of compassion, and a wise proper resentment of things, yet it serves but one end, being useful in the only instance of repentance; and hath done its greatest works, not when it weeps and sighs, but when it hates and grows careful against sin. But cheerfulness and a festival spirit fills the soul full of harmony; it composes music for churches and hearts; it makes and publishes glorifications of God; it produces thankfulness and serves the end of charity; and when the oil of gladness runs over, it makes bright and tall emissions of light and holy fires, reaching up to a cloud, and making joy round about; and therefore, since it is so innocent, and may be so pious and full of holy advantage, whatsoever can innocently minister to this holy joy does set forward the work of religion and charity. And indeed charity itself, which is the vertical top of all religion, is nothing else but an union of joys, concentrated in the heart, and reflected from all the angles of our life and intercourse. It is a rejoicing in God, a gladness in our neighbor's good, a pleasure in doing good, a rejoicing with him; and without love we cannot have any joy at all. It is this that makes children to be a pleasure, and friendship to be so noble and divine a thing: and upon this account it is certain that all that which innocently makes a man cheerful, does also make him charitable; for grief and age, and sickness, and weariness, these are peevish and troublesome; but mirth and cheerfulness is content, and civil, and compliant, and communicative, and loves to do good, and swells up to felicity only upon the wings of charity. Upon this account here is pleasure enough for a christian at present, and if a facete discourse, and an amicable friendly mirth can refresh the spirit, and take it off from the vile temptation of peevish, despairing, uncomplying, melancholy, it must needs be innocent and commendable. And we may as well be refreshed by a clean and a brisk discourse, as by the air of Campanian wines; and our faces and our heads may as well be anointed and look pleasant with wit and friendly intercourse, as with the fat of the balsam-tree; and such a conversation no wise man ever did, or ought to reprove. But when the jest bath teeth and nails, biting or scratching our brother, when it is loose and wanton, when it is unseasonable, and much or many, when it serves ill purposes, or spends better time, then it is the drunkenness of the soul, and makes the spirit fly away, seeking for a temple where the mirth and the music is solemn and religious.

OF SLANDER.

This crime is a conjugation of evils, and is productive of infinite mischiefs; it undermines peace, and saps the founda

tion of friendship; it destroys families, and rends in pieces the very heart and vital parts of charity: it makes an evil man, party, and witness, and judge, and executioner of the inno

cent.

OF FLATTERY.

He that persuades an ugly deformed man that he is handsome, a short man that he is tall, a bald man that he hath a good head of hair, makes him to become ridiculous and a fool, but does no other mischief. But he that persuades his friend that is a goat in his manners, that he is a holy and a chaste person, or that his looseness is a sign of a quick spirit, or that it is not dangerous but easily pardonable,—a trick of youth, a habit that old age will lay aside as a man pares his nails,-this man hath given great advantage to his friend's mischief; he hath made it grow in all the dimensions of the sin, till it grows intolerable, and perhaps unpardonable. And let it be considered, what a fearful destruction and contradiction of friendship or service it is, so to love myself and my little interest, as to prefer it before the soul of him whom I ought to love.

COMFORTING THE DISCONSOLATE.

Certain it is, that as nothing can better do it, so there is nothing greater, for which God made our tongues, next to reciting his praises, than to minister comfort to a weary soul. And what greater measure can we have, than that we should bring joy to our brother, who with his dreary eyes looks to heaven and round about, and cannot find so much rest as to lay his eyelids close together, than that thy tongue should be tuned with heavenly accents, and make the weary soul to listen for light and ease, and when he perceives that there is such a thing in the world, and in the order of things, as comfort and joy, to begin to break out from the prison of his sorrows at the door of sighs and tears, and by little and little melt into showers and refreshment? This is glory to thy voice, and employment fit for the brightest angel. But so have I seen the sun kiss the frozen earth, which was bound up with the images of death, and the colder breath of the north; and then the waters break from their enclosures, and melt with joy, and run to useful channels; and the flies do rise again from their little graves in walls, and dance awhile in the air, to tell that there is joy within, and that the great mother of creatures will open the stock of her new refreshment, become useful to mankind, and sing praises to her redeemer so is the heart of a sorrowful man under the discourses of a wise comforter he breaks from the despairs of the grave, and the fet

ters and chains of sorrow-he blesses God, and he blesses thee, and he feels his life returning; for to be miserable is death, but nothing is life but to be comforted; and God is pleased with no music from below so much as in the thanksgiving songs of relieved widows, of supported orphans, of rejoicing, and comforted, and thankful persons.

THE MORAL ASPECT OF THE TARIFF QUESTION IN THE UNITED STATES.

I do not deny that government is instituted to watch over our present interests. But still it has a spiritual or moral purpose.-DR. CHANNING.

