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OttIGINAL ANECDOTE.
A jollv set of Irishmen, boon companions
and sworn brothers, had made up their minds
to leave tlie “ old sod,” and wend their way
to Ameriky. They were five in number :
two Paddies, one Murphy, one Dennis, and
one Teague. It so happened, that the vessel
thev were to go in could only take four ot
them. At length honest Teague exclaimed,
Arrah ! I have it. We’ll cast lots to see who
shall remain. But one of the Paddies swore
it was not jonteel to do that tiling. “5 ou
know, Teague,” said he, “ that I am an arath
matician. and I can work it out by the rule of
subtraction, which is a great deal better. But
you must all agree to bide by the figures.
All having pledged themselves to do so, Pat
proceeded—“ Well then—take Paddy from
Paddy, you can’t; but take Dennis from Mur
phy, and Teague remains. By mv soul,
Teague, my jswel, and its you that can’t go.
There are a great many stories told of the
prolific soil of the great west; how that bread,
ready buttered, grows upon high trees ; and
pigs’ tails planted in the rich alluvial bottom
lands in the fall, fructify in such wise, that on
some fine evening in early spring, a crop of
juvenile porkers may be seen inarching into
the sower’s farm yard from the “ spot where
they grew,” with short squeak, and in military
order ; and that jack knives are “ raised” by
a kindred agricultural process. Howsoever
this may be, we are credibly informed that
the truth of a statement equally surprising
can be easily established. In Illinois it is
quite a common thing for deer, being previ
ously accommodated with a “ bucket full of
salt” on their tails, to walk up to a squatter’s
tent in the forest, turn his fat haunches to the
fire, and keep them there until proper cook
ed, and permit a delicious steak to be cut
therefrom. They then go about their busi
ness with equanimity. In someinstances.it
is further stated, that they return at nightfall,
to furnish forth “a cold cut.” We have this
statement in the hand-writing of Mr. John
Smith, of Illinois, who refers confidently' to
Mr. John Thompson, of Ohio.
Knickerbocker.
The following singular circumstance is said
to have lately occurred at Baden Baden : A
young Austrian Count, having had uncommon
good luck at roulette, brought home and care
fully I ocked up 30,000 florins (about 65,000
fracs ) When he rose in the morning, not
only his gold was gone, but, to his astonish,
ment, his old faithful servant, Fritz, was mis
sing also. In about a week’s time, to his sur
prise, Fritz made his appearance. “And
where do you come from ?” said the count.
“ From Viena.” “ What have you been there
for, and what’s become of my money V ’
“Why, sir, I thought you would play again,
and lose your money; so 1 took it home, and
here’s your father’s receipt for it.”
BUNKER HILL TO BE DESTROYED !
The Boston Journal says,—“The grading
of Bunker Hill, or more properly, Breed's
Hill, has commenced. We visited it yester
day, and found the pickaxe and spade briskly
employed.—AVe learn that it is the intention
of the proprietors of the lots to reduce th j hill
about eight feet, an J of course the old redoubt
will be destroyed, and all the surface removed,
excepting a few hundred square feet around
the Monument! 1 Wc learn that much feel*
ing exist in relation to this proceeding; and
we hope it is not even yet too late to stop the
desecrating word and save the battle ground.”
Stop the destroy ers if possible. Save the
dececration of that holy ground. There is
not a place on Earth, not Thermopyla?, nor
the Capitolinc Hill of Ithome, so worthy of
immortal honor , or whence have sprung re
sults of such momenluous importance to the
human race.”
SEMI-ANNUAL REPORT OF THE SOUTH-CAROLI
NA CANAL AND RAIL-ROAD COMPANY.
This document presents a highly favorable
condition of the afl'uirs of the company. The
number of passengers, the amount of freight
and the total receipts show a large progressive
increase. The total receipts for the first half
year of 1838, amount to $164,*231 37, which
arc nearly as large as for the whole year 1834,
the total receipts in that year being .$166,559
45. The number of passengers bears nearly
the same ratio of augmentation. For the first
six months of 1838 they amounted to 23,608.
