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broils, premature death from hard irregular living, and exposure to extremes of all sorts, that the lands you call your own, were not equally peopled with any thing like the minuteness of division which should characterize a country where civil rights are recognized in original purity. There was, and is, room enough for millions more, room to an extent indefinite. Now only mark what these governments are doing: they make grants of land in unlimited quantities, according to the ability of the purchaser who requires the grant, instead of restraining the extent of surface granted to a precisely-defined portion, according to its staple quality, just capable of supporting, with the produce which due cultivation shall rear, the person and household of the grantee, in wholesome food and warm clothing. America seems destined to draw from Europe population, civilization, the sciences, the liberal arts; to become a central point from whence shall diverge as radii, morality, philosophy, philanthropy. In her turn, she will become the emporium of knowledge, of true knowledge. Good and liberal minds hail her as the rising star which, yet twinkling from afar, will, at no very distant period, enlighten her hemisphere, while the glare of Europe's falsely-lettered climes shall

sink in night. She has yet the opportunity of becoming the fair foundress of civil and theological freedom, of restoring to man the purity of his nature, of unalloyed happiness, now torn from him by bad government; bad, because founded on false data; bad, because they debar the many from the enjoyment possessed exclusively by the few. But then it behoves her to beware of laying the same foundation for political slavery, of building the same steep steps of rank and nobility, which her citizens, or their immediate predecessors fled from, in the countries where such gradations were the acknowledged basis of the social compact. She must not only take care to acknowledge universal equality as a first incontrovertible principle, but also beware of subverting that principle; of causing it to be lost sight of, as the States of Europe have done, by allowing one man to become the master of an extent of surface wholly disproportioned to his wants, while others have consequently none, and are therefore compelled to sell all their labour or starve. Let her shun the introduction of luxury as the poison of serpents, and her citizens will be contented and happy, because virtuous, and possessing that true wisdom which no man can take from them.

"And now that we talk of luxuries, are not

you and I as well satisfied in the enjoyment of the wholesome nutritious food we have just taken, as the lords of the earth are in the possession of their tasteless feasts, their pomp, their superfluities? I say 'possession,' for 'enjoyment' they have none: to such a pitch of ennui have wealth and idleness, and luxurious sloth brought them; so restless and dissatisfied are they, that like the bee, they perish from the sting they leave: they gnaw their own fingers with vexation, as the scorpion is said to wound herself to death. So true is it, that a dereliction of nature must at last invert itself, must begin all afresh at its first point of commencement. They grow up so cased in prejudice and pride, that their fellow-men are to them as footstools, as clay under the potter's hand, to be plastic to their will; as tools of iron, wood, and stone, to cut, to pierce, to wedge, to crush, at their beck and nod. yet I blame them not; suppose we had been born of their number, should not we do like to them? Is not the mind of infancy moulded to the caprice of those who fashion it as ductile clay, warpped like a green twig, tied in knots, as men bend and plait the ashen saplings, to grow and unbend no more? Let us not be unjust, let us condemn principles, not men: let us hope the worst is over; it is not too late. Man

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has reached perhaps the climax of folly; he has sought diligently, and has not found, because he looked for the goal of happiness in a path where it was not. Perhaps he will be wise enough to retrace his steps, to profit by past experience; to own he has been misled by an ignis fatuus, a shadow untangible. He seems at last to pause, breathless, dejected, fearful; to say, 'fool that I have been! where am I, whither shall I turn?' And when once he is ingenuous enough to confess his error, to say, 'God is just to man, but man is unjust to himself, let us see what we must do to regain the direction, the road to real happiness;' then, and not before, we may safely pronounce the cure of evil to be begun. That such may be the joyful result of past error, is my unceasing wish. That error is at the bottom of the system now, no one will be impudent enough to deny, but those who gorge and fatten on the entrails of civil society. Let us fondly hope their number and power will decrease daily."

LETTER XVIII.

"To-day," said L, "I think I shall be able to point out some fresh instances of the discrepancy and contradiction which tear us in pieces! I allude to the dissentions among men in matters of religious worship: we will go out, as we did yesterday, and cull a few by way of sample."

We went accordingly, but had hardly gone a few paces before I observed something unusual in the general appearance; the streets were silent, the shops with closed shutters, and bells were tolling dismally at every turn : "What," said I, "is the meaning of this? Has some public misfortune befallen the city?" "This," said L, "is the Sabbath, the day of periodical cessation from labour to man and beast, or which rather should be so; a day which, if properly observed, would be an excellent national institute; which I hold in veneration, which ought, and which would, in a better state of things, be a day of increased hilarity and decent festival, not of noisy, periodical drunkenness and brutality. However,

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