In our metropolis, again, and every town which has been very rapidly extending, there are landholders whose property has been augmenting in value fourfold, twentyfold, in some cases an hundredfold, by the influx of population, which has caused land to be measured, and let, and sold by the inch instead of the acre. They are making their profit by means of those whose spiritual care, as we have seen, is so frightfully neglected. They are eager to build new streets and lanes; they have good houses for the rich in front, and behind them cellars and garrets for the poor: but the house of God is not seen among them; or at best it is appropriated to the use of those who can pay for admission, and the mass of the poor are of course excluded. In all these cases justice and equity require that men should first of all set themselves seriously to provide for the souls of those whom they have collected around them, and who are the sources of their wealth.
And where these duties have been forgotten, and men have passed out of the world having done nothing to discharge them, the obligation descends with undiminished weight to their children and heirs: they have inherited their father's
ready commenced, or must be expected to follow. Let those who, for their own profit or that of their town, have promoted these works, look to it that they do not neglect the spiritual wants of the population they are thus calling together; as they shall give account to Almighty God.