Daring 1834 they only reached 2G,G49. The
number of hales of Cotton conveyed upon the
Road to Charleston for the half year ending
the 30th June, 1838, was 17,975. For the
year 1837,24,567. According to this rate of
increase the Road has nearly doubled its in
come in less than four years, while the num
ber of passengers conveyed on it has increased
about the same proportion.
Charleston Mercury.
Anew set of Fanatics, calling themselves
the “ Candlesticks of the Church,” and claim
ing the power of working miracles, had sprung
up lately in London, England.
The Montreal Herald i isists that Canada is
far from quiet, and that rebellion is still alive
and kicking.
Mr. Norris, of Philadelphia, has shipped
a second locomotive for the use of the rail
road to Wagram in Austria. He is expected
to make two more for that country.
The Gov. rnor of Maryland is at the pre
sent election, to be chosen for the first time by
the people. He will be clothed with the en
tire executive power far three years.
The Louisville (Kv.) Medical College
promises to be worthy of that city. The buil
ding is one of great beauty, and the number of
students enterod are already 100.
Mr. Lewis, of Scottsviile, Va., makes a wine
of delicious flavor from the Catawba grape.
It resembles still Champaign.
A lady was asked at the Springs during the
present season, “how site liked Crabbe’s
Tales.” “ I never knew that crabs had tails,”
she replied, with a lo >k of grave and innocent
wonder.
The Baltimore Sun informs us that Grass
hoppers are so ravenous in Maryland that they
devour hoe handles, ploughshears, and har
row* ! This i» almost incredible.
LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC MARRIAGE.
Mrs. Emma Willard, so long and advan
tageously' known as Principal of the Troy Fe
male Seminary, was married to Dr. C. C.
Yates, of New-York. The Albany Journal
describes the ceremony as follows :
The marriage was celebrated in the chapel
of the institution, privately, with the exception
of relatives and friends, and the pupils < f the
school. These were all present, tastefully
dressed for such an occasion, in white, and
with bouquets of flowers. Their number was
someone hundred and fifty or two hundred,
: and a group of greater loveliness and beauty
has seldom been assembled on any occasion.
The spectacle was full of interest; and many
a bright eye glistened with tears, as they saw
their beloved preceptor transferred into a lady
of another name. AA’e can only add our hope
that these sweet ceatures, after being tho
roughly educated, may in due season, follow
in the footsteps of their illustrious predecessor.
As to the happy couple themselves, we give
them a wish from Byron :
On roses may their footsteps move—
Their tears be •! ways tears of love, —
Their smiles be emiles of joy.
OBLIGATION TO LITERATURE.
The facetious Tom Hood says : “ I will
here place on record my own obligations to
literature: a debt so immense, as not to be
concealed, like that of nature, by deatli itself.
I owe to it something more than rr.y r earthly
welfare. Adrift, early in life upon the great wa
ters—as pilotless as Wordsworth’s blind boy
afloat in the turtle shell—if 1 did not come to
shipwreck, it was that in default of parental
or fraternal guidance, I was rescued, like the
ancient mariner, by guardian spirits—“ each
one a lovely light”—who stood as beacons to
my course. Infirm health, and a natural love
of reading, happily threw me, instead of worse
society, into the company of poets, philoso
phers and sages, to me good angels and min
isters of grace.
From these silent instructors—who often
do more than fathers, and always more than
god-fathers, for our temporal and spiritual in
terest —from such monitors—no importunate
tutors, teasing mentors, moral taskmasters, ob
trusive advisers, harsh censors, or wearisome
lecturers—but delightful associations, I learn
ed something of the divine, and more of the
human religion. They were my interpreters
in the beautiful house of God ! and my guide
among the delectable mountains of Nature.
They reformed my prejudices, chastened my
passions, tempered my heart, purified mv
tastes, elevated my mind, and directed my as
pirations. I was lost in the chaos of indigest
ed problems, false theories, crude fancies, ob
scure impulses, bewildering doubts—when
these bright intclligencies called my mental
world out of darkness, like anew creation,
and gave it“ two great lights,” Hope and Me
mory—the past for a moon, and the future
for a sun
Hence have I genial seasons—hence have I
Smooth passions, smooth discourse, and joyous
thought;
And thus, from day to day, my little boat
Rocks in the harbor—lodging peaceably.
