UlllUia IE Ul 
 
 A BOOK FOr 
 
 OUK6 ME 
 
 Hope at the prow ^ruL ppndenc al t5c !ifiim_ 
 Caution TJ visely waxch and take cxnnzaand 
 
 iimdy. FooTa are craUoti* loo 
 Whvn'tifl too lat ami pniflui v 

 
 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 A BOOK FOR YOUNG MEN. 
 
 ' There b tide In the affairs of men. 
 Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortun 
 Omitted, all the Tojaga of their life 
 li bound in shellovn r-nd In miseries." 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW; 
 
 EDINBURGH ; AND NEW YORK. 
 
 HDCCCLVIIjr.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 THE following work is chiefly designed to illustrate the 
 important truth, that success in life mainly depends with 
 every man on his industry, perseverance, and moral recti- 
 tude. " He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand ; 
 but the hand of the diligent niakcth rich :" such is the 
 maxim of divine Wisdom ; while in other admonitions to 
 the same virtue, wherein consists the great element of suc- 
 cess, the words of inspiration partake of the character of a 
 promise and a covenant for reward : " The hand of the 
 diligent shall bear rule ;" says Solomon, and again : " Seest 
 thou a man diligent in his business ; he shall stand before 
 kings." 
 
 It is no less the purpose of the following pages to guide 
 the young reader in the choice of an honourable and worthy 
 aim for which to strive. Diligence, perseverance, firmness, 
 and untiring self-denial, may, after all, bo so directed as to 
 be a curse to their owner instead of a blessing. The haste 
 to be rich, and the eagerness to amass wealth, have in all 
 ages, and never more than in our own day proved a 
 prolific source of selfishness, vice, and misery. The love 
 of money has too clearly proved itself * the root of all 
 evil," while the divine injunction has been entirely for- 
 gotten ; " With all thy getting, get wisdom and get nnder-
 
 standing." Yet while the anxiety to get wealth has so often 
 proved the means of leading the mind away from all the 
 nobler aims of life, there is nothing incompatible between 
 the highest morality and purest principles of truo reli- 
 gion, and a diligent perseverance in the business of the 
 world. Wealth in the hands of the good man is the great 
 instrument of benevolence, philanthropy, and generous 
 Christian zeal. Nay, so essentially are the duties of in- 
 dustry and true piety allied together, in the man whose 
 life is guided by the divine law, that St. Paul connects the 
 diligence in business with the service of God, knowing that 
 with the true Christian, the virtues which lead to diligence 
 in the one, are no less certain to produce it in the other. 
 It becomes, therefore, one of the most important branches 
 of mental culture, towards which every young man who 
 aims at an honourable success in life must strive, to pur- 
 sue with due discrimination the objects of a well regulated 
 ambition, and to give to each its due place in the untiring 
 assiduity with which he seeks to share in the prosperity 
 which may be reasonably desired by all. To supply at 
 once a guide and a stimulus to the youthful reader, in 
 this path of honourable ambition, is the purpose of the 
 following work. 
 
 The history of our own country shows how largely the 
 prosperity of a nation depends on the virtuous and per- 
 severing industry of its sons. In our own day we have 
 witnessed with a just pride, the manufactures and arts of 
 the nations gathered together, at the invitation of Britain, in 
 the Qreat Crystal Palace, one of the architectural marvels 
 of the world. While the continent of Europe has just 
 recovered from a frightful political convulsion, and many
 
 PREFACE. V 
 
 of its states still suffer from the apprehensions of the 
 rulers, or the dissatisfaction of the people, Britain, safe 
 in her free institutions and her virtuous and contented 
 people, has invited the world to assemble without restraint 
 in her metropolis, and to compete with her own sons for 
 the awards she offers impartially to the most worthy. 
 The result has abundantly proved how well founded was 
 the confidence which justified this invitation to a display 
 of the choice examples of the world's industry in the 
 British metropolis. "With a just pride may England look 
 back on its complete success ; while every Briton feels that 
 by such a demonstration the greatness of his own beloved 
 land is proved to depend on the industry, the virtue, and 
 the piety of the people. May the young reader learn from 
 these pages some lessons and examples calculated to lure 
 him into the happy paths of virtuous perseverance, that so, 
 in due time, he also may contribute to the prosperity of his 
 country, and share abundantly in all the blessings and the 
 high privileges which its free institutions confer. 
 
 EDINBURGH, October 1, 1851. 
 
 NOTE. The Author thinks it right to mention, that the origi- 
 nal idea of this volume was suggested by an American publica- 
 tion. He has occasionally availed himself of passages from the 
 work, although pursuing a different plan in the general arrange- 
 ment.
 
 CONTENTS, 
 
 Chapter r/i$t 
 
 L Perseverance, ... ... ... 
 
 IL The Man of Business, ... ^. _ ... 27 
 
 IIL Tlie Christian Philanthropist, _ _>. ... 4 
 
 IV. Integrity and Diligence, ... ~. _ ~ 66 
 
 V. Industry, ... _ . . ... 87 
 
 YL Financial Skill, .. ... ^. ... 113 
 
 VII. Decision of Character, -.... 134 
 
 VIII. Fidelity to Trust, ... . .^ _ 1J8 
 
 IX. Punctnality and Method, . ... ... ... m 
 
 X. Economy, ... ... ^. M . ... 206 
 
 XI. Foresight and Prudence, ... -^ ... ... 230 
 
 XII. Gentleness and Courtesy, . ... ... 257 
 
 XIII. Liberality and Benevolence, _ ^. ... 288 
 
 XIV. Employment of Leisure Hours, ... _ ... 809
 
 SUCCESS IN LIFE. 
 
 CHAPTEK I. 
 
 PERSEVERANCE. 
 
 * There is a tide in the affairs of men, 
 Which, taken at its height, leads on to fortune." 
 
 THERE is a strong tendency in the minds of many men to 
 envy the success of the fortunate few, and to repine at For- 
 tune, by whose partial distribution of favours the objects of 
 their envy are assumed to have attained to coveted ho- 
 nours and rewards. "We will all blame any cause sooner 
 than our own imprudence, or neglect of the proper means, 
 when we seo ourselves outstripped in the race. Yet we 
 own, abstractly, the good old maxims which promise health 
 and wealth to the industrious ; fortune to those who rise 
 early and work late ; an abundant harvest to the fanner 
 who ploughs the deepest, and casts the richest seed into 
 his furrows ; and, in a word, under all its many forms, that 
 " the hand of the diligent maketh rich." Doubtless, all the 
 virtuous are not fortunate, nor all the vicious, unfortunate 
 and poor. There are those who fail in life by no fault of 
 their own, and those, also, who prosper by dishonest and 
 unworthy means. Yet is the maxim a sound one, and 
 confirmed by experience " lie becometh poor that dealeth
 
 10 PERSEVERANCE. 
 
 with a slack band ; but tbe band of tbe diligent maketh 
 ricb. He tbat gathercth in summer is a wise son ; but be 
 that sleepeth in harvest is a son that causcth shame." 
 Nor is it less surely established by experience " When a 
 wicked man dieth, his expectations shall perish ; and the 
 hope of unjust men perisheth." 
 
 It is a maxim which we can have no hesitation in setting 
 forth as the result of experience, that success in life is 
 equally certain in any and every career to him that uses 
 the right means. Energy and concentration of power are 
 of far more real practical value even than talent. It is no 
 uncommon thing, indeed, to see tbe man of some consider- 
 able talent, surpassed in commercial life by one apparently 
 greatly bis inferior, from no other reason than this, that 
 while the one devotes his whole energy and his undivided 
 thoughts to the object of his life, the other is diverted by 
 many irreconcileable tastes, and grudgingly gives but half 
 his mind to the business on which depends all his worldly 
 prospects. Yet he, too, covets success, and chides at for- 
 tune for her capricious favours, while in reality his reward 
 has been rendered him according to his diligence. There 
 is sound truth in ^Esop's old fable of "Jupiter and the 
 Waggoner," where a waggoner, whose wheel has got fast 
 in the mud, is pictured by the Greek moralist as shouting 
 to Jupiter for aid ; upon which the king of the gods, look- 
 ing down from his Olympian throne, bids the indolent 
 clown cease bis supplications and put his own shoulder to 
 the wheel. In bow many cases, in human life, does success 
 really depend on our putting our own shoulder to the 
 wheel! Success! How the heart bounds at the exulting 
 , word ! Man aims at it from the moment he places his tiny
 
 PERSEVERANCE. 11 
 
 foot upon the floor till he lays his head in the grave. 
 Success is the exciting motive to all endeavour, and its 
 crowning glory. 
 
 During the reign of superstition over Christendom, men 
 consulted astrologers, who wrested from the " stars in their 
 courses" omens of success. At a later period they inquired, 
 in the same curious spirit, of the fortune-teller, or, with the 
 aid of childish omens, sought to be their own diviners. In 
 our brighter days, 
 
 " Man is his own star." 
 
 He needs no conjurer to cast his horoscope. Courage, in- 
 dustry, perscverence, honesty, courtesy, faith, hope, com- 
 bined with talents and upright principles, make up the 
 moral horoscope. Some, indeed, are born great "some 
 achieve greatness" all in our free country may do it ; and 
 " some have greatness thrust upon them ; but all have with- 
 in their reach the rewards of honest industry. 
 
 For the benefit of the young, we are about to trace 
 " footprints" left by the truly wise and good " on the sands 
 of time" footprints that mark the road to success. 
 
 The fanner who ploughs deepest, and commits his seed 
 to the well manured furrow, is not certain of a harvest. 
 He trusts to the genial ministry of Heaven the sun, and 
 the rain, and the dew the good providence of God. 
 Drought, and flood, and cold, may blight his hopes, for 
 thus it seemeth good to the all-wise Disposer; yet suc- 
 cess is considered so sure, as the result of these means, 
 that no wise husbandman neglects to employ them. 
 
 Success in life is equally certain, in any and every career, 
 to him who uses the right means. 
 
 "The child Is father to the man."
 
 12 PERSEVERANCE. 
 
 The boy, in the perusal of a book suited to his taste and 
 talents, betrays, by his sparkling eye and glowing cheek, 
 that the impulse is given which will bear him on trium- 
 phantly to successful achievement. Nor must it be over- 
 looked, that one most essential means of success lies in the 
 choice of a profession. Since it is indispensable that ho 
 devote his whole undivided energies to it, he must see that 
 it is not one so unsuited to his taste, or so peculiar in its 
 requirements, as to render these difficult or impossible. 
 
 Books oftentimes develope talent and energy which 
 otherwise would lie wholly dormant, or they give direction 
 and concentration to both, by fixing the choice on a worthy 
 object of pursuit for life. 
 
 It is in the hope that a work devoted to illustrate honour- 
 able and useful pursuits may prove of such avail to many 
 readers, that the following chapters have been written, in 
 illustration of success in life. But, above all, this book is 
 designed to show, that the elevated principles of Christian 
 integrity are indispensable to those who aim at success 
 such success as can alone be a fit object of our desire. 
 Dr. Chalmers has thus pictured the man who, with all that 
 is right in mercantile principle, and all that is open and 
 unimpeachable in the habit of his mercantile transactions, 
 lives in a state of utter estrangement from the concerns of 
 immortality : 
 
 * He has an attribute of character which is in itself pure, 
 and lovely, and honourable, And of good report. He has a 
 natural principle of integrity; and under its impulse he 
 may be carried forward to such fine exhibitions of himself, 
 as are worthy of all admiration. It is very noble, when the 
 simple utterance of his word carries as much security along
 
 PERSEVERANCE. 13 
 
 with it, as if he had accompanied that utterance by the sig- 
 natures, and the securities, and the legal obligations, which 
 are required of other men. It might tempt one to be proud 
 of his species when he looks at the faith that is put in him 
 
 * 
 
 by a distant correspondent, who, without one other hold of 
 him than his honour, consigns to him the wealth of a whole 
 flotilla, and sleeps in the confidence that it is safe. It is 
 indeed an animating thought, amid the gloom of this 
 world's depravity, when wo behold the credit which one 
 man puts in another, though separated by oceans and by 
 continents ; when he fixes the anchor of a sure and steady 
 dependence on the reported honesty of one whom he never 
 saw ; when, with all his fears for the treachery of the va- 
 ried elements, through which his property lias to pass, he 
 knows, that should it only arrive at the door of its destined 
 agent, all his fears and all his suspicious may be at an end. 
 We know nothing finer than such an act of homage from 
 one human being to another, when perhaps the diameter of 
 the globe is between them ; nor do we think that either the 
 renown of her victories, or the wisdom of her counsels, so 
 signalizes the country in which we live, as does the honour- 
 able dealing of her merchants; that all the glories of British 
 policy, and British valour, are far eclipsed by the moral 
 splendour which British faitli has thrown over the name 
 and the character of our nation ; nor has she gathered so 
 proud a distinction from all the tributaries of her power, 
 as she has done from the awarded confidence of those men 
 of all tribes, and colours, and languages, who look to our 
 agency for the most faithful of all management, and to our 
 keeping for the most unviolable of all custody. 
 
 " There is no denying, then, the very extended prevalence
 
 14 PERSEVERANCE. 
 
 of a principle of integrity iu the commercial world ; and to 
 him who has such, the epithets, pure, lovely, and of good 
 report, may rightly be appropriated. But it is just as im- 
 possible to deny, that, with this thing which he has, there 
 may be another thing which he has not. He may not 
 have one duteous feeling of reverence which points 
 upward to God. He may not have one wish, or one an- 
 ticipation, which points forward to eternity. He may 
 not have any sense of dependence on the Being who sus- 
 tains him, and who gave him his very principle of honour, 
 as part of that interior furniture which he has put into his 
 bosom, and who surrounded him with the theatre on which 
 he has come forward, with the finest and most illustrious 
 displays of it ; and who set the whole machinery of his sen- 
 timent and action a-going ; and can, by a single word of 
 his power, bid it cease from the variety, and cease from 
 the gracefulness, of its movements. In other words, he is 
 a man of integrity, and yet he is a man of ungodliness. 
 He is a man born for the confidence and the admiration of 
 his fellows, and yet a man whom his Maker can charge 
 with utter defection from all the principles of a spiritual 
 obedience. Ho is a man whose virtues have blazoned his 
 own character in time, and have upheld the interests of 
 society, and yet a man who has not, by one movement of 
 principle, brought himself nearer to the kingdom of heaven, 
 than the most profligate of the species. The condemnation, 
 that he is an alien from God, rests upon him in all the 
 weight of its unmitigated severity. The threat, that they 
 who forget God shall be turned into hell, will, on the great 
 day of its fell and sweeping operation involve him among 
 the wretched outcasts of society. That God from whom
 
 PERSEVERANCE. 16 
 
 while in the world, ho withheld every due offering of gra- 
 titude, and remembrance, and universal subordination of 
 habit and of desire, will show him to his face, how, under 
 the delusive garb of such sympathies as drew upon him tho 
 love of his acquaintances, and of such integrities as drew 
 upon him their respect and their confidence, he was, in 
 fact, a determined rebel against the authority of heaven ; 
 that not one commandment of the law, in the true extent 
 of its interpretation, was ever fulfilled by him ; that the 
 pervading principle of obedience to this law, which is love 
 to God, never had its ascendency over him ; that the be- 
 seeching voice of the Lawgiver, so offended and so insulted 
 but who, nevertheless, devised in love a way of reconci- 
 liation for the guilty, never had the effect of recalling him ; 
 that, in fact, he neither had a wish for the friendship of 
 God, nor cherished the hope of enjoying him." 
 
 Such, we trust, is not the success at which our readers 
 shall aim a success which shall win time at the price of 
 eternity. Business demands no such exclusive homage to 
 win success. There have been merchants, lawyers, traders, 
 and manufacturers, who, amid the engrossing cares of an 
 extensive and prosperous career, have found it possible not 
 only to spare time for the duties of religion, but also for a 
 large and generous career of benevolence, such as the pre- 
 cepts and example of our Saviour enjoin. Above all things, 
 it is indispensable for us, whatever be the course of life we 
 propose to pursue, to be orderly, methodic, and persever- 
 ing, in our work. Let each hour have its duties, and each 
 day its business; and let no fancy intrude on these engage- 
 ments, and no indulgence tempt their postponement to 
 another time. This done, all will go well. Religion ma.y
 
 16 PERSEVERANCE 
 
 have her own appointed time, her morning, evening, and 
 even mid-day hours, while her spirit ever pervades the life 
 and soul. Charity, too, can be spared her hour ; nor need 
 innocent pleasures and recreations be denied their share 
 of time, in fitting season, so that all move on with that 
 well-regulated spirit of diligence which makes duty the 
 rule of life. 
 
 Diligent perseverance is no less indispensable than order, 
 method, high principle, and strict obedience to duty. We 
 well remember the favourite maxim with which an old 
 teacher was wont to meet every expression of despondency 
 or inclination to abandon a difficulty in despair. " Try 
 again 1" was his invariable answer to the faint-hearted 
 pupil; though, sometimes, it was uttered musingly, as if 
 the good man were pondering in hope of finding some 
 easier method, and felt himself unwillingly compelled to 
 announce, as the only course TRY AGAIN ! A well known 
 incident in early Scottish history most happily illustrates 
 the value of this maxim. When Robert the Bruce deter- 
 mined to devote his life to the establishment of the liberty 
 and independence of his country, he found himself sur- 
 rounded with apparently insuperable difficulties. Some 
 of his countrymen were false, others were faint-hearted and 
 despairing, and all were crushed down under the iron hand 
 of the powerful invading foe. After struggling long, for- 
 tune seemed entirely to fail him. Kildrummie Castle, the 
 very last stronghold possessed by him in Scotland, was 
 taken, and with it his own wife, and some of his dearest 
 friends, fell into the hands of his enemies. The news of the 
 taking of Kildrummie, the captivity of his wife, and the 
 execution of his brother, reached Bruce while he was re-
 
 PERSEVERANCE. 17 
 
 siding in a miserable dwelling at Rachrin, and reduced him 
 to the point of despair. 
 
 " It was about this time," says Sir Walter Scott, " that 
 an incident took place, which, although it rests only on 
 tradition in families of the name of Bruce, is rendered 
 probable by the manners of the times. After receiving 
 the last unpleasing intelligence from Scotland, Bruce was 
 lying one morning on his wretched bed, and deliberating 
 with himself whether he had not better resign all thoughts 
 of again attempting to make good his right to the Scottish 
 crown, and, dismissing his followers, transport himself and 
 his brothers to the Holy Land, and spend the rest of his 
 life in fighting against the Saracens ; by which he thought, 
 perhaps, he might deserve the forgiveness of Heaven for 
 the great sin of stabbing Comyn in the church at Dumfries. 
 But then, on the other hand, he thought it would be both 
 criminal and cowardly to give up his attempts to restore 
 freedom to Scotland, while yet there remained the least 
 chance of his being successful in an undertaking, which, 
 rightly considered, was much more his duty than to drive 
 the infidels out of Palestine, though the superstition of his 
 age might think otherwise. 
 
 " While he was divided betwixt these reflections, and 
 doubtful of what he should do, Bruce was looking upward 
 to the roof of the cabin in which he lay ; and his eye was 
 attracted by a spider, which, hanging at the end of a long 
 thread of its own spinning, was endeavouring, as is the 
 fashion of that creature, to swing itself from one beam in 
 the roof to another, for the purpose of fixing the line on 
 which it meant to stretch its web. The insect made the 
 attempt again and again without success ; and at length 
 B
 
 16 X'KRSEVEBANCE. 
 
 Bruce counted that it had tried to carry its point six times, 
 and been as often unable to do so. It came into his head 
 that lie -iiad himself fought just six battles against the 
 English and their allies, and that the poor persevering 
 spider was exactly in the same situation with himself, 
 having made as many trials, and been as often disappointed 
 in what it aimed at. 'Now,' thought Bruce, 'as I have 
 no means of knowing what is best to be done, I will be 
 guided by the luck which shall attend this spider. If the 
 insect shall make another effort to fix its thread, and shall 
 be successful, I will venture a seventh time to try my for- 
 tune in Scotland ; but if the spider shall fail, I will go to 
 the wars in Palestine, and never return to my native country 
 
 Brace was forming this resolution, the spider 
 made another exertion with all the force it could muster, 
 und fairly succeeded in fastening its thread to the beam 
 which it luwl so often in vain attempted to reach. Biiice, 
 seeing the success of the spider, resolved to try his own 
 fortune ; and as he had never before gamed a victor)-, so 
 he never afterwards sustained any considerable or dec'sivo 
 check or defeat. I have often met with people of the nauio 
 of Bruce, so completely persuaded of the truth of this story, 
 that they would not on any account kill a spider; boeause 
 it was that insect which had shown the example of perse- 
 verance, and given a signal of good luck, to their great 
 namesake." 
 
 This fine old illustration of the simple, but invaluable 
 maxim Try again ! may not unfitly be conjoined here with 
 the following homely but practical modern example of its 
 use alike to young and old :
 
 PERSEVERANCE. 19 
 
 " Have you finished your lesson, George f said Mr. Pren- 
 tice to his son, who had laid aside his book, and was busily 
 engaged in making a large paper kite. 
 
 "No, father," replied George, hanging down his head. 
 "Why not, my son?" "Because it is so difficult, father. 
 I am sure that I shall never learn it." 
 
 "And what is the reason that you cannot learn it?" 
 " Because because I can't." u Can't learn, George !" ex- 
 claimed his father, looking at his son with apparent sur- 
 prise. 
 
 "Indeed, I have tried my best," replied the boy, ear- 
 nestly, the tears starting to his eyes ; " but it is to no use, 
 father. Other boys can get their lessons without any 
 trouble. But I try, and try, but still I cannot learn them." 
 
 " Cannot is a word no boy should ever utter in reference 
 to learning," replied his father. " You can learn anything 
 you please, George, if you only persevere." " But have I 
 not tried, and tried, father?" "Yes. But you must try 
 once more." " And so I have, father." " Well, try again, 
 and again ; never say you cannot learn a lesson." 
 
 " But then," urged George, trying a new argument, " I 
 cannot remember it, after I have learned it. My memory 
 is so bad." " If I were to promise you a holiday on the 
 thirtieth of the month after the next, do you think that 
 you would forget it?' "No, I am pretty sure that I should 
 not." And why, George ? The pleasure you would take in 
 tin* idea of having a holiday, would keep the date of it fresh 
 in your memory. Now, if you were to take the same do- 
 light in learning that yon do in playing, you would find no 
 difficulty. You play at marbles well, I believe ; and your 
 brother tells me that your kite flies highest, and that you
 
 20 
 
 PERSEVERANCE. 
 
 are first in skating." " Yes, my kite always flies the best ? 
 and I can cut every figure from one to nine, and form 
 every letter in the alphabet on the ice." 
 
 " You are very fond of skating, and flying your kite, and 
 playing at ball and marbles, and yet you cannot learn your 
 lessui ! My dear boy, you are deceiving yourself. You 
 can learn as well as any one, if you will only try." " But 
 have I not tried, father P again urged George. " Well, try 
 again. Come, lay aside that kite you are making for this 
 afternoon, and give another effort to get your lesson ready. 
 Be in earnest, and you will soon learn it. To show you 
 that it only requires perseverance, I will tell you a story. 
 One of the dullest boys at a village school, more than thirty 
 years ago, came up to repeat his lesson one morning, and, 
 as usual, did iiot know it. ' Go to yotir seat, you block- 
 head !' said the teacher, pettishly ; ' you will never be fit 
 for anything but a scavenger. I wonder what they send 
 such a stupid dunce here for !' 
 
