knee, may justly indulge the consolation, that if he possess talents and virtue, there is no office beyond the reach of his honorable ambition. It is a mistaken theory, that government is organized for one object only. It is organized for the protection of life, liberty, and property, and all the comforts of society-to enable us to indulge in our domestic affections, and quietly to enjoy our homes and fire-sides.'

This is true philosophy. This is the exact estimate to be made of the beautiful theory of our republic. But the very want of a permanent and immoveable class, seems to the statesmen of Europe to be the defect of our institutions. There is no rock, they say, to which the ship can be moored; nothing to prevent the wild surges of public opinion from sweeping it from the shore, and exposing it to all the tempests of an angry ocean. It is so. THERE IS None. We depend not for security on any resistance to this opinion, but from the correctness of a public sentiment that can need no resistance. So long as our people are well informed and intelligent, there is no danger. The little occasional variations of the public mind are temporary flaws in the wind, that do no serious injury. But let us take care of the courses on which it blows. We have no force but principle, no other national guards than the moral feelings of the people, no standing army but the power of enlightened mind, no police but the civic virtues of free citizens. Everywhere, good affections, generous and noble sentiments, disinterested and patriotic purposes, contribute essentially to the public welfare; but here, without them, society would be dissolved. Jealousy between different portions of our citizens, suspicions of unfair designs, imputation of unwarrantable motives without justifiable cause, gradually undermine the foundations of our national existence. If there be cause, the destruction would be inevitable. The corollary we would draw, then, from these demonstrations, is the duty of encouraging a high, honorable, and generous course of conduct. Conciliation and kindness are to be inculcated on the one part-forbearance, confidence and esteem on the other. These qualities are the cement of a republic.

From the course of our remarks, the practical results we would inculcate cannot fail to be perceived. The first we particularly attend to, is the duty of endeavouring to make men happy in that condition which Providence has assigned to them. What can be more miserable than a restless, dissatisfied, repining and irritable temper, ill at ease with itself, and impotently envious of all around it? If there are causes of complaint,

this disposition aggravates them; if they are few, it multiplies, and if there are none existing, it contrives to make them. It would be difficult to persuade a man in this country that wealth did not bring happiness, or that any substitute could be found to compensate for the absence of it. But, without denying its importance, it may be easily demonstrated that in itself it is neither the cause of happiness, nor the means of it. A certain portion of property is unquestionably necessary for the enjoyment of life; but this certain portion is no definite or certain quantity. It was described by an eminent merchant, who had the reputation of possessing a larger fortune than any other man in Massachusetts, to be a little more than one had. Now, that little more is just as deficient in the coffers of the most wealthy, as of any other individual. It is only a little more. Habits, modes of life, customary pursuits, are all regulated, not by any precise amount which a man has, or thinks he may acquire, but by his relative condition in the great scale of society, in which perhaps no two individuals are precisely the same.

We do not attempt the folly of persuading our readers, that wealth is not a good thing; and, whatever our own reflections may be, we will essay no such unprofitable task as an argument against the opinion, that the more a man has the better for him and his children. Be it so. But inasmuch as all men cannot be rich, by the unavoidable and immutable laws of human existence, and because a society in which every man had an unlimited amount of gold, would be precisely the same as one where they were all equally destitute of it; and because, in fine, there must be pecuniary inequality, so that in the various departments of life,

'All nature's difference keeps all nature's peace,'

it is the most useful inquiry to make, how self-satisfaction may best be preserved among those who happen to be on the shady side of the field. Undoubtedly, if they were not permitted to adventure at their will for another and a better condition, the laws or institutions which should so confine them, would deserve their indignation, and ought to be forthwith overturned. But here most truly is no impassable line. Here are no stern laws, nor prescriptive customs, nor restraints imposed by power or influence. The roads are all open and the travel all free. It is impossible to make them more so, and equally impossible that every man should advance with equal speed. The compensations which are enjoyed by those who are not forward in the course, should be wisely, temperately and candidly considered, that, if they do not amount to a complete satisfaction, their value, as

far as they go, may not be misunderstood. He does no service to any classes of men in our society, who excites their ill will, or their bad feelings, or aggravates unavoidable evils by factitious and idle complaints.

