bitterness of anguish produced by some other sorrows. It is an evil that can either be remedied or endured, and while life, and health, and strength are continued to us, while general respect and affection rest upon our characters, while friends are spared to us, and the smile of kind faces, and the music of sweet voices, and the affection of fond and confiding hearts await us beneath our own roofs, the loss of property has not touched, and cannot touch, the real sources of our happiness. These sources, it may be, will overflow in richer abundance,, and awaken in our hearts a peace, a calmness, an elevation of sentiment and feeling unknown in more prosperous hours. Cheerfulness, mutual confidence, and forbearance are duties incumbent upon all. It cannot be doubted, that the evils under which we suffer have been greatly increased by the panic that has spread throughout the country, the distrust, the want of confidence that, has prevailed and still prevails. We hear much said of the evils of the "credit system," and the necessity of doing it away. That this system has evils cannot be doubted; but as for doing it away entirely, we might as well talk of doing away with commerce. We may have an entire metallic currency, (and we confess ourselves to be as much pleased as any one with the sight of gold and silver,) but the currency of a country has, after all, little to do with its extensive commercial transactions. The basis of commerce is not gold and silver, but property in the broad meaning of the word. The chief medium of this commerce is not gold and silver, but credit, mutual promises, and mutual confidence. The millionaire would not carry about with him one hundred thousand dollars in gold, did he possess it; nor would he have it carted off to a distant city to pay his debts there. He would pay those debts by drafts or bills of exchange, by written promises, the representatives of wealth. In this manner and to this extent the system of credit and confidence is essential to commerce, and must ever form a part of it. While we lament and should endeavor to apply, as soon as possible, a controlling check to the excess, to which the system has been recently carried, we ought also to endeavor to restore and preserve that substantial and necessary part of it, which is the life of commerce, essential to the enterprise and progress of the community. And amid all the difficulties that now prevail, there are com petent grounds for this credit and confidence to rest upon. There is first, the absolute wealth of the country, which is unquestionably great. Our embarrassments have arisen not so much from the want of means, as from causes which have made it, in all cases difficult, and in some impossible, to use and apply those means. There is secondly, "the productive industry of a free and energetic people." Men will ever work, and the earth ever yield her increase; and whatever debts we may owe to each other or to foreign nations, we may confidently expect, that the labor and the soil of our country will ultimately discharge, amply and fully discharge them. There is a third ground of confidence in the rectitude and honor of our merchants and business men. Upon this point, we cannot better express our own thoughts, and more appropriately close this topic, than by extracting the following just reflections from the excellent sermon of Mr. Peabody. 'May I not add the exhortation to confidence particularly and emphatically in the honor of the mercantile community? It is they, who have to bear the brunt of every storm. It is upon them, that the pressure first falls, and only through them, upon the public at large. And often would they bear it alone, and throw off the burden without its being felt by others, if their brethren would only have faith in their well tried rectitude and ability, and would listen to their demand, Have patience with us, and we will pay you all.' The mercantile profession deserves well of humanity. The name of a merchant is an honorable name. The merchant's general standard of probity and generosity is a high one. There are, indeed, exceptions to this remark; but exceptions of the kind that prove the rule. For, when the pure escutcheon of commerce is blackened by a stain of villainy, the intense and universal surprise, alarm, and indignation which it excites, attest at once the rareness of the instance, and the integrity of the profession in which it occurs. Nor is it a baseless claim, which, in a period of distress, merchants proffer on the general forbearance and confidence. Theirs is a claim less of favor than of debt, — of a debt, by which they are never slow in binding their fellow-citizens during the palmy days of their prosperity. For who bear so large a proportion as they of the public burdens? Who so ready as they to aid in every enterprise for the common good? Go to the trustees of our great public charities, our hospitals, our asylums for the blind, the dumb, the insane, peruse the list of their endowments and benefactions; and with hardly an exception, against every truly liberal donation, you will read a merchant's name. - It is the earnings of commerce that have created our academies, our