 " The poor dispirited boy stole off to his scat, and bent 
 his eyes again upon his lesson. ' It is no use. I cannot 
 learn,' he said in a whisper to a companion who sat near 
 him. ' You must try hard,' replied the sympathizing and 
 kind-hearted boy. ' I have tried, and it is no use. I may 
 just as well give up at once.' 
 
 "'Try again, Henry!' whispered his companion, in an 
 earnest and encouraging tone. These two little words 
 gave him a fresh impulse, and he bent his mind with re- 
 newed effort to his task. It was only the committing to me- 
 mory of a grammar lesson not difficult by any means. Tho 
 concentration of his mind upon the task was more earnest 
 and fixed than usual ; gradually he began to find the sen-
 
 PERSEVKRAXCE. 21 
 
 tenees lingering in Ids memory, and soon, to his surprise 
 and pleasure, the whole lesson was mastered. With a 
 livelier motion, and a more confident manner, than he had 
 ever before exhibited in going up to say a lesson, he rose 
 from his seat, and proceeded to the teacher's desk. 
 
 "What do you want now?'' asked that person 'To say 
 my lesson, sir.' ' Go off to your seat ! Did you not try 
 half an hour ago? 'Yes; but I can say it now, sir,' 
 timidly urged the boy. ' Go on, then. And, if you miss 
 a sentence, you shall have six bad marks.' Henry com- 
 menced, and said off the whole lesson rapidly, without 
 missing a word. The master cast on him a look of plea- 
 sure, as he handed him back his book, but said nothing. 
 As the boy returned to his seat, his step was lighter, for 
 his heart beat witli a new impulse. 'Did you say it?' 
 whispered his kind-hearted schoolmate. ' Every word,' 
 replied the boy, proudly. ' Then you see you can learn ' 
 ' Yes, but it is hard work.' ' But there is nothing like try. 
 ing.' 'No. And from this hour,' replied Henry, firmly, '1 
 will never say I cannot.' 
 
 "From that day," continued Mr. Prentice, "there was no 
 boy in the school who learned more rapidly than Henry. 
 It requited much thought and application, but these ho 
 gave cheerfully, and success crowned his efforts." " And 
 did ho always continue thus to learn ?' asked George, look- 
 ing up into his father's face. 
 
 "From that day, to the present hour, he has been a 
 student, and now urges his son George to ' try again,' as he 
 tried." " And was it, indeed, you, father f asked his son, 
 eagerly looking up into the face of his kind parent. " Yes, 
 my child. That dull boy was your own father in his early
 
 22 1-EHSEVEUANCE. 
 
 years." "Then / will try again," said George, in a decided 
 toue ; and Hinging aside his half-made kite, he turned and 
 re-entered the house, and was soon bending in earnest at- 
 tention over his lesson. 
 
 "Well, what success, George f asked Mr. Prentice, as 
 the family gathered aroiuid the well-furnished tea table. 
 "I've got the lesson, father!" replied the boy. I can 
 say every word of it." " You found it pretty hard work P 
 " Not so very hard after I had once made up my mind that 
 I would learn it. Indeed I never stopped to think, as I 
 usually do, about its being difficult, or tiresome ; but went 
 right on until I had mastered every sentence." 
 
 " May you never forget this lesson, my son !" said Mr. 
 Prentice, feelingly. " You possess now the secret of suc- 
 cess. It lies in your never stopping to think abou* a task 
 being difficult or tiresome ; but in going on steadily in the 
 performance of it, with a fixed determination to succeed. 
 \Yithin a short time you have mastered a task that you 
 ever despaired of learning at all. And now, George, re- 
 member, never again utter the words 1 can't." 
 
 The success that had rewarded his own determined 
 efforts united with the impulse that the simple refer- 
 ence of his father to his own early difficulties gave to his 
 mind, was sufficient to make George a rapid learner from 
 that day. He became interested in Iris studies, and there- 
 fore he succeeded in them. When he left college, at the 
 age of eighteen, he bore with him the highest honours of 
 the institution, and the respect of his teachers. He now 
 entered the house of a merchant, to prepare for a business 
 life. At first, his new occupation was by no means pleasant. 
 The change from books and studies to busy life and the dull
 
 PErtSEVEKANCE. 23 
 
 details of trade, as he called them, w;is fur a time exceed- 
 ingly irksome. 
 
 " I shall never make a merchant, I fear," he said to bis 
 father one evening, when he felt unusually wearied with 
 his occupation, and dispirited. " And why not, George ?" 
 asked Mr. Prentice, kindly. " I have no taste for it," re- 
 plied the young man, rather out of humour. " That is a 
 poor reason. I gave you a choice of professions ; but you 
 preferred, you said, a mercantile life." " Yes. And still, 
 when I reflect on the subject, my preference is for a mer- 
 cantile life, over the others." "Then, George, you must 
 compel yourself to be interested in your new pursuit." " I 
 have tried, father," replied George. "Then, try again!" 
 said Mr. Prentice, with pccxiliar emphasis ; at the same 
 time casting a significant glance at his son. 
 
 These simple words thrilled through the mind of George 
 Prentice. The past rose up before him, with its doubts, 
 its difficulties, and its triumphs. Springing suddenly to 
 his feet, he said with emphasis, " I urill try again." "And 
 you will succeed." " Yes. I feel that I shall." And he 
 did succeed in obtaining a thorough practical knowledge 
 of business ; for he applied himself with patient and fixed 
 determination, and soon became interested in his new pur- 
 suits. 
 
 At the age of twenty-five, he entered into business for 
 himself, with a small capital furnished him by his father. 
 Little beyond this could he expect, as several younger 
 brothers required a share of their father's property. It 
 became necessary, therefore, to invest it with care and 
 prudence. The house in which he had been employed 
 was engaged in the West India trade, and as his familiarity
 
 24 PERSEVERANCE. 
 
 with this liue of business was more intimate than with any 
 other, he determined to turn his little capital in that direc- 
 tion. Accordingly, after renting a small warehouse on one 
 of the principal wharves, he proceeded to freight a vessel 
 with all the prudence that an intimate knowledge of the 
 markets afforded him. But, alas ! misfortune sometimes 
 comes to us when least expected and least deserved : two 
 days before his vessel arrived, the market had been over- 
 stocked by shipments from other countries ; and a large 
 loss, instead of the anticipated profits, was the result. 
 
 For some days after this disheartening news reached 
 him, he gave way to desponding thoughts. But soon he 
 bent his mind to a new adventure. In this he was more 
 successful ; but as the investment had been small, the 
 profit was inconsiderable. His next shipment was large ; 
 involving at least two-thirds of his capital. The policy 
 of insurance, safe in his fire-closet, the young merchant 
 deemed himself secure against total loss. For wise pur- 
 poses, God often sees fit to frustrate our hopes, and make 
 the best-laid schemes of success or security fail. Two 
 months from the day on which the vessel sailed, news ar- 
 rived that she had been wrecked, and the whole cargo lost. 
 Nor was this all : some informality, or neglect of the cap- 
 tain, vitiated the insurance, and the underwriters refused 
 to pay. A suit was commenced against them, which occu- 
 pied from six to eight months, before a decision could be 
 obtained. 
 
 Nearly a twelvemonth from the day the unfortunate 
 adventure was made, George Prentice sat musing in his 
 counting-room, his mind busy with unpleasant and despond- 
 ing thoughts. He had done little or no business since
 
 PERSE VKRANCE. 25 
 
 the news of his loss had reached him, for he had but a 
 remnant of his capital to work upon, and no heart to risk 
 that. He was "holding off," as they say, until some 
 decision was made in the suit pending with the under- 
 writers. While he thus sat, in deep thought, a letter 
 from his agent in London, where the insurance had been 
 effected, was handed him. He tore it open eagerly. The 
 first brief sentence, * We have lost our suit," almost un- 
 manned him. 
 
 " Ruined ! ruined !" he mentally ejaculated, throwing 
 the letter upon his desk as he finished reading it. " What 
 shall I do ?" 
 
 "Try again!" a voice seemed to whisper in his car. 
 He stalled and looked around. " Try again" it repeated ; 
 imd this time he perceived that the voice was within him. 
 For a moment he paused, many thoughts passing rapidly 
 through his mind. " I will try again !" he exclaimed, 
 rising to his feet. 
 
 And he did try. This time he examined the condition 
 of the markets with the most careful scrutiny ; ascertained 
 the amount of shipments within the preceding four months, 
 from all the principal continental cities ; and then, by the 
 aid of his correspondents, learned the expeditions that 
 were getting up, and the articles, and quantities of each 
 composing the cargoes. Knowing the monthly consump- 
 tion of the various foreign products at the port to which 
 he proposed making a shipment, he was satisfied that a 
 cargo of flour, if run in immediately, would pay a handsome 
 profit. He at once hired a vessel, the captain of which lie 
 knew could be depended on for strict obedience to instruc- 
 tions, and freighted her with flour. The vessel sailed, and
 
 26 PERSEVERANCE. 
 
 the young merchant awaited with almost trembling expec- 
 tation the news of her arrival out. He had adventured hia 
 all ; and the result must be success, or the utter prostration 
 of liis hopes. 
 
 In anxious expectation he waited week after week, until 
 every day seemed to him prolonged to double its number 
 of hours. At last a letter came from his consignee. Ho 
 almost trembled as he broke the seal. 
 
 " Your flour has arrived at the very best time," it com- 
 menced. 
 
 For a few moments he could read no further. Ho was 
 compelled to pause, lest the emotion he felt should be be- 
 trayed to those around him. Then he read the whole letter 
 calmly through. It stated, that the supply of flour was 
 nearly exhausted when his cargo arrived, which had been 
 promptly sold at fourteen shillings a barrel above the last 
 quotations. 
 
 "I shall clear nearly five hundred pounds by my last 
 shipment," he said to his father, who entered the counting- 
 room at the moment. " Indeed ! Well, I am very glad to 
 hear you say so, George. I hope, after this, you will bo 
 more successful." " I hope that I shall. But I liad nearly 
 given up in despair," the son remarked. "But you thought 
 you would try again !" observed the old gentleman, smil- 
 ing. "Exactly so, father." "That was right, George. 
 Never despair. Let 'try again' be your motto at all times, 
 and success will in the end attend your efforts." 
 
 His father was right. George Prentice is now a wealthy 
 merchant. He is somewhat advanced in years, and is ac- 
 counted by some a little eccentric. One evidence of this 
 eccentricity is the fact, that over the range of desks in his
 
 THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 27 
 
 counting-room is painted, in large letters, the words, "TRY 
 AGAIN." He had learned the truth of the Bible maxim, 
 "The hand of the diligent makcth rich," and also of an- 
 other, which applies no less to the business of this life, 
 than to the things which belong to the concerns of the 
 world to come "Bo not weary in well-doing, for in due 
 season ye shall reap if ye faint not." 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 
 
 " To toil for the reward 
 Of virtue, and yet lose it ! vlieret'ure hard? 
 He that wouM win the race must guide the horse 
 Obedient to the customs of the course ; 
 Else, though unequal to the coal he flies, 
 A meaner than himself shall gain the prize." 
 
 OOWTUU 
 
 WE have styled the first chapter in this work "Persever- 
 ance," because it is essential even to the very beginnings 
 of success in life. But it might with equal propriety bo 
 made the title of every chapter, for the motto of him that 
 aims at success, must be Persevere ! Persevere ! Persevere ! 
 The feeble minded give way to despondency, when their 
 first projects fail, and of necessity win no further progress; 
 but the resolute and stout-hearted, aim at forcing success, 
 and find only in disappointments a stimulus to renewed 
 exertion. "Never," exclaimed Napoleon to an officer who
 
 2S THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 
 
 had declared a projected aim impossible, "Never let me 
 hear that blockhead of a word!" Such should be the 
 resolution of every man {guided by firmness and sound 
 principle, and aiming only at that which is just and right. 
 Actuated by such principles, and guided by such a resolu- 
 tion, it is wonderful how few things will really prove im- 
 possible to the man of resolute decision and unwearied 
 diligence. 
 
 "We shall endeavour to sketch the career of one, who, 
 more perhaps than any man of our day, exemplified the 
 noble character of a high-minded, consistent Christian 
 merchant, and of an English gentleman. The incidents in 
 the life of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, have been sketched 
 by the able pen of the Rev. Thomas Binney, in a lecture 
 to young men, originally delivered by him in Exeter Hall, 
 London. From this we shall derive the chief features of 
 the interesting narrative. "Towards the close of the last 
 century," says Mr. Binney, in introducing the subject of his 
 address, "about the year 1798, as it was drawing nigh to 
 the Easter holidays, a respectable widow lady, neatly 
 apparelled as a member of the Society of Friends, or with 
 just, perhaps, a shade or two less than what was required 
 by professional strictness, might have been seen on her 
 way from London to Greenwich, where she had two or 
 three of her sons at school. One of them was a lad of 
 some twelve years of age. He was bold and impetuous 
 rather of a violent and domineering disposition ; he had 
 been fatherless from his sixth year, and his mother had 
 1 allowed him to assume, at home, the position and airs of 
 the master of the house :' his brothers and sisters had to 
 yield him obedience ; he felt himself rather encouraged
 
 THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 29 
 
 1 to play the little tyrant,' and was not very reluctant to 
 try the character. During the Christmas holidays previous 
 to the time we refer to, ' Master Fowell had been angry, 
 and had struck his sister's governess ;' and, to punish this 
 outbreak, Master Fowell had been threatened witli beiii 
 left at school when his brothers should return home at 
 Easter. Circumstances, however, led the mother to think 
 she had better not carry the threat into effect, and so she 
 went down to Greenwich to see the boy and settle the 
 matter with him. She received an answer combining in it 
 something of heroism and something of hardihood, the 
 latter, however, so predominating, that she left him reso- 
 lutely to his punishment. The boy did not stay very long 
 at school after this. He never made much progress there. 
 He got other boye to do his exercises ; and at fifteen return- 
 ed home, and stayed at home doing nothing but what he 
 pleased ; and what did please him was, riding, and shoot- 
 ing, and boating reading for amusement or anything but 
 work. He had good expectations as to property, but 
 some of these were blasted ; and at two-and- twenty, with 
 a wife and child, he would have given anything ' for a situ- 
 ation of 100 a-year, if he had had to work twelve hours a 
 day for it.' Now, let the principal points of that picture 
 be attentively observed and kept firmly in remembrance, 
 and then turn to another. 
 
 " We will come down to within a few years of the pre- 
 sent time to February, 1845. Imagine yourselves stand- 
 ing before the residence of a country gentleman, a hall, 
 with its lawn, and fields, an old trees ; with its garden, and 
 park, and woodlands, and all the other signs of the worldly 
 wealth and the respectable social standing of its possessor.
 
 30 THE MAX OF BUSINESS. 
 
 We will draw nigh, and enter, and observe. The owner of 
 this fair domain appears to be the head of a numerous 
 household. Sons and daughters children and grandcliil- 
 dren, have sprung from him. Many of them arc here. 
 Everything in the house indicates substance, elegance, re- 
 finement ; even-thing about its inmates education, talent, 
 accomplishments, piety. But where are we now ? Hush ! 
 Tread softly ; we have approached and are entering tho 
 chamber of a dying man ! The master of the mansion ia 
 nigh to his last hour, and all things seem to say to us, 
 ' Mark the perfect man and behold die upright: for the end 
 of that man t* peace! He is resigned, calm, hopeful, 
 triumphant. He Titters expressions of the most spiritual 
 nature, indicating his familiar acquaintance with the truths 
 of evangelical religion, and his deep experience of vital 
 godliness ! But his family have gathered about his bed. 
 He lias fallen asleep. All is over ! What a deep, sacred 
 silence has succeeded those last, lingering indications of 
 life ! a silence broken at length by the brother of the 
 dead a man publicly distinguished and extensively vener- 
 ated for wisdom, devotion, piety, and goodness. His voice, 
 tremulous with emotion, yet rising into clearness and force 
 as he gives utterance to his calm joy, grateful admiration 
 and firm faith, conveys to us these thrilling words of truth 
 and love : ' Never was death more still, and solemn, and 
 gentle ! This chamber presents one of the fairest pictures 
 that ever met the eye 1 Such an expression of intellectual 
 power and nfoitmtnt, of love to God and man, I hare 
 never before seen in ixny human countenance.' 
 
 ." But now connect with this which is passing within, the 
 knowledge and indications of what is passing without, nnd
 
 THE MAN 0V BUSINESS. 31 
 
 include iii the picture, or combine rather with it, in your 
 recollections, subsequent events. The illness and death 
 of this man are matters of national interest. He is spoken 
 of in the newspapers, of both city and country, as one who 
 had passed a public life of great usefulness and distinction : 
 whose condition excites constant inquiries, and wide-spread 
 sympathy ; and whose death is tremblingly anticipated as a 
 blow that will reverberate through half the world. His 
 funeral, though as private as possible, is like the gathering 
 of a clan, or the meeting and mourning of many tribes. 
 His memory is to be honoured by a public monument. 
 The husband of the Queen heads tho subscription. Num- 
 bers throughout the land, of all ranks, join willingly in the 
 work. Multitudes from afar rescued and liberated bonds- 
 men, with hearts bearing on them the name, heaving and 
 beating at the remembrance of their advocate and benefac- 
 tor bring together pence and halfpence from so many 
 hands that 450 arc sent over by them! Fifty thousand 
 persons, exclusive of those in this country, subscribe to this 
 monument. And at length it is raised raised in West- 
 minster Abbey ; the highest distinction this that can be 
 conferred on man ; the greatest and richest honour that 
 the first and greatest nation in the world has it in its power 
 to pay to science, to arms, to genius, or to virtue ! There he 
 stands ; the raw, rude boy of 1798, transformed into the 
 noble, intellectual, patriotic, public man, the devout and 
 pious Christian whose loss, in 1845, is mourned alike at 
 the equator and the Indies ! The lad, who was content to 
 depend on the help of others for his learning, and \\ho 
 seemed at one time to euro for nothing but vagrant and 
 volatile enjoyment, Ac grew into this good, great, and
 
 32 THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 
 
 heroic man ; and he stands there in his place, in the noblest 
 edifice of the empire, among poets, politicians, and philan- 
 thropists, elevated to the rank, and sharing the immortality 
 of those various forms of beneficence or greatness that 
 have adorned the land and done honour to human nature !" 
 Such are the pictures presented to us in looking from 
 the commencement to the close of the life of Sir Thomas 
 Powell Buxton, a man whose name is still familiar to every 
 Briton as a household word. The former is well calculated 
 to stimulate the most desponding, when placed along-side 
 of such a contrast. In 1808, the youth had married when 
 just entering on manhood, trusting to the inheritance of a 
 large Irish property which he never obtained ; and he not 
 only was in the position that a humble clerkship would 
 have been a thankful boon to him, but it was as a clerk to 
 liis uncles, the well known brewers, Hanburys, with which 
 his name was afterwards so familiarly associated, that he 
 commenced his career in life. " After an interview or two 
 with his uncles he was received as a clerk at a salary, with 
 the promise of a partnership at the end of three years. In 
 1811, when his probation expired, he obtained that partner- 
 ship ; he retained it to the end of his life ; and, in conse- 
 quence mainly of his suggestions and superintendence, the 
 business of the firm so increased as to produce to the mem- 
 bers of it large profits. Sir F. Buxton became possessed of 
 considerable property, the greater portion of which was 
 so directly the result of his own exertions, that it may 
 be said of him, what young men should remember is a 
 great and honourable secular testimony, that, in respect 
 to his wealth and worldly advancement, as a man of busi- 
 ness, if not the absolute founder, he was at least the builder
 
 THE MAX OF BUSINESS. 33 
 
 up of his own fortune. Unquestionably," adds Mr. Binnoy, 
 " the greatest thing that can be said of a man is, that ho 
 had no father ; that he sprang from nothing, and made 
 himself ; that he was born mud and died marble :' but the 
 next best thing is, 'that having something, he made it 
 more ; being given the fulcrum the standing point for 
 his energies he invented his machines and wrought his 
 engines, till he made conquests and gained territory that 
 gave lustre to the paternal name, which lent him at first its 
 own for his beginnings.' 
 
 " The Greenwich schoolboy, then, is now the man of busi- 
 ness in Spitalfields ; with plenty on his hands daily in the 
 city, and a family constantly increasing at home. He is 
 interested and active, however, in religious and benevolent 
 societies, in the instruction of the poor, and the relief of 
 the destitute ; till, in 1816, when he had attained his thir- 
 tieth year, an event occurred which marked him out for 
 public life far beyond the precincts of Spitalfields, and was 
 the immediate occasion of his entrance upon it. This was 
 a speech which he delivered at a meeting held for the relief 
 of the Spitalfields weavers, and presided over by the Lord 
 Mayor. The effect of this speech was extraordinary. I 
 have no doubt its delivery told on the audience, not only 
 from the fulness and character of its information and facts, 
 but from the commanding person of the speaker, his rich 
 voice, benignant countenance, and pathetic tones. Without 
 these accessories, however simply as a speech reported in 
 the newspapers the impression of it was deep and exten- 
 sive. It was republished by opposite political parties. It 
 was circulated extensively. It was a principal means of 
 producing a splendid royal benefaction ; and it called forth 
 C
 
 34 THB MAN OF BUSINESS. 
 
 from Mr. Wilberforce a letter to the speaker, hailing him 
 as an acquisition for the support and advocacy of every 
 good cause, and anticipating and urging his appearance in 
 parliament as the appropriate sphere of his talents and in- 
 fluence. 
 
 " In 1817, he published a work on Prison Discipline. 
 Six editions of it were sold the first year. It gave depth 
 and extent to that sympathy with the subject which many 
 already felt, and greatly elevated the writer's reputation. 
 It was referred to in parliament by the most illustrious 
 speakers, and in the most glowing terms. It was translated 
 into other tongues. It produced fruit in Ireland, in France, 
 in Turkey, and India, besides its immediate results among 
 ourselves. It is a fine thing this ! a Spitalfields brewer, 
 a man busily engaged in seeing to business and making his 
 fortune ; drawn, on the one hand, by relative attractions, and 
 meeting, on the other, his full proportion of domestic care ; 
 at the age of thirty producing a book, which instantane- 
 ously affected the largest hearts and the loftiest minds in 
 different nations ? told in the councils of state and the 
 closets of kings ; aroused the zeal and guided the activity 
 of the philanthropic ; excited the admiration and called 
 forth the eulogy of distinguished philosophers and eloquent 
 patriots ; and produced immediate practical results, not 
 only in England and on the continent, but in those distant 
 oriental regions, the oldest inhabited by man, and that new 
 western world in which society is appearing in its latest 
 developments I" 
 
 Here, therefore, we have abundant proof that diligence 
 in business in no degree necessitates the neglect of other 
 duties; and, happily for England, this is no solitary instance
 
 THK MAN OF BUSINESS. 35 
 
 of the British merchant, who, amid the cares and engross- 
 ing duties of business, has found time for the noblest deeds 
 of Christian charity and benevolence. He who is thus 
 presented to us in his opening career, as a thoughtless idle 
 boy, of unsettled habits, and a taste only for amusements 
 and the sports of the field, was selected, in 1818, in conse- 
 quence of his integrity, influential position, and great elo- 
 quence, to be a member of the British parliament. For 
 nineteen years he bore his part in the British legislature, 
 and is chiefly distinguished as the friend, the coadjutor, 
 and the successor of Wilberforce, in the cause of negro 
 emancipation. In this great anti-slavery struggle, he con- 
 tended long, and at length finally triumphed. Yet this was 
 not the sole cause he advocated. The reformation of prison 
 discipline and the criminal law ; the treatment of the abori 
 gines in our colonial possessions ; and all the largo ques- 
 tions of justice and philanthropy brought before the House 
 of Commons, secured his sympathy and hearty aid. Amid 
 the most determined opposition he always commanded 
 attention and respect. Among the assembled represen- 
 tatives of the British Empire, he was looked up to by an 
 influential party of its best men, as their counsellor and 
 guide ; nor was his power unfelt even in the private coun- 
 sels of the sovereign, and the deliberations of the respon- 
 sible advisers of the Crown, by whom he was distinguished 
 with the hereditary rank of a titled British commoner. 
 
