' I do not believe it; for if she became a
wicked nation all the coal and iron in the universe would not keep
her from being ruined.
But even if it were true, which it is not, that the strength of
Britain lies in coal and iron, and not in British hearts, what right
have we to boast of coal and iron?
Did our forefathers know of them when they came into this land? Did
they come after coal and iron?
Not they. They came here to settle as small yeomen; to till
miserable little patches of corn, of which we should be now ashamed,
and to feed cattle on the moors, and swine in the forests--and that
was all they looked to. Then they found that there was iron,
principally down south, in Sussex and Surrey; and they worked it,
clumsily enough, with charcoal; and for more than twelve hundred
years they were here in England, with no notion of the boundless
wealth in iron and coal lying together in the same rocks which God
had provided for them; or if they did guess at it, they could not
use it, because they could not work deep mines, being unable to pump
out the water; for God had not opened their eyes and shown them how
to do it.
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