been accomplished, much has been rescued from darkness to light. The labourer alone has been left in the slavery of his hard estate, the victim of penury and ignominious treatment. He still gathers the small blighted handful from the half-barren rock, while his oppressor consumes the produce of fat-meadowed lands and fertile valleys. He still shrinks to the dust at the frown of Affluence-besotted, two-faced Affluence, who promises him so much, and gives him so little; who smiles on him when he is needed, and frowns on him when he is not needed.

Poor brow-beaten, broken-hearted fellow; for whom the light of Science shineth not; to whom Art is all unknown; whose being, from the cradle to the grave, is shrouded in darkness and despair, let me look at thee. Alas! that face, it should be in harmony and proportion, but it is low and deformed! That body should be erect, and full of force and life, but it is bowed down and spiritless? It should be comely and well clothed, but it is filthy and ragged!

Dear friends of order, look on him; do not at least contemn him, for he has been, all through this pittiless winter day, breaking stones to make smooth the road that your carriage wheels might glide along smoothly. Look on him; if you do not, he will not much heed it; for he is not like the lazzaroni you may have encountered in you travels. He will not I allude here, as throughout, to the oppressor' made by the system of things, and desire not to be considered as including in such epithet any who are exemplary exceptions.

crawl, whine, and beg for a little charity. Look on him, and fear not. He has a very unpleasing countenance, it is true; but it does not brood murder, as you might well suppose. It is the expression of despair which his visage always wears when, as is the case now, his children at the hovel yonder have eaten up seven days' food by the end of the fifth. He calls it being eaten out of house and home! You should visit that which he calls his house and home. You should see his wife and children; endeavour to spy in upon them without their knowledge. You would then be better able to form a true notion of them. You might then be led to think some means might be provided to make their condition less dreadful. It might so strike you. When the children sobbed and screamed for bread, you might think they needed and ought to have of it and seeing the mother, sunk-down, exhausted, on her bed of straw, with the squallid infant at her breast, you might, from your knowledge of nature, be convinced that she sank down for want of proper nourishment. Friends of order! if the smallest particle of the labourer's heart be good; if there be left in him aught of parent or husband, if the fell scourge, Poverty, has not bereft him entirely of his common nature, he cannot quietly endure a sight like this. If nobility, the boasted attribute of humanity, ever were his, to what a worthless dreg it must be reduced! If he were ever clothed in native majesty, it has long been displaced by infamy. But we will return to him. We left him breaking stones on the Queen's highway.

There he is, all alone, unheeded and unpitied, plying his sledgehammer with what strength he has left. He seldom lifts his head, except, perchance, as some one of your wealthy families, lounging in their carriage, rush past him. The night is already set in-cold, pierceing winds and drenching rains, that fill his bones with aches and cramps, are gathering all around. Alas! poor labourer, whither will he go? Your splendid villas, oh, friends of order! adorning the hill side along the road, are all lit up with fire, and candle, and lamp. It is your dinner hour. Savoury roast meats and choice wines load your tables, and the laugh and the jest, soft music, and graceful song are yours. But what is all this feasting and merry-making, to this starving labourer, but a mockery and a taunt? What but a demonstration that you have won the victory? What but the manifestation of the fact, that by you he has been despoiled?

He goes towards his wife and children who are anxiously awaiting his approach. His way lies through the dark lane. Oft he stumbles in the unseen ruts, knee deep in mud and water, made by the waggon wheels. Clogged is every step he takes, and oft he well-nigh sinks in despair, for the fiend, Hunger, has not been idle with him. Quit thy muddy path,' the fiend whispers in his ear, there is the rich man's garner; take thy fill, poor man, and thy necessities be thy justification.'

The lock is broken, the store gained, the sack is filled, and the deed done.

Friends of order! you know the rest. You will sit in judgment upon him for this; and, with one voice, cry away with him into slavery!"

Look on this picture, oh, friends of order! consider it; and then ask yourselves whether all this machinery, this order of which you are the pillar and capital-this Church, Parliament, Throne, Country House,

Sessions House, and Model Prison-might not be made to produce some result for the labourer less hateful to humanity than this his present lota so-called independent manhood, without recompence, without comfort, with the gaol on the one hand and the poorhouse on the other-and an old age, for those who reach it, of discomfort, disrespect, and hopeless wretchedness. What you are required to do, let it be said, is to be done for justice, not for charity. You are required to make paupers men, not men paupers. CHRISTOPHER.

THE NATION'-W. J. LINTON.

THE Nation pays Mr. Linton the following compliment in introducing its readers to a long letter which our friend has written to the editor to express his joy at the revival of the Nation,' his gladness at finding yet some life in Ireland, some power to stand between the wrong-doers and the wronged'-his gratification at the tone and import of the revival'-on finding that, if failure has necessarily driven away many and weakened more, it has not weakened, but strengthened,' the brave editor. It was ever so,' he adds, with the true-souled.'