Blessings be with them, and eternal praise—
The poets—who on earth have made us heirs
Os truth and pure delight, by heavenly rays !
Oh ! might my name be remembered among theirs,
How gladly would 1 end my mortal day !
TERRORS OF A GUILTY CONSCIENCE.
A sailor was recently murdered in New-
Orlcans,and found by the police authorities un
der the floor of a taproom, most shockingly
mangled; his hcatLand all his limbs severed from
his head. One of the accomplices in this foul
transaction, surrendering himself to the police,
confessed that he had been forced to give him
self up by the terrors ofa guilty conscience.
Ever since I fled from his house, said he, the
corpse of that murdered man has been by my
side ; wherever I go the spectre haunts me,
and not for a single moment can I shut my
eyes against the frightful apparition; sooner
than sutler as I have] done for the last few
hours, let me be hung; I would rather face
tlie gallows than be tormented by the direful
images of remorse and guilt. Such, we are
told, was the substance of his statement. Had
he listened to the warnings of this friendly mo
nitor when the first step in crime was taken,
he might have escaped the horrors of unavail
ing regret, and the shame of an ignominious
death.
RUSSIAN MANNERS 170 YEARS AGO.
In the latter part of the seventeenth centu
ry, a French traveller in Russia wrote that
most men treat their wives as a necessary evil,
regarding them with a proud and stern eye,
and even beating them oftin. Dr. Collins,
physician to the Czar in 1670, as an evidence
of the progress of civilization in Russia, savs,
that the custom of tying up wives by the hair
of the head, and flogging them, begins to be
left off, accounting for it, however, by the pru
dence of the parents, who made a stipulative
provision in the marriage contract, that their
daughters are not to be whipped, struck, kick
ed, etc. But even in this improved state of
society, one man * put upon his wife a shirt
dipped in ardent spirits and burnt her to death,’
and was not punished, there being, according
to the doctor, no punishment in Russia for
killing a wife or a slave.’ When no pro
vision was made in the marriage contract, he
says, they were accustomed to discipline then
wives very severely. At the marriage the
bridegroom had a whip in one boot "and a
jewel in tl e other, and the poor girl tried her
fortune by choosing. «If she happens upon
the jewel,’ says another traveller, * she is lucky :
but if on the whip she gets it. The bride
groom rarely saw his companion’s face, till
after the marriage, when it is said, ‘ if she be
ugly she pays for it soundly, may be the first
time he sees her. Ugliness being punished with
the whip, the women painted to great excess,
and a traveller in 1836 saw the grand dutchess
and her ladies on horseback, astride, most
wickedly painted.’ The day after a lady had
been at an entertainment, the hostess was
accustomed to ask how she got home ; and
the polite answer was, ‘your ladyship’s hospi
tality made mo so tipsy that 1 dont know how
1 got hdme.’ And for the climax of their
barbarity—it can scarcely be believed, but it is
i recorded as a fact—the women did not begin
| to wear stays until the beginning ofthepre
’l sent century! Mr.Bterb«*>lseid^n*.
AN ADDRESS,
Dt-hurid before Ihe Phi Kappa and Demosthenian So
cieties of Franklin College, on the 2 d August, 1833, by
Absalom 11. Chappell, a member of the Demosthe
nian Society.
Gebtlemex of the Pm Kappa and Demosthenian
Societies :
We are convened as votaries of learning and knowl
i edge, as lovers of youthful culture and discipline—as
j emulous co-workers for the advancement of individual
1 man and social masses in the career of all improvement,
i to testify anew our zeal in behalf of letters and science,
and to present once more on this long-consecrated altar
! of genius, of intellect and education, our accustomed
voluntary offering of sympathy and co-operation in
whatever may most conduce to the refinement, strength
and elevation of human nature. Assuredly, the exer
cises of this day are well calculated to excite, in all
bosoms, a sentiment of profound and generous interest.
Both in their design and tendency, they are more,
greatly more than a mere literary pageant. They look
beyond the ceremonial and rhetoric of the occasion, be
yond the imposing presence and impressive circum
stances by which they are fitly surrounded, to the pro
duction of benign and important practical results.