A further inquiry, which our subject presents, is, how the various individuals of our mixed society can be most useful to each other; how that benignant and humane spirit, without which the intercourse of men would lose its choicest satisfaction, may be best cultivated and enlarged and made most extensively to operate. And we answer, unhesitatingly, not by arraying one part of the community against another. The hands cannot say to the head, I have no need of thee; nor the head to the foot, I have no need of thee. Society moves on for the prospering of its own great concern-the common and best interests of all the individuals who compose it,-by a happy and harmonious cooperation of joint efforts, each member acting according to his strength, his means, and his influence. Real difficulties it is proper to ascertain, and, if possible, to remedy. Real grievances are to be redressed; but the suggestions of a contrary interest in the different classes of society, may be suspected to be the fruit of an evil design. Such contradiction cannot exist in any permanent form. We have all one great and common interest as citizens, patriots, Christians; a common country to be served by united exertions, and a common faith to be maintained by the cultivation of character, which takes none of its coloring from the accidents of life. He has most to do, who has most power to do it. To whom much has been given, from him will much be required. Let him fulfil the obligations of his station and meet the responsibility which it imposes. Providence seems constantly to indicate to us, that there are higher and nobler objects of pursuit than mere external condition. We are reminded that the cultivation of the mind, the improvement of the heart, the enlarging and purifying and extending the intellectual and moral powers of our nature, deserves the most serious regard. What a man does to multiply his acquisitions, will be much less a subject of concern to him, than how he has used them; and what he may have done for himself, of vastly less consequence in the great day of account, than what he has attempted for the interest of his fellow men. What may be obtained of this world's goods, is as transient as is everything connected with sublunary concerns; but accessions to mind, contributions to the generous and noble affections of our nature, are as durable as the soul, and will survive the wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds.

THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER.

NO. XLII.

NEW SERIES-NO. XII.

DECEMBER 31, 1830.

ART. I.—1. A Lecture on the Working Men's Party, first delivered October 6, before the Charlestown Lyceum, and published at their Request. By EDWARD EVERETT.— Boston: Gray & Bowen. 1830. 8vo. pp. 27.

2. Mr Tuckerman's Second Semi-annual Report of the Fourth Year of his Service as a Minister at Large in Boston. Gray & Bowen. 1830. 12mo. pp. 36.

THE popular governments under which we esteem ourselves fortunate to live, depend for their success in promoting the prosperity of the state and the nation, on the truth of the axiom that there can be no permanent diversity of interest between any classes of the people. Identity of interest, for all large and general purposes, is taken for true in the theory of our republic; and if it be not true, if there be serious and conflicting interests, which different classes maintain, irreconcilable with any common course of policy in which all may unite, it is not difficult to foresee what must be the tendency of this grand experiment of freedom. And in a government so entirely depending on popular opinion, it is scarcely less necessary that no such diversity of interest should be supposed to exist, than that none should in fact exist; for here, certainly, the sentiment of the poet is no fiction, that 'there is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.'

We may be excused, therefore, for resuming the subject to which we paid some attention in our last number; and we place at the head of this article two productions having a direct bearing upon it. The first is a striking and beautiful illustration of the mysterious connexion of body and mind, and the necessa

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ry union of physical and intellectual power for all the avocations of life. It bears the impress of genius, and like all the productions of its classic author, is calculated to instruct and improve its readers. We invite to it the early attention of all who feel any interest in this popular subject. The other refers to the actual state and condition of a large and growing class of the community; those, who, by ignorance, poverty, or crime, hang with heavy weight on society. The details which it presents, and the suggestions which are made by its philanthropic and intelligent author, are deserving of very careful regard.

In directing our attention, as we did in our former article, in the first instance to the class of affluent men, it was not by any means from a belief that they were the most important or deserving class of society. But as gain is the great object and the moving impulse of a laboring and active community, it seemed to be proper to inquire who were most forward in the chase, and whether there was any congregation of individuals, who might possess the spirit of a class, distinguished by selfish objects, in which their fellow citizens had no part.

We suppose that wealth, in our community, can very rarely be the harvest of rapacity or crime; and we are not willing to believe that it can in general be fairly considered to be gathered from exactions on the poor. It is sometimes said, that the luxuries of the rich are paid for by the poor. But is it so? Where the public treasury, which is mostly supplied by contributions of the industrious classes, pours out its abundance in pensions, sinecures and salaries, enormously disproportioned to the services for which they are paid, the assertion might be justified. But here there is no such prodigality. Public office rarely makes any man rich. If the compensation paid to the servants of the state is in any case excessive, it is nevertheless fixed by the people, and at their pleasure may be curtailed. Great competition exists to enlist in that service. But rank, power, and honor, form no small part of the inducement, and the emolument is sought for, not so much to accumulate a fortune, as to sustain life.

We do not of course mean to include every individual case in our general remarks. There are exceptions in this as in other rules. But if, as a general assertion, it may be safe to say, that the acquisition of fortune does not imply anything at variance with the common good, how is it in the expenditure?