 For us it is no unimportant inquiry to make, after review- 
 ing the beginning and the close of such a course, " How 
 was it that such ends were accomplished and brought forth 
 from so unpromising a dawn f It cannot be unprofitable 
 for any man, and especially for any young man, to pause
 
 36 T11E MAN OF BUSINESS. 
 
 on the considerations to which such an inquiry conducts 
 us. Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton was the builder of his own 
 fortune, and the accomplishes of his own success in life. 
 His example may therefore be of use to all men, whether 
 born to inherit affluence, or to buffet with the uncertainties 
 and difficulties of an unaided life-struggle. Decision of 
 character appears to have been one of his most distinguish- 
 ing points. " His determinations were supreme and regal. 
 His purpose, once fixed, was inflexible. His perseverance 
 in action his independence and self-trust his capacity 
 for courageous and continued labour were as great and 
 remarkable as the pertinacity, force, and decision of his 
 will. For all this constituting the predominant elements 
 of his character, and some of the prime sources of his success 
 he was indebted to his parents, especially to his mother. 
 Sir Fowell Buxton inherited from his parents the great and 
 incalculable blessing of a sound, healthy, physical struc- 
 ture; a robust muscular frame and with that many im- 
 portant elements of character as to temperament, dispo- 
 sition, moral instincts, tastes, tendencies ; aspirations ready 
 to be awakened ; capacities and powers having within them 
 a native impulsive force towards the good and the better 
 rather than the bad." 
 
 Like many great men, Fowell Buxton owed much to his 
 mother, a woman of strong principle and determined reso- 
 lution, who conducted his entire training on principles 
 directed towards his future life, and with which she per- 
 mitted no momentary feelings of mistaken tenderness to 
 interfere. " He turned out the sort of man that she wished 
 to make him. Her desire was, that he should have a 
 trong, vigorous, decided character ; have mental inde-
 
 THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 37 
 
 pendence, moral courage, an unconquerable will. Her idea 
 of a man was, robustness, power, self-trust, general capa- 
 city for any achievement he might deem it right to under- 
 take, united, however, with candour and benevolence, loving 
 thoughts, sympathy with suffering, and impatience with, 
 and hostility to, injustice and wrong. She despised what- 
 ever was weak, effeminate, and luxurious. She erred some- 
 what in allowing Powell, as the eldest eon, while yet but 
 a boy, to assume the position of the master of the house, 
 and in requiring his brothers and sisters to obey him. But 
 she peremptorily demanded his obedience herself. Her 
 rules were, in one direction ' little indulgence but much 
 liberty;' and in another, ' implicit obedience, unconditional 
 submission.' Fowell was encouraged to converse with 
 her as an equal, and to form and express his opinions with- 
 out reserve. The consequence was, that he early acquired 
 the habit of resolutely thinking and acting for himself ; and 
 to this habitual independence and decision, he was accus- 
 tomed to say that he stood indebted for all the success he 
 had met with in life. But, along with this element of 
 power, it was Mrs. Buxton's object to inspire her children 
 with sentiments that would induce self-denial and self- 
 sacrifice, and render them thoughtful for the happiness of 
 others. His father, when filling the office of sheriff, de- 
 voted his attention to the condition of the prisoners and the 
 discipline of the gaol. His mother talked with him, there 
 can be little doubt, of this circumstance, it is known that 
 she did of the horrors of the slave trade and the sufferings 
 of the slave. It is as natural, therefore, in fact, as it is 
 beautiful in itself and encouraging to others, to find him 
 saying to her, in the meridian of his manhood and in the
 
 38 THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 
 
 midst of his multitudinous and merciful pursuits, ' / con- 
 stantly feel, especially in action and exertion for others, the 
 effect* of principles early implanted by you in my mind. 1 
 He had a high idea of his mother's character ; her large 
 mindedness, intellect, courage, disinterestedness, gener- 
 osity, and general excellence. His love for her was strong, 
 his veneration great, and mothers who have really earned 
 love and veneration are very seldom defrauded of either. 
 She lived to see him all that she could wish, and far more 
 perhaps than she had once hoped. Time did more than 
 justify the trust and fulfil the prediction, which, when his 
 self-will as a boy was remarked to her, she expressed by 
 saying : ' Never mind ; he is self-willed now you will see 
 it turn out well in the end.' " 
 
 In these elements of firmness and unswerving resolution 
 lie the essential principles of success in every arduous un- 
 dertaking. All men have not herculean frames, robust 
 health, worldy means, or such fair opportunities as the 
 subject of our present sketch enjoyed. But we will not 
 believe that amid all the diversities of character and dispo- 
 sition, a man of sound mind and healthy bodily frame, 
 is incapable of firmly following out what his conscience 
 points out to him as his duty. We have seen in the 
 homely but instructive narrative of little George Prentice, 
 that though, according to his own account, lie tried and 
 tried, and could not learn his lesson, yet he found no diffi- 
 culty in overcoming all the difficulties of constmcting a 
 kite, though we know from our own juvenile experience, 
 that is not unattended with difficulties. He could play at 
 marbles, could skate, and indeed excelled most of his com- 
 panions in the games of the playground. So it is with old
 
 THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 39 
 
 as well as young. What is only duty, if it interfere with 
 any favourite taste or sinful indulgence, becomes an im- 
 possibility to the weak man who chooses to be the slave of 
 his own idle fancies ; while to him who puts a duty before 
 him as a thing to be done, the possibility of it is never 
 doubted. The hand once put forth is never withdrawn ; 
 the spirit once bent to the undertaking is never allowed to 
 flag ; no opposition daunts, no ridicule or doubt discourages ; 
 md it is strange indeed if the object is not accomplished. 
 
 This is one most important truth to be kept in view by 
 all men, whatever be their pursuits or objects in life. No 
 man may dispense with it without being a sufferer, and no 
 man can safely delay the training of his mind to that well 
 disciplined state, by which, like a spirited but docile 
 horse, it will submit its powers to the guidance of duty, 
 and yielding to the reins of conscience, will bend its whole 
 energies to the appointed task, however rugged may be 
 the path, and steep the hill of difficulty. " All men and 
 women," says the judicious writer from whoso narrative of 
 Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton's life we have extracted the 
 previous incidents " All men and women are essentially 
 the same ; the same great crises await every one and are 
 alike to all ; the same inward awakening, the same out- 
 ward warfare, the same mysterious, moulding influences 
 springing up in the inner man, or coming down from event 
 and circumstance. The same solid substantial stuff of 
 which the real essence of life consists, the experience, 
 vicissitudes, duties, dangers, of this mortal state, belongs 
 equally to all ranks and all classes. He who ' fashioneth 
 the hearts of men alike,' has given one essentially similar 
 to the queen on the throne and the maiden in the meadow,
 
 40 THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 
 
 the one holds the sceptre and the other handles a rake, 
 but both have within them, simply as beings and creatures 
 of this life, what makes them more really one than all that 
 is external can make them two. So, whatever be the posi- 
 tion of any individual portrayed before you, whatever his 
 birth or patrimony, his education or talents, the theatre of 
 his exertions, or the compass of his fame, the business he 
 transacts, the things he achieves, the society he belongs to 
 or into which he is introduced, the men and women to 
 whom he becomes attached or who attach themselves to 
 him, everj* tiling, in short, that affects his character and 
 influences his destiny, in all these, there may be a prin- 
 ciple lying, a point involved, common to every one of you 
 with him. The youth behind the counter, the clerk at the 
 desk, the warehouseman in his room, may all feel them- 
 selves on the same ground with the student at his books, 
 the commander in the field, the minister in the senate, or 
 the artist or author, with his chisel, his brush, his palette, 
 or his pen. So, also, as to the practical philosophy of life. 
 The incidents and events which stir the elements of inci- 
 pient manhood, which awaken passion, occasion perils, 
 arouse energy, demand prudence, excite, debase, or purify 
 ambition, together with whatever tasks the heart, soul, 
 hand, in the prosecution of man's daily ' battle and war,' 
 all this is substantially the same in peer and peasant, and 
 may be so set forth in the history of those who have moved 
 the world and ' stood before kings,' as to admonish and 
 instruct the Manchester traveller or London apprentice, the 
 shopman or compositor, the son alike of the porter and the 
 principal, the engineer, the schoolmaster, the carpenter at 
 the bench, or the weaver at the loom,"
 
 THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 41 
 
 But the youthful student cannot too carefully guard him- 
 self against the error of mistaking a mere undisciplined 
 energy and self-will for the needful firmness and self-com- 
 mand on which success depends. Energy is indispensable ; 
 out method is no less so. In hundreds of instances in daily 
 life, do we see realised the old fable of the "Hare and 
 Tortoise." Many a pair start together for the same goal, 
 the one bounding off in triumphant eagerness and impe- 
 tuosity, like JEsop's hare, while the other is slowly mov- 
 ing on, apparently hopelessly distanced in the race. But 
 let not him that putteth on the armour, rejoice as him 
 that taketh it off. Victory is not always to the mighty, 
 nor the race to the swift ; and he who starts, tortoise- 
 like, in his cautious slowness, yet doing the utmost which 
 his capacity and opportunities enables him, if only, tortoise- 
 like, he persevere, is more likely to triumph in the end, 
 than the sanguine rival who rushes, without thought of 
 the future, or preparation for unforeseen difficulties, into an 
 uncalculated career. The subject of our present notice 
 gained distinguished honours at College, having then re- 
 solved to try and try again till he succeeded. Quitting 
 that, his next thought was the important one of determin- 
 ing on a profession for life, certainly one of the most 
 important steps which it falls to a man to choose. He 
 thought of the bar, and it is probable he would have ex- 
 celled there, gifted as he was with a fine personal address 
 and great powers of eloquence ; but he determined against 
 such a choice, directed his thoughts to business, and, that 
 done, he devoted himself to it with characteristic energy. 
 What he did, was done with all his might. For the time 
 which business demanded, he gave his mind wholly to it,
 
 42 TUB MAN OP BUSINESS. 
 
 and no mistaken call of inclination or of sensibility ever 
 tempted him to swerve from his appointed task. Yet, amid 
 engrossing cares of business, he found time for reading, 
 and, indeed, for earnest devotion to study, preparatory to 
 the important position he was ultimately destined to oc- 
 cupy in public life. This valuable, and, what we would 
 call healthy feature in his character, is well deserving of 
 imitation. " Whatever he thought worthy of doing at all, he 
 thought worth doing well. He was hearty, earnest, fixed, 
 united ; his whole soul, as it were, was knit and compressed 
 together, and bent and concentrated on the point before 
 him. He could be attracted for the time by nothing else. 
 He was equally thus in his business and at his books. ' 1 
 could brew,' he says, ' one hour ; do mathematics the next ; 
 and shoot the next ; and each with my whole soul.' " 
 
 Therein lay the real element of this man's success. His 
 own motto, in his own words, was, " The longer I live, the 
 more I am certain that the great difference between men, 
 between the feeble and the powerful, the great and the 
 insignificant, ia energy invincible determination a pur- 
 pose once fixed, and then death or victory. That quality 
 will do anything that can be done in this world ; and no 
 talents, no circumstances, no opportunities, will make a 
 two-legged creature a man without it." 
 
 This is worthy to be the motto of every man, in every 
 calling or sphere of life. With it he may do all things. 
 Without it, or something akin to it, he will never accom- 
 plish much worth toiling for. Energy and determination 
 are not, indeed, the sole indispensable elements of success. 
 They may be applied to evil as well as to good purposes, 
 and in the hands of the evil disposed, the dishonest, and
 
 THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 43 
 
 the vicious, are the most powerful instruments of wicked- 
 ness. But all things must be made subject in us to con- 
 science and the divine law, an 1 then the well-regulated 
 and energetic mind, acting in obedience to the dictates of 
 elevated religious principles, will be the sure guide to a 
 success worthy of the labour expended in its attainment. 
 This important element in the character of Sir T. F. Bux- 
 ton manifested itself through life in many ways, often 
 becoming apparent even in the most simple and seemingly 
 trivial acts. A few examples may be selected. It began 
 to show itself in him when a mere boy, and appears, indeed, 
 to have been inherited from his mother, and fostered in no 
 slight degree by her tuition. It is, indeed, one of those 
 habits of mind which early education may do much to im- 
 plant in the most unpromising soil. It is remembered of 
 him, that told, when but a little boy, to deliver a message 
 to a pig-driver, away he went, by field or road, through 
 mud and mire, guessing his way, as best he could, by the 
 footmarks of the herd, till he overtook the man and fulfilled 
 his mission. " Look how resolutely he gave up every idle 
 and desultory habit, when he awoke to duty and determined 
 to be a scholar. Urged to play at billiards, for a little re- 
 creation, by his college companions, he would not touch 
 cue or ball, however persuaded, because he had purposed 
 with himself that he would not. When he became a partner 
 in Hanbury's concern, he saw that everything wanted re- 
 formation, and he resolved upon reform. One old stager 
 was rather refractory he could not fall in with new notions 
 and revolutionary disturbance. 'Meet me,' said Buxton, 
 'in the office to-morrow morning at six o'clock.' When 
 they met, he simply said, ' Be so good as hand me your set
 
 44 THE MAN OF BUSINESS. 
 
 of books, I intend in future to take charge of them myself.' 
 Opposition was at an end. The seat of power and the 
 force of ruling will were recognised and acknowledged, 
 and order and obedience became matters of course. Only 
 once, some long time afterwards, did the same individual 
 betray a little of his original restiveness ; but it was quelled 
 in a moment by Buxton's very quietly saying, ' I think you 
 had better meet me to-morrow morning at six o'clock !' 
 
 " The whole course of his preparation for parliamentary 
 life illustrated his vigour and perseverance. In the pro- 
 gress of his piiblic measures he was sometimes put to severe 
 trials, in having to follow his personal judgment, and to 
 adhere to his own purposes, in spite of the opposition, or, 
 what was far worse, the earnest entreaty of his colleagues 
 and friends. One ot the finest moral pictures the resist- 
 ance of the individual against united numbers the victory 
 of personal conviction, self-trust, adherence to the sense of 
 obligation and right, over every sort of influence that could 
 be brought to bear on inferior affections may be seen in 
 Sir Fowell Buxton's behaviour in the House of Commons 
 on a night when, in spite of all that his friends could urge, 
 he was determined to push his point to a division. His 
 unalterable purpose looked like dead, downright obstinacy : 
 as the most rational firmness always does, when it seems 
 a reproach, or is an inconvenience to others. Some of 
 Buxton's friends blamed the ' obstinacy ;' but the minister 
 said, ' It had settled the question! It is a happy thing when 
 events justify what is adhered to under a painful sense of 
 personal responsibility : though even disappointment would 
 not destroy the complacency of a rationally decided man." 
 
 Yet this brings out one important means towards final
 
 THE CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPIST. 45 
 
 success, which it would be most dangerous to overlook. 
 The poet Cowper has said, in reference to the path of life 
 by which the Christian pilgrim reaches his heavenly rest : 
 
 The path of sorrow, and that path alone, 
 Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown. 
 No traveller ever reached that blessed abode 
 Who found not thorns and briars in his road. 
 
 This is true of the Christian pilgrimage, and it is also 
 true of the lower paths of duty. The man, who, setting 
 before his mind the object of his desire, and pursuing it for 
 a time hi anticipation of the immediate realization and en- 
 joyment of success, is no better than the schoolboy with his 
 marbles and his kite. The man of real energy and high- 
 toned principle must be prepared for opposition ; must be 
 ready to bear the world's frown ; to sustain the world's 
 envy ; and to pursue his aim amid a thousand irritating 
 thwartings and desertions. So armed, with firmness, dis- 
 ciplined energies, and a worthy object, none need despair. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPIST. 
 
 11 Some make of gain a fountain whence proceed!) 
 A stream of liberal and heroic deeds ; 
 These have an ear for His paternal call, 
 Who makes some rich for the supply of all" 
 
 COWTKR. 
 
 WE have considered in the preceding chapter the charac- 
 ter and early life of a man distinguished above many
 
 46 THE CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPIST. 
 
 others for his success in life, and for the noble use he mado 
 of it. We have, however, only very slightly touched upon 
 one, the most important of all the elements of Sir Thomas 
 Fowell Buxton's distinction. All men admire true great- 
 ness, and applaud philanthropy, public spirit, and unwearied 
 energy in life ; but there are virtues of a nobler kind which 
 ai-e not so universally hailed with the same mede of praise. 
 Dr. Chalmers has thus drawn with vivid force the great 
 distinction which pertains between two classes of the 
 Divine requirements, in their estimation by men : " By 
 the former, we are enjoined to practise certain virtues, 
 which, separately from our Saviour's injunction altogether, 
 are in great demand, and in great reverence, amongst the 
 members of society such as compassion, and generosity, 
 and justice, and truth ; which, independently of the reli 
 gious sanction they obtain from the law of the Saviour, are 
 in themselves so lovely, and so honourable, and of such 
 good report, that they are ever sure to carry general ap- 
 plause along with them, and thus to combine both the 
 characteristics of the sacred text that he who in these 
 things serveth Christ, is both acceptable to God, and ap- 
 proved of men. 
 * But there is another set of requirements, where the 
 
 will of God, instead of being seconded by the applause of 
 
 ^ifc ' 
 men, is utterly at variance with it. There are some who 
 
 can admire the generous sacrifices that are made to truth 
 or to friendship, but who, without one opposing scruple, 
 abandon themselves to all the excesses of riot and festivity, 
 und are therefore the last to admire the Puritanic sobriety 
 of him whom they cannot tempt to put his chastity or his 
 temperance away from him ; though the same God, who
 
 THE CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPIST. 47 
 
 bids us lio not one to another, also bids us keep the body 
 under subjection, and to abstain from fleshly lusts which 
 war against the soul. Again, there are some in whose eyes 
 an unvitiated delicacy looks a beauteous and an interesting 
 spectacle, and an undeviating self-control looks a manly 
 and respectable accomplishment ; but who have no taste in 
 themselves, and no admiration in others, for the more 
 direct exercises of religion ; and who positively hate the 
 strict and unbending preciseness of those who join in every 
 ordinance, and on every returning night celebrate the 
 praises of God in their family ; and that, though the hea- 
 venly Lawgiver, who tells us to live righteously and 
 soberly, tells us also to live godly in the present evil world. 
 And, lastly, there are some who have not merely a tolera- 
 tion, but a liking for all the decencies of an established ob- 
 servation ; but who, with the homage they pay to Sabbaths 
 and to sacraments, nauseate the Christian principle in the 
 supreme and regenerating vitality of its influences ; who, 
 under a general religiousness of aspect, are still in fact the 
 children of the world and therefore hate the children of 
 light in all that is peculiar and essentially characteristic 
 of that high designation ; who understand not what is 
 meant by having our conversation in heaven ; and utter 
 strangers to the separated walk, and the spiritual exercises, 
 and the humble devotedness, and the consecrated affec- 
 tions, of the new creature in Jesus Christ, shrink from them 
 altogether as from the extravagancies of a fanaticism in 
 which they have no share, and with which they can have 
 no sympathy and all this, though the same scripture which 
 prescribes the exercises of household and of public reli- 
 gion, lays claim to an undivided authority over all the
 
 48 THE CHRISTIAN PH1LANTHROPI 
 
 desires and affections of the soul ; and will admit of no 
 compromise between God and the world ; and insists upon 
 an utter deadness to the one, and a most vehement sensi- 
 bility to the other ; and elevates the standard of loyalty to 
 the Father of our Spirits, to the lofty pitch of loving him 
 with all our strength, and of doing all things to his glory." 
 
 To such a false distinction all hearts are liable. The old 
 Romish anchorite, when he aimed at practising what he be- 
 lieved to be the will of God, withdrew to some desert cave, 
 or mountain fastness, afar from sound of human voice 
 or the influence of social ties, because he believed that the 
 devotion of the heart to God was utterly incompatible with 
 intercourse with the world. But we have not so learned 
 Christ. His divine religion was not meant to expend its 
 fruits in the desert, but to enter into every engagement and 
 duty of life ; to sanctify the meanest calling ; to ennoble 
 the humblest duties ; and to guide the transactions of the 
 counting-house and the workshop no less than of the reli- 
 gious synod or clerical assembly. To the just understand- 
 ing of this important truth, and to the practical obedience 
 rendered to the divine law, and the pure and holy faith 
 which our Redeemer taught, Sir Thomas Powell Buxton 
 owed, even more than to his energy and firmness, that ex- 
 alted position which made it felt when he died by thou- 
 sands of every class, members of various churches and 
 natives of many and distant lands, * that a prince and a 
 great man had fallen in Israel." 
 