Their aim is to be as an olectrical link—as an inspiring
voice of communication, between the associated youth
of the University of Georgia, serving here their seques
tered apprenticeship to the stern pursuits of active life,
and that great outward world of real affairs and manly
effort, into the stir and turmoil of which they are des
tined soon to enter; and in whose momentous concerns
they must needs exert, for good or evil, for shame or
glory, a powerful influence. How deeply marked, how
distinct, how full of solemn and touching interest is the
line, which disjoins the season of juvenile preparation
from tlie full-opened career of arduous, struggling man
hood ! On its opposite side lie widely different worlds
of thought, of feeling and action ;—yet worlds intimate
ly dependant and indisolubly bound together by the
chain of a common over-mastering destiny. Surely,
between these worlds no Lethean wave of separation
should roll; no disconnecting strait of mutual unmind
fulncss and estrangement, should be permitted to stretch
its odious and ill-omened barrier ; but rather between
them propitious gales and the strenuous tide of a high
intellectual and moral sympathy, should be courted to
prevail, wafting interchangeably to either shore every
genial influence, and the choicest treasures of feeling,
of reflection and experience.
To this end, gentlemen, certainly no institution with
in your competency could be more happily conducive,
and, at the same time, more consonant to the genius of
Academic pursuits, than the interesting usage ordained
by yourselves, under which we are this day assembled ;
and which, at stated periods, brings your rival societies,
by fraternal concert and their own spontaneous move
ment, in direct contact and exalted intellectual com
munion with the great body of the enlightened and
cultivated public of out land. Between that public and
the ingenuous youth, who devote themselves, in these
elassic walls, to the generous toils of the mind, each
recurrence of this occasion throws wide open the door
of sympathy and communication. To-day, then, the
two worlds of studious, retiring youth, and busy, enter
prising, wide-ruling manhood, which, throughout the
long-revolving year just gone, have been encircled by
atmospheres so different, and engrossed with thoughts
and feelings, with cares and pursuits so diverse and
opposite, again meet and commingle as one in a great
voluntary Congress, instituted and held in the name
and behalf, and for the honor and promotion, of learn
ing and knowledge, and all their attendant virtues.
And how thickly throng3 at once upon the mind, a
crowd of topics, in which they have an equal and a
momentous concern, flow the field of vision, common
to both, widens on all sides around, until at length it
embraces whatever is most dear and interesting to the
heart and understanding, to the hopes and happiness of
the general race of man. Scattered on its vast ex
pance, we behold the proud monuments which human
genius and virtue have erected, and the mournful ruins
which human folly and vice have made, in all by-gone
times: —The present, likewise stretches itself out be
neath the eye, rejoicing in an accellcrated march of
mind, exulting in an immensely augmented dominion
over that physical universe with which it has to deal, and
still leaping forward from conquest to conquest, secur
ing, beyond all danger of subsequent loss, every suc
cessive acquisition, and converting each step gained
into a vantage ground, whereon to plant the lever of
still further and more stupendous enterprizeswhilst,
at the same time, the future unfolds before us, in long
and enrapturing perspective, those views of the destined
advancement and greatness of our country and our
kind, which, although amply justified by cxpcrince of
the past, scarcely might even the pen of prophecy ven
ture to record.
But, gentlemen, these contemplations, high and in
spiring as they are, would fall short of their best and
noblest use, if they failed to carry our anxious and
enlightened attention to man himself—-to individual and
social man—alike the great agent and subject in this
world of,wondrous change and progress, improvement
and decline. Whether the lessons and labors of tlie
past shall be lost, whether the blessings of the present
shall be maintained, whether the hopes of the future
shall be realized—all depends on the action of man.
And that action again is dependant on what man shall
make himself to be, by a moral and intellectual train
ing, running through the whole course of his life. Be
hold here, then the great and paramount work which
now, and at all times, challenges our deepest solicitude,
which can never cease to task to the utmost our vigi
lance and exertions, and to the faithful and unremitted
prosecution of which every principle of wisdom, every
sentiment of duty admonishes, that all the ties and
interests appertaining to our nature, should be made to
serve as daily arguments and incentives.
