following is the answer:--


'April 23, 1860.

'My dearest Father,--Thank you for writing your views about luxuries,
extravagant expenditure, and the like. I see at once the truth of
what you say.

'What I really mean is something of this kind. A high degree of
civilisation seems to generate (perhaps necessarily) a state of
society wherein the natural desires of people to gratify their
inclinations in all directions, conjoined with the power of paying
highly for the gratification of such inclinations, tends to call
forth the ingenuity of the working class in meeting such inclinations
in all agreeable ways. So springs up a complicated mechanism, by
which a habit of life altogether unnecessary for health and security
of life and property is introduced and becomes naturalised among a
people.

If this is the necessary consequence of the distinction between rich
and poor, and the course of civilisation must result in luxury and
poverty among the two classes respectively (and this seems to be so),
it is, of course, still more evident that the state of society being
once established gradually, through a long course of years, no change
can subsequently be introduced excepting in one way. It is still in
the power of individuals to act upon the community by their example--
e.g., the early Christians, though only for a short time, showed the
result of the practical acceptance of the Lord's teaching in its
effect upon society. Rich and poor, comparatively speaking, met each