 A very important influence was exercised on young 
 Buxton's life by his introduction, through a boyish friend- 
 ship, to the well known family of the Gurneys of Norwich. 
 " He had become acquainted with John Gurney, the eldest
 
 THE CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPIST. 49 
 
 son of John Gurney, Esq., of Earlham Hall, near Norwich. 
 He was invited thither, on a visit, and went. He found 
 himself in a new world. Mr. Gurney had eleven children, 
 all of them, at this time, at home. There were three elder 
 daughters; John, Buxton's friend; then a group of four 
 girls, about Buxton's own age ; and, lastly, three younger 
 boys. The father had for several years been a widower. 
 He was by profession a Friend but not very strict. His 
 worldly position and long widowhood his going into so- 
 ciety and his home hospitalities his connection with the 
 literary and the fashionable, on the one side, and with the 
 Quaker body, on the other had, altogether, a striking 
 effect on the family circle. The members of it were all 
 persons of superior minds especially the women. One of 
 the elder daughters was already under the influence both of 
 religion and Quakerism ; the others were somewhat gay in 
 their habits; all were intellectual. Music, dancing, and 
 drawing, were among their accomplishments ; but they were 
 zealously devoted to the higher forms of self-culture, and 
 were strenuous in their endeavours to acquire knowledge 
 and to strengthen their understandings. There would be 
 signs, I should think, in the doings, and dress, and daily 
 life of this extraordinary family, indicative of the two 
 spheres to which they belonged. There might be some- 
 tiling present, or absent, here and there, about their ap- 
 parel, that just served to show whence they came, and to 
 give increased interest to what they were. There might 
 be little things, in their modes of address and manners 
 towards each other, startlingly beautiful as 'not of the 
 world,' while yet, at the same time, that glow and sunlight 
 of earth's gay morning that is of the world, sat on their 
 r>
 
 60 THE CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPIST. 
 
 brow, and was bright about them. They went a good deal 
 into society, and their power to interest and please would 
 lose nothing, I am persuaded, by the slight tinge of the 
 Quaker element that they might carry with them. At 
 home, all were zealously occupied in self-education. The 
 younger boys, even, sympathised with their sisters, and 
 the whole circle were full of energy in the pursuit of 
 knowledge and the conquest of difficulties. They were 
 alike hearty in their play and work, their amusements and 
 their studies in the exercise of the accomplishments that 
 adorn life, as in the acquisition of knowledge and the culture 
 and discipline of their best faculties. Sketching and read- 
 ing in the park, under the shadow of its old trees ' their 
 custom, often, in an afternoon f their excursions on foot 
 their long days spent in the woods gathering wild flowers, 
 which, though in sport they might decorate the bonnet, 
 were intended in earnestness to instruct in botany ; their 
 long, dashing rides on horseback ; their conversation on an 
 evening in the old hall ; their one day dining out with a 
 lord, and their receiving on another the visit of a prince ; 
 their being equally at home with an artist in his studies, 
 an author with his book, or an officer at a ball; all 
 these things to our raw, rude Devonshire lad, made Earl- 
 ham Hall a scene of enchantment. Captivated and de- 
 lighted, however dazzled and entranced, as he unquestion- 
 ably was, by what he saw in his fair associates, the great 
 point to be observed is, that their mental exercises and 
 intellectual pursuits, their intelligence and taste, their 
 aspirations and aims after self-improvement, were the 
 sources of the influence they exercised over him, and of 
 the manly character of the sympathy they excited. He
 
 THE CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPIST. Cl 
 
 became a new man. Intellectual tastes and energies were 
 awakened. Studious habits were instantly formed. A 
 course of classical reading commenced. A laudable am- 
 bition was enkindled and sustained, which superseded his 
 fondness for the field and the gun. It was, intellectually, 
 ' a renewing of the mind,' 'a being born again,' a 
 sudden transition ' from death to life, and from darkness 
 to light,' ' old things passed away, all things became 
 new.' From the moment that he was subjected to a highly 
 gifted intellectual influence, his whole mental being under- 
 went a change. He proceeded to Earlham a great, idle lad, 
 of sporting propensities and desultory habits ; he left it in 
 purpose and pursuits a man. He lived longer in that month 
 than he had seemed to do in previous years, or than he 
 could ever do again in the same period, except, indeed, in 
 experiencing another and a higher birth. ' I know no 
 blessing,' he says, ' of a temporal nature, for which I ought 
 to render so many thanks, as my connection with the Earl- 
 ham family. It has given a colour to my life. Its influence 
 was most positive and pregnant with good, at that critical 
 period between scheol and manhood.' " 
 
 From this happy family circle he selected the future 
 partner of his life. Hannah Gurney became his wife at 
 the early age of twenty-one ; and though the prudence of 
 the step at the time it was undertaken may well be ques- 
 tioned, he was most fortunate and most happy in the object 
 of his choice, as well as in the pleasant relationships which 
 sprung from it. " The known tendencies of Sir T. F. Bux- 
 ton induced Mr. Wilberforce, when he invited him into 
 Parliament, to anticipate from him appropriate aid ; the 
 friendship of such a man would give power and fixedness
 
 62 THE CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPIST. 
 
 to his previous purposes ; while these again, associated with 
 liis proved ability for parliamentary business, determined 
 the choice of the retiring veteran, anil led him to devolve 
 on the rising advocate the management and leadership of 
 the great cause. Lushington, Macaulay, Brougham. Mac- 
 kintosh, and other names of the living and the dead, might 
 be mentioned as those of public individuals, who, with 
 Buxton, mutually acted on and influenced each other. But 
 the most powerful, the most constraining, the holiest and 
 best of the external impulses that touched and moved Sir 
 Fowcll Buxton that to which he yielded with constant 
 delight and the source of whose potency lay in its pure 
 and heavenly gentleness in conjunction with the stirrings 
 of his human love was what came upon him in his own 
 domestic circle, and from the more gifted of his family 
 connections. Of several of his ' sweet sisters,' he speaks in 
 terms of high respect ; but for Priscilla Gurney one of 
 the gay Earlham group, who, like Mrs. Fry, gave up the 
 world, devoted herself to God, and became a female minis- 
 ter among the Friends his love and admiration are almost 
 boundless. He speaks of her intellects of the first order ; 
 of her eloquence as uncommon, almost unparalleled ; of 
 her character as the combination of illustrious virtues. She 
 died in 1821. During her illness she repeatedly sent for 
 Buxton, urging him to make the cause and condition of 
 the slaves the first object of his life.' Her last act, or 
 nearly her last, was an attempt to reiterate the solemn 
 charge ; she almost expired in the ineffectual effort ; she 
 could only indicate, in two or three feeble, broken words, 
 what became the most sacred memory of the dead, and was 
 cherished as her parting legacy by the living. It is dis-
 
 THE CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPIST. 53 
 
 tinctly stated, that it was one of the things to which he 
 often referred, as preparing his mind for accepting the 
 advocacy of the anti-slavery cause." 
 
 But all his sympathies were large, and his heart was open 
 to the most winning and gentle influences of love. " Only 
 think of the leader of a section of the House of Commons, 
 the man bending under the weight of public business, 
 absorbed by interests the most momentous, and fighting 
 with difficulties that demanded, and had, nights and days 
 of anxiety and labour, think of him coming along the 
 Strand from some parliamentary committee, stepping into 
 a shop to purchase a picture, hiding it when he got home 
 among the torn-up letters and envelopes in his basket, that 
 when his little children should rummage amongst them, or 
 turn them out, he might hear their exultation at discover- 
 ing the treasure, and join in a joy that would ring like the 
 news of a nursery California ! He was lying one day very 
 fatigued and tired on a sofa ; one of his sons was lying on 
 another : their eyes were alike just open, though each sup- 
 posed the other to be asleep. Presently, the great, giant- 
 like man the man that swayed the senate, was looked up 
 to by thousands as a leader, and who seemed born for 
 authority and command slowly and quietly rose up from 
 his position trod softly and stealthily across the room 
 placed a chair lifted the feet of the young sleeper, as they 
 seemed to be hanging uneasily from the sofa laid them 
 gently on the chair, and then crept back again as carefully 
 as he had gone, and lay down to his own repose ! All had 
 been seen, though he thought not so. It would never have 
 been mentioned it might not have been remembered by 
 him had it only been a thing known to the father. It was
 
 64 THE CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPIST. 
 
 the irresistible impulse, the gushing out of irrepressible affec- 
 tioii. I dare say he turned away from the lad with a glow 
 at his heart and a prayer upon his tongue ; a prayer whose 
 answer he liad already, though unconsciously, secured ; for 
 the impression of that act on the heart of the son must 
 have given such sacredness to the wishes of the father, as 
 could not fail, I should think, to have done more for the 
 youth's virtue than any mere preceptive teaching could 
 have secured." 
 
 But there are nobler attributes of the great and good 
 man than these, and to them our attention must now be 
 directed. We have already referred to his intellectual 
 birth ; to the renewing of his mind under the genial influ- 
 ence of the happy domestic circle at Earlham Hall ; but 
 another and far different conversion was essential to the 
 fit preparation of him for that course of virtue and holi- 
 ness by which he was more distinguished and truly great, 
 than by all his eloquence, influence, and power. Mr. 
 Binney has remarked, in sympathetic consistency with Dr. 
 Chalmers, " I admit the excellence and I admire the vir- 
 tues of many a natural or unconverted man. Such an indi- 
 vidual may be pure, truthful, upright, benevolent, bene- 
 ficent a model, indeed, for many of far higher preten- 
 sions. But the point is, that a man may be all this with- 
 out thinking of God without even believing in him ; 
 his excellence, however great, may be altogether ' of the 
 earth, earthy f it may spring from sources which lie 
 within the limits of mere social morality, and it may be 
 confined therefore to the rewards which flow from it in the 
 world to which it belongs. There is nothing severe or un- 
 charitable in saying, that sometlvng far more than this is
 
 THE CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPIST. 55 
 
 needed to the perfection of a being who possesses essen- 
 tially a religious nature ; who sustains relations to a per- 
 sonal God ; who is born under an obligation to all divine 
 virtues as well as secular, and who, as a spirit, has to come 
 one day into direct contact with the Infinite Spirit, and to 
 a condition of existence exclusively spiritual. 
 , " Without the possession of religious faith without the 
 exercise of love to and delight in God character is im- 
 perfect ; without an inward harmony of thought and will, 
 affection and preference, between man's soul and the divine 
 source of it, there can be no cordial correspondence be- 
 tween them, and no fitness for their dwelling together. 
 The virtuous man is not excluded from heaven because of 
 his virtues ; he is incapable of heaven by an inherent defect. 
 In spite of all that is in him and about him of the just and 
 good, the pure and the beautiful, it is possible for him to 
 be destitute of devotion disloyal as regards the supreme 
 government and the divine law and utterly ' without God 
 in the world.' With the glow and blush of his many virtues 
 upon him, and while justly the object of social respect, or the 
 idol of popular admiration he may be guilty of the most 
 serious crime, by trampling upon all spiritual obligations ; 
 and he may be placed by no capricious or arbitrary act, 
 but just by the operation of the essential laws of his spiri- 
 tual being in a position pregnant with alarm and peril. 
 Two men may stand before us very much alike in all that 
 appears to the eye of the observer ; they may do precisely 
 the same things, as to their outward form, and have the 
 sar.ie aspect of social goodness ; and yet the one shall act 
 from the impulses of a life which has no existence in the 
 other at all. The one shall do everything 'unto God'
 
 66 THE CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPIST. 
 
 the other man may never think of Him as obligation or 
 end. The one shall maintain intercourse with Christ as 
 the object of love and the source of assistance the other 
 may be either ignorant or infidel careless concerning or 
 rejecting his redemption. Both may appear equally useful 
 and attractive to the world, in the aspect presented to it of 
 their world-life ; and, so far as the world is concerned, both 
 are beautiful and both good; but, in consequence of the 
 essential difference between them the presence in the 
 one, and the absence in the other, of a religious, spiritual, 
 divine life the excellence of the first comes to be holiness 
 that of the second remains virtue. The one, as a spirit, 
 out of the body, would find himself in harmony with 
 the persons and the duties, the avocations and pleasures, 
 of a perfectly holy and divine world; the other, in the 
 midst of it, would be surrounded by all that was unconge- 
 nial and foreign, distasteful and repulsive. He could no 
 more live in it than a man in water, though that water 
 were ' clear as crystal f or ' the fish of the sea' on the ' dry 
 land,' though that land were Paradise itself bright with 
 the verdure of the virgin earth, smiled upon by the sky of 
 an infant world. 
 
 "Now, I wish you to understand that Sir Fowell Buxton 
 was, in the sense of these statements so far as the prin- 
 ciple pervading them is concerned a religious man. He 
 was an earnest, evangelical Christian ; and one of the great 
 uses of his biography, as it seems to me, is, to show the 
 possibility of a man's combining a very laborious outward 
 life a life of business, trade, politics with one of deep 
 and eminent spirituality. Men busily occupied in the 
 affairs of the world, behind the counter or the desk, ' in
 
 THE CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPIST. 57 
 
 chambers' or at 'the house,' often imagine, or perhapg 
 complain, that they have no time to attend to spiritual 
 subjects, or for the discharge of religious acts. If reminded 
 of David as a soldier writing his psalms, or Daniel at court 
 directing a kingdom, and yet keeping daily his hours of 
 prayer, they can discover reasons, in their peculiar aids as 
 inspired men, to render their example inapplicable to tJiem. 
 Here, however, is a man of our day and one ever active, 
 and all alive, in his worldly duties not said to have been 
 attentive to devout communings with his own spirit, and 
 to earnest and holy walking with God but proved to have 
 been so, by papers bearing the stamp of sincerity, and indi- 
 cating at once the reality of his religion and the constancy 
 of his efforts to preserve it by culture and to evince it by 
 consistency." 
 
 The history of the manifestation of a renewed life in the 
 subject of the present sketch, bears a very close resem- 
 blance to that of many under similar circumstances. 
 Brought up as he was under the roof of pious parents, and 
 educated to a great extent under the eye of an affectionate 
 and watchful mother, he was guarded from many dangers 
 and temptations to which thousands are exposed. Yet the 
 human heart is ever the same in its natural state, deceitful 
 above all things, and desperately wicked. No natural bene- 
 volence or amiability will suffice to counteract the tenden- 
 cies of the corrupt heart so far as to preclude the manifes- 
 tations of its true nature. Young Fowell Buxton, we have 
 suon, was wayward, restless, and disinclined to study. Yet 
 even amid all his waywardness, his exclusive devotion to field 
 sports, and his indifference or distaste for learning, there 
 was nothing vicious in the boy. Thus far the care of a Christ
 
 58 THB CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPIST. 
 
 tian parent had been rewarded, and even this is no small 
 return for the utmost solicitude and anxiety of a parent." 
 
 We find in the history of Sir T. F. Buxton, as in that of 
 many other children of Christian parents, that the influ- 
 ences of their pious education were gradually manifested 
 under the blessing of God, so that the fruits of the Spirit's 
 teaching became apparent more gradually and with less 
 sudden manifestations than is frequently seen in the 
 awakening of the utterly careless and godless sinner who 
 has been living without hope and without God in the 
 world ; exposed without check to its strongest temptations, 
 and yielding himself without restraint to the practice of 
 open vices. It was apparently to his intercourse with the 
 Earlham family that young Fowell Buxton owed his spiri- 
 tual as well as his intellectual conversion. In 1806, when 
 he was only twenty years of age, he accompanied his Earl 
 ham friends in a tour through Scotland, and his intimate 
 converse with them during that period, and the pleasing 
 exhibition of active Christian benevolence and love which 
 he witnessed, appears, under the blessing of God, to have 
 quickened into life the good seed already sown in bis 
 heart. During this journey he purchased a Bible, and 
 formed the resolution of reading a portion every day. Soon 
 we find him recording that he no longer looked upon this 
 as a mere duty, but as a source of pleasure and delight. " I 
 am sure," he remarks on one occasion, " that some of the 
 happiest hours that I spend are while I am reading the 
 Bible." He was, indeed, as yet but dimly cognisant of the 
 true nature of spiritual life, but he was " following on to 
 know the Lord," and soon we find more distinct evidence 
 of the growth of grace in his heart.
 
 1HE CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPIST. 59 
 
 " The next event in the order of means, and of gracious 
 providential arrangement, was in 1811, when he was re- 
 commended by two clerical friends to attend the ministry 
 of the Rev. Josiah Pratt. Mr. Pratt was a pious evangelical 
 clergyman of the school of the Newtons, Simeons, and 
 Cecils of former days. Under his teaching, Sir T. F. Bux- 
 ton's mind speedily opened to the intelligent reception of 
 the truth. He obtained far more clear, deep, and enlarged 
 conceptions of it than he had previously received. The 
 insufficiency of our own righteousness ; the importance of 
 faith in the atoning sacrifice, and of the influences of the 
 sanctifying Spirit ; the need of being ' saved,' and the way 
 to be saved as held and taught by the best expounders of 
 the apostolic testimony, with every other related truth 
 were exhibited and enforced, I imagine with such power, 
 richness, and fervour, as, by God's blessing, materially to 
 affect the mind and heart of our Christian inquirer, to 
 give fulness to his knowledge and impulse to his piety. 
 
 " The last and perfecting event, that which gave fixed- 
 ness and maturity to Sir Fowell Buxton's religion, which 
 brought it out as life in the experience, as well as light and 
 knowledge in the intellect, was an alarming illness with 
 which ho was visited in 1813. I do not mean that he had 
 not, subjectively, experienced something of religion before, 
 or that the spiritual life now only began. The process had 
 been gradually advancing for years. The light had early 
 and long been 'as the morning spread upon the moun- 
 tains,' and had struggled and increased against mist and 
 darkness. Life had been stirring and augmenting within 
 him, like the growth and ripening of the infant in the 
 womb ; it was now to be developed in a higher form, and
 
 60 THE CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPIST. 
 
 to become a thing both of distincter consciousness and of 
 richer manifestation. The account given of this event ia 
 deeply interesting, and the frequent references to it by the 
 father justify fully the statement of the son that the 
 period of its occurrence was that, ' from which may be 
 dated that ascendancy of religion over his mind, which gave 
 shape and colouring to the whole of his after life.' The 
 points I would direct you to observe are, the sight which 
 he obtained of the utter insufficiency of his own virtue; 
 h'S glad reception of the Christian atonement ; with the 
 happy persuasion and high assurance of his interest in it. 
 The effect, too, of the whole process in deepening his sense 
 of personal sinfulness, and filling him with shame as well 
 as joy, is very significant. It is thus, often, that men are 
 never half aware of the magnitude of their guilt till it is 
 removed ; they only learn the extent of their criminality 
 by the extent of their obligations to the grace that saves 
 them. It is well that it is so. Who kuoweth the power 
 of thine anger? Alas! if known, 'the spirit would fail 
 before it/ and the souls which God has made." 
 
 Such was the actuating principle which moved and con- 
 trolled the whole actions of Sir T. F. Buxton's life, and 
 made of him the noble Christian philanthropist, whoso 
 name is for ever associated with those of Clarkson, Wilber- 
 force, Fry, and other benefactors of mankind. But one 
 great element of his persevering success, springing from 
 this living principle implanted in his heart, must not bo 
 overlooked here. Without it all other things must be vain 
 " The last, great, powerful, and principal means, by which 
 Sir Fowell Buxton appears to have nourished and enriched 
 his piety, waa PRAYER. He seems to have been a man of
 
 THE CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPIST. gj 
 
 earnest and habitual devotion. He cultivated the spirit of 
 prayer by thoughtfulness ; by reading what was adapted to 
 quicken and feed it; by writing, at times, his requests 
 before God ; and by very frequent vocal utterance. While 
 an active, engaged, busy public man, necessarily careful 
 for and 'cumbered' with many things, he found time, or 
 made it, for prayer. He was calmer and brighter for it 
 better and stronger. He lived and moved in it; in it ho 
 found the light of his spiritual being, through it the 
 support of his religious life. He wrote prayers in connex- 
 ion with his purposes of action; in the prospect of the 
 year; in the anticipation of special events. When he anti- 
 cipated an improvement in his worldly circumstances, he 
 prayed ; when he wrote his books, he prayed ; when he 
 was collecting materials, and prej>aring his speeches, and 
 fighting the 'good fight' in the House of Commons, he 
 did all with prayer. He prayed in his family, and that, 
 too, with serious preparation and forethought that his 
 topics might be selected and arranged, his spirit calm, his 
 manner becoming, the service comprehensive, serious, in- 
 structive. For his work, his friends, his family, his chil- 
 dren, for the latter on great and important occasions, 01 
 at particular crises in their course, prayers would seem to 
 have been often offered, and sometimes written. He could 
 not get on without prayer. He so habitually contemplated 
 his public engagements as ' working the work of God,' as 
 the discharge of a service to which he was ' called,' which 
 was allotted to him irom above, which had in itself the 
 Divine approbation, and made necessary for him Divine 
 aid, that he was drawn to prayer in it as by a natural law: 
 to him, there was that about his great public service, that
 
 62 THE CHRISTIAN PHILANTUUOPIST. 
 
 made prayer equally appropriate and necessary; that 
 drew him to it as by the force of a sympathy, and impelled 
 him by considerations connected with success. Throughout 
 life, as a part of his religion itself, in circumstances of 
 sorrow and of joy, when 'his heart was lifted up in the 
 ways of the Lord,' or his spirit broken and crushed by 
 disasters, he prayed. The necessity to his soul of the 
 hallowed exercise, seemed to increase as his day declined. 
 He found it to be strength in weakness, light in darkness, 
 life in death. Through it, ' though the outward man 
 perished, the inward man was renewed day by day.' Like 
 his divine Lord, as he drew near his last sufferings and 
 was entering into them, he again and again prayed. ' Being 
 in an agony he prayed more fervently.' He sometimes 
 'rose in the night,' and spent considerable time in this 
 exercise ; with earnest utterance, as he expressed it, ' pray- 
 ing hard.' Like Jacob wrestling with the angel at Peniel, 
 till the day broke, and he passed onward having obtained 
 the blessing. 
 
 Prayer la the Christian's vital breath, 
 
 The Christian's native air; 
 His watchword at the gates of death: 
 
 He enters heaven by prayer.' 
 
 "Sir Fowell Buxton's spirit and habit of prayer arose 
 very much from the child-like simplicity of his religion ; 
 and from his power strongly to realize the absent and the 
 distant, and therefore the spiritual and invisible, which, as 
 a natural attribute of his mind, became faith when inspired 
 by piety. After he became fixed and happy in his per- 
 suasion of the enjoyment of the Divine favour through 
 Christ, he never encouraged any perplexing doubts, or
 
 THE CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPIST. 63 
 
 suffered himself to be seduced into the region of theological 
 difficulties." 
 
 In the most interesting and instructive address to young 
 men, which Mr. Binuey has based on the incidents that 
 marked the career of this eminent philanthropist, he has 
 contrasted it with that of other men, contemporaries of his 
 own, who, with a corresponding social position, and equal 
 means for doing good, have attracted public attention, and 
 won notoriety, where they have failed to secure esteem. 
 He has taken Sir Samuel Romilly, a highly gifted and 
 noble man, whose son felt no less delight in recording the 
 honourable career of his distinguished father, than the son 
 of Sir. T. F. Buxton experienced in writing that on which 
 our present sketch is founded. But with all his solid ex- 
 cellencies, Romilly was no man of prayer. This world was 
 all he lived for, and his biography, though penned with all 
 the affection and admiration of filial love and duty, serves 
 to prove how much the less he was adapted for the highest 
 duties of this life, by his neglect of those which belong to 
 the life hereafter. 
 
 Again, Buxton is compared to a benevolent enthusiast 
 still living, who, setting all religion aside, has aimed at 
 reforming the world by Eutopian and visionary schemes, 
 which have proved, like the house of the foolish builders, 
 founded on the sand. Or again, he is contrasted with 
 Beckford of Fonthill, the showy, voluptuous man of taste 
 and extravagance, whose costly monument of magnificent 
 folly is already in ruins ; with Sheridan, the poor dissipated 
 man ot wit and genius, each aiming at his own goal of 
 selfish pleasure or unwise design. " How much better for 
 Buxton, that he possessed the spirit of l a sound mindf
 
 64 THE CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPIST. 
 
 How much wiser he, to spend his life in aiming at possi- 
 bilities ; and how happy for him at last, to feel that he 
 had not lived and laboured in vain ! 
 
 "What a contrast is Buxton to others of his contem- 
 poraries ! A Banker in Beruers Street finds himself in 
 difficulties, and commences a course of fraud and forgery 
 to keep up the crediUof the house. At all hazards he will 
 retain his place in society, and have, at least, the outward 
 seeming of a gentleman, though he is pursuing, all the 
 time, a life of deceit and falsehood, and appropriating the 
 property of others as his own. As might be expected, 
 personal habits are as irregular as the social are criminal. 
 He lives, without knowing the blessedness of a home ; a 
 husband without the rites of the church, a father without 
 the sanctities of the relation. At length, early on a dark 
 damp November morning, a continual low murmuring 
 sound is heard increasing in the thoroughfares of the city. 
 Before the dark abode of punishment and crime, men are 
 busy erecting the apparatus of death. Yellow flashes from 
 various torches flickering against it, render it dimly visible 
 to the eye, while the hollow sounds of the workman's 
 hammer fall like heavy strokes upon the heart. At length 
 it is day ; thousands upon thousands are discovered the 
 packed filth and refuse of the metropolis waiting to see a 
 gentleman hanged ! There he is ! Beautifully dressed ; 
 elegant in figure ; his hair, slightly touched by time, mov- 
 ing in the wind ; he has all the appearance of being bom to 
 move in cultivated society, and to find his equals there. 
 But he is here. And now, see, he is left by every 
 individual having the aspect of one of his own class. He 
 has brought himself to the level of the wretched dregs and
 
 T11K CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPIST. 65 
 
 offscouring of all things, who seem to hold him as their 
 associate, and to hail him as one identified with them- 
 selves ! AY hat a terrible price to have to pay for the past ! 
 There is nothing in the universe so expensive as sin. 
 Moral courage, true power, principle, religion, would not 
 only have kept the man from sinking into the criminal, 
 but might have raised him high into usefulness and 
 honour. The Banker might have equalled the Brewer, 
 if, like him, he had purposed, and worked, and believed, 
 and prayed. 
 
