the purer air and beautiful surroundings of associated life, is a rock whereon the good ship 'co-operation' will be wrecked, and disappear as a means of carrying the population safely across the stormy waters of competitive poverty to the fair shores of associated wealth, if the co-operative body are not sharp-sighted enough to see and good statesmen enough to avoid it. The motto of Lord Strafford is the true motto, 'We must be thorough,' -or we are nothing. God does not tolerate the double-minded man, who is 'unstable in all his ways;' or, rather, He does tolerate, but He never blesses him. 'Unstable as water, lie shall not excel.' You may despise my warning, if you please, but I do warn you nevertheless-the associated house is the keystone of the social arch-the indispensable condition of rational enjoyment and general well-being. In it lies the permanent guarantee against the dreary isolation and moral depravity attending what appears to be the inevitable accompaniment of a dense population, the growth of large cities. It will be the economical distribution, for the benefit of the whole population, of the advantages of the wealth accumulated, and the continual accumulation for the common good of the wealth ever accumulating. In it, and only by its means, will the interval between rich and poor be bridged over in fact and not only in talk ; and the aspirations of that great poet whom a congress in Scotland brings naturally to our thought, become a living reality-till not only when we read Burns, we shall feel

'A man's a man for a' that."

Although we may hope that the loftier aim may be realized, there can be no doubt as to the value of co-operation for the bettering the condition of the working class. We get more