“You do not ask, neither would you permit, your wives and children to work in the mill beside these people, and only the line of gold draws the distinction between you.  There are sweet faces in your mill, there are tender hearts and there is intellect which might grow to be a power in our midst.  But the sweet faces have weary eyes, the tender hearts beat without pity, and the strength which might exalt these men and us as their brothers, becomes the power of a consuming fire, which as time flies, and our population increases, will burn out all the true and loyal life that might have developed among us.  When our village becomes a city, we, like other denizens of cities, must see prison houses rise before us, and to-day we are educating inmates for these walls.  Remember also, that the laces our wives shall wear in those days of so-called prosperity, will be bought with human life.  I will not stand amenable before God for crime like this.

“If you will drop your present schemes, if you will be content to share with these men and children a portion of your profits, to let them toil eight hours instead of twelve per day, and if on every Saturday you will give to them one full long day in God’s dear sunlight, I will invest the amount of capital necessary to cover all which you as a body have invested, and I will stand beside you in your mill.  I would to God, gentlemen, you were ready to accept this offer, for it comes from my heart, but I can anticipate your reply.  You will say I am speaking ahead of my time, that the world is not ready for these theories, much less for the practice I desire.  And in return I would ask, when will it ever be?  Has any new and valuable dispensation sought us through time, when hands were not raised in holy horror, and the voice of the majority has not sounded against it.  You are to-day enjoying, in the machinery you use, the benefit of thought which against much opposition fought its way to the front.  And shall we rest on our oars, and say we cannot even try to do what we know to be right, because the world, the unthinking, unmindful world, sees no good in it?  It would be easier for many acting as one man, to move the wheels, but if this cannot be, I must wait as other hearts have waited, but I will work in any and in all ways to break the yokes which encircle the necks of our people.”

He paused and looking still earnestly at them, waited a reply.  The eldest said in answer: 

“Mr. Desmonde, while you have spoken that which we have never before heard, I think I may say for my friends as well as myself, that your sentiments do not fall on entirely barren soil.  While you were talking, it seemed to me the way looked plain, and I felt to say, Amen.  But I know we are not ready for such a movement as this.  Perhaps we ought to be, and if your picture is a true one, I say from the bottom of my heart I will for myself try to be of some good.  I am willing to be taught how.”