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and perpetual impulse to generosity in the care for posterity. The one has been, doubtless, a benignant influence, tempering the ruggedness and violence of despotism; the other will prove an elevating force, lifting men above the personal selfishness and mutual subservience which are the besetting perils of equals who unite to govern by their common will.

Whatever may be his philosophy of individual character, the reflective observer cannot travel, with his mind awake, without admitting that there can be no question but that national character is formed, or largely influenced, by the gigantic circumstances which, being the product of no individual mind, are directly attributable to the great Moral Governor of the human race. Every successive act of research or travel will impress him more and more deeply with this truth, which, for the sake of his own peace and liberality, it would be well that he should carry about with him from the outset. He will not visit individuals with any bitterness of censure for participating in prevalent faults. He will regard social virtues and graces as shedding honour on all whom they overshadow, from the loftiest to the lowliest; while he is not disposed to indulge contempt, or anything but a mild compassion for any social depravity or deformity which, being the clear result of circumstances, and itself a circumstance, may be considered as surely destined to be remedied, as the wisdom of associated, like that of individual man, grows with his growth and strengthens with his strength.

CHAPTER II.

MORAL REQUISITES.

"I respect knowledge, but I do not despise ignorance. They think only as their fathers thought, worship as they worshipped. They do no more."-ROGERS.

"He was alive

To all that was enjoy'd where'er he went,
And all that was endured.”

WORDSWORTH.

THE traveller, being furnished with the philosophical requisites for the observation of morals and manners, 1st. With a certainty of what it is that he wants to know;

2dly. With principles which may serve as a rallyingpoint and test of his observations;

3dly. With, for instance, a philosophical and definite, instead of a popular and vague, notion about the origin of human feelings of right and wrong;

4thly. And with a settled conviction that prevalent virtues and vices are the result of gigantic general influences, is yet not fitted for his object if certain moral requisites be wanting in him.

An observer, to be perfectly accurate, should be himself perfect. Every prejudice, every moral perversion, dims or distorts whatever the eye looks upon. But as we do not wait to be perfect before we travel, we must content ourselves with discovering, in order to avoidance, what would make our task hopeless, and how we may put ourselves in a state to learn at least something truly. We cannot suddenly make ourselves a great deal better than we have been for such an object as observing morals and manners; but, by clearly ascertaining what it is that the most commonly, or the most grossly vitiates foreign observation, we may

put a check upon our spirit of prejudice, and carry with us restoratives of temper and spirits which may be of essential service to us in our task.

The observer must have sympathy, and his sympathy must be untrammelled and unreserved. If a traveller be a geological inquirer, he may have a heart as hard as the rocks he shivers, and yet succeed in his immediate objects; if he be a student of the fine arts, he may be as silent as a picture, and yet gain his ends; if he be a statistical investigator, he may be as abstract as a column of figures, and yet learn what he wants to know: but an observer of morals and manners will be liable to deception at every turn if he does not find his way to hearts and minds. Nothing was ever more true than that "as face answers to face in water, so is the heart of man." To the traveller there are two meanings in this wise saying, both worthy of his best attention. It means that the action of the heart will meet a corresponding action, and that the nature of the heart will meet a corresponding nature. Openness and warmth of heart will be greeted with openness and warmth: this is one truth. Hearts, generous or selfish, pure or gross, gay or sad, will understand, and, therefore, be likely to report of, only their like this is another truth.

There is the same human heart everywhere-the universal growth of mind and life-ready to open to the sunshine of sympathy, flourishing in the enclosures of cities, and blossoming wherever dropped in the wilderness; but folding up when touched by chill, and drooping in gloom. As well might the Erl-king go and play the florist in the groves and plains of the tropics, as an unsympathizing man render an account of society. It will all turn to stubble and sapless rigidity before his eyes.

There is the same human heart everywhere; and, if the traveller has a good one himself, he will presently find this out, whatever may have been his fears at home of checks to his sympathy from difference of ed ucation, objects in life, &c. There is no place where

people do not suffer and enjoy; where love is not the high festival of life; where birth and death are not occasions of emotion; where parents are not proud of their boy-children; where thoughtful minds do not speculate upon the two eternities; where, in short, there is not broad ground on which any two human beings may meet and clasp hands, if they have but unsophisticated hearts. If a man have not sympathy, there is no point of the universe-none so wide even as the Mohammedan bridge over the bottomless pitwhere he can meet with his fellow. Such a one is indeed floundering in the bottomless pit, with only the shadows of men ever flitting about him.

I have mentioned elsewhere, what will well bear repetition, that an American merchant, who had made several voyages to China, dropped a remark by his own fireside on the narrowness which causes us to conclude, avowedly or silently, that, however well men may use the light they have, they cannot be more than nominally our brethren, unless they have our religion, our philosophy, and our methods of attaining both. He said he often recurred with delight to the conversations he had enjoyed with his Chinese friends on some of the highest speculative, and some of the deepest and widest practical subjects, which his fellow-citizens of New-England were apt to think could be the business only of Protestant Christians. This American merchant's observations on oriental morals and manners had an incalculable weight after he had said this; for it was known that he had seen into hearts as well as met faces, and discovered what people's minds were busy about as their hands were pursuing the universal employment of earning their subsistence.

Unless a traveller interprets by his sympathies what he sees, he cannot but misunderstand the greater part of that which comes under his observation. He will not be admitted with freedom into the retirements of domestic life; the instructive commentary on all the facts of life-discourse-will be of a slight and superficial character. People will talk to him of the things

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they care least about, instead of seeking his sympathy about the affairs which are deepest in their hearts. He will be amused with public spectacles, and informed of historical and chronological facts; but he will not be invited to weddings and christenings; he will hear no love-tales; domestic sorrows will be kept as secrets from him; the old folks will not pour out their stores to him, nor the children bring him their prattle. Such a traveller will be no more fitted to report on morals and manners than he would be to give an account of the silver mines of Siberia by walking over the surface, and seeing the entrance and the product.

"Human conduct," says a philosopher, "is guided by rules." Without these rules men could not live together, and they are also necessary to the repose of individual minds. Robinson Crusoe could not have endured his life for a month without rules to live by. A life without purpose is uncomfortable enough; but a life without rules would be a wretchedness which, happily, man is not constituted to bear. The rules by which men live are chiefly drawn from the universal convictions about right and wrong which I have mentioned as being formed everywhere, under strong general influences. When sentiment is connected with these rules, they become religion; and this religion is the animating spirit of all that is said and done. If the stranger cannot sympathize in the sentiment, he cannot understand the religion; and without understanding the religion, he cannot appreciate the spirit of words and acts. A stranger who has never felt any strong political interest, and cannot sympathize with American sentiment about the majesty of social equality and the beauty of mutual government, can never understand the political religion of the United States; and the sayings of the citizens by their own firesides, the perorations of orators in town-halls, the installations of public servants, and the process of election, will all be empty sound and grimace to him. He will be tempted to laugh, to call the world about him mad,

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