much from neglect and indifference, but never from any severity of inquiry or rigor of investigation. But no cause can sustain itself without a hearing, and amidst overwhelming torrents of misrepresentation, perversion, vilification, and abuse. And here, again, I cannot so pertinently and forcibly illustrate the criminal abuse of the press when turned against Christianity, as by quoting Sir Walter Scott's statement of the virulence with which the French infidel writers assailed Christianity just previous to the outbreaking of the revolution. "This work," says he (that is, assailing Christianity), "the philosophers, as they termed themselves, carried on with such an unlimited and eager zeal, as plainly to show, that infidelity, as well as divinity, hath its fanaticism. An envenomed fury against religion and all its doctrines; a promptitude to avail themselves of every circumstance by which Christianity could be misrepresented; an ingenuity in mixing up their opinions in works, which seemed the least fitting to involve such discussions; above all, a pertinacity in slandering, ridiculing, and vilifying all who ventured to oppose their principles, distinguished the correspondents in this celebrated conspiracy against a religion, which, however it may be defaced by human inventions, breathes only that peace on earth, and good-will to the children of men, which was proclaimed by Heaven at its divine origin."* No one work in the English language has, probably, overthrown or shaken the faith of so many, as Gibbon's "History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." The magnitude of the work; the long period of time which it embraces; the vast variety and richness of the materials; the consummate skill with which these are wrought into the narrative; the apparent candor and impartiality of the author; the dignified march of his high-wrought and polished style; all conspire to lull suspicion and to open the heart and understanding to his doubts, sneers, surmises, and insinuations, against the Christian religion. The reader unsuspectingly inquires of himself, how can an author be prejudiced and dishonest, who seems so fair and candid? How can he be wrong, whose statements seem, at every page, to be sustained by * Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Vol. I. p. 36. such a host of choice authorities? Yet who does not know, how easily the mask of superior candor and impartiality is assumed; and of all who peruse his history, who incurs the labor of examining one in a thousand of the manifold authorities with which his pages are crowded? His learning and judgment are not to be envied, who can, at this day, put any confidence in his representations of Christianity; and public confidence appears to have become extensively shaken in regard to the dependence which may be placed on many other parts of his History. M. Guizot, the celebrated French political writer and historian, and one of the late ministry, remarks, that, "the more profound his historical researches have been, the more inaccuracies he has been enabled to detect in Gibbon." * It was urged as matter of censure against men of letters (philosophi), as long since as the time of Plato and Cicero, that, absorbed in contemplation, and devoted too exclusively to their own pursuits, they were accustomed to neglect that class of their duties which pertains to society and their country. This is unquestionably the tendency of the profession of letters; and there continues to be, even at this day, ground enough for the censure in this respect to put literary men on their guard. Cicero, more than once, remonstrates against the habit, into which literary men are apt to fall, of withdrawing themselves from society, and secluding themselves within their peculiar sphere. He well insists, that the use of solitary study and contemplation is, to fit men more completely for their active duties. Every man has duties of an active and public, as well as of a private and personal nature to perform; and he cannot rightfully neglect the former, any more than the latter. Not only professed men of letters, but men of cultivated understandings universally, should never forget, that knowledge of every kind is like wealth, the value of it consists in the use that is made of it. And how is the intellectual miser, who locks up his knowledge, more respectable than the man who locks up his money, and thus renders it useless, by withdrawing it from circulation, and refusing to convert it to any # - Quoted in Walsh's National Gazette, for the 27th of August, 1833. + Cicero de Officiis, Lib. I. c. 9. useful purpose. The duty particularly rests on men of letters and other men of cultivated minds, as has been said before, to keep public opinion regulated and enlightened through the medium of the press. Besides, considerable intercourse with men of various classes and professions in society, in business transactions, and even in the participation of public offices of honor, trust, and profit, reacts favorably upon men of letters, and renders them better fitted for usefulness even within their own sphere. Unless they mingle in society, and in the transaction of business, and participate in duties and offices of a public nature, they are very apt to see