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WILLIAM GASTON. 1778-1844.

From "Essays and Addresses."

126. THE IMPORTANCE OF INTEGRITY.

THE first great maxim of human conduct — that which it is all-important to impress on the understandings of young men, and recommend to their hearty adoption — is, above all things, in all circumstances, and under every emergency, to preserve a clean heart and an honest purpose. That integrity which, however tempting the opportunity, or however secure against detection, no selfishness nor resentment, no lust of power, place, favor, profit, or pleasure, can cause to swerve from the strict rule of right, is the perfection of man's moral nature. In this sense, the poet was right when he pronounced "an honest man's the noblest work of God." It is almost inconceivable what an erect and independent spirit this high endowment communicates to the man, and what a moral intrepidity and vivifying energy it imparts to his character. . . Erected on such a basis, and built up of such materials, fame is enduring. Such is the fame of our Washington — of the man “inflexible to ill, and obstinately just." While, therefore, other monuments, intended to perpetuate human greatness, are daily mouldering into dust, and belie the proud inscriptions which they bear, the solid, granite pyramid of his glory lasts from age to age, imperishable, seen afar off, looming high over the vast desert, a mark, a sign, and a wonder, for the wayfarers through this pilgrimage of life.

1 A prominent lawyer and statesman of North Carolina.

127.

JESSE BUEL. 1778-1839. (Manual, p. 504.)

From "The Farmer's Instructor."

EXTENT AND DEFECTS OF AMERICAN AGRICULTURE.

We have associated, gentlemen, to increase the pleasures and profits of rural labor, to enlarge the sphere of useful knowledge, and, by concentrating our energies, to give them greater effect in advancing the public good. In no country does the agricultural class bear so great a proportion to the whole population as in this. In England one third of the inhabitants only are employed in husbandry; in France, two thirds; in Italy, a little more than three fourths; while in the United States the agricultural portion probably exceeds five sixths. And in no country does the agricultural population exercise such a controlling political power, contribute so much to the wealth, or tend

so strongly to give an impress to the character of a nation as in the United States. Hence it may be truly said of us that our agriculture is our nursing mother, which nurtures, and gives growth, and wealth, and character to, our country. Knowing no party, and confined to no sect, its benefits and its blessings, like dews from heaven, fall upon all.

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Our agriculture is greatly defective. It is susceptible of much improvement. How shall we effect this improvement? The old are too old to learn, or, rather, to unlearn what have been the habits of their lives. The young cannot learn as they ought to learn, and as the public interests require, because they have no suitable school for their instruction. We have no place where they can learn the principles upon which the practice of agriculture is based, none where they can be instructed in all the modern improvements of the art.

ROBERT WALSH. 1784-1859. (Manual, p. 504.)

From "Didactics, Social, Literary, &c."

128. FALSE SYMPATHY WITH CRIMINALS.

We have constantly remembered what we early read in the works of Mr. Burke, that it is the propensity of degenerate minds to admire or worship splendid wickedness; that, with too many persons, the ideas of justice and morality are fairly conquered and overpowered by guilt when it is grown gigantic, and happens to be associated with the lustre of genius, the glare of fashion, or the robes of power. Against this species of degeneracy or illusion it has been our uniform endeavor to guard ourselves, and our conscientious practice to warn and exhort others. The integrity and delicacy of the moral sense, whether in individuals or communities, form a most important subject of the care of all public writers and speakers, in all transactions by which, or the history or treatment of which, the public judgment and feelings may be affected. Hence, when mail robbers or murderers are to be tried or executed, we should be disposed to avoid all extraordinary bustle, or concern, or voluminous details about their fate; we should deem it the true policy of practical ethics to abstain from everything calculated to produce adventitious interest or consequence for the culprits. It is not with pleasure that we hear of the crowds that besiege the door of the court-room, or see in the newspapers the many columns of evidence, with an endless repetition of trifling circumstances, any more than we can rejoice for the cause of moral and social order when convicted highwaymen or murderers are carried to the gallows as saints, and hung amidst vast assemblages, either merely indulging a callous

curiosity, or losing all the horror of their offences in emotions of compassion or admiration, awakened by the dramatic nature of the whole

scene.

THOMAS S. GRIMKE.1 1786-1834.

From "Addresses, Scientific and Literary."