Cast your view abroad, then, in wide and searching
survey—and say —what interest is there, of any kind
appertaining to man, whether of time or eternity,
whether concerning one’s self, or family, or country—
whether terminating with the generation now on earth,
or running into long series of generations to come—on
which the manner in which we shall acquit ourselves
of this work, must not have an important and powerful
bearing ? Contemplate the nature of man, with all its
mingled and wonderful capabilities of vice and of virtue,
of happiness and misery, of improvement and degenera
cy ; consider him in the numerous and diversified rela
tions which ho sustains in the universe—relations bind
ing him first to the throne of God, where the devote
adorations of his heart and the paramount services of
his life, are ever due; from thence descending in regular
gradation, along the whole chain of sublunary objects
and pursuits down to the clod of earth on which he
treads, and which rigidly exacts and munificently re
pays the daily toil of his hands: regard him as bound
by ties of family and kindred, of frienuship and busi
ness, of neighborhood and country;—and having follow,
ed him through all the windings and connexions of his
temporal career, extend your view beyond the dark
confines of the grave, and behold him there entering on
those vast and eternal destinies, for which all that he
thought, or felt or did, throughout the successive stages
of his earthly pilgrimage, was an apprenticeship and
preparation.
After thus scanning all the capabilitieswhere with man
| is endowed, all the relations by which he is bound, all
j the functions which he should fulfil in the present, and
| and the destinies to which he is hastening in a future
I world, that mind must be poor and insensate, indeed,
I which does not deeply and solemnly appreciate the
dignity and difficulty of his position, of his responsibili
| ties and of his duties—and which does not bovy beneath
! a sense of the mighty obligation incumbent upon him,
to improv# and perfect that moral and intellectual na
j ture > w Mcli at once the subject and the instrument of
| performance, of all these duties.
How vast t l le debt which he owes to his maker, “ever
paring, still to owe;"—how much to himself, capable,
as he is, of i r - *definite advances in whatever may con
duce to phvai cal well-being and comfort; — constituted,
likewise, for —~ unceasing moral and intellectual pro
gressinhisp»x- eS entlife;—and, above all, “ winged,” as
heisbyHca.-ven,
“To fly sjt infinite and reach it there,
"Where seraphs gather immortality,
“ On life ~ s fair tree, fast by the throne of God;”
Whilst, at the same time, as if still more to stimulate
him to the noblest heights of self-discipline and self
lmprnvcineu r.» he finds himself constrained to continual
watchfulness and exertion, under the penalty of con
stant retrogm. «Jation and eventful ruin.
But the obligations resting on man terminated not
with the duties, which he owes immediately to his God
and to himsoXf, big and momentous as they are He
is a social bes ing;—a thousand tender and vital liga
ments extend from him on all sides, twining round the
fortunes and feelings, and affecting, in a greater or less
degree, the Lopes and happiness of those by whom he
is surrounded - Their lives are complicated with his];
within the social circle he is the daily dispenser of vir
tue orvice, of - pleasure or pain, of happiness or misery.
