he is a King.  Does he cover his body with jewels, and his table with delicates? in all probability he is not a King.  It is possible he may be, as Solomon was; but that is when the nation shares his splendour with him.  Solomon made gold, not only to be in his own palace as stones, but to be in Jerusalem as stones.[222] But, even so, for the most part, these splendid kinghoods expire in ruin, and only the true king-hoods live, which are of royal labourers governing loyal labourers; who, both leading rough lives, establish the true dynasties.  Conclusively you will find that because you are king of a nation, it does not follow that you are to gather for yourself all the wealth of that nation; neither, because you are king of a small part of the nation, and lord over the means of its maintenance—­over field, or mill, or mine,—­are you to take all the produce of that piece of the foundation of national existence for yourself.

You will tell me I need not preach against these things, for I cannot mend them.  No, good friends, I cannot; but you can, and you will; or something else can and will.  Even good things have no abiding power—­and shall these evil things persist in victorious evil?  All history shows, on the contrary, that to be the exact thing they never can do.  Change must come; but it is ours to determine whether change of growth, or change of death.  Shall the Parthenon be in ruins on its rock, and Bolton priory[223] in its meadow, but these mills of yours be the consummation of the buildings of the earth, and their wheels be as the wheels of eternity?  Think you that “men may come, and men may go,” but—­mills—­go on for ever?[224] Not so; out of these, better or worse shall come; and it is for you to choose which.

I know that none of this wrong is done with deliberate purpose.  I know, on the contrary, that you wish your workmen well; that you do much for them, and that you desire to do more for them, if you saw your way to such benevolence safely.  I know that even all this wrong and misery are brought about by a warped sense of duty, each of you striving to do his best; but, unhappily, not knowing for whom this best should be done.  And all our hearts have been betrayed by the plausible impiety of the modern economist, telling us that, “To do the best for ourselves, is finally to do the best for others.”  Friends, our great Master said not so; and most absolutely we shall find this world is not made so.  Indeed, to do the best for others, is finally to do the best for ourselves; but it will not do to have our eyes fixed on that issue.  The Pagans had got beyond that.  Hear what a Pagan says of this matter; hear what were, perhaps, the last written words of Plato,—­if not the last actually written (for this we cannot know), yet assuredly in fact and power his parting words—­in which, endeavouring to give full crowning and harmonious close to all his thoughts, and to speak the sum of them by the imagined