observance which it merits. My friends, those of you especially who retire annually into the country,-let these periodical retreats from business or dissipation bring you nearer to your God; let them restore the clearness of your judgment on the objects of human pursuits, invigorate your moral perceptions, exalt your sentiments, and regulate your habits of devotion; and if there be any virtue or simplicity remaining in rural life, let them never be impaired by the influence of your presence and example.

After what we have now said upon the virtuous and devotional tendency of a country life, it may, perhaps, be considered as inconsistent, or even paradoxical, to place our commercial character among our moral, much less our religious advantages. But let it be considered, whatever be the influence of traffic upon the personal worth of some of those who are engaged in it, its intrinsic value to the community, and its kind influence upon certain parts of the moral character, are not to be disputed. Hence I do not scruple to state it as one of our great national distinctions, which call for our grateful acknowledgments. Tell me not of Tyre, and Sidon, and Corinth, and Carthage. I know they were commercial and corrupt. But let it be remembered that they flourished long before the true principles of honorable trade were understood; before the introduction of Christianity had given any stability to those virtues of conscientious integrity, and strict fidelity in trusts, which are now indispensable to commercial prosperity. They have passed away, it is true; and so has Sparta, where no commerce was allowed; and Judea, though mostly agricultural, is known no more, except for its national ingratitude and corruption. Besides, when the choice of a nation lies, as, from the present state of the world, it appears long destined to lie, between a commercial and a military character, surely there can be little hesitation about the comparative influence of the peaceful activity of trade, though it may tend to enervate some of the energies of the human character, and that deplorable activity of a mere warlike nation, where plunder is the ruling passion of the great, and destruction the trade of the small; where every new conquest tends only to concentrate, in still fewer hands, the wealth of kingdoms, and to inspire the com

mon people with an undistinguishing ferocity. Surely, we cannot hesitate whether to prefer that warlike state of a nation which poisons at once the sources and security of domestic happiness, state in which the lives as well as the virtues of mankind sink into objects of insignificant importance, or that commercial situation of a people, which rouses and develops all the powers of all classes of the population, which gives a perpetual spring to industry, and which, by showing every man how completely he is dependent upon every other man, makes it his interest to promote the prosperity, to consult the happiness, and to maintain the peace, the health, and the security of the millions with whom he is connected. Surely, that state of a people cannot be unfavorable to virtue, which provides such facilities of intellectual communication between the remotest regions, so that not a bright idea can spring up in the brain of a foreign philosopher, but it darts, like lightning, across the Atlantic; not an improvement obtains in the condition of one society, but it is instantly propagated to every other. By this perpetual interchange of thought, and this active diffusion of understanding, the most favorable opportunities are afforded for the dissemination of useful knowledge, especially for the extension of that most precious of gifts, the gospel of Jesus. I need not add, that the wide intercourse we are keeping up with foreign nations ought to enlarge the sphere of our intelligence, liberalize our sentiments of mankind, polish the manners of the community, and introduce courteousness and urbanity of deportment. Merchants! if I may be permitted to suggest to you any considerations on the value of your order to the community, I would say, that upon your personal character depends much of these favorable influences of commerce. I would beg you to beware of an engrossing love of profit, which invariably narrows the capacity, and debases the noblest tendencies of the human character. I would persuade you to cultivate habits of mental activity, to indulge enlarged views of your connection with mankind, to consider yourselves as forming part of the vast chain of mutual supports and dependencies, by which the activity, the improvement and the pleasure of the inhabitants of every part of the world are secured

and promoted. Above all, forget not that you are instruments in the hands of Providence, by which he diffuses his blessings, and promotes his grand purposes in the cultivation, the civilization, and thus the moral and religious advancement, of this wide creation. God grant that you may never feel the remorse of having deliberately contributed to the introduction of a new vice into the community, or to the corruption of an old or established principle; of having aided the tyranny of a worthless fashion, or assisted the gradual encroachments of selfishness, vanity, pomp, and slavish imitation, on the freedom and dignity of social life!