From the necessity of things, he cannot avoid being
cither a sun a sattallite in some system, great or small
and the influences which he sheds must be benign or
malignant. CDthers, ns well as himself, must feel the
shock and ir*r jpulse of all his actions and passions. For
every folly an misfortune, for every disastrous misstep,
for every wickedness and intemperance of conduct,
into which Lie falls, hearts other then his own, aye,
innocent ami hearts, must writhe in anguish and
affliction. 1" lie partner of his bosom, the children of his
love,the motl-*er that reared him, nurturing his infancy
from the swe«t fountains of her own life, and whose
eye, into whs*.tever depths of degeneracy and disgrace
he may sinlc -» will still ever follow him with looks of
"speechless Tenderness;” —the father whose manly
heart was o n t to swell with untold joy and pride, as
he watched tlie rising form and opening promise of the
hoy, by whown he fondly hoped his own name and
memory, \vau Id be kept alive, and honorable among
men, long after he himself should go down into the cold
quietude oft It. tomb;—brothers and sisters, whose very
blood, whose every nerve thrills and sympathizes at
whatever of good or ill, success or disappointment,
lionororoblocyjuy comes home to him; —all these,at least
all, in fine, w-hom he most loves and by whom he is
most beloved, are deeply and inextricably interested in
the whole conduct of Bis life, in all his tempers and
movements, in all his actions and omissions. Restrict
ing, then,our- -view to this narrow circle of kindred, and
family and,fee; nds,"m which every descendant of Adam
is placed from the cradel to the grave, how sacred, how
imposing, hc» w full of the dearest and most touching
consequences, arcthc duties incumbent on all the eons
of men I
But the inff u* C ncc of every individual operates through
out a yet vie 2 cr sphere. To pass over the ordinary
effects of extx mpic and the usual intercourse of busi
ness, througlx every person exerts a greaterer less
agency of the feelings, the interests and character of
those with wti becomes, either occasionally or habitu
ally in contact—know you not that, in this land of re
publican free omandequal political rights,every Ameri
can is raised the scale of social and moral im
portance, by- t he bare fact of his possessing a freeman’s
voice and con xrol in disposing of the honors and offices
and in directi rog the Government of his country? And
shallne not in moral and intellectual advancement keep
pace with th a.-*. extension of moral power and influence,
which these t malted privileges confer upon him ? Shall
he notthemox-ti sedulously strive torenderthe fountainof.
his mind anil ■mannerssalubrious and pure, in proportion
to the enlarge? wmcntoftliat circumference of society,over
which its wa t «rs must spread with either a fc rtilising or a
banefuleffec t ? Surely, these are questions which need
butbepropoix -nded,not discussed, in the enlightened and
virtue-loving country, in v hich it isour happiness to live.
Surely, every' one must be instantly conscious that with
each augme it tation of the responsibility and consequen
cesofhiscorxtiuctandexampe he contracts a heightened
obligation to t>e studiously observant of all the virtues of
thought and r-a rfinn.
There is, Is_ owever, yet a further, and a vastly larger
and more momentous, yiew of this subject, to be taken
in connexion -with those free institutions of Government
with which vv« are blessed. Thatgreatand paramount
blessing, ean «3tified to us by the shedding of ancestral
blood ere He ven could vouchsafe so exalted a boon to
our country- that blessing, to the original acquisition of
which nouglr t save the smiles of Providence, and the
unrivalled vir-tue6 and wisdom of our forefathers, cculd
everhavebeo-n adequate—how is it to be preserved and
perpetuated ? In one word may we not answer—only
by rendering criurselves worthy of it—only by each gene
ration taking- care, in its turn, to infuse into those who
are to come sifter it, such principles and sentiments,
such intelligence and virtue, as will render every
succeeding generation worthy of it. The Govern
ment of our country is a vast and complicated ma
chine, in tvli fell the prime spring of nation, the all
pervading pri nciplc of control, is not, as in monarchies,
the will of a single individual, nor, as in aristocracies,
the will ofa sselect body of individuals; but is, on the
contrary,the separate and independent wills of millions
of freemen, scattered over a territory of magnificent ex
tent and end less diversity of Geographical character and
interests, Sn ppose for a moment that the reins of em
pire over sue a country, were lodged in the hands ofa
singlesovere-i orofa thousand selected sovereigns;
What rich ad various qualifications of the head and of
the heart, of nowleoge and morals, would you not say
ought tomcet and cluster in that single sovereign, or in
each of those thousand sovereigns, in order to the due
discharge of Is mighty trust ? How sternly unforgiving,
how deeply damning would be the censures which, in
such a case, you would feel warranted to heap on the
man, who should be so faithless to his awful, conscience
binding task, as to yield himself up the slave of moral
profligacy,atx <d base, degrading vices ? As little would
you be disposed to pardon in a person so circumstanced
the idle neglo and of any practicable means of informing
his mind, an zj fitting himself for the enlightened and
felicitous pei-J’ormance of his sublime duties? You
would say oF «=ucha man —that to fall short of the purest
andmost exa Itcd morality would be to fall into crime ;
that nothing could carry him up to the “ mark of his high
calling," but the happy developenient of all the better
sensibilities of the heart, the industrious improvement of
all the power-xs of the intellect, and the daily love and
practice ofall thecnnobling virtues of our nature. In the
exact proportionia which he should bo lacking in any
or all of these wequisites, would he contribute to disorder j
and corrupt tlie very sources from which the life-blcoi
of health and iiappiness, should be sent forth and circula
ted througliotxt the body of society; and the millions
subjected to Pats political guardianship might justly rise
up against hi in, and upbraid him 1 with the guilt of the
disease, suffe wing and misery, wherewith they find them
selves assailo «J.
