Masters and servants live in the same unsympathetic state.  “Each for himself” is their motto.  “I don’t care who sinks, so that I swim.”  A man at an inn was roused from his slumber; “There is a fire at the bottom of the street,” said the waiter.  “Don’t disturb me” said the traveller, “until the next house is burning.”  An employer said to his hands, “You try to get all you can out of me; and I try to get all I can out of you.”  But this will never do.  The man who has any sympathy in him cannot allow such considerations to overrule his better nature.  He must see the brighter side of humanity ever turned towards him.  “Always to think the worst,” said Lord Bolingbroke, “I have ever found the mark of a mean spirit and a base soul.”

On the other hand, the operative class consider their interests to be quite distinct from those of the master class.  They want to get as much for their labour as possible.  They want labour to be dear that they may secure high wages.  Thus, there being no mutual sympathy nor friendly feeling between the two classes,—­but only money considerations,—­collisions are frequent, and strikes occur.  Both classes—­backed by their fellows determined to “fight it out,” and hence we have such destructive strikes as those of Preston, Newcastle, London, and South Wales.

The great end of both is gain, worldly gain, which sometimes involves a terrible final loss.  A general suspicion of each other spreads, and society becomes cankered to the core.  The remedy is only to be found in the cherishment of a larger Christian sympathy and more genuine benevolence.  Thus only can the breath of society be sweetened and purified.  Money gifts avail nothing, as between rich and poor.  Unless there is a soul of goodness, and a real human fellowship between them, the mischief and the curse which the excellent Judge Talfourd lamented with his dying breath will never be overcome.

Some allege that this want of sympathy arises, for the most part, from the evils of Competition.  It is “heartless,” “selfish,” “mischievous,” “ruinous,” and so on.  It is said to produce misery and poverty to the million.  It is charged with lowering prices, or almost in the same breath with raising them.  Competition has a broad back, and can bear any amount of burdens.

And yet there is something to be said for competition, as well as against it.  It is a struggle,—­that must be admitted.  All life is a struggle.  Amongst workmen, competition is a struggle to advance towards higher wages.  Amongst masters, to make the highest profits.  Amongst writers, preachers, and politicians, it is a straggle to succeed,—­to gain glory, reputation, or income.  Like everything human, it has a mixture of evil in it.  If one man prospers more than others, or if some classes of men prosper more than others, they leave other classes of men behind them.  Not that they leave those others worse, but that they themselves advance.