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private men of business. If it is true that clergymen cannot be our leaders in reform, it is no less so of politicians, even of the best class, in or out of office, and of professional philanthropists, and of managers of the various bodies of benevolent men and women permanently organized for particualar purposes relating to the public good. All these are, or in time will be, biassed, either consciously or unconsciously, by private interests, or party ties, or special objects in connection with these Associations, whose plans they will seek to shape with a view to their own purposes. But there is another disqualification common to them all. They are not independent. They have somebody to consult besides themselves. They do not act directly from their own convictions, but are constantly striving to ascertain the average conviction of the public, or of their constituents, in order to act from that; and as each of their constituents, to a degree, is independent, and therefore gives fair play to his convictions, they are very apt to under-estimate this average, and fall short of it in action; or, as Wendell Phillips tersely states it, "representatives are timid, principals are bold." Successful private men of business are free from these entanglements and temptations; they alone, as a class, can afford to disregard them, and therefore they and no others are fitted to take the lead in, or be the chief promoters of, new movements for the good of society. The best of this class are earnest, liberal, intelligent, brief in discussion, practical and direct in operation, regardless of official honors and the gains connected therewith, and, above all, they know how to master and use wealth, without being in turn mastered by it. The danger of such men is not in imprudence; the difficulty is to find quite enough of them who are not too prudent; and if there are some working with them who are earnest even to bitterness, and have nothing which they greatly fear to lose, or hope to gain,—not even reputation, so that uses are performed, truths told and justice satisfied,—it will be all the better. Not the least valuable effect of the late war was the discovery which it made for us of the great wealth of the country in this kind of men. A few such men, in spite of the covert contempt and inert opposition of President, Cabinet congressmen, generals, and army surgeons, made the Sani-
