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sketch without adverting to the extraordinary
effect which the event we now commemorate
had upon the commerce of Europe.
The generous spirit of traffic is essentially
congenial with that of liberty. A commercial
people can never he enslaved; men become
more liberal from mutual intercourse ; obser
vation removes prejudice and awakens en
quiry. It is therefore the policy of despotic
governments to throw around their subjects an
impenetrable barrier of exclusivenses; to
prevent, by all possible means, the increase
of private wealth and public intelligence; for
these, above all, elevate s he masses and prove
incompatible with tyranny.
Hence, when the Crusaders finding it more
expedient and commodious to reach Palestine
by sea, encouraged the building of transports,
and granted the most liberal privileges and
immunities to the merchants of Venice, Ge
noa and Pisa, by whose fleets their armies
were conveyed and supplied with provision :
they laid the foundation of a permanent mar
atirne interest, and insensibly gave birth to
the freedom and commercial importance of
those celebrated communities. Anew ingre
dient was then for the first time introduced
into society, destined to produce tfie most ben
eficial results. Mercantile adventures have
ever been the true pioneers of civilization;
they are the first to break through the shack
les of prejudice and the restraints of geograph
ical position; elevated to the dignity of a so
cial body, they constitute a most important
element of a nation’s greatness.
Finding it necessary to preserve the ac
counts of their voyages and observations for
the use of their successors, the rude principles
of navigation, from this, ripen into maturity,
and assume the importance of a science. The
coasts of the Mediterranean are gradually
explored, and the position and distance of its
numerous harbors accurately defined. Is
lands previously unknown or forgotten, offer
new fields of adventure or conquest. The
glass of science discovers new objects for hu
man thought and investigation. The compass
is discovered, and guided by its mysterious
agency, the fearless sailor, no longer creeping
along the narrow course his fathers were con
tent to occupy, boldly steers his fragile barque
across an unknown ocean. Anew hemis
phere springs into existence; and the human
intellect, expanding with these vast discove
ries, seems to bound onward amid the light
of science and refinement, to the farthest limit
of perfection.
Such are the considerations with which the
mind is filled in contemplating these singular
events, and such are a few of the beneficial
consequences which seem to have accrued to
mankind in general, either immediately after
the Crusades, or in whose occurrence we may
trace its more remote or indirect operation.
To review all that has been said : It is
plain that actions may be considered either
with regard to the universal distinctions of
wrong, and the fundamental princi
ples of moral rectitude, or, as to the effects
which they are observed to produce on the
general welfare and interests of society.
It will be remarked, on a slight recurrence
to what we have written, that the limits with
in which we have confined our Essay, have
not admitted of reference to more than the
latter of these distinctions. Perhaps the mo
tives, the casus belli , by which men then
seemed to have been actuated in their inva
sion of the territories of a distant power,
would not at the present day admit of even
tolerable justification. Certainly the circum
stances under which they arose and were pro
longed for so great a period, do not now exist.
A thousand minor incidents which can never
be collected or remembered, go to form the
particular character of each of those great po
litical events whose effects we can easily
trace, but of whose morale we can seldom
hope to obtain more than a general idea. We
should moreover be careful how we apply the
same principles of criticism to such remote
mmolhsm ninr&&&&¥ sassttifb*
occurrences, as we do to those which pass un
der our daily observation.
But however, we may be permitted to spec
ulate on the motives which induced those in
power to encourage and prolong these expe
ditions—to condemn their frequent excesses,
or to deplore the effects of their misguided
zeal, we cannot fail to trace amid taese scenes
of blood and carnage, the finger of an over-*
ruling Providence, who, in the priceless bless
ings we now enjoy, and whose dawning we
have just been contemplating, seems to bend
everything to the accomplishment of its vast
and beneficent designs. E. C. C.
June , 1848.
£ln
For tlie Southern Literary Gazette.
ADDRESS TO THE GRADUATES*
OF THE UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA.
BY REV. C . H . HALL.
“ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ 1 ”
Romans, viii : 35.
And to you, young gentlemen of the Grad
uating Class—l put this matter as a practical
question. What think you of all this. Give
to it, I ask you, as men, your earnest consid
eration at this time. You are about to go
forth into the world —Stop one hour and ask
yourselves, what is the radical principle upon
which you are then to act. You hear, to-day,
for the last Sabbath, the knoll of the old bell,
calling you to this Chapel, wherein you have
so often met together in College exercises.—
It is the duty of others, to bid you affectionate
adieus, and to recall to your memories, in
flowing periods, the delights of College life
and the hours of classic dreamings over the
pages of the Roman poets, or the magic lines
of the “blind old Bard of Scio’s rocky isle.”