 What a contrast such a life as the one before us, to that 
 of the man who lives for nothing but to grub on, get money, 
 hoard, and leave it! And how such people sometimes 
 leave it ! causing the world to wonder, first at the enor- 
 mous amount of their wealth, and then at the folly or 
 vanity the meanness or injustice of its testamentary 
 distribution. There was an old tradesman whom I knew 
 by sight, and whom Buxton, I dare say, knew. He accumu- 
 lated much. Every Sunday morning ho used to ride out 
 into the country, walk about a little on Clapham Common, 
 and return to dinner. I used to meet him regularly. It 
 was but a poor fcrna of life his; nothing divine about it. 
 He was a social, genial man, too, in his way but had no 
 idea but that of getting money; not much faith, I fear, in 
 anything beyond that, and the 'great fact,' indeed, of the 
 unseen, but not unfelt, reality the stomach ! He married 
 his cook ; died very rich ; and left some thousands to his 
 Company to make themselves comfortable !' What an 
 idea of the end for which man was born ! This man and 
 Buxton seem like beings of a different species yet were 
 tl:ey alike; living at the same time; inhabiting the same
 
 66 INTEGRITY. 
 
 city ; within the sound of the same gospel, anil capable of 
 the same divine life." 
 
 Such is the contrast which might be multiplied an hun- 
 dred fold, proving the force of the beautiful maxim of 
 sacred writ, "Godliness has the promise of this life, and 
 also of that which is to come." 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 INTEGRITY. 
 
 " To thine own self be true, 
 And it must follow, as the night the day, 
 Thon canst not then be false to any man." 
 
 IT \ULET. 
 
 I\ the example of an upright British trader, and English 
 gentleman, which has occupied our attention in the two 
 previous chapters, we have witnessed the exhibition of 
 perseverance, integrity, sound principle, high-toned Chris- 
 tian philanthropy, and a generous and public spirited 
 disinterestedness. Such great examples are only of rare 
 occurrence, and require that peculiar combination of talent 
 with high principle which only falls to the lot of a few. 
 All, however, can emulate his honesty, integrity, and per- 
 severance; nor are there wanting abundant examples of 
 the manifestation of these by the lowly and poorly gifted, 
 to whom they have proved a better fortune than all the 
 wealth which the sons of fortune have inherited. Honesty
 
 INTEGRITY. C7 
 
 is, indeed, every day proved to be the best policy, whether 
 our aim bo happiness, honour, or wealth. Men, indeed, 
 have often sacrificed fortune rather than retain or acquire 
 it by a dereliction from the paths of rectitude ; and every 
 man must be prepared to do so, if exposed to such a trial 
 of his integrity. Yet, even then, the sacrifice is well worth 
 the fi-uits, and the reward not purchased at too costly a 
 price. Wealth is in itself useless and valueless ; it is the 
 comforts it can purchase, the opportunities it bestows, and 
 the enjoyments which it secures, that make it so desirable. 
 But the man who wins wealth by dishonest means, forfeits 
 all these accompaniments by which it is alone rendered 
 worth having, and, with the burden of his guilty conscience, 
 is not to be envied by the poorest man, who, amid his 
 integrity, is left to struggle for his daily bread. What is 
 wealth without peace of mind and conscious rectitude, but 
 a drag upon the soul, not the less burdensome to be borne 
 though it be made of gold. 
 
 A few examples of manifestation of noble integrity, under 
 a variety of circumstances, will best suffice to enforce the 
 duty and the value of this golden rule of life. 
 
 The Roman soldier, ere ho faced the foe, was armed in 
 panoply of steel ; the polished grieves and breastplate, and 
 the helmet, defended his person, and before him he held 
 the invulnerable shield. A moral panoply, equally strong, 
 is needed for the young man who enters into the warfare 
 of commercial life. 
 
 So long as there is craft and subtilty, and dishonesty and 
 meanness, in the world, this warfare will continue ; but let 
 it be met by integrity, stern .inflinching integrity, and in 
 the end you will come off victorious. True, you may en-
 
 68 INTEGRITY. 
 
 counter many difficulties by the way ; yon may see other 
 and ignoble means for a time successful, and doubt whether 
 honesty, after all, is indeed the best policy, but persevere, 
 and in the end you will acknowledge it so to be, in the 
 highest sense of the word. Your coffers may not as rapidly 
 fill to the brim, but they will be steadily filling, and that is 
 success ; successful you will be, moreover, in having kept 
 your conscience unsullied ; in the approbation and esteem, 
 not only of the good, but even the bad, for they can respect 
 the honest man ; but, above all, you will be successful in 
 receiving at last the commendation, beyond all earthly 
 praise, from the Almighty Ruler "Well done, good and 
 faithful servant." 
 
 Of the late Joseph May, of Boston, his biographer says 
 " His eighty-one years were so spent, that few men ever 
 went more truly lamented to his grave. His judicious 
 benevolence, his noble elevation of sentiment, his unim- 
 peachable purity of purpose, his many years of public use- 
 fulness, his joy in advanced years and happiness at the 
 approach of death, may well profitably engage upon him 
 our passing thoughts. 
 
 "His integrity has never been questioned. It passed 
 through the trial of adversity and failure in business with- 
 out a stain. His conscientious honesty moved him to give 
 up all to his creditors, even the ring upon his finger. 
 
 "The public confidence continually called him to the 
 charge of most important public institutions, and to private 
 trusts of the most delicate nature ; to the guardianship of 
 children, the administration of estates, and the oversight 
 of the widow and the orphan." 
 
 The richest of the well known Salem merchants has
 
 INTEGRITY. 69 
 
 received the following tribute from one who formerly 
 sailed in his service: 
 
 " The late William Gray, by his successful mercantile 
 career, well illustrated the truth of the homely adage, 
 ' Honesty is the best policy.' Although bold in his specu- 
 lations, he was prudent in his calculations, and fortune 
 smiled upon his undertakings. But William Gray was, 
 emphatically, an honest man. Not a dollar of his immense 
 wealth was acquired by violating, directly or indirectly, the 
 laws of any country. 
 
 " Having, on a number of occasions, had charge of large 
 amounts of property belonging to him, we have had abun- 
 dant opportunities of knowing the manner in which he 
 transacted his mercantile operations, and we have often 
 had occasion to admire the stern integrity which formed a 
 prominent feature in his character." 
 
 M. de Vaubran, a French merchant, entered into part- 
 nership with Mustapha Zari, a native of Turcomania, who 
 lived at Constantinople, and traded in silks. After they 
 had carried on business for four years, M. de Vaubran had 
 occasion to return home, to take possession of an estate 
 that had been left him ; he therefore desired that the 
 accounts between them might be settled. When the balance 
 came to be adjusted, it was discovered that M. de Vaubran 
 remained indebted to his partner nine hundred sequins, for 
 which he gave him five sealed bags, and desired him to 
 count the money. " No," replied Mustapha, " we have 
 dealt together thus long, and I have found you an honest 
 man ; God forbid that I should mistrust my friend at our 
 parting." 
 
 The next day, M. de Vaubran took horse for Smyrna, and
 
 70 IKTEGRITY. 
 
 it happened that as soou as he was gone, Mustapha had 
 occasion to pay fifteen hundred sequins to a merchant of 
 Holland. He took the five bags he had received from his 
 partner, and making up the remainder, gave them to the 
 Dutchman, saying, that he had not counted the money in 
 those five bags, as he took them on the credit of a very 
 worthy and honest man, who had been his partner. The 
 suspicious Christian would not show so much generosity 
 and confidence, for he immediately broke open the seals in 
 the presence of Mustapha, and having counted the money, 
 said it was all right, and was about to put it up again. 
 Mustapha, who had a quick eye, and being well versed in 
 counting money, perceived that there was a great deal more 
 than nine hundred sequins ; he therefore said, he must 
 count the money himself, as he suspected there was some 
 mistake. The Dutchman durst not deny this privilege to a 
 true believer under the Grand Seignor's protection, what- 
 ever he might have done in his own country. When Mus- 
 tapha counted the money, he found eleven hundred and 
 fifty sequins in the bags given him by his partner. Having 
 settled with the Dutch merchant, he sent an express with 
 the two hundred and fifty sequins to M. de Yaubran, who 
 he knew was to remain some days at a town on the 
 road, about twenty leagues from Constantinople. With the 
 money, he transmitted this letter : " My friend, God forbid 
 that I should detain anything beyond my right, or deal 
 with thee as a certain Frank would have done with mo ; 
 for thou knowest 1 took the money on thy credit, without 
 counting it ; but being to pay it away this day to a Dutch 
 merchant, he not having the same faith, would count it ; 
 and finding these two hundred and fifty sequins over and
 
 INTEGRITY. 71 
 
 above the sura supposed to be iu the bags, lie would have 
 smuggled them in his Dutch conscience, had not I disco- 
 vered his fraud, and prevented him. I send them to thee 
 as thy right, supposing it was some oversight : God pro- 
 hibits all injustice." 
 
 In this we see one of the thousand instances in which 
 the nominal Christian disgraces the faith and the princi- 
 ples of the Bible, and exhibits a want of principle which 
 heathen integrity puts to shame. 
 
 How far more valuable to the Mussulman merchant of 
 Constantinople was his conscious rectitude, than all the 
 guilty pleasures which the dishonest acquirements of the 
 Dutchman might have secured. The hoards of the miser 
 are even less valueless than the acquirements of the knave. 
 The spirit which actuates the miser is a disease, a species 
 of insanity, when carried the length of hoarding up money, 
 not for its use but its possession ; but the acquirer of ill- 
 gotten gains is guilty of a crime against human laws, and 
 of sin against God, and cannot escape the fruits of his 
 deeds. There have not, indeed, been wanting examples ol 
 men in whom the excessive love of wealth assumed the 
 strange and diseased form of miserly hoarding, who have 
 yet been no less noticeable for their strict integrity than 
 for the economy and care which at length degenerated into 
 such an excess. 
 
 Mr. Klwes, a well-known citizen of Lendon, was one who 
 secured the respect of others by his straightforward deal- 
 ing, while he obtained the unenviable title of a miser, bj 
 his inordinate desire for the useless accumulation of wealth 
 It is told of him that he was one of the very few persons 
 who, under the old unreformed system of parliamentary
 
 72 INTEGRITY. 
 
 representation, secured a seat in the House of Commons 
 by popular election, for nothing, or for eigJiteenpence; which 
 was the sum he said it cost him to get returned for the 
 county of Suffolk. His seat costing him so little, he never 
 sought to make anything by it ; for although he sat in the 
 House twelve years, a more faithful, or a more incorrup- 
 tible representative, never entered St. Stephen's Chapel. 
 In the whole of his parliamentary life, he never asked or 
 received a favour, and never gave a vote, but he could 
 solemnly and conscientiously say, "I believe I am doing 
 what is for the best." He voted as a man would do, who 
 felt that there were people to live after him ; as one who 
 wished to deliver, unmortgaged, to his children, the public 
 estate of government ; and who felt that if he suffered 
 himself to become a pensioner on it, he thus far embar- 
 rassed his posterity, and injured the inheritance. 
 
 As a legislator, Mr. Elwes could never be said to belong 
 to any particular party, for he had the very singular qua- 
 lity of not determining how to vote, before he heard what 
 was said on the subject. On this account, he was not 
 reckoned an acquisition by either side, and he was perfectly 
 indifferent to the opinions of both 
 
 When Mr. Elwes fii-st took his seat in 1774, the opposi- 
 tion of that time, headed by Mr. Fox, had great hopes that 
 he would be of their party. These hopes, however, were 
 disappointed, for Mr. Elwes immediately joined the party 
 of Lord North, and that from a fair and honest belief that 
 his measures were right. But Mr. Elwes never was of that 
 decided cast of men that a minister would best approve. 
 He would frequently dissent, and really vote as his con- 
 science led him. Hence many members of the opposition
 
 INTEOUJIY. 73 
 
 looked upon liim as a inan " off and on," or, as they styled 
 him, " a parliamentary coquette." It is remarkable that 
 both parties were equally fond of having him as a nominee 
 on their contested elections ; frequently he was the chair- 
 man ; and ho was remarkable for the patience with which 
 he always heard the counsel. 
 
 Mr. Elwes went on in his support of Lord North, and his 
 American war, till the country grew tired of this course of 
 measure ; but the support given by Mr. Elwes was of the 
 most disinterested kind, for no man suffered more by the 
 continuance of the war than he did. 
 
 When Lord Shelburne came into power, Mr. Elwes was 
 found supporting for a time his administration ; but not 
 long after this he voted with Mr. Fox, against his lordship, 
 and thus added another confirmation to the political opin- 
 ion that was held of him, " that no man, or'party of men, 
 could be sure of him." Sir Edward Astley, Sir George 
 Saville, Mr. Powis, and Mr. Marsham, frequently talked to 
 him on his whimsical versatility. But it will, undoubtedly, 
 admit of a question in politics, how far a man, thus voting 
 on cither side, as his opinion led him at the moment, be or 
 be not a desirable man in aiding the good government of a 
 country ! 
 
 Mr. Elwes having thus voted against Lord Shelburne, 
 gave his entire support to the celebrated coalition of Lord 
 North and Mr. Fox. It is imagined that he thought they 
 were the only men who, at that time, were able to govern 
 this country. 
 
 In private life, notwithstanding his avarice, all his deal- 
 ings were marked by the most inflexible integrity ; and 
 although to save a halfpenny at a turnpike gate, ho would
 
 74 INTEGRITY. 
 
 ride a dozen miles out of his way, yet he would not do a 
 dishonourable act to gain millions. 
 
 "VYhtn the lather of the late Earl Spencer was a boy, he 
 called at an inn at St. Albans, where he had frequently 
 stopped, and observing that the landlord looked unusually 
 dejected, inquired the cause. The landlord, after some 
 hesitation, stated that his affairs had become embarrassed, 
 and that his creditors were so severe, that he would be 
 compelled to shut up his house. " Why," said the young 
 gentleman, " how much money will relieve you from all 
 difficulties f The landlord said, not less than a thousand 
 pounds ; and if he could borrow that sum, he did not doubt 
 of his being able, in a short time, to repay it. Young 
 Spencer said nothing, but ordering his horses, posted off to 
 London, and going instantly to his guardian, told him he 
 wanted 1000. The guardian naturally inquired for what 
 purpose so large a sum was to be applied ; and was an- 
 swered, that it was for no purpose of extravagance, but, on 
 the contrary, to serve a deserving man. The guardian 
 refused to advance the money, when the youth hastened to 
 one of his relations ; a consultation was held, and it was 
 agreed to advance the money, and trust to liis discretion. 
 He immediately carried it to the distressed landlord, whose 
 business was now conducted with fresh vigour ; and in a 
 very few years, when his lordship returned from his tra- 
 vels, and stopped at the same inn, he found his host in a 
 more flourishing condition, and knowing of his exjxx-ted 
 arrival, had the 1000 ready to return him, with gratitude 
 for having not only saved him from ruin, but raised him to 
 prosperity. The noble lord very generously begged him to 
 keep it as a mamage portion for Ms daughter.
 
 INTEGRITY. 75 
 
 Such instances of generosity have frequently received a 
 similar return, though there doubtless are not wanting 
 examples where dishonesty has met it with ingratitude 
 and deceit; nor others where the hopes of the borrower 
 have proved too sanguine, and his failure has been accom- 
 panied with the injury to his benefactor, which must al- 
 ways occasion the most poignant grief to a generous mind. 
 An instance somewhat akin to that which has been related 
 above, occurred to a British merchant in India, whose 
 generosity was extended to a poor Hindoo. Mr. Wood, 
 a merchant of Decca, going to Calcutta, fell in with a 
 poor native wood-cutter, who, in the course of conversation, 
 said, that if he had but fifty rupees, he would make a com- 
 fortable settlement on those tracts of uncultivated and 
 marshy woods which the Ganges overflows. Mr. Wood 
 lent him the fifty rupees ; and after remaining some time 
 at Calcutta, he set out on his return to Decca. He saw the 
 effect of his bounty, in an advanced settlement on a small 
 eminence, which pleased him so much, that ho lent him 
 fifty rupees more. In his next journey, he beheld the 
 rapid progress of the settlement, and the wood-cutter 
 offered to pay half the small but generous loan. Mr. Wood 
 refused to receive it, but lent him one hundred rupees 
 more. Eighteen months after the commencement of the 
 settlement, the industrious wood-cutter was at the head of 
 five populous villages, and a spacious tract of fine land 
 under cultivation. He now repaid the whole of the money 
 he had borrowed, and tendered the interest ; but the latter 
 Mr. Wood declined to accept. 
 
 It is astouishing how small the beginnings have fre- 
 quently been by which men have attained to fortunes.
 
 76 INTEGRITY. 
 
 He who daily makes more than he spends, however trifling 
 the surplus may be, is on the way to fortune ; and patient 
 industry, when aided by a systematic and rigid economy, 
 frequently achieves more than the most daring speculation, 
 backed by the possession of thousands. Nevertheless, 
 there are few ways in which a wealthy and benevolent 
 man can more safely and usefully expend his surplus funds, 
 than in advancing a small capital to the poor but diligent 
 and industrious trader or labourer. So much is the value 
 of this known, that several benevolent men have at different 
 times bequeathed their fortunes to trustees, to be employed 
 hi advancing loans to enable industrious young men to be- 
 gin the world. The smallest sum thus supplied becomes like 
 a lover in the hands of the borrower, arming him for the 
 accomplishment of his desired purpose, and, at the same 
 time, if he be actuated by a just spirit, supplying a fresh 
 incentive to industry and perseverance, in order that he 
 may prove himself deserving of the confidence reposed in 
 bun. 
 
 Foster relates, in his Essay on Decision of Character, a 
 curious instance illustrative of the very small means which 
 may suffice a man of resolute purpose to begin the world 
 with, and achieve success. Addressing the friend to whom 
 his essays were originally submitted, in the form of letters, 
 he observes "You may recollect the mention, in one of 
 our conversations, of a young man, who wasted in two or 
 three years a large patrimony in profligate revels with a 
 number of worthless associates, who called themselves his 
 friends, and who, when his last means were exhausted, 
 treated him, of course, with neglect or contempt. Reduced 
 to absolute want, he one day went out of the house with
 
 INTEGRITY. 77 
 
 an intention to put an end to his life ; but wandering awhile 
 almost unconsciously, ho came to the brow of an eminence 
 which overlooked what were lately his estates. Here he sat 
 down, and remained fixed in thought a number of hours, at 
 the end of which he sprang from the ground with a vehe- 
 ment exulting emotion. He had formed his resolution, 
 which was, that all these estates should be his again ; he had 
 formed his plan, too, which he instantly began to execute. 
 He walked hastily forward, determined to seize the very first 
 opportunity, of however humble a kind, to gain any money, 
 though it were ever so despicable a trifle, and resolved 
 absolutely not to spend, if he could help it, a farthing of 
 whatever he might obtain. The first thing that drew his 
 attention, was a heap of coals shot out of carts on the 
 pavement before a house. He offered himself to shovel 
 or wheel them into the place where they were to be laid, 
 and was employed. He received a few pence for the la- 
 bour; and then, in pursuance of the saving part of hia 
 plan, requested some small gratuity of meat and drink, 
 which was given him. He then looked out for the next 
 thing that might chance to offer, and went, with inde- 
 fatigable industry, through a succession of servile employ- 
 ments, in different places, of longer and shorter duration, 
 still scrupulously avoiding, as far as possible, the expense 
 of a penny. He promptly seized every opportunity which 
 could advance his design, without regarding the meanness 
 of occupation or appearance. By this method he had 
 gained, after a considerable time, money enough to pur- 
 chase, in order to sell again, a few cattle, of which he had 
 taken pains to understand the value. He speedily but 
 cautiously turned hia first gains into second advantages ;
 
 78 I XT EG R IT V. 
 
 retained, without s single deviation, his extreme parsi- 
 mony; and thus advanced by degrees into larger tran- 
 sactions and incipient wealth. I did not hear, or have 
 forgotten, the continued course of his life; but the final 
 result was, that he more than recovered his lost posses- 
 sions, and died an inveterate miser, worth 60,000. I have 
 always recollected this as a signal instance, though in an 
 unfortunate and ignoble direction, of decisive character, 
 and of the extraordinary effect which, according to general 
 laws, belongs to the strongest form of such a character. 
 
 " But not less decision has been displayed by men of 
 virtue. In this distinction no man ever exceeded, for 
 instance, or ever will exceed, the late illustrious Howard. 
 
 * The energy of his determination was so great, that if, 
 instead of being habitual, it had been shown only for a 
 short time on particular occasions, it would have appeared 
 a vehement impetuosity; but by being unintermitted, it 
 had an equability of manner which scarcely appeared to 
 exceed the tone of a calm constancy, it was so totally the 
 reverse of any thing like turbulence or agitation. It was 
 the calmness of an intensity kept uniform by the nature 
 of the human mind forbidding it to be more, and by the 
 character of the individual forbidding it to be less. The ha- 
 bitual passion of his mind was a measure of feeling almost 
 equal to the temporary extremes and paroxysms of common 
 minds ; as a great river, in its customary state, is equal to a 
 small or moderate one when swollen to a torrent. 
 
 " The moment of finishing his plans in deliberation, and 
 commencing them in action, was the same. I wonder what 
 must have been the amount of that bribe in emolument or 
 pleasure, that would have detained him a week inactive
 
 INTEGRITY. 79 
 
 after their final adjustment. The law which carries water 
 down a declivity, was not more unconquerable and in- 
 variable than the determination of his feelings toward the 
 main object. The importance of this object held his facul- 
 ties in a state of excitement which was too rigid to bo 
 affected by lighter interests, and on which, therefore, the 
 beauties of nature and of art had no power. He had no 
 leisure feeling which he could spare to be diverted among 
 the innumerable varieties of the extensive scene which he 
 traversed; all his subordinate feelings lost their separate 
 existence aud operation, by falling into the grand one. 
 There have not been wanting trivial minds, to mark this as 
 a fault in his character. But the mere men of taste ought 
 to be silent respecting such a man as Howard ; he is above 
 their sphere of judgment. The invisible spirits, who fulfil 
 their commission of philanthropy among mortals, do not 
 care about pictures, statues, and sumptuous buildings ; and 
 no more did he, when the time in which he must have 
 inspected and admired them, would have been taken from 
 the work to which he had consecrated his life. The curio- 
 sity which he might feel, was reduced to wait till the hour 
 should arrive, when its gratification should be presented 
 by conscience, which kept a scrupulous charge of all his 
 time, as the most sacred duty of that hour. If ho was still 
 at every hour, when it camp, fated to feel the attractions of 
 the fine arts but the second claim, they might bo sure of 
 their revenge ; for no other man will ever visit Rome 
 under such a despotic consciousness of duty as to refuse 
 himself time for surveying the magnificence of its ruins. 
 Such a sin against taste is very tar beyond the reach of 
 common saintship to commit. It implied an inconceivable
 
 80 INTEGRITY. 
 
 severity of conviction, that he had one tiling to do, and that 
 he who would do some great thing in this short life, must 
 apply himself to the work with such a concentration of his 
 forces, as, to idle spectators who live only to amuse them- 
 selves, looks like insanity. 
 