129. LITERARY EXCELLENCE OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE.

THE translation of the Bible, in the reign of James I., is the most remarkable and interesting event in the history of translations. The great excellence of the translation is due to six considerations. First, it was made under a very solemn sense of the important duty devolved on those who were thus selected. Hence arose that prevailing air of dignity, gravity, simplicity, which is so conspicuous. Secondly, the translators came to the task looking to the thoughts, not to the style. Their object was not that of all other translators, to imitate and rival the beauty of style. Their sole object was to render faithfully, and in a plain, appropriate style, the thoughts of the sacred writers. Hence they became thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the original, and gave an incomparably better version of the Hebrew and Greek Testaments than any or all of them together could have done of any classic. Had each of them left us translations of some classic, I hesitate not to say they would not now have been found in any library but as mere curiosities. Thirdly, the number of persons employed contributed very much to prevent any personal style from prevailing, and gave to the whole an air of plain, simple uniformity. Fourthly, the era was providential in one important view. As the translation was made before all the bitterness of sectarian spirit distracted the English Protestant church, it was executed far less with a view to party differences than could have been the case at any time afterwards. Fifthly, fortunately the only great religious difference that could have affected it was the dispute with the Catholic church, and, as to that, all Protestants were agreed in England on every important point. Sixthly, the English language was then at the happiest stage of its progress, with all the strength, simplicity, and clearness of the elder literature, whilst, at the same time, it was free from the cant of the age of Charles I. and Cromwell, from the vulgarity and levity of that of Charles II., and from the artificial character of that of Anne.

Such a translation is an illustrious monument of the age, the nation, the language. It is, properly speaking, less a translation than

1 A native of South Carolina, distinguished in the law and in literature.

an original, having most of the merit of the former as to style, and all the merit of the latter as to thought. It is the noblest, best, most finished classic of the English tongue.

HENRY C. CAREY. 1793-. (Manual, p. 504)

From "Principles of Social Science."

130. AGRICULTURE AS A SCIENCE.

THAT agriculture may become a science, it is indispensable that man always repay to the great bank from which he has drawn his food, the debt he thereby has contracted. The earth, as has been already said, gives nothing, but is ready to lend everything; and when the debts are punctually repaid, each successive loan is made on a · larger scale; but when the debtor fails in punctuality, his credit declines, and the loans are gradually diminished, until at length he is turned out from house and home. No truth in the whole range of science is more readily susceptible of proof than that the community which limits itself to the exportation of raw produce must end by the exportation of men, and those men the slaves of nature, even when not actually bought and sold by their fellow-men.

With the growth of commerce, the necessity for moving commodities back and forth steadily declines, with constant improvement in the machinery of transportation, and diminution in the risk of losses of the kind that are covered by insurance against dangers of the sea, or those of fire. The treasures of the earth then become developed, and stone and iron take the place of wood in all constructions, while the exchanges between the miner of coal and of iron — of the man who quarries the granite, and him who raises the food rapidly increase in quantity, and diminish the necessity for resorting to the distant market.

FRANCIS WAYLAND. 1796-1865. (Manual, pp. 487, 502, 504.)

From "The Limitations of Human Responsibility."

131. SUPERIORITY OF THE MORAL SENTIMENTS.

It is a common remark, that, whenever it has been thought necessary to arouse the mind of man to enterprises of great pith and moment, the appeal has always been made to his moral sentiments. Hence, among the most ancient nations, it was the invariable custom to accompany the declaration of war with religious ceremonies; and if, in later times, this custom has become somewhat less usual, the change itself, in a more remarkable manner, illustrates the tendency

of our nature. . . But let victory declare for the assailed, let the invader become the invaded, let it become necessary to stimulate men to put forth the highest effort of human daring, and the sacred names of conscience, of duty to family, to country, and to God, are universally invoked, and the Supreme Being is urgently appealed to, to succor the cause of a sinking commonwealth. It is, perhaps, worth while to remark, in passing, that this consciousness of right is a source of power which belongs specially to the oppressed, and which, other things being equal, will always insure to them the victory; and, when other things are not equal, it is frequently sufficient, of itself, to outweigh a vast preponderance of physical force. It is, moreover, efficient in proportion to the purity of the moral principle of a people. We hence perceive the elements of superiority which, by the constitution of our nature, have been bestowed upon virtue.

HORACE MANN. 1796-1859. (Manual, p. 532.)

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Time is the rock from health, enterprise, and For this, diligence in

In this country most young men are poor. which they are to hew out their fortunes, and integrity the instruments with which to do it. business, abstinence from pleasures, privation, even, of everything that does not endanger health, are to be joyfully welcomed and borne. When we look around us, and see how much of the wickedness of the world springs from poverty, it seems to sanctify all honest efforts for the acquisition of an independence; but when an independence is acquired, then comes the moral crisis, then comes an Ithuriel test, which shows whether a man is higher than a common man, or lower than a common reptile. In the duty of accumulation—and I call it a duty, in the most strict and literal signification of that word all below a competence is most valuable, and its acquisition most laudable; but all above a fortune is a misfortune. It is a misfortune to him who amasses it; for it is a voluntary continuance in the harness of a beast of burden when the soul should enfranchise and lift itself up into a higher region of pursuits and pleasures. It is a persistence in the work of providing goods for the body after the body has already been. provided for; and it is a denial of the higher demands of the soul, after the time has arrived, and the means are possessed, of fulfilling those demands.

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