colleges, our seminaries of sacred learning; and were our ancient and immensely wealthy university summoned to yield up what she has received through the munificence of merchants, there is hardly an alcove in her library which would not be emptied, hardly a building on her grounds which would not be demolished, hardly a chair of instruction in her halls that would not be vacated. The class to which the community are thus largely indebted may certainly proffer, in the day of their adversity, a most righteous claim on the sympathy, the sustaining suffrages, and the ready trust of their fellow-citizens. So long as they are fair and open in their dealings, so long as they merit the honest fame they bear, let the shoulders of the whole community be stooped to their burden; let them be supported by the capital of the retired and the industry of the active; let them be borne through the billows by the strong arm of public confidence. Then all is safe. But if they fall, they fall not alone, — they bury in their own ruin shattered capital and crippled industry." pp. 8-10.. Again, would we meet the demands of the times, we must cling more closely to our religious faith, and cultivate more thoroughly our spiritual affections, for in these alone shall we find strength for the vicissitudes and trials that may befall us. "Godliness is profitable for all things." The religious man, independent of the future rewards which await him, has the advantage in the conflicts of life. The Christian, the spiritually minded man, has more power to meet the exigencies of his situation, to retrieve his 'misfortunes, to build up again his broken estate, and regain his former affluence than any other. The carnally minded man, the mere man of the world, one whose soul has never felt the grandeur of its destiny, and is not allied by faith and affection to its infinite Creator, is very liable to sink under the pressure of calamity. There is no response in his bosom to the call for renewed exertion, no elastic springing of the powers, none of that sustained and enduring perseverance, which can at all times welcome enterprise, and endure toil. Darkness gathers over his soul, as difficulties press upon him. Every thing seems despoiled of its grace and sweetness. Every thing is wrong, because his own mind and heart are in a wrong state. The chances are fearfully against him, that he yield to temptation and cover himself with guilt and shame. But the spiritually minded Christian, who feels his relation to the Infinite and the Eternal, -- the Second Centennial Anniversary of the Incorporation of the Town. By SAMUEL F. HAVEN. Dedham. 1837.- This address belongs to a class of productions, becoming somewhat numerous of late, which the return of the second Centennial Anniversary of the settlement of our towns has called forth, the last of the class we have read, though "not least" in merit. It is a production worthy of the occasion. Dedham, it appears, enrols on the list of her sons and their descendants, a fair proportion of distinguished names, as evidence of which it is only necessary to mention those of Ames, Dexter, and Everett. The original settlers, according to Mr. Haven, were men far above the ordinary level. John Allin, the first pastor, was associated with the apostle Eliot in his labors among the Indians of Natick; was a champion in the ecclesiastical controversies of the day; and both he and Lusher rendered important political service to the colony. Both were leading minds. The latter drew up the declaration of the rights of the colony, and prepared instructions for the embassage, which was sent to England to adjust difficulties, soon after the accession of Charles II. to the throne. Mr. Haven has succeeded in-enlivening his narrative by not a few anecdotes and incidents, illustrating the character of the times, and of the men who figured in them. His materials appear to be judiciously selected, and are well wrought. We are not fatigued by tedious minuteness of detail, nor treated with a mere tissue of dry and barren generalities, the sins of some discourses of this sort. The Address, as we should think, is one which will be read with interest by the lovers of local history, or who are fond of tracing back society to its elements among us, though they may have no associations of home or of ancestors connected with the place. It contains a just tribute to the many virtues of those who helped to lay the foundations of our present prosperity and privileges, and forms a valuable contribution to our historical records. A New Translation of the Hebrew Prophets, arranged in Chronological Order. By GEORGE R. NOYES. Volume II. Containing Nahum, Zephaniah, Habakkuk, Obadiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations. Boston: James Munroe & Co. 1837. 12mo. pp. 293. The third volume is nearly through the press, after the appearance of which we shall take an early opportunity to call the attention of our readers again to the extraordinary merits of this version. Our contributors must bear with the necessary delays in the insertion of their articles. We have on hand several valuable papers on general subjects, which we are obliged to lay over. |