Others will recall the boyish friendships—the
animated discussions of the mimic palcestra—
the long walks in the green woods—the acts
of love and generous emulation, which you
will hereafter remember only as a romance of
youth. Be it my part to point you to the fu
ture.
The colder, sterner duties of the rough
world now meet you —and life , real and ear
nest life, receives you into its embrace. You
have been sailing upon a sunny, land-locked
bay of the great ocean, and now, even while
you turn longing eyes to the receding banks,
which brighten as they fade—the tide is set
ting you out upon the ocean, to sink or swim,
in its rude storms, as you may. You will
not, I trust, think me a prophet of evil, if I
tell you that you are to awake to anew life,
when you cross these thresholds, for the last
time, in college duties. College—the dearest
name which youth embalms for future mem
ories, has been to you, though you may not
have felt it—an alma mater. She has bound
you together as a class, in a bond of family
love, which happens to you no more ; she has
guarded you from many an outbreak ; she has
defended your names from harm; she has ex
cused your delinquences, and taught others to
extend the veil of charity over your faults;
she has nursed you at her bosom, in order to
send you out to stations of honor and useful
ness; she now surrenders you, and sends you
out, as the Spartan mother, giving you for
your shield in the battle of life, the image of
her iEgis, and the stern maxim, —“Return
with it—or upon it.”
It will be as to-morrow, and these walls
will be behind you —forever. You will be
alone—yes, alone, in the world. Every step
upwards is a step alone —a desertion of the
level behind us. Home will be changed to
you; for it will seem to point you to future
labor, and to chide any unmanly delay.—
* We have obtained the consent of the author to
publish this address, which was delivered in conclu
sion of the Commencement Sermon preached by him
in the College Chapel on Sunday, July 30, from the
text: Who shall separate us from the love of Christ!
Friends in their very love for you, will press
you to struggle for objects of national ambition,
and consent to forego the yearnings of their
affection for a season, to ensure your success,
Alas! the Past returns to us no more! Each
year, a childish delight, a boyish faith, a
youthful ambition, a happy love falls from
our path as we toil onwards. The stream
which has been gliding for you, through
these amorna vireta , these pleasant meadows,
with a winding, bubbling course, to lull you
to sleep for awhile, beneath its shady retreats,
begins to surge and swell with a premonition
of the whirlpools of the great world of beat
ing hearts. The world—the poor, sinful, im
perfect, hard-working, hard-struggling, hard
suffering world is now before you. We give
you the manly toga, and send you out to meet
it. If your hearts are wise, they will feel a
self-collecting energy at entering upon the
struggle, and beginning the life of men. It is
well for you to feel it—but it will be better
for you to stay and seek upon what founda
tions it is established. You may succeed in
life, and you may fail. Every ambition that
swells your young hearts may be mortified;
every hope may die ; every resource be lost,
and you go with crushed and bleedings hearts
to unknown graves.
The scholar of Gamaliel once stood, as you
do now*, and panted to run the race of ambi
tion. But we have seen him ignominiously
dying, “to make a Roman holyday.” Could
I cast now your horoscopes and foretell the
end of each one of you from the beginning,
they might present contrasts more startling
than that of Saul of Tarsus. Stop then and
ask yourselves, what have you to lean upon
in the future ?• What shall guard you from
the tremendous chances and changes of life 1
Analyze your principles and hopes, to find if
there be one of them on which you can rely
for time —on which you dare to depend for
eternity. Knowledge will be of little use in
the hour of temptation. There is nothing in
science to guard you from the intoxicating
cup ; there is nothing in classic lore to de
fend you from the wales of the “ strange wo
man, whose steps are in the grave.” Un
sanctified knowledge and refinement, are the
ready instruments of seduction. True wis
dom comes not from these studies. They are
only the garments to adorn her presence. But
without her presence, they are the dangerous
weapons of deceit and malice, which have
plunged many a soul into the pit of destruc
tion. “The fear of the Lord is the true be
ginning of wisdom, and to depart from evil
alone, is understanding.”