 " His attention was so strongly and tenaciously fixed on 
 his object, that even at the greatest distance, like the 
 Egyptian pyramids to travellers, it appeared to him with a 
 luminous distinctness as if it had been nigh, and beguiled 
 the toilsome length of labour and enterprise by which he 
 was to reach it. It was so conspicuous before him, that 
 not a step deviated from the direction, and every move- 
 ment and every day was an approximation. As his method 
 referred every thing he did and thought to the end, and aa 
 his exertion did not relax for a moment, he made the trial 
 so seldom made, what is the utmost effect which may be 
 granted to the last possible efforts of a human agent : and 
 therefore what he did not accomplish, he might conclude 
 to be placed beyond the sphere of mortal activity, and 
 calmly leave to the immediate disposal of Omnipotence." 
 
 Let the reader mark, in these two pictures, the important 
 lesson, that all the attributes of human character are only 
 means to an end. Decision, invaluable and indispensable 
 as it is to the accomplishment of every great and noble 
 purpose, may be possessed and used only as an additional 
 power for evil. It may be thrown away, as in the instance 
 cited, on a profitless accumulation of misemployed wealth, 
 or it may be abused as an engine for the larger accom- 
 plishment of vicious plans, and the practice of crimes 
 against both God and man. How sad, and, indeed, terrible, 
 ie the thought that God has endowed man with capacities
 
 1XTEGU1TY. 81 
 
 for the noblest cuds, but which are too often perverted to 
 the service of the devil ; capacities which might have won 
 the distinction of a Howard, moving about on his mission 
 of love, among the wretched and depraved, like an angel 
 of mercy treading in the footsteps of the divine Redeemer, 
 but which too often serve rather to accelerate the degra- 
 dation of their possessors even to such misery as that to 
 which Howard ministered the charities of a lifetime. The 
 uneducated, indeed, the neglected and the orphaned out- 
 casts of society, are too frequently those who occupy our 
 prison cells, and crowd our penal settlements, and for this 
 society is not irresponsible. Yet also it is the naturally 
 gifted that excel in vice no less than in the career of in- 
 dustry and honour, and thousands have gone down to the 
 felon's grave, who, treading in the paths of virtue, might 
 have won honour and distinction among the noble and 
 gifted, or shared in the fortunes of the most prosperous 
 devotees of commerce and trade. 
 
 Taking this view of the fonns of virtue and vice which 
 so affect the two extremes of society, it becomes an im- 
 portant, no less than an interesting subject of inquiry, to 
 ascertain how it is that the path of integrity and upright- 
 ness is so frequently abandoned for the downward road. 
 On this subject, Dr. Chalmers has remarked that one grand 
 key to the whole may be found in that simple but most 
 comprehensive maxim of our Saviour : " He that is faith- 
 ful in that which is least, is faithful also in much ; and 
 he that is unjust in the least, is unjust also in much." 
 This may bo regarded as the golden maxim on which 
 sound integrity depends. All other principles of rectitude, 
 save Unit which makes no distinctions apart from the essei>-
 
 62 INTEGRITY. 
 
 tial rectitude of the action, are vain. We must aim at 
 judging of all our actions by the Divine law of rectitude, 
 and not by that of mere human expediency. " Man is ever 
 prone," says Dr. Chalmers, " to estimate the enormity of 
 injustice by the degree in which he suffers from it. He 
 brings this moral question to the standard of his own in- 
 terest. A master will bear with all the lesser liberties of 
 his servants, so long as he feels them to be harmless ; and 
 it is not till he is awakened to the apprehension of personal 
 injury from the amount or frequency of the embezzle- 
 ments, that his moral indignation is at all sensibly awak- 
 ened. And thus it is, that the maxim of our great Teacher 
 of righteousness seems to be very much unfelt or forgotten 
 in society. Unfaithfulness in that which is little, and un- 
 faithfulness in that which is much, are very far from being 
 regarded as they were by him under the same aspect of 
 criminality. If there be no great hurt, it is felt that there 
 is no great harm. The innocence of a dishonest freedom 
 in respect of morality, is rated by its insignificance in 
 respect of matter. The margin which separates the right 
 from the wrong is remorselessly trodden under foot, so 
 long as each makes only a minute and gentle encroach- 
 ment beyond the landmark of his neighbour's territory. 
 On this subject there is a loose and popular estimate, which 
 is not at one with the deliverance of the New Testament ; 
 a habit of petty invasion on the side of aggressors, which 
 is scarcely felt by them to be at all iniquitous and even 
 on the part of those who are thus made free with there is 
 a habit of loose and careless toleration. There is, in fact, 
 a negligence or a dormancy of principle among men, which 
 causes this sort of injustice to be easily practised on the
 
 IN TEG KIT Y. 63 
 
 OL e side, and as easily put up with on the other ; and, in u 
 general slackness of observation, is this virtue, in its strict- 
 ness and in its delicacy, completely overborne." 
 
 In this view are involved many important results. The 
 integrity of the master, in a thousand cases, begets that of 
 his dependants ; while a low standard of morality, which 
 will, for gain, tempt a servant to neglect the Sabbath, to 
 slight the strict rules of honest dealing, to overreach or 
 deceive, is the hot-bed of vice, which not infrequently 
 reaps its own punishment, while entailing disgrace and 
 misery on others, and doing incalculable injury to society 
 at large. The highest principle is the only true principle, 
 which makes God's unalterable rectitude, and his unyield- 
 ing law, the sole standard in the very least, as in the great- 
 est actions of life. The eminent Divine already quoted, 
 thus pictures the true man of honour. u Whatever his for- 
 bearance to others, he could not suffer the slightest blot of 
 corruption upon any doings of his own. He cannot be 
 satisfied with any thing short of the very last jot and tittle 
 of the requirements of equity being fulfilled. He not 
 merely shares in the revolt of the general world against 
 such outrageous departures from the rule of right, as would 
 carry in their train the ruin of acquaintances or the distress 
 of families. Such is the delicacy of the principle within 
 him, that he could not have peace under the consciousness 
 even of the minutest and least discoverable violation. He 
 looks fully and fearlessly at the whole account which justice 
 has against him ; and he cannot rest, so long as there is a 
 single article unmet, or a single demand unsatisfied. If, in 
 any transaction of his, there was so much as a farthing of 
 secret and injurious reservation on his side, this would bo
 
 84 INTEGRITY. 
 
 to liiin like on accursed thing, which marred the character 
 of the whole proceeding, and spread over it such an aspect 
 of evil, as to offend and to disturb him. He could not 
 bear the whisperings of his own heart, if it told him, that, 
 in so much as by one iota of defect, he had balanced the 
 matter unfairly between himself and the unconscious indi- 
 vidual with whom he deals. It would lie a burden upon 
 his mind to hurt and to make him unhappy, till the oppor- 
 tunity of explanation had come round, and he had obtained 
 ease to his conscience, by acquitting himself to the full of 
 all his obligations. It is justice in the uprightness of her 
 attitude ; it is justice in the onwardness of her path ; it i.s 
 justice disdaining every advantage that would tempt her, 
 by ever so little, to the right or to the left ; it is justice 
 spurning the littleness of each paltry enticement away 
 from her, and maintaining herself, without deviation, in a 
 track so purely rectilineal, that even the most jealous and 
 microscopic eye could not find hi it the slighest aberration : 
 this is the justice set forth by our great moral Teacher." 
 
 In truth there lies no middle ground between right and 
 wrong. The law of God recognises no venial sins. It was 
 because his justice demanded the fulfilment of the minut- 
 est jot and tittle, that divine mercy could alone provide an 
 escape for the sinner, by providing the great sinless sacri- 
 fice of the new covenant. This, then, is the integrity which 
 must be looked upon as one of the most essential elements 
 of success in life, a principle which looks ever upward 
 for guidance, and allows no inducement of self-interest to 
 tempt it from the narrow path, either to the right hand or 
 the left. 
 
 Air. Eoscoe, well known as the biographer of the De
 
 INTEGRITY. 85 
 
 Medici, was an eminent banker in Liverpool : but from 
 various inevitable causes, the bank with which he was 
 connected, was forced to suspend payment. He then re- 
 solved that no one should suffer by him, and took upon 
 himself the immense task of satisfying in full the creditors. 
 In a letter addressed to one of his friends, he says : " In 
 the present state of things it will be long before the prin- 
 cipal can be wholly paid, but the greater part will be dis- 
 charged in two or three years ; and as both principal and 
 interest will be eventually paid to the very last farthing, I 
 hope our friends will be satisfied, and that when I am 
 called for, I may lay down my bones to rest in peace. In 
 the mean time I keep up my health and spirits, and prepare 
 myself to meet whatever may be destined for me, with a 
 conscience clear of offence, and with increased affection to 
 those long-tried friends who have accompanied me in pros- 
 perity as well as adversity." 
 
 The sanguine expectations of Mr. Roscoe were, through 
 untoward circumstances, not to be realized, although the 
 devotion of mind and heart, and the wearing toil which he 
 applied to the task, were almost overpowering. 
 
 During this period of extreme anxiety he wrote the 
 following sonnet : 
 
 " I wake, and io! the morning's earliest gleam 
 Salutes my eyes. What joy to many a heart 
 Its renovated lustre shall impart! 
 But not to mine; for from its brightening beam 
 Gladly would I some intermission claim ; 
 And, anxions, at its near approach, I start 
 Like one when called, unwilling to depart, 
 Depressed his spirit nnd unnerved his frama 
 Tes like some wanderer who has lost his way, 
 In life's rndfi paths, I long have gone astray,
 
 66 INTEGRITY. 
 
 And for the future fear. God of love I 
 What this day may brins forth is all to mo 
 Unknown : but oh ! where'er my course may be, 
 
 Do Thou my steps direct, my toils approve." 
 
 When one told good old Bishop Latimer, that the cutler 
 had cozened him by making him pay twopence for a knife 
 not worth a penny, the Bishop's reply was : 
 
 a No, he cozened not me, but his own conscience." 
 
 The arrant rogue knew well the. value of integrity, who 
 said to a man distinguished for his honesty, " I would give 
 ten thousand pounds for your good name." " Why so f 
 demanded the honest man. "Because I could make twenty 
 thousand with it," was the reply. Thus does even vice pay 
 homage to virtue. 
 
 Do you say it requires a great deal of moral courage 
 and strength of character to be honest in a world where 
 there are so many villans! Well, supposing it does, what 
 then! It is the duty laid upon you; your calling, your 
 allegiance. In obedience you shall win honour and re- 
 ward, if not here, then hereafter. 
 
 " In the world's broad field of battle 
 
 In the bivouac of life, 
 Be not like dumb driven catt'e, 
 
 Be a hero In thp strife."
 
 INDUSTRY. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 INDUSTRY. 
 
 " He who dareth In the generous strife, 
 JTust, ere the morning mists have ceased to lour, 
 Till the long shadows of the night arrive, 
 S:and in the arena." 
 
 FE\V names among the fortunate prosecutors of trade have 
 become more famed in the annals of our British merchant 
 princes than that of George Heriot, the munificent founder 
 of the hospital in the Scottish capital which hears his 
 name. Perhaps we shall hardly select a more fitting ex- 
 ample of "the tide, which, taken at its height, leads on to 
 fortune." Many circumstances, unquestionahly, comhined to 
 forward his progress in life ; yet, after all, it was mainly his 
 own integrity and zealous perseverance which accomplished 
 the success, testified to us by such enduring proofs. George 
 Heriot was in every way well connected. But the most 
 interesting family relationship to which we now look back, 
 was that with the Scottish historian and poet, George 
 Buchanan. The mother of Buchanan was a daughter of 
 the family, and it was through the patronage of James 
 Heriot of Trahroun, his maternal uncle, that the future 
 poet and statesman was enabled to proceed to Paris, and 
 prosecute his studies at its famed university. Other con- 
 nexions might be traced out, in which names of conven- 
 tional rank figure ; but the family derived far truer and 
 more lasting honour from the industrious tradesman, the
 
 88 INDUSTRY. 
 
 fruits of whose laborious perseverance have been the 
 means of housing and educating hundreds of friendless 
 orphans, and fitting thousands to fill a respectable station 
 in the middle ranks of life with honour to themselves 
 and benefit to society; while it has drawn forth from 
 poverty and obscurity some youths of distinguished talent, 
 whose reputation reflects back a lustre on the noble insti- 
 tution and its generous founder, whose heraldic motto so 
 appropriately announces : " / distribute cheerfullie" 
 
 The father of George Heriot appears to have been the 
 younger son of a Scottish laird, who settled in Edinburgh. 
 He was brought up as a goldsmith, then probably the most 
 lucrative business in the kingdom, and uniting with it 
 nearly all the duties and advantages of the modern 
 banker, and to this trade his son, the subject of the pre- 
 sent sketch, was also apprenticed, according to 'the fashion 
 of the times. At the age of twenty-three, George Heriot 
 entered into a contract of marriage with Christian Mar- 
 joribanks, daughter of a substantial burgess of Edinburgh, 
 and Dr. Steven, his latest and best biographer, adds, " His 
 father agreed to give ' his eldest sone and apperand air,' 
 within a month after the proposed marriage, one thousand 
 merks to be ane begyning and pak to him f besides five 
 hundred merks additional, for 'the setting up of ane buith 
 to him, furnissing of his clething to his marriage, and of 
 wark lurries, and utheris necessaris requisite to ane buith." 
 With his wife he was to receive the annual interest, at the 
 rate of 10 per cent, of 1075 merks, lent to the city of Edin- 
 burgh. The yearly produce of her patrimony was exactly 
 one hundred and seven merks, six shillings and eightpence, 
 Scottish money ; and the united capital of the two is said
 
 INDUSTRY. 89 
 
 to have been 214, 11s. 8d. sterling. Heriot thus began 
 business with considerable advantage. The traditionary 
 statement, that he had the good fortune, at this period, 
 when passing one day along the harbour of Leith, to espy, 
 in the sand or ballast discharging from a foreign vessel, a 
 large proportion of gold, and that he obtained the whole 
 at a mere nominal price, we regard as pure fiction. That 
 Heriot was amazingly fortunate in trade from the very 
 outset, is quite certain ; but this success was assuredly not 
 gained by fortuitous or adventitious circumstances. It 
 was, on the contrary, so far as is known, the result of per- 
 severing and honourable industry, under the guidance of 
 sound principle. His residence in Edinburgh was in the 
 Fishmarket Close. His first shop or 'buith' was one of 
 those small erections, which, till a comparatively recent 
 period, were* attached to St. Giles* Cathedral. His shop, 
 or Icraam, as it was commonly called, was at the Ladtfs 
 Steps, on the north-east corner of the church. This was a 
 central situation, and a much frequented spot. Upon the 
 steps leading up to the krames, it was customary to im- 
 plement the bargains made at the neighbouring cross, by 
 going through certain formalities, and in presenting the 
 hire penny. In this humble erection, and afterwards in 
 one at the west end of the Cathedral, Heriot carried on an 
 extensive trade, as a goldsmith and money lender. He 
 soon recommended himself to the notice of his sovereign, 
 liy whom, on the 17th July 1597, he was declared gold- 
 smith to Anne of Denmark, the gay consort of James VI. 
 Ten days afterwards, Hcriot's appointment was publicly 
 proclaimed at the Cross of Edinburgh, by sound of trum- 
 pet. This, it must be confessed, was a most fortunate
 
 90 INDUSTRY. 
 
 appointment, for never, truly, did tradesman get a better 
 customer. There is no question that Heriot was princi- 
 pally indebted to Anno of Denmark, for the acquisition of 
 his large fortune. Few of our sovereigns have been more 
 addicted than was Anne to the extravagant bestowal of 
 diamond rings and other valuable ornaments on favourites. 
 Her rage for finery was perhaps carried to an unjustifiable 
 length. The original documents preserved in the charter- 
 room of the Hospital, strikingly exhibit the ruling passion 
 of the Queen in this respect, and the no less proverbial 
 caution of her worthy goldsmith. When her Majesty was 
 desirous of procuring an advance of money, or some new 
 trinkets, whether for personal use or for gifts, it was no 
 unusual thing to pledge with him the most precious of her 
 jewels." 
 
 It was in this way that much of Heriot's 'money was 
 made. The goldsmiths were for a long period the only 
 money lenders ; and the high rate of interest then usually 
 given, with their frequent command over the resources of 
 an extravagant court and needy nobles, rendered them 
 persons of great wealth and influence, when possessed of 
 the requisite skill and judgment for managing a business 
 in which moderation and prudent foresight were so indis- 
 pensable. In so far as we know of the private character 
 of the Scottish goldsmith, he appears to have possessed 
 those strict business-like habits of accuracy which Sir 
 Walter has pictured with so much life in the Fortunes of 
 Nigel. Ha appears indeed to have been a confidential 
 adviser of the crown on nearly all financial matters, and it 
 would have been fortunate both for king and people, had 
 his influence exercised a more extensive control over the
 
 INDUSTRY. i* 1 
 
 proceedings of the court. " So entirely," says his bio- 
 grapher, " did the royal household seem to require Heriot 
 in his double capacity of goldsmith and cashier, that an 
 apartment in the palace of Holyrood was actually pre- 
 pared in which he might regularly transact business. It 
 has been computed, that during the ten years which im- 
 mediately preceded the accession of King James to the 
 throne of Great Britian, Heriot's bills for the Queen's 
 jewels alone could not amount to less than 50,000 sterling. 
 
 K Imitating the extravagance of the Court, the principal 
 nobility and gentry of Scotland also vied with one another 
 in the frequency and costliness of their purchases. Like 
 royalty, too, they were often glad to avail themselves, in 
 times of emergency, of pecuniary accommodation from 
 Heriot." 
 
 Original letters both of the king and queen, and of 
 many of the nobility, still preserved in the charter-room of 
 Heriot's hospital at Edinburgh, furnish curious evidence of 
 the pecuniary obligations under which they were con- 
 stantly laid to the royal goldsmith. One of these which 
 Miss Agnes Strickland regards as the earliest note from 
 Queen Anne, now extant, is thus described in the life of 
 the Queen : "It is written in the Scottish dialect, while, 
 to the Queen's credit, she had made herself mistress of the 
 English language before she became Queen of England, 
 and wrote and spelled it far better than did her great 
 grand-daughter, Queen Anne of Augustan celebrity. The 
 present document is addressed to George Heriot, banker 
 and jeweller to Anne of Denmark, who is almost as much 
 immortalized by the genius of Sir "Walter Scott as by his 
 own good wo:l:s. The note referred to, as Dr. Steven
 
 92 INDUSTRY. 
 
 remarks, has no date, but was apparently written by her 
 Majesty when requiring the necessary funds to carry into 
 immediate execution a hurriedly planned visit, during the 
 King's absence, to her son, Prince Henry, who was then 
 under the Earl of llarr in Stirling Castle. The precept 
 of the Queen, in her own spelling, runs thus : 
 
 "'GoRDG HERIATT, I ernestlie dissyr youe present to 
 send me tua hundrethe pundes vithe all expedition be- 
 caus I man best me away presentlie. ANNA R.' 
 
 "On the death of Queen Elizabeth, the British islands 
 were united under one sovereignty, in consequence of the 
 Scottish monarch having been called, by hereditary right, to 
 fill the vacant throne. King James, with no little pagean- 
 try, commenced his journey to England, April 5, 1603. 
 Immediately before the cavalcade started, his Majesty 
 took leave in his own peculiar way. 'He bade farewell 
 to his Queen in the High Street of Edinburgh. They both 
 were dissolved in tears. The whole population of the 
 metropolis of Scotland witnessed this conjugal parting ; 
 and loudly mourned the departure of their Sovereign, and 
 joined their tears to those of his anxious consort.' Heriot 
 contributed essentially to the decoration of his royal mas- 
 ter's person on this memorable occasion, and furnished 
 him with an abundant supply of valuable rings. The 
 Scottish nobles, who were in attendance upon his Majesty 
 in his progress southward, were equally indebted to the 
 court-jeweller. Queen Anne appears to have lost no time, 
 after her consort's departure, in summoning Heriot into 
 her presence, and in giving him extensive orders. The 
 two months which intervened before she proceeded to
 
 INDUSTRY. 93 
 
 London, were spent iii making the requisite arrangements, 
 in accomplishing which Heriot's services were frequently 
 required. Her orders were of a miscellaneous description. 
 As might be supposed, the removal of the Court from 
 Edinburgh seriously affected the interests of many in- 
 dividuals. Those who, like Heriot, mainly depended upon 
 royalty and its usual retinue, forthwith repaired to the 
 capital. The royal goldsmith was now too important a 
 perspu, and in various respects too closely connected 
 withj his sovereign's arrangements, to be allowed a long 
 absence from his wonted post. Accordingly we soon find 
 George Heriot in London, 'dwelland foreanent the New 
 Exchange.' " 
 
 The career of the prosperous merchant met with one 
 of its earliest interruptions in the death of his wife ; 
 and Sir Robert Sibbald has preserved the record of an- 
 other, and perhaps still more trying dispensation of provi- 
 dence in the loss of his two sous, who perished at sea, 
 while on the passage from Edinburgh to London. Five 
 years later, we find him, at the age of forty-five, marrying 
 a very youthful wife, whom he also survived. On return- 
 ing from Scotland, whither he had gone to receive his 
 bride, " Heriot found that his business was daily increas- 
 ing ; and, in the course of a very few months, he was 
 actually unable to procure in London the necessary num- 
 ber of workmen to execute his orders. In these circum- 
 stances, a singular method, in all probability the sugges- 
 tion of the Queen, was forthwith adopted. A Govern- 
 ment proclamation was issued, calling upon all magis- 
 trates throughout the kingdom, to aid the court-jeweller in 
 getting the tradesmen he required. This curious docu-
 
 94 INDUSTRY. 
 
 ment so singularly illustrative of the character and habita 
 of the age, was as follows : 
 
 " Whereas this gentleman, GEORGE HKRRIOTT, hir Ma- 
 jesties Jeweller, is commanded to make with speed some 
 worke for hir Majesties use and service, and for the better 
 expediting of the service, is to use the helpe of other 
 workemen of his Trade, besides thoes that are his ser- 
 vants, Theis are theilore to praye, and require you, and 
 every of you, to bee ayding and assisting unto him, in the 
 taking upp of such workemen as he shall necessarily use 
 for the furthering of the service ; Provided allwaies, that 
 the said GEORGE HERRIOTT do yeald them such wages for 
 their worke, as in theis cases are usually accustomed : 
 wherof I pray you fayle not. From Whitehall, this 15. 
 
 of March 1609. 
 
 SUFPOLKE. 
 
 To all Maiors, Sherfjffis, Justicis of Peace, Baylijfis, Cun- 
 ttabk-s, Hedborouches, and all other Ids Majetttfs Officers, to 
 tchonie, it may appertaine. 
 
 " In the month of May of the same year, Heriot received 
 a communication from her Majesty, intimating, that having 
 recently got from him to the value of a thousand guineas, 
 she thought it proper, seeing she did not at that moment 
 possess an over-abundance of the current coin of the realm, 
 to place in his hands some substantial articles as security. 
 
