The French cry
of 'organization of labour' is worth a thousand of it, but yet that does
not go to the bottom of the matter by many a mile." And then, after telling
how he went to buy a number of the Chartist newspaper, and found it in a
shop which sold "flash songsters," "the Swell's Guide," and "dirty milksop
French novels," and that these publications, and a work called "The Devil's
Pulpit," were puffed in its columns, he goes on, "These are strange times.
I thought the devil used to befriend tyrants and oppressors, but he seems
to have profited by Burns' advice to 'tak a thought and mend.' I thought
the struggling freeman's watchword was: 'God sees my wrongs.' 'He hath
taken the matter into His own hands.' 'The poor committeth himself unto
Him, for He is the helper of the friendless.' But now the devil seems all
at once to have turned philanthropist and patriot, and to intend himself to
fight the good cause, against which he has been fighting ever since Adam's
time. I don't deny, my friends, it is much cheaper and pleasanter to be
reformed by the devil than by God; for God will only reform society on the
condition of our reforming every man his own self--while the devil is quite
ready to help us to mend the laws and the parliament, earth and heaven,
without ever starting such an impertinent and 'personal' request, as that
a man should mend himself.
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