Young men ! many hopes and prayers are
centering upon you; disappoint them not. —
Families are looking upon you in pride, to
hail these scenes of your triumph over the
difficulties of past study. They look to see
the promise of future advancement, in the
present success. Your native state gathers
here her dignitaries, to behold how you have
repaid her care, and how you are to fill her
high places of honor. And the £hurch of
Christ leans over you to-day, to ask, how
much hope she may place on y r ou, that in
your lives and stations, you will be a blessing
to your generation. And as her minister—but
a step or two beyond you, in the race of life,
I venture not upon the counsels that will
come better from the lips of the aged. I on
ly ask you, as one of you, to be wise at the
outset of life ; and commend to you the prin
ciples of the love of Christ, as the only safe
principle, in which to live—the only princi
ple in which to die. Brethren ! let us look
out to the future, not with the gloomy fears
of the fanatic—but with high hopes, glad
minds and loving hearts. But let not the
hopes end in this low round of toil—let not
the love stop short of Him, who has died to
give us an inheritence of spiritual glory in a
life infinitely beyond the elysium of the poets.
May God’s blessing be upon you to think
rightly upon this subject, and so to join your
hearts to the bond of Christ’s eternal love,
that nothing shall ever avail to sever them •
either in the troubles of the world, or in the
last great time of the mortal struggle.
fjomc Correspondence.
For the Southern Literary Gazette
NEW-YORK LETTERS.—NO. 13.
Saratoga Springs, New*-York, )
July 26th, 1848. j
My Dear Sir : —I have, happily, again es
caped from the dust of the city, and am thus
far upon my journey to the mountains and
lakes of the northern portion of our State.—
Asa matter of course, I am passing a few
days in this most fashionable of summer re
sorts —Saratoga Springs; and already feel
“much better,” from the effects of its re
nowned waters. The numerous and, gene
rally, well ordered hotels are full of strangers
from all parts of the land, in quest of health
and pleasure. About two thousand visitors
are here at this moment, and with fine weath
er and a general disposition to enjoy it, the
streets and walks,the fountains, and the piaz
zas of the hotels, present a gay and happy
scene.
Few similar resorts in the world, can boast
the high and wide renown that Saratoga en
joys, and very justly too; for none are more
pleasantly or accessibly situated, or possess
waters of such valuable and efficacious qual
ities.
Rail-roads and stage-coaches bring hun
dreds hither daily from every point of the
compass. Leaving our beloved “Gotham,”
you have but to pass the day amidst the beau
ties of the Hudson, land at the pleasant city
of Albany in the afternoon, and after a rail
road ride of less than forty miles, through a
picturesque country, sip your tea in the spa
cious salon a manger of the “United States,”
at Saratoga, or if you prefer it, stroll down to
the Congress Spring, and imbibe its sparkling
and life-giving water The journey itself,
from the metropolis hither, is always full of
interest. I will pass over the varying attrac
tions of the Hudson, more speedily than you
would be disposed to do, even were you view
ing them for the thousandth time. On my
passage hither, these beauties were not at all
lessened by the accident of the presence, on
board our noble boat, of a band of musicians,
from the “ New York Institution for the
Blind.” This was the period of the summer
vacation of the unfortunate pupils, and they
were journeying, some homeward and others
on a professional tour of concert-giving, in
the provincial towns and villages. They fa
vored us with sweet sounds to our heart’s
content; but I was particularly struck with
a pleasant little scene which occurred as the
boat was passing the beautiful edifices of the
“ Institution,” situated in the extreme upper
end of town, and in full view from the Hud
son. The departing inmates of these kindly
halls, rose in a body, at this moment, and with
their faces turned towards the shore, they per
formed a sweet and touching farewell to their
beloved home.
Midway on my voyage, I picked up my
compagnon du voyage , my friend J —, who
was holding himself in readiness, at the pretty
city of Hudson, to obey marching orders. —
We reached Albany by dinner time, and es
tablished ourselves very comfortably, in the
“Delavan House,” until the following day.
This brief sojourn in the capital of the State,
was very fully and agreeably employed in
the survey of its natural and architectural
beauties, a visit to the mansion of Leonard
Young, to the Albany Female Academy, the
studio oi Mr. Hart, a promising young land
scape painter, the State Geological rooms, the
immense Basin of the Erie Canal, and other
interesting lions. Albany is, 1 believe, after
Jamestown, the oldest European settlement in
this country. The locality and vicinage are
replete with pleasing historical associations
and natural beauties. The city is built upon
a bold bluff', rising about 140 feet from the