 "It is certainly somewhat out of character to find the 
 first Queen of Great Britain resorting to such a humiliating 
 practice. In consideration of haying received some rich 
 pendant diamonds, and a largo nipply of amber grease,
 
 INDUSTRY. 95 
 
 civit, and musk, to the value just stated, her Majesty 
 authorises Heiiot to pawn certain jewels enumerated in 
 her precept, and of which she had lost conceit. Economy, 
 it has been well observed, could never be reckoned among 
 the virtues of Anne of Denmark. In consequence of her 
 indiscretion, she shortly discovered that her exalted sta- 
 tion did not save her from the anxiety which embarrass- 
 ment brings in its train. We are told, that she became 
 melancholy and dispirited in the winter of 1609 ; and, on 
 inquiry, it was ascertained that her jointure was insufficient 
 to meet the demands of her creditors, of whom Heriot 
 was the principal. The sum of 20,000 sterling was im- 
 mediately drawn from the public chest for the payment of 
 the Queen's debt, and the royal jointure was increased 
 3000 a-ycar." 
 
 Such evidences of courtly extravagance, the fruits of 
 which exercised no inconsiderable influence on the fate of 
 the Queen's \mfortunate son, Charles I., afford a striking 
 and instructive contrast to the fruits of prudent industry 
 and perseverance in the Scottish merchant. The death of 
 his second wife Alison Primrose, once more rendered him 
 "a solitary man, amid all his wealth and the friends which 
 it could command. On a slip of paper found among nu- 
 merous other private documents hi the hospital charter- 
 room, he has written this brief but touching memorial : 
 "she cannot be too much lamented, who could not be too 
 much loved." It was doubtless subsequent to this sad 
 event, which left him without a lineal heir to the fortune 
 which his industry had accumulated, that Heriot matured 
 the scheme for founding an asylum for the orphan and 
 destitute children of the Scottish capital, which still forma
 
 96 INDUSTRY. 
 
 one of the noblest aiid most liberally endowed charitable 
 institutions in the country. This distinguished and success- 
 ful trader has been selected by Sir Walter Scott, as one of 
 the principal characters in the work to which we have 
 already referred. In the introduction he remarks: "As 
 worth of character, goodness of heart, and rectitude of 
 principle, were necessary to one who laid no claim to high 
 birth, I made free with the name of a person who has left 
 the most magnificent proofs of his benevolence and charity 
 that the capital of Scotland has to display. The founder of 
 such a charity as this, may be reasonably supposed to have 
 walked through life with a steady pace and an observant 
 eye, neglecting no opportunity of assisting those who were 
 not possessed of the experience necessary for their own 
 guidance. In supposing his efforts directed to the benefit 
 of a young nobleman, misguided by the aristocratic haughti- 
 ness of his own time, and the prevailing tone of selfish 
 luxury which seems peculiar to ours, as well as the seduc- 
 tions of pleasure which are predominant in all, some amuse- 
 ment, or even some advantage, might, I thought, be derived 
 from the manner in which I might bring the exertions of 
 this civic mentor to bear in his pupil's behalf. I am, I 
 own, no great believer in the moral utility to be derived 
 from fictitious compositions; yet, if in any case a word 
 spoken in season may be of advantage to a young person, 
 it must surely be when it calls upon him to attend to the 
 voice of principle and self-denial, instead of that of preci- 
 pitate passion. Something, I hoped, might be done not 
 altogether unworthy the fame which George Heriot lias 
 secured by the lasting benefits he lias bestowed on his 
 country."
 
 INDUSTRY. yy 
 
 On the first Monday of June in each year, it is custom- 
 ary to celebrate, in Edinburgh, the anniversary of the 
 founder of Heriot's Hospital, when the pupils and former 
 students of the hospital, as well as all other participators in 
 the fruits of the benevolent merchant's bequest, commence 
 the day by hearing the anniversary sermon, which is usually 
 preached by one of the city clergy in the Greyfriars* Church ; 
 the children there uniting their voices in singing an anthem 
 in commemoration of the founder. Dr. Steven has con- 
 cluded his memoir of Heriot, with an extract from the 
 commemoration sermon preached by the Rev. John Mack- 
 queen, in 1683, to which he adds the remark, that "if such 
 a eulogy was not overdrawn then, in regard to the incalcul- 
 able religious benefits which the princely bequest enabled 
 the trustees of the fund to confer, with what an emphasis 
 may it be pronounced now! 
 
 "I think his works may supersede any historical account 
 of him. He hus left a more lasting monument of his piety 
 and charity to bear his name and perpetuate his fame, than 
 all paper memorials whatsoever are capable to perform. 
 So long as there will be any memory of this honourable 
 city, his name shall be mentioned with honour and esteem. 
 When all the flashes of sensual pleasure are quite extinct; 
 when all the glances of temporal felicity and human ex- 
 cellency are quite forgot ; when all the flowers of secular 
 glory are withered away; when all earthly trophies arc 
 burned in their funeral ashes; when all the eulogies of 
 conquerors engraven on brass, or those pompous inscrip- 
 tions on marble undergo the fate of those drawn on the 
 pimd, or >yritten in water; when all the stately monuments 
 and sumptuous statues of the Roman heroes are levelled 
 Q
 
 98 INDUSTRY. 
 
 with the ground ; when this world and all its parade shall 
 be consumed ; when the heavens shall be rolled together 
 as a scroll, and the host thereof dissolved; when the 
 elements shall melt, and the earth be burned up with fer- 
 vent heat, the name of the renowned GEORGE HBRIOT shall 
 be blessed before the Lord, and his works shall be in ever- 
 lasting remembrance." 
 
 In contrast to the fortunate goldsmith of James I. of 
 England, it may not be out of place to refer to another 
 noted merchant of the Scottish capital, once no less wealthy, 
 
 4%M 
 
 but whom the adverse influence of later political convul- 
 sions reduced to the most abject misery that it was per- 
 haps ever the fate of a successful trader to be brought to. 
 There are nobler ambitions even than success in life, though 
 that is a just and honourable aim, towards which every one 
 should strive. It may not be out of place, while illustrat- 
 ing the success which rewards honest industry, to snow also 
 the instability of fortune ; that, since riches so often take 
 themselves wings and fly away, we may be taught to aim 
 also at the possession of that nobler inheritance which no 
 change of fortune can affect, and no thief can break through 
 to steal. Sir William Dick of Braid, an eminent Scottish 
 merchant of the seventeenth century, was so fortunate in 
 all his engagements, that. he was reputed the wealthiest 
 man in Scotland, and was even believed by credulous con- 
 temporaries to have discovered the secret of the philoso- 
 pher's stone. lie possessed numerous ships and traded to 
 many foreign countries bringing home to the port of Leith 
 the spices and the wealth of the Indies, and exporting them 
 again to England and the continent of Europe. On the 
 breaking out of the civil wars, which the infatuated blind-
 
 INDUSTRY. 
 
 ness and obstinacy of Charles I. provoked, Sir William 
 Dick zealously espoused the cause of the Scottish Cove- 
 nanters. 
 
 In the memorable year 1641, he advanced at one time 
 to the Scottish Convention of Estates, the sum of 100,000 
 merks, to save them from the necessity of disbanding the 
 army which had been assembled to assert and to defend the 
 popular rights and the liberty of Parliament. Like many 
 others of the most zealous Scottish Presbyterians, however, 
 his horror of the "Sectaries," as the Independent party 
 under Cromwell was called, exceeded even his apprehension 
 of the tyrannical encroachments of the Stuarts. He aimed, 
 moreover, like many others of his party, at a modified 
 monarchical system, and the restoration of the Scottish 
 Presbyterian Church ; while the English party, then in the 
 ascendant, aimed at a much more comprehensive and radi- 
 cal system of change. Sir Walter Scott, who was familiar 
 with the history of this celebrated old citizen of the Scot- 
 tish capital, represents David Deans, in the Heart of Mid- 
 Lothian, exultingly exclaiming " Then folk might see men 
 deliver up their silver to the State's use, as if it had been 
 so many sclate stanes. My father saw them toom the sacks 
 of dollars out o' Provost Dick's window, intill the carts 
 that carried them to the army at Dunse-Law ; and if ye 
 winna believe hia testimony, there is the window itsell, 
 still standing in the Luckenbooths." On the triumph of 
 Cromwell, Sir William Dick, as well as many other worthy 
 but narrow-minded men in Scotland, dreaded that some- 
 thing worse even than the despotism of Charles was to 
 supervene, and he accordingly gave substantial proof of 
 his zeal by advancing 20,000 for the service of King
 
 100 INDUSTRY. 
 
 Charles. But ho was backing a losing cause, by which Le 
 not only squandered his money in vain, but subjected him- 
 self to the wrath of the successful party. He was unspar- 
 ingly subjected to the heaviest penalties, amounting to 
 65,000 sterling, until his vast resources dwindled away in 
 vain attempts to satisfy the rapacity of legal and political 
 extortion. Being at length reduced to indigence, he went 
 to London to try to recover some portion of sums which 
 he had formerly lent on Government security. Instead of 
 receiving any satisfaction, however, he was arrested by one 
 of his own creditors, and died miserably in a debtor's prison 
 in Westminster in the time of the Protectorate, in want, it 
 is said, even of the common necessaries of life. The re- 
 markable vicissitudes of life exhibited in these changes of 
 fortune, excited much attention even in the period of vicis- 
 situde and change in which they occurred. They are com- 
 memorated in an exceedingly rare pamphlet, entitled " The 
 Lamentable State of the deceased Sir William Dick." It is 
 illustrated with a series of engravings, one of which re- 
 presents Sir William on horseback, as provost of Edinburgh, 
 visiting the neighbouring sea-port, attended by his civic 
 guard, and superintending the unloading of one of his rich 
 argosies. Another exhibits his arrest on his last hapless 
 mission to London, and his detention in the hand of the 
 bailiffs, while a third represents the last sad scene in which 
 his eventful history closes. He is seen lying dead in the 
 dungeon at Westminster, where he expired under such 
 painful circumstances. So much is this curious tract 
 valued by book collectors, that Sir Walter Scott remarks 
 of it : The only copy I ever saw for sale was rated at 
 thirty pounds."
 
 INDUSTRY. 101 
 
 In the life of this remarkable man we observe, that his 
 industry was crowned with the utmost success. About the 
 year 1G40, he estimated his fortune at 200,000 sterling, the 
 whole of which he acquired by his honourable exertions as 
 a merchant in an extensive line of commerce, and as a 
 farmer of the revenue. His losses, we have seen, were 
 altogether apart from this, and, while it would be unjust to 
 censure the patriotism which induced him to risk his whole 
 vast means in what he believed to be a good cause, it must 
 be admitted that his failure originated in the want of that 
 clear and decided policy in relation to public affairs, which 
 had guided him so prosperously in his mercantile career. 
 Fiiinuess and decision of character, when allied to sterling 
 integrity and perseverance, arc the surest guides to success, 
 not in a mercantile life only, but in every worthy course of 
 procedure that engages the energies of man. 
 
 " The Blessing of the Bay" was the appropriate name of 
 the first vessel which was built in New England. The 
 merchant for whom it was built was Governor Winthrop 
 the first Governor of the " Bay-State," where the Pilgrim 
 Fathers founded the colony, with the annals of which their 
 names are so indissolubly united. 
 
 The giant oaks and tall pines which had braved the blasts 
 of centuries were now destined to dare the mighty deep. 
 
 With what intense interest the colonists, young and 
 old, watched the little vessel upon the stocks ! How they 
 shouted as she gracefully glided into the water 1 How 
 their hearts went with her, as she spread her white sails 
 and directed her course toward the father-land ! 
 
 The Blessing of the Bay probably pursued her solitary 
 path across the ocean without exchanging a greeting, and
 
 102 INDUSTRY. 
 
 without the cheering sight of a single distant sail. Now 
 amid the thousand floating barques, of all forms and sizes 
 that flit with favouring breeze, or plough the mountain 
 waves with dashing wheels, such a solitary passage would 
 be a phenomenon. 
 
 From the very first settlement of the colony, commerce 
 called forth the talent and energy of the people. They 
 brought with them the elements of greatness from their 
 island-home. Some of the colonists made useful observa- 
 tions, and acquired valuable knowledge with regard to 
 commercial affairs, while they remained in Holland. Sir 
 William Temple, who was the British ambassador to that 
 country, in the seventeenth century, says : " It is evident 
 to those who have read the most and travelled farthest, 
 that no country can be found, either in this present age, or 
 upon record of any story, where so vast a trade has been 
 managed as in the narrow compass of the few maritime 
 provinces of this commonwealth; nay, it is generally 
 esteemed that more shipping belongs to them than there 
 does to all the rest of Europe. Yet they have no native 
 commodities towards the building or rigging of the small- 
 est vessel ; nor do I know anything properly of their own 
 growth that is considerable, either for their own necessary 
 use, or for traffic with their neighbours, besides butter, 
 cheese, and earthen ware. 
 
 * Holland has grown rich by force of industry ; by im- 
 provement and manufacture of all foreign growths; by 
 being the general magazine of Europe, and furnishing all 
 parts with whatever the market wants or invites; and by 
 their seamen being, as they have properly been called, the 
 common carriers of the world."
 
 INDUSTRY. 103 
 
 Another writer, Owen Fellthain, begins his " Three 
 Weeks' Observations of the Low Countries" in the follow- 
 ing quaint and entertaining style : 
 
 "They are a general sea-land, the great bog of Europe. 
 There is not such another marsh in the world; that's flat. 
 They are a universal quagmire epitomized a green cheese 
 in pickle. There is in them an equilibrium of mud and 
 water. A strong earthquake would shake them to a chaos. 
 It is an excellent country for a despairing lover, for every 
 corner affords him a willow to make a garland of; but if 
 justice doom him to be hanged on any other tree, he may, 
 in spite of the sentence, live long and confident. 
 
 "Having nothing but what grass affords them, they are 
 yet, for almost all provisions, the storehouse for all Chris- 
 tendom. What is it which may not there be found in 
 plenty ? they making by their industry all the fruits of the 
 vast earth their own. 
 
 "Their merchants are at this day the greatest of the uni- 
 verse. What nation is it where they have not insinuated ? 
 nay, which they have not almost anatomized, and even dis- 
 covered the very intrinsic veins of it? They win our 
 drowned grounds, which we cannot recover, and chase 
 back Neptune to his old banks. Want of idleness keeps 
 them from want; and it is their diligence makes them 
 rich." 
 
 The "Pilgrim Fathers" took some useful lessons from 
 the Dutch, but look at the Mynheers themselves at New 
 Amsterdam! Look at that Dutch city now, the greatest 
 emporium in all America second only in rank to London 
 among the commercial cities of the world. The best 
 elements of Dutch character have been blended in New
 
 104 INDUSTRY. 
 
 York with the elements of the Anglo-Saxon race. The 
 geographical and geological features of a countiy have a 
 vast influence in determining whether it shall be pastoral, 
 agricultural, or commercial. 
 
 Look at the long line of sea-coast of the colonies founded 
 by emigrant Britons in America, with its safely sheltered 
 sounds, bays, and harbours ; the inland lakes, whose broad 
 expanse rivals the seas of other climes ; the mighty rivers 
 and smaller streams, which, like arteries and veins, are in- 
 terfused through the land ; its varied and fruitful soil, its 
 mineral wealth, its healthful climate ; all these stimulated 
 the colonists to commercial enterprise. 
 
 The mother country began to look with a jealous eye 
 Upon the aspiring colonies, who were for taking the advan- 
 tage of all these providential gifts. Fifty years after the 
 first settlement of New England, Sir Joshua Child writes 
 as follows. "Of ail the American plantations, his majesty 
 has none so apt for the building of shipping as New England, 
 nor none comparably so qualified for the breeding of sea- 
 men, not only by reason of the natural industry of the 
 people, but principally by reason of their cod and mackerel 
 fisheries; and in my opinion there is nothing more preju- 
 dicial, and in prospect more dangerous to any mother 
 kingdom, than the increase of shipping iu her colonies, 
 plantations, and provinces." 
 
 But the spirit of British industry was not to be quenched 
 by its transplanting to the New World. The wonder is 
 rather, how our little island could so long contain the un- 
 tiring perseverance, and enterprise of its sons. Placed in 
 A wider field it at once expanded, availing itself of every 
 resource, and demonstrating the indomitable spirit of the
 
 IXDOSTHY. 105 
 
 Anglo-Saxon race: which, nursed for centuries in our little 
 island, seems as if it were destined to re-people half tho 
 globe. The celebrated statesman Edmund Burke, remarked 
 of the enterprise of the descendents of these Anglo-Saxon 
 colonists, in addressing the speaker of tho House of Com- 
 mons " Pray, sir, what in the world is equal to it ? Pass 
 by the other ports and look at the manner in which the 
 people of .New England have carried on tho whale fishery. 
 Whilst we follow them amongst the tumbling mountains of 
 ice, and behold them penetrating into the deepest frozen 
 recesses of Hudson's Bay and Da vis's Straits; whilst we 
 are looking for them beneath the arctic circle, we hear that 
 they have pierced into the opposite region of polar cold ; 
 that they are at the antipodes and engaged under the 
 frozen serpent of the south. Falkland Island, which seemed 
 too remote and romantic an object for the grasp of national 
 ambition, is but a stage and resting-place in the progress 
 of their victorious industry. Nor is the equinoctial heat 
 more discouraging to them than the accumulated winter of 
 both the poles. We know that while some of them draw 
 tho line and strike the harpoon on the coast of Africa, 
 others run the longitude and pursue the gigantic game on 
 the coast of Brazil. No sea but what is vexed by their 
 fisheries, no climate but what is witness to their toils. 
 Neither the perseverance of Holland, nor the activity of 
 France, nor the dexterous, firm sagacity cf England, ever 
 carried this perilous mode of hardy industry to tho extent 
 to which it has been pushed by this recent people a people 
 who are still, as it were, in the gristle, and not yet hardened 
 into the bone of manhood." 
 Nothing is more remarkable indeed than tho later his-
 
 106 INDUSTRY. 
 
 I 
 
 tory of the Anglo-Saxon race. We have glanced in a pre- 
 vious chapter at the enterprise exhibited by some of our old 
 merchants at that important historical epoch, when the 
 long rival countries into which our island was divided, 
 were being fused into one. But what a contrast does the 
 commerce and the enterprise of the seventeenth century 
 present, when the Scottish James was succeeding to Queen 
 Elizabeth's throne, to that of the nineteenth century, 
 when the merchant navies of Queen Victoria, are trading 
 every quarter of the globe ! 
 
 The contrast is scarcely less than that which meets us 
 when we compare the desolate wooded shores of New 
 England in 1620, the date of the ever-memorable landing 
 of the Pilgrims, and the busy and crowded sea-ports that 
 now occupy its coasts. One of the founders of the colony 
 remarked of the destined emigrants, ere they left the Old 
 World : " The people are industrious and frugal. It is not 
 with us as with men whom small tilings can discourage." 
 It is a subject of curious and deeply interesting reflection 
 to the thoughtful student of the history and of the destiny 
 of our race, to look back on the history of the New World. 
 It was discovered, and fii-st possessed by the Spaniard. The 
 Dutchman colonized the banks of the Hudson, and the 
 Frenchman acquired the vast regions watered by the river 
 St. Lawrence, as well as the islands of the south, unclaimed 
 or lost by the Spaniard. Yet now, a race of Anglo-Saxon 
 descent occupies, as their own, nearly the entire continent 
 of America. 
 
 The gradual extermination of many ;i)>original races, 
 even amid the anxious endeavours which justice and phi- 
 lanthrophy have recently suggested for their protection, has
 
 INDUSTRY. 10? 
 
 excited much curious interest; and sonic thoughtful indi- 
 viduals have been so struck with its apparent inevitable 
 character, and its dependence on ascertained laws, that 
 they have been led to ask whether it may not form a part 
 of the plan of Providence, that certain races of men should 
 hold these portions of the earth's surface, till certain other, 
 and superior races and in particular our own Anglo-Saxon 
 race are ready to step in and occupy them. Such certainly 
 seems practically to be the result of British enterprise. 
 Nor is it on the continent of America alone that the pre- 
 dominance of the Anglo-Saxon race is so remarkably 
 apparent. Portugal, Holland, and France, all successively 
 held India, until a few British merchants established 
 stations there, and as a mere trading company, wrested the 
 vast empire from the older European occupants. Their 
 great leader, Lord Clive, was originally only one of their 
 clerks, and their earliest forces consisted chiefly of such 
 volunteers. Amid many questionable traits in the early 
 history of the acquirement of British India, there are not 
 wanting some which exhibit the old spirit of straightfor- 
 wardness and integrity of purpose so peculiarly consistent 
 with the character of the British merchant. At a time, 
 now long past, when both the civil and military servants 
 of the East India Company were the objects of a general 
 popular outcry, Lord Clive did not escape his full share of 
 public odium, yet the following incident will show that he 
 was capable of making large and noble sacrifices in what 
 he believed to be a patriotic cause : 
 
 " Early in 173!), when Lord Clive was president of the 
 company's affairs in Bengal, he received intelligence that 
 thy Dutch were forming a great armament at Batavia, and
 
 108 INDUSTRY. 
 
 that it was intended for Bougal, though tlio Dutch and 
 English were then at peace. In August of that same year, 
 the arrival of a Dutch ship in the river, full of troops, 
 brought matters to a certainty ; it was soon followed by six 
 others, having on board, in all, six hundred Europeans, and 
 eight hundred Malays. ' I was sensible,' says Clive, ' how 
 very critical my situation was at that time. I risked both 
 my life and fortune, in taking upon myself to commence 
 hostilities against a nation with whom we were at peace ; but 
 I knew the fate of Eengal and of the company depended upon 
 it, and therefore I run that risk.' At this time, by much 
 the greatest part of Lord Olive's fortune was in the hands of 
 these very Dutch. The company's treasury was so full, in 
 consequence of previous successes, that the governor and 
 council had declined giving their servants any bills in their 
 favour, payable in England : and his lordship was, there- 
 fore, under the necessity of sending his fortune home by 
 bills upon the Dutch. These bills were made payable by 
 instalments, one third part every year ; so that he was 
 morally certain, that if he beat the Dutch, two thirds of 
 the sum sent would remain in the hands of their East India 
 Company when the news would reach them of their ill 
 success in Bengal. Most truly then might he be said to 
 risk his fortune, as well as his life, by venturing on hosti- 
 lities, and the larger that fortune may have been, the more 
 highly ought we to esteem the spirit of integrity which 
 held it all as nothing, when placed in competition with 
 the public interest. The Dutch were beaten ; in twenty- 
 four hours Lord Clive destroyed every ship they had, and 
 the whole of their army was either killed, wouuded, or 
 made prisoners ; but, happily, his lordship's fortune escaped
 
 INDUSTRY. 109 
 
 the peril to winch his victory exposed it. When the bills 
 arrived in Holland, the Dutch Company refused to accept 
 them in the manner drawn, but offered to make prompt 
 payment, on condition of receiving a deduction of about 
 15,000. Lord Olive's attornies, considering the critical 
 situation of the two countries, thought it best to accept 
 payment on these terms ; but of this arrangement his lord- 
 ship could have no knowledge, at the time he left his fortune 
 a prey to Dutch resentment." 
 
 On Lord dive's return to England, the company ap- 
 proved, in the most flattering manner, of what he had done, 
 and as a testimony of their esteem, presented him with a 
 sword richly set with diamonds. Nor did their commenda- 
 tion and good opinion of his services terminate here : Bengal 
 became, soon after, the scene of great troubles ; Calcutta 
 was taken and sacked by the Nabob Suarjah Dowlah, and 
 the factory broken up and expelled. The company im- 
 mediately applied to Lord Clive, requesting that he would 
 go once more to India, to protect and secure their posses- 
 sions ; they expressed their conviction that his presence 
 alone could restore their affairs to a prosperous situation, 
 "I did not then take a moment," says Lord Clive, "to accept 
 the offer. I went abroad, resolving not to benefit myself 
 one single shilling at my return ; and I strictly and re- 
 ligiously adhered to it." 
 