men and things too much in the abstract, and by the imperfect light of theory, unassisted by experience. Their opinions and sentiments require to be corrected by practice, and by an actual acquaintance with men and things. If my limits permitted, I might advert to, and enlarge on, the duty resting upon men of letters, to supply in all the various departments of literature, the materials of reading, of the most appropriate kind, and in the utmost abundance. To this end, history, civil, political, ecclesiastical, military, diplomatic, and literary, opens her treasures; poetry offers her vivid and sublime creations; religion, her holy aspirations; fancy, her beautiful pictures; imagination, its exquisite combinations; taste, its cultivated decisions; philosophy, its profound speculations; reason, its well-matured conclusions; and fiction, its resources, so rich and exhaustless, as to have been used by Lord Bacon as one of the natural and most striking proofs of the immortal destination of mankind. All this seems to be the duty of men of letters; for, as Sir Walter Scott well says, "the curious will read as the thirsty will drink, whether the cup or the page be clean or polluted." CHAPTER V. MORAL TENDENCY AND INFLUENCE OF AGRICULTURE AS A PROFESSION. "THE antiquity of agriculture," says the poet Cowley, "is certainly not to be contested by any other. The three first men in the world were, a gardener, a ploughman, and a grazier ; and, if any man object, that one of these was a murderer, I desire he would consider, that, as soon as he was so, he quitted our profession and turned artisan. We were all born to this art, and taught by nature to nourish our bodies by the same earth out of which we were made, and to which we must return and pay at last for our subsistence." Again, he says, "I never had any other desire so strong and so like to covetousness, as that one which I have had always, that I might be master at last of a small house and a large garden." * This is a warm eulogium by the poet, but the ancient writers are still more enthusiastic in their praises of agriculture. Their admiration of its employments and enjoyments seems to know no limits. Hesiod instructed his countrymen on this subject, and clothed his instructions in the attractive garb of poetry.t Xenophon introduces Socrates, discussing the merits of agriculture, and claiming for it a preeminence over all other employments; and he has thrown around it the interest which he knew so well how to give to every subject which he touched.‡ Among the Romans, still higher dignity seems to have been claimed for it than among the Greeks. Horace has celebrated its praises in some of the most finished of his lyrics; § and Virgil has devoted to it the most highly wrought and perfect of all his works, his Georgics. Cicero remarks, that the pleas Quoted by Dr. Francis, in his Address before the New York Horticultural Society, 1829; p. 8. + Opera et Dies, passim. § Epod. II. Economicus, passim. ures of agriculture, unlike all others, are not diminished by extreme old age; and he insists, that this is the kind of life most of all befitting the dignity of a wise man.* Cyrus, the wise king of Persia, was accustomed to find relief from the more weighty cares of government in the pleasures of agriculture; and to this day, the Emperor of China, on a particular day, every year, in the midst of his court, puts his hand to the plough, and plants a small piece of land, with a view to confer honor and dignity on the employment. † Cincinnatus was called from his farm, to assume the reins of government; and we must never forget, that Washington was a substantial Virginia planter, when he was made Commander-in-chief of the armies of his country. The lands possessed by any nation are the original property or capital stock, from which the inhabitants are supplied, not only with the necessaries, but with the comforts of life; and the improvement of the national territory is the best proof of national prosperity. Agriculture, then, is of the first importance to mankind; their welfare depends upon their receiving a regular and sufficient supply of the productions cultivated by the husbandman, and, therefore, to use an expression of the celebrated Sully, "Agriculture may be regarded as the breasts, from which the State derives its support and nourishment." Writers on the law of nations insist, that the cultivation of the earth is a natural duty of man. Wherever this art has been well understood, and subsistence, of course, has been secured to mankind, without the necessity of personal labor from all, the mind of man has expanded, and the arts, sciences, literature, morals, religion, and whatever else is most valuable have flourished. The cultivation of the soil, therefore, is both the most natural occupation of man, and the right arm of the commonwealth. The active exercise in the open air, required by his employment, tends to give the agriculturist confirmed health, habitual cheerfulness, and length of days; the stability of his property, the regular returns of his harvests, and the security, tranquillity, * De Senectute, c. 15. + Xenophon, Economicus. — Cicero de Senectute, c. 17. — Vattel, Law of Nations, Book I. chap. 7. Vattel, Book I. chap. 7, sect. 81. |