But what do we hear ? Methinks some objector ris
es, and disputes the application of this supposed
case of a sin »grle sovereign, or of a thousand selected so
vereigns, to t lie political system and circumstances of
our country. Ha! on what ground docs the objection
stand ? Do you think by multiplying numbers, to get
rid of principles? Di you think to lose yourself in the
vastness of tl ic multitude with which you act, and to
screen, there L»y, your particular hcadfrom the all-scarch
ing lightning-s of Heaven-descended truth, from thesoul
harrowing re jaroachcs of offended virtue, and outraged
patriotism? But thus it has ever been with man.—
When with great masses of his race, he loses, or
at least lulls that conscience, that keen moral .ense
that just feeling of responsibility, which he carries with
in him as an individual. Be it ours, on the present oc
casion, to startle it from its slumber by the alarum of
truth and fact; for there is death in that sleep to the
hopes and liberties of our country,—death to our great
ness and prosperity as a republican people. Answer
then, and say—although you are not the single sover
eign, nor one of the thousand selected sovereigns just
supposed—are you not, nevertheless, a freeman of the
State of Georgia ? And, us such, are you not now, or
if not now, destined, at least, soon to be, one of the more
than sixty thousand sovereigns, who appoint rulers and
judges, and make and administer lawi for her six hun
dred thousand inhabitants ? Are you not also now, or
destined soon to be, one of the more than million ofso
vereign voters, scattered from Maine to Louisiana, from
the shores of the Atlantic to the recesses of the Missou
ri, who do in like manner appoint rulers and judges,
and make and administer laws, for the fifteen millions
of human beings, who people the wide expanse- of our
confederate country ? And can an evil tree bring forth
good fruit—or, can a bitter fountain send forth "sweet
waters ? If a thousand lesser streams run together and
form one mighty river, must not the whole fluid mass
partage of the character of the sources from which the
various tributaries flow ? So, if the separate wills of
sixty thousand or of sixteen hundred thousand individ
ual freemen, are, by means of our elective and represen
tative system, combined together and made to mingle
m one general will of the whole, for the purposes of civ
ll government and society; must not this groat general
consolidated will, which moves all your political machi
nery, and manages your dearest and your smallest po
litical affairs, be wise or foolish, virtuous or vicious, en
lightened or erroneous, according to the nature'and
quality of the multitudinous ingredients of which it is
composed ? The mass cannot be sound and pure if th*
parts be rotten and corrupt. And the only means by
which the soundness and purity of the mass can be in
sured, is by each individual taking care that the part
which he throws into it he sound and pure. But the
part which every man as a private citizen contributes,
is nothing more nor less than his individual w ill, con
veyed through the medium of election and representa
tion. And whether that will shall be salutary or per
nicious in the influence it exercises on public affairs
must depend, ultimately, on the intellectual and moral
character of him from whom it emanates. Hence the
maxim, sanctioned by all political science and experi
ence, that the virtue and intelligence of the people, and,
consequently, of the various individuals composing the'
people, is the fundamental and living principle of repub
lics, in proportion to the strength and development of
which, they must fade or flourish, stand or fall. In the
day of his country’s wars, each patriot soldier will deem
it not the less a heinous crime and deadly disgrace, to
dr a< T t his colors or to shrink from the most arduous and
dangerous duties, because armed myriads are marshal
led along with him in the contest. In like manner, du
r ng the halcyon reign of peace, will every patriot citi
zen feel himself not the more exonerated, from any jot
or title of his individual duty, because it is a duty in the
execution of which, he is but a single co-worker associ
ated with thousands or hundreds of thousands of hi*
countrymen. Behold, then, the immens* responsibility
which lies on every American freeman; a responsibili
ty not the less binding on his conscience or his conduct,
because it flows from the single talent wherewith he it
intrusted. And that man, who neglects or abuses th;*
single talent, or buries it in the ground and hopes to
sand acquitted because it is but a single talent, com
mits a woful error. He brings upon himself the heavy
guilt ot doing that, w hich te ids to the overthrow of his
country’s liberties and happiness, and richly *arns a ti
tle to the biting condemnations of the countless mil
lions of the present and future generations, who must
needs be exposed to suffer the consequences of liie de
relection of duty.