ONE of the most striking proofs of the versatility of the human mind, afforded by experience, is evinced in the recurrence to first principles, of such frequent necessity in political, scientific or religious discussions. Difference of opinion (when stript of all personal motives) on great and interesting questions, is perhaps originated and prolonged, not so much by the nature of the subjects, as by the various standards of thinking by which they are tried and the principles on which views are adopted. Thus as long as the divine right of Kings and a reverence for antiquated institutions, or, as a union of these has been justly styled-superstition was successfully advocated as a just principle of government, the political system of the old world was maintained with scarcely a show of opposition; but when the absurdity of the principle was ocularly demonstrated, the right and utility of self-government ceased to be questioned save by selfish policy or unreasonable scepticism.

The mere fact of the existence of a war of opinion growing out of certain laws designed and eminently calculated to promote domestic manufactures, induces the supposition that the interest of the various branches of national industry are widely separated, or that the means thus adopted for the promotion of one branch operate to retard that of the other.

By a reference to the primary principles of Political Economy, we find that national wealth is derived from the productive capacity of the soil, indigenous vegetable products, mineral and fossil mines, various local advantages, and, in short, from those natural resources which characterize different parts of the globe. If the maxim predicated upon this self-evident truth-viz. that whatever increases the exchange

able value of products and adds to national industry, promotes national wealth, be reasonable, then it follows that commerce and manufactures, far from being antagonist, are, in fact, auxiliary pursuits, both stimulating and directing individual enterprise into natural and profitable channels, and thus advancing general prosperity. The reciprocal benefit of exchange in articles of comfort or convenience, is as real with regard to the manufactured as the raw material, and is indeed the suggestion of self-interest. We accordingly find that it was practised in some form or other at a very early period. Thus as the great Mantuan bath it:

Sæpe oleo tardi costas agitator aselli

Vilibus aut onerat pomis; lapidemque revertens
Tucusum, aut atræ massam picis, urbe reportat.”*

The difference of sentiment which has given rise to two opposing parties, does not then proceed from any inherent repugnance between the pursuits of commerce and manufactures; it must therefore spring from the idea, whether true or false, that the means thus adopted for the advancement of one, necessarily retard the other. In which case the expediency of their adoption rests wholly upon the relative value and importance of the branch to be encouraged,-the necessity there exists for such encouragement,-which questions evidently embrace the further enquiries-to what extent will the interests of other branches be thereby impaired?-and if this sacrifice, when judged politic, is just?

From the wide field of investigation and reasoning embraced, even in a cursory treatment of these questions, there are some views suggested by the somewhat peculiar aspect which the general question,-respecting the encouragement of domestic industry by legislative enactments,-assumes, when applied to the United States.

Few, even among the most prejudiced partizans, have seriously doubted the abstract importance of manufactures to the United States. Their relative value, however, has been and is a subject of discussion. If their extensive introduction af fords a new and profitable channel for talent, enterprise, and capital, and occasions the additional benefit of creating in some instances, and securing in all, a more certain and steady demand for the surplus produce of the soil,' then it is plain that they are intimately connected with the vital interests of the country. If many of the opinions of Adam Smith were substantiated by experience, the importance of manufactures

* Georgics, I. 173.

would, however, afford no argument for their encouragement. But observation, and the testimony of later writers, concur in declaring that the present interest of individuals, does not coincide with the public advantage in the introduction of a new species of industry,'-in other words, that individual enterprise will not in all instances follow the course most favorable to general prosperity. Hence the necessity of a protective system.

Objections have been urged, in frequent instances, on the ground of the inadequacy of the means to accomplish the end. It is evident that the weight of such objections depends very much upon local and other considerations. Thus, if it be true, as is said by a late writer,* that the expense of transportation from the nearest French ports, together with other circumstances, renders it impossible for any competition to arise in the vending of corn, then it is plain that the English corn law is a useless burden upon the people.

It is avowedly just that a government should be chiefly guided, in the exercise of its power for the developement of the resources of a country, by a due regard to local circumstances and influences. Thus it would be regarded as no less extravagant than absurd for the national or state government to employ means for constituting N. Carolina the great depot of the southern commerce, when, as is well known, an immense ridge occasioned by the deposit of sand and alluvial substances, together with numerous currents, present formidable and perhaps irremediable obstacles to navigation. This principle, when applied to the resources of the United States, affords a strong moral argument in favor of a cheerful acquiescence in every measure of civil policy thus adopted; for the obvious reason that the United States embrace a wonderful variety of resources. The Atlantic States, containing more than two thousand miles of sea-coast, and distinguished for their commercial capabilities, the Middle States, abounding in fruits and grain, the broad savannahs of the South, fruitful in cotton, tobacco, and rice, and the extensive prairies and unexplored forests of the west, include a contrariety of resources, all indeed promoting national wealth, but requiring the application of means for their respective developements, where the want is most urgent, and circumstances most favor the end in view. There is consequently a moral necessity that the means thus employed should be viewed in the light of liberality, without any alloy of sectional prejudice.

* C. Putt, of the Inner Temple, Esq. London.