Mr. Duffy writes:- From the pages of whatever is best among the illustrated books and periodicals of England, there breaks upon us the name of W. J. Linton, as artist, engraver, or poet. Whatever English sympathy for Ireland was most genuine and brotherly-sympathy founded upon full admission of our rights-he shared and stimulated. This gentleman, the representative of that cultivated class of democrats so scarce in England, so plentiful on the Continent, has addressed an able and thoughtful letter to us, which we gladly publish, without entering into needless controversy upon points where our opinions diverge. It is the testimony of a gifted and true man-worthy to be well weighed, and, perhaps, longest weighed by those who find most in it to question.'

PROGRAMME FOR 1850.

The New York Tribune, of Sept. 11, contains a 'Prospectus for 1850,' in which the following passage occurs, which we are proud to quote:'Be it ours to exhibit to Europe the spectacle of a nation lightly and gently governed, yet scrupulously respecting and maintaining personal rights; of laws everywhere implicitly obeyed, because they emanate from the people and minister to the general well-being, though no armies and scarcely any police are here to enforce them; of light taxes, and a rapidly-decreasing public debt; of a land ignorant of guard-houses, but thickly dotted with school-houses; of rapidly-multiplying villages, and a swiftly-expanding line of frontier settlements; of a press utterly without shackles, yet never an object of official apprehension or alarm; of a revenue comparatively slender in amount, yet devoted in good part to the active and beneficent facilitation of internal intercouse, and the development of the national resources; of a people conscious of their own strength and prowes, but scorning to vindicate either at the expense of their weaker neighbours-seeking the application and expansion of their

energies in the improvement of their own territory, rather than the acquisition of their neighbours'-and deeming a railroad to the Pacific, for instance, a nobler and grander triumph than the military annexation of the whole continent. Such, in our view, are the sentiments, the impulses, the policy which, patiently, unfalteringly pursued by this country, will most powerfully contribute to hasten and secure the resurrection of liberty in Europe, and its final triumph throughout the world.'

SLAVERY AND THE BIBLE.

IF the Bible says I may scourge and treat my brother as a slave, I will scourge and treat the Bible as a falsifier of truth, and let my brother go free. Though every chapter and verse in that book asserted slavery to be right, instead of establishing it as a truth, it would only prove that the Bible was a huge falsehood...... As to Providence,' as a proof of God's sanction of slavery, I consider it as powerless against facts as the Bible. Slavery exists-this is a fact; and if this be all that is meant by a 'mysterious providence,' I have nothing to say. I have as little reverence for that providence that enslaves men, as I have for that which causes men to lie, get drunk, steal, and rob; no more. The Reverend Bishop Meade gravely assures the slaves that Almighty God made them slaves, and gave them nothing but labour and poverty in this world.' The slave should be taught to look that Bishop Meade in the face, and as gravely and plainly say to him-Your Almighty God is to me an almighty fiend: he had no business to make me a slave, and give me nothing but labour and poverty in this world; I will not submit to him, but proclaim eternal opposition to him, as a monster of injustice and cruelty. If the oppressed of this land, and all their friends, would thus meet these impudent and blasphemous appeals to God to sanction the conduct of slaveholders and their abettors, they would soon be silenced. It is my glory and my boast that I am atheist to what slaveholders and their allies worship as God.-H. C. WRIGHT, in Boston Liberator, Aug. 31, 1849.

THE British Banner, of September 26th, quotes the following:'Kerner relates that, at one of the great masquerades, at which were present the Count of Artois (afterwards Charles X.) and the princes of the royal family of France, it was given out that a divertissement for the occasion would be performed. It commenced with the appearance of a masked figure, representing Time, with an urn in his arm, painted with extraordinary beauty. The mask walked solemnly through the hall, and sat down on one of the benches during the time that a dance was performed. George Kerner then approached the mask, and, sitting down by his side, placed his arm carelessly on the urn. On a sudden the mask arose, and, without communicating with any one, left the room. When Kerner felt convinced that his companion had been long enough absent to be in safety, he arose, and, by an apparently clumsy but unintentional movement, upset the urn. As it fell on the ground a stream of tickets rolled out. The crowd rushed towards the urn, and every one

seized what he could. Upon perusal they were found to contain the boldest doctrines of freedom, selected from the French journals, and in addition to this, numerous attacks upon the French princes present. These ran to the Duke and inade bitter complaints. Every exit was closed, but in vain; no trace of the mask could be discovered. The police made the most searching investigation all through the city; the perpetrators, however, remained undiscovered. Day after day inquiry was made amongst the artificers in the city who might have been concerned in the construction of the mask, but nothing came to light. Danneker (the sculptor of Ariadne) and Koch, the celebrated painter, were the fabricators, and, in after years, boasted with delight of their complicity.' TO PIUS