Passing from these views, my respected auditors,
which certainly set not forth in too strong a light the
nr a uiitude and intensity cf the obligations incumbent
on all men, and especially, on the freemen of America;
obligations to their God, to themselves, to their family
an i friends, to that portion of the community with
which they are more immediately connected, and, final
ly, to their whole country ; what shall we say of the po
sition and responsibly of those, to whom more, much
mere than a single talent has been intrusted ; those
whom education, original endowment, public regard
an 1 the favt r of circumstances, have conspired to place
cn c jmmanding heights of moral, intellectual and so
cial influence ; to whom, consequently, society looks for
guidance and light, and whose light if it be darkness,
how great is that darkness, enshrouding large masse*
cf their race, and misleading them into the paths of
blind and disastrous error ? Surely these should make
it their ceaspless study and labor to live, and move, and
act in an atmosphere of mind and morals, pure, exalted,
and bright, in proportion to the eminence whereon they
stand among their fellow-men ! Nor is the task easy.
Mists arc prone to gather around the mountain-tops not
les9 than to settle on the plains, as well in moral
as ia the physica' word; a natural t orsequ tc i
oftentimes, perhaps, of the genius and peculiar type and
stage of civilization, which mark the particular age o r
country; but more frequently the culpable result of de
linquency, on the part of the individual mind, in failing
to avail itself honesty, earnestly and industriously of the
lights and advantages, placed within its reach by the
particular age and country. To strive against such de
linquency, although it may be with incomplete success,
is a virtue which can never be without rich reward; to
overcome it, and to attain practically to the utmost idea
of excellence belonging to the era and nation in which
ones lut is cast, is an illustrious merit and a just title to
High renown ; to surpass that idea, and to plant the
victorious standard of thought and achievement on new
and extended boundaries, previously unknown orun
r jached, is the sublime prerogative of greatness, and an
infallible guaranty of enduring glory.
Here, then, we see displayed the exalted aim which
they, on whom nature has bestowed her gifts, on whom
education has lavished her advantages, who stand forth
or are destined to stand forth as the guides of society,
as the controllers of opinion, of morals and measures,
should make the polar-star of their studies and actions.
Keeping it steadily in view, shaping their course faith
fully by its directing ray, it is impossible that they
should go greatly or permanently wiong in the voyage
of life. The standard thus proposed is, indeed high
and difficult, and few are destined to attain fully to it;
yet none can strive after it in vain. For the very effort
diffuses throughout the sphere, in which the high-aspir
ing straggler moves, a thousand beneficient and eleva
ting influences, keeps alive in his own bosom all the no
ble passions of the soul, expands and invigorates every
i ltellectua! power, imparts an upward tendency to tho
whole nature, and impels it surely and progressively
towards that high perfection, which it may not be fated
to reach. Ay, more ! tlie very effort is a continual pro
cess of approximation to the eternal and all-perfect
source, from which our intellectual and moral nature
sprang, and to which it should seek to assimilate and
restore itself. For the intellectual and moral part of
man is, indeed, an emanation of the Divine mind, an
undying spark cf the very Divinity infused into human
clay, exalting the children of men immeasurably above
all other things of earth, and allying them by ties of
holy kindred to the bright inhabitants above the skies.
This intellectual and moral pnrf, this divine spark, it is
in an especial manner the duty as well as privilege of
those, to whom the higher opportunities of youthful cul
ture and manly improvement faU, to cherish, to expand,
to enkindle into a flame that sublime, enlighten and
purify their whole nature; consuming its dross and
grossness, and sending it forth at last as from a trans
forming furnace of celestial fire, in a state of refined
gold, availing not only for the purchase aid diffusion