THE PRESERVATION OF THE UNION.-L. Cass.

I MAY well appeal to those who find in the constitution or out of the constitution this power to control the territories, whether it is a power that ought to be exercised under existing circumstances. Here is one half of a great country which believes, with a unanimity perhaps without a parallel in grave national questions, that the constitution has delegated to Congress no such power whatever. And there is a large portion of the other half which entertains similar views; while of those who see in the constitution sufficient grounds for legislative action, there are many who admit, — indeed, probably, there are few who deny, -- that the question is not free from serious doubts.

Besides the want of constitutional power, there are at least fourteen states of this Union which see in this measure a direct attack upon their rights, and a disregard of their feelings and interests, as injurious in itself as it is offensive to their pride of character, and incompatible with the existence of those bonds of amity which are stronger than constitutional ties to hold us together. No man can shut his eyes to the excitement which prevails there, and which is borne to us by the press in countless articles coming from legislative proceedings, from popular assemblies, and from all the sources whence public opinion is derived, and be insensible to the evil day that is upon us. I believe this Union will survive all

the dangers with which it may be menaced, however trying the circumstances in which it may be placed. I believe it is not destined to perish till long after it shall have fulfilled the great mission confided to it, of example and encouragement to the nations of the earth who are struggling with the despotism of centuries, and groping their way in a darkness once impenetrable, but where the light of knowledge and freedom is beginning to disperse the gloom. But to maintain this proud position, this integrity of polit ical existence, on which so much for us and for the world depends, we must carefully avoid those sectional questions so much and so forcibly deprecated by the father of his country, and, cultivating a spirit of mutual regard, adding to the considerations of interest which hold us together the higher motives of affection and of affinity of views and of sympathies. Sad will be the day when the first drop of blood is shed in the preservation of this Union. That day need never come, and never will come, if the same spirit of compromise and concession by each to the feelings of all, which animated our fathers, continues to animate us and our children. But if powers offensive to one portion of the country, and of doubtful obligation, to say the least of it, are to be exercised by another, and under circumstances of peculiar excitement, this confederation may be rent in twain, leaving another example of that judicial blindness with which God, in his providence, sometimes visits the sins of nations.

A REPUBLIC THE STRONGEST GOVERNMENT. T. Jefferson.

DURING the throes and convulsions of the ancient world, — during the agonizing spasms of infuriated man, seeking, through blood and slaughter, his long-lost liberty, it was not wonderful that the agitation of the billows should reach even this distant and peaceful shore; that this should be more felt and feared by some, and less by others, and should divide opinions as to measures of safety. But every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle. We have called by different names brethren of the same principle. We are all Republicans; we are all Federalists.

If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union, or to change its republican form, let them stand, undisturbed, as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. I know, indeed, that some honest men fear a republican government cannot be strong,

that this government is not strong enough. But would the honest patriot, in the full tide of successful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm, on the theoretic and visionary fear that this government, the world's best hope, may, by possibility, want energy to preserve itself? I trust not. I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest government on earth. I believe it the only one where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order, as his own personal concern. Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? we found angels, in the form of kings, to govern him? tory answer this question.

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Let us, then, with courage and confidence, pursue our own federal and republican principles, our attachment to union and representative government. Kindly separated, by nature and a wide ocean, from the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe, — too high-minded to endure the degradations of the others, possessing a chosen country, with room enough for our descendants to the thousandth and thousandth generation, entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use of our own faculties, to the acquisitions of our own industry, to honor and confidence from our fellow-citizens, resulting not from birth, but from our actions, and their sense of them, enlightened by a benign religion, professed, indeed, and practised in various forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man, acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence, which, by all its dispensations, proves that it delights in the happiness of man here, and his greater happiness hereafter; with all these blessings, what more is necessary, to make us a happy and prosperous people?