 He recovered Calcutta, re-established the factory, de- 
 throned the perfidious Nabob, and by new treaties and 
 alliances, spread the power and influence of the company 
 far beyond what the most sanguine minds could have anti- 
 cipated. 
 
 The result is well known. The vast kingdoms of India,
 
 110 INDUSTRY. 
 
 from the Indus and the Himalayas to the Ganges, are 
 under British rule, and whatever errors and wrongs may 
 have been perpetrated amid the vicissitudes of war or 
 the triumphs of success, it cannot be questioned that India 
 has been even more benefited than England, by its acquisi- 
 tion by the merchant company whose traders went forth 
 from the banks of the Thames. Africa in like manner has 
 passed from the rule of older discoverers. The Cape of 
 Good Hope, and other settlements colonized or governed 
 by the Portuguese and the Dutch, are also the exclusive 
 possessions of England, and suffice to secure for her navies 
 intermediate stations, in pursuing their course to the 
 Australasian kingdoms now extending under the coloniza- 
 tion which annually leaves the little Island of Britain, to 
 people these remote regions of the earth. Nor have these 
 "been rude acquisitions or barbarian conquests. India and 
 Africa now own a milder sway, and are inheriting the 
 fruits of civilization and the beneficeut lessons of Christi- 
 anity, while Europe receives back new sources of know- 
 ledge as well as added luxuries and wealth. The influence 
 wrought on European science and literature by such means, 
 is thus referred to in "the Memoir of the literary life of 
 Frederick Von Schlegel." After referring to his study of 
 classic literature, his biographer remarks: "A new career 
 now expanded before the ardent mind of Schlegel. The 
 enterprising spirit of British scholars had but twenty years 
 before opened a new intellectual world to European 
 inquiry; a world many of whose spiritual productions, 
 disguised in one shape or another, the "Western nations had 
 for a long course of ages admired and enjoyed, ignorant 
 as they were of the precise region from which they were
 
 INDUSTRY. Ill 
 
 brought. For the knowledge of the Sanscrit tongue and 
 literature an event in literary importance inferior only to 
 the revival of Greek learning, and in a religious and phi- 
 losophic point of view, pregnant, perhaps, with greater 
 results ; mankind have been indebted to the influence of 
 British commerce ; and it is not one of the least services 
 which that commerce has rendered to the cause of civiliza- 
 tion. In the promotion of Sanscrit learning, the merchant 
 princes of Britain emulated the noble zeal displayed four 
 centuries before by the merchant princes of Florence, in the 
 encouragement and diffusion of Hellenic literature. By dint 
 of promises and entreaties, they extorted from the Brahmin 
 the mystic key, which has opened to us so many wonders 
 of the primitive world. And as a great Christian philosopher 
 of our age has observed, it is fortunate that India was not 
 then under the dominion of the French; for during the 
 irreligious fever which inflamed and maddened that great 
 people, their insidious guides those detestable sophists of 
 the eighteenth century would most assuredly have leagued 
 with the Brahmins to suppress the truth, to mutilate the 
 ancient monuments of Sanscrit lore, and thus would have 
 for ever poisoned the sources of Indian learning. A British 
 society was established at Calcutta whose object it was to 
 investigate the languages, historical antiquities, sciences, 
 and religious and philosophical systems of Asia, and more 
 especially of Hindostan. Sir William Jones a name that 
 will be revered as long as genius, learning, and Christian 
 philosophy command the respect of mankind was the soul 
 of this enterprise. He brought to the investigation of 
 Indian literature and history, a mind stored with the trea- 
 sures of classical and Oriental scholarship a spirit of
 
 112 INDUSTRV. 
 
 indefatigable activity and a clear, methodical, and capa- 
 cious intellect. No man, too, so fully understood the reli- 
 gious bearings of these inquiries, and had so well seized 
 the whole subject of Asiatic antiquities in its connexion 
 with the Bible." 
 
 The rapid increase of the Anglo-Saxon race, during tho 
 last two centuries, its wide diffusion over the globe, and 
 its superiority over every race with which it has come in 
 contact, are remarkable facts, howsoever we view them. 
 This will not be done by wise and thoughtful men, in a 
 vain-glorious or boastful spirit ; but with a thoughtful and 
 reverential consideration of the plans of providence which 
 it indicates, and of tho great duties and responsibilities 
 which it involves. It has recently been stated with regard 
 to the Anglo-Saxon race, that while in 1620, the year in 
 which the Mayflower landed the first Pilgrims in New 
 England, it numbered only about six millions, and was 
 almost exclusively confined to our own island, it now 
 numbers sixty millions of human beings, planted on all the 
 islands and continents of the earth, and apparently destined 
 at no distant period to absorb or supplant all the barbarous 
 and noraade races on the continents of Asia, Africa, and 
 America, and the vast newer world recently found in the 
 southern ocean. The enterprise of the race multiplies 
 with its expansion. Commerce goes on apace, carrying th3 
 wealth and industry of the Old World into the remotest 
 and least known regions of the earth ; and it is estimated 
 that if no sudden and unthought of revolution abruptly 
 arrest this remarkable expansion of the race sprung ex- 
 clusively from the united kingdom of Great Britain, tho 
 Anglo-Saxon race will number eight hundred millions of
 
 FINANCIAL SKILL. 113 
 
 human beings in less than a century and a half from the 
 present time. 
 
 CHAPTER VL 
 
 FINANCIAL SKILL. 
 
 Gold, source of mighty blessings, mightier crimes! 
 
 The stateman's power ; the soldier's potent arms ; 
 
 The merchant's tools ; the noble's rank and state ; 
 
 Prime element of true philanthropy ; 
 
 Of deeds of greatness to the wise and good, 
 
 Of coyetousness, misery, and crime. 
 
 IT is not alone to the tradesman or the banker, that finan- 
 cial accuracy, and a skilful command of all the details of 
 money transactions are needed. These are branches of 
 knowledge which no wise man will despise. They are 
 valuable to the politician, to the man of fortune, to the 
 manufacturer, the farmer, and even to the humble cottar. 
 They involve, indeed, an essential element of success in 
 life. Every man ought to cultivate the habit of accurate 
 and systematic reckoning in all pecuniary transactions. If 
 they pertain to his own estates, business, or money transac- 
 tions, it is a duty to himself and his family, on which their 
 most important interests may be ultimately found to de- 
 pend ; and in so far as it involves the concerns or ultimate 
 interests of others, it is a duty which no man can honestly 
 dispense with. 
 
 Among the great political changes of modern history, 
 H
 
 114 FINANCIAL SKILL. 
 
 some of the most remarkable results have largely depend- 
 ed on the influence of skilful or unskilful financiers. M. 
 Necker, a banker, was at the helm of affairs in France on 
 the eve of its great revolution, and some of the earlier 
 steps which led to that crisis were the results of vast 
 financial schemes carried on on erroneous principles, or 
 without a sufficiently strict regard to sterling integrity of 
 purpose. In politics indeed, as in commerce, and indeed in 
 all human transactions, honesty ever proves to be the 
 best policy ; and no nation ever yet traced its downfal to 
 the integrity of its rulers or the self-sacrificing virtue of 
 its people. 
 
 Among the remarkable men who have played a pro- 
 minent part among the financiers in modern European 
 history, few have exercised a more important influence 
 than John Law of Lauriston, comptroller-general of the 
 finances of France, under the regency of Orleans. To him, 
 indeed, we owe to a very great extent the modern system 
 of a representative currency, which, under later judiciou? 
 restraints has proved so important an element in commer- 
 cial enterprise. John Law was born at Edinburgh in 1671. 
 Though connected by both parents with old Scottish fami- 
 lies, the fortune which he inherited had been acquired by 
 his father in the exercise of his profession as a goldsmith 
 in the Scottish capital. Unfortunately, however, his early 
 death left his son, at the age of fourteen, exposed to the 
 temptations of a wealthy minor, while it deprived him of 
 the lessons in prudence and pratical foresight which would 
 have proved of so great value to him in after life. To this 
 early loss of his father the misfortunes of his later life, 
 and the failure of his most prominent schemes may be
 
 FINANCIAL SKILL. 115 
 
 ascribed. He became skilled in games of dexterity and 
 hazard, wasted his fine natural talents on frivolous pur- 
 suits, and at length escaped to the continent after a fatal 
 duel, which had nearly exposed him to an ignominious 
 death on the scaffold. 
 
 By this event, Law was suddenly separated from the 
 bad companions whom his wealth and personal accom- 
 plishments had drawn around him. " He was at this cri- 
 tical period," says one of his biographers, " in his twenty- 
 sixth year. His dissipation had not destroyed the tone of 
 his mind, nor enfeebled those peculiar powers which had so 
 early developed themselves in him. He visited France, 
 then under the brilliant administration of Colbert, where 
 his inquires were particularly directed to the state of the 
 public finances, and the mode of conducting banking 
 establishments. From France he proceeded to Holland, 
 where the mercantile system of those wealthy republicans, 
 who had succeeded the merchant princes of Venice in con- 
 ducting the commerce of Europe, presented to his mind 
 a vast and most interesting subject of investigation. 
 Amsterdam was at this period the most important com- 
 mercial city in Europe, and possessed a celebrated banking 
 establishment, on the credit of which her citizens had been 
 enabled to bafHe the efforts of Louis XIV. to enslave the 
 liberties of their country ; a treasury, whose coffers seemed 
 inexhaustible, and the whole system of which was an 
 enigma to the political economists of other countries. 
 Law, with the view of penetrating into the secret springs 
 and mechanism of this wonderful establishment, took up 
 his residence for some time at Amsterdam, where he 
 ostensibly officiated as secretary to the British resident."
 
 116 FINANCIAL SKILL. 
 
 He returned to Scotland when about thirty years of age, 
 where he was immediately forcibly struck with the great 
 contrast which his native country presented to those com- 
 mercial states which he had visited, and he immediately 
 conceived the design of creating the necessary capital by 
 means of a banking system and representative paper issue. 
 He set forth his views in two successive works on " Money 
 and Trade," the one published in 1700, and the other in 
 1705. But his banking and credit system was not destined 
 to obtain its first trial in his native country. One import- 
 ant and influential party did indeed favour his scheme, 
 but the majority of the Scottish parliament passed the re- 
 solution that " To establish any kind of paper-credit, so as 
 to oblige it to pass ; were an improper expedient for the 
 nation." Law accordingly resolved to offer his system for 
 the adoption of some of the continental powers. 
 
 It is remarkable, indeed, how slow the best financiers of 
 the age were found to appreciate the suggestions of Law, 
 since promissory notes, royal billets, and similar forms of 
 substitute for a metallic currency had been frequently re- 
 sorted to in war, and other emergencies. At the period of 
 Law's return to Paris, the credit of the French government 
 was sunk so low, that its monetary notes and engagements 
 of every description were being exchanged at a sacrifice of 
 from seventy to eighty per cent. " In this extremity, the 
 expedient of a national bankruptcy was proposed, and 
 rejected by the regent, who also refused to give a forced 
 circulation to the royal billets, but appointed a commission 
 to inquire into the claims of the state-creditors. The com- 
 mission executed its duties with great ability ; but after 
 reducing the national debt to its lowest possible form, and
 
 FINANCIAL SKILL. 117 
 
 providing for the payment of the interest amounting to 
 80,000,000 of livres, or about one half of the revenue, tliero 
 hardly remained a sum sufficient to defray the ordinary 
 expenses of the civil government, and that too, after hav- 
 ing had recourse to a measure tantamount, in its effects at 
 least, to a breach of faith, namely, a change in the nominal 
 value of the currency. By the latter scheme, the govern- 
 ment foolishly imagined that they would pocket 200,000,000 
 of livres, but the sum on which they had calculated only 
 went into the pockets of the Dutch and the clandestine 
 money-dealers. At this critical juncture, Law stepped for- 
 ward in the full confidence of being yet able to rescue the 
 government from bankruptcy, by the establishment of a 
 well-regulated paper-credit. His first proposal was to esta- 
 blish a national bank, into which was to be transferred all 
 the metallic currency of the nation, which was to be re- 
 placed by bank-notes. Law regarded the whole nation as 
 one grand banking-company, and his reasoning was this : 
 If a bank may increase the issue of its notes beyond the 
 amount of its funds in bullion, without risking its sol- 
 vency, a nation may also do the same." 
 
 Notwithstanding the imperfect ideas of r. representative 
 currency indicated here, they were based on principles 
 which have since proved a source of many beneficial 
 results. The objections to the plan were founded for the 
 most part on ignorant, and even puerile misconception of 
 the system of banking which Law had devised. The memoirs 
 which he addressed to the Regent on the subject, contain 
 many just observations on the peculiar facilities afforded 
 to trade by the existence of a paper-currency. But they 
 failed to remove the doubts of influential opponents. Ona
 
 118 FINANCIAL SKILL. 
 
 sapient objector, in particular, thought a paper-currency 
 highly dangerous, on account of its liability to being cut 
 or violently destroyed! The council of finance, accord- 
 ingly, rejected this scheme, conceiving the present conjunc- 
 ture was not favourable for the undertaking. 
 
 "Law next proposed a private bank for the issue of 
 notes, the funds of which should be furnished entirely 
 from his own fortune and that of others who might be 
 willing to engage with him in the speculation. He repre- 
 sented the disastrous consequences which had resulted 
 from a fluctuating currency, the enormous rate at which 
 discounts were effected, the difficulties in the exchange 
 between Paris and the provinces, and the general want of 
 an increased currency ; and succeeded in convincing tne 
 Regent that these evils might be obviated by the adoption 
 of his plans even in their limited modification. The bank 
 was accordingly established by letters patent, bearing date 
 the 2nd of May, 1716. Its capital was fixed at 120(1 shares 
 of 5000 livres each, or about 300,000 sterling. The notes 
 were payable at sight in specie of the same weight and 
 fineness as the money in circulation at the period of their 
 issue ; and hence they soon bore a premium above the 
 metallic cxtrrency itself, which had been subjected to many 
 violent alterations since 1689. The good faith which the 
 bank observed in its proceedings, the patronage which it 
 received from the Regent, and the want of private credit, 
 soon procured for it a vast run of business. Had Law 
 confined his attention to this single establishment, he 
 would justly have been considered as one of the greatest 
 benefactors of the country, and the creator of a valuable 
 syBtem of commercial finance ; but the vastness of his
 
 FINANCIAL SKILL. 119 
 
 own conceptions, his boundless ambition, and the unlimited 
 confidence which the public now reposed in him, suggested 
 more gigantic enterprizes, and led the way to that highly 
 forced and unnatural system of things which eventually 
 entailed ruin upon all connected with it. 
 
 "Law had always entertained the idea of uniting the 
 operations of banking with those of commerce. Every 
 one knows that nothing can be more hazardous than such 
 an attempt ; for the credit of the banker cannot be made 
 to rest upon the uncertain guarantee of commercial specu- 
 lations. But the French had yet no accurate ideas on this 
 subject. Law's confidence in the resources of his own 
 financial genius was unbounded, and the world at this 
 moment exhibited a theatre of tempting enterprise to a 
 comprehensive mind. The Spaniards had established colo- 
 nies around the gulf of Mexico, the English were in pos- 
 session of Carolina and Virginia, and the French held 
 the vast province of Canada. Although the coast lands 
 of North America were already colonized, European en- 
 terprize had not yet penetrated into the interior of this 
 fertile country ; but the Chevalier de Lasalle had descended 
 the Mississippi to the gulf of Mexico, and, taking posses- 
 sion of the country through which he passed in the name 
 of the French monarch, gave it the appellation of Louisi- 
 ana. A celebrated merchant of the name of Crozat had 
 obtained the privilege of trading with this newly dis- 
 covered country, and had attempted, but without success, 
 to establish a colony within it. Law's imagination, how- 
 ever, was fired at the boundless field of enterprise which 
 he conceived was here presented ; he talked of its beauty, 
 of its fertility, of the abundance and rarity of its produce,
 
 120 riXAXCIAL SKILL 
 
 of the richness of its mines outrivalling those of Mexico 
 or Peru, and in the month of August, 1717, within five 
 months after his emharkation in the scheme of the bank, 
 our projector hud placed himself, under the auspices of the 
 Regent, at the head of the famous Mississippi scheme, or 
 West Indian company. This company was invested with 
 the full sovereignty of Louisiana, on condition of doing 
 homage for the investiture to the king of France, and pre- 
 senting a crown of gold, of thirty marcs, to each new 
 monarch of the French empire on his accession to the 
 throne. It was authorised to raise troops, to fit out ships 
 of war, to construct forts, institute tribunals, explore mines, 
 and exercise all other acts of sovereignty. The king made 
 a present to the company of the vessels, forts, and settle- 
 ments which had been constructed by Crozat, and gave it 
 the monopoly of the beaver trade with Canada for twenty- 
 five-years." 
 
 Much evil resulted from this injudicious admixture of 
 incompatible aims ; but still more from political jealously 
 and rivalry, .and from the unrestrained system of jobbing 
 and literal gambling in the funds, as so recently occurred 
 while railway schemes were at the height of popular fa- 
 vour in our own country. * The immense fortunes which 
 were realized by stock-jobbing at the very outset pf the 
 scheme, led on others to engage in similar speculation ; 
 splendid fortunes were realized in the course of a single 
 day ; men found themselves suddenly exalted as if by the 
 wand of an enchanter, from the lowest station in life to the 
 command of princely fortunes ; twelve hundred new equi- 
 pages appeared on the streets of Paris in the course of six 
 weeks; half a million of people hastened from the country,
 
 FINANCIAL SKILL. 121 
 
 and even from distant kingdoms, to procure shares in the 
 Indian company ; and happy was he who held the greatest 
 number of these bubbles. The negotiations for the sale 
 and purchase of shares were at first carried on in the Rue 
 Quincampoix, where fortunes were made by letting lodg- 
 ings to the crowds who hastened thither for the purpose 
 of speculating in the stocks. The murder of a rich stock- 
 jobber, committed there on the 22nd of March, 1720, by a 
 young Flemish nobleman, occasioned the proscription of 
 that street as a place of business, and the transference of 
 the stock-jobbing to the Place Vendome, and finally to the 
 hotel de Soissons, which Law is said to have purchased 
 from the prince of Carignan for the enormous sum of 
 1,400,000 livres." 
 
 Innumerable anecdotes are on record of the extraor- 
 dinary vicissitudes of fortune which took place during this 
 season of marvellous excitement ; footmen stepped from 
 the back to the inside of carriages ; cooks appeared at the 
 public places with diamond necklaces ; butlers started 
 their berlins ; and men educated in poverty and of the 
 lowest rank suddenly exchanged the furniture and utensils 
 of their apartments for the richest articles which the up- 
 holsterer and silversmith could furnish. Law himself, 
 now arrived at the height of his prospei-ity, shone pre-emi- 
 nent above all the other attractions of the day. Princes, 
 dukes, marshals, prelates, flocked to his levees, and counted 
 themselves fortunate if they could obtain a smile from the 
 great dispenser of fortune's favours ; peeresses of France, 
 in the excess of their adulations, lavished compliments 
 upon the Scottish adventurer which set even decency at 
 defiance ; his daughter's hand was solicited by princes ;
 
 122 FINANCIAL SKILL. 
 
 and his lady bore herself with hauteur towards the 
 duchesses of the kingdom. Land in the neighbourhood 
 of Paris rose to eighty or a hundred years' purchase ; the 
 ell of cloth of fifteen livres sold for fifty ; coffee rose from 
 fifty sous to eighteen livres ; stock-jobbers were known to 
 treat their guests to green pease at a hundred pistoles the 
 pint ; every yard of rich cloth or velvet was bought up for 
 the clothing of the new tltvea of fortune ; and the value of 
 the silver plate manufactured in the course of three months 
 for supplying the demands of the French capital amounted 
 to 7,200,000. 
 
 This, however, was an altogether unsound and fictitious 
 state of things, which had been engrafted on the original 
 banking system introduced by Law, and it speedily in- 
 volved all that was beneficial in it, in the common ruin. 
 Yet the temporary success of the complicated scheme had 
 dazzled others by its brilliant promises. One of the most 
 celebrated imitations of it was the famous "South Sea 
 Bubble" of England, which ended with like results, involv- 
 ing thousands in ruin. Yet it would be unjust to accuse 
 the Scottish financier of having wilfully originated the 
 entire system which proved so hollow and illusive. In a 
 better state of society, and under a more upright and well 
 balanced government, many of the evils which were en- 
 grafted on his plan would have been avoided, and France 
 might have reaped, in the eighteenth century, the rich and 
 beneficent fruits which have since flowed to Scotland from 
 a judicious application of the banking system originated 
 by Law. His biographer remarks, * it would be doing in- 
 justice to Law's character were we to view him as the sole 
 author of these misfortunes : his views were liberal beyond
 
 FINANCIAL SKILL. 123 
 
 the spirit of the times in which he lived ; he had unques- 
 tionably the real commercial interests of his adopted fos- 
 ter-country at heart ; he did not proceed on speculation 
 alone ; on the contrary, his principles were to a certain 
 degree the very same as those, the adoption of which has 
 raised Britain to her present commercial greatness, and 
 given an impulse to trade throughout the world such as 
 was never witnessed in the transactions of ancient nations. 
 His error lay in over-estimating the strength and breadth 
 of the foundation on which his gigantic superstructure 
 rested. Unquestionably in his cooler moments he never 
 contemplated carrying the principle of public credit to 
 the enormous and fatal length to which he was afterwards 
 driven by circumstances ; it was the unbounded confi- 
 dence of the public mind, prompted by the desire of gain, 
 and the miraculous effects of the system in its earliest 
 development, the enthusiasm of that mind, transported 
 beyond all bounds of moderation and forbearance, by a 
 first success eclipsing its most sanguine expectations, 
 realizing to thousands of individuals the possession of 
 wealth to an amount beyond all that they had ever con- 
 ceived in imagination, the contagious example of the first 
 fortunate speculators intoxicated with success, and fired to 
 the most extravagant and presumptuous anticipations, by 
 which men can be lured into acts of blinded infatuation or 
 thoughtless folly, it was these circumstances over which 
 Law had necessarily little control, that converted his pro- 
 jects into the bane of those for whom they were at first 
 calculated to serve as a wholesome antidote. 
 
 "Law was in fact more intent on following out his idea 
 than aggrandizing his fortunes. Riches, influence, honours,
 
 124 FINANCIAL SKILL. 
 
 were showered upon him in the necessity of things ; the 
 man who had given birth to the wealth of a whole king- 
 dom, whose schemes had for a while invested all who 
 entered into them with imaginary treasures, by whose 
 single mind the workings of that complicated engine which 
 had already produced such daz/.ling results as seemed to 
 justify the most extravagant anticipations of the future, 
 were comprehended and directed, must have risen during 
 the existence of that national delusion, to the highest 
 pinnacle of personal wealth and influence, and might, 
 though only endowed with a mere tithe of tho forecasting 
 sagacity of Law, have provided for his retreat, and secured 
 a sufficient competency at least beyond the possibility of 
 loss or hazard, as thousands in fact did upon the strength 
 of his measure." 
 
 Yet the whole experience of his singular career is preg- 
 nant with lessons, no less instructive both to us and to the 
 age in which we live than to his own. At his parting in- 
 terview with the Duke of Orleans, Law is reported to have 
 said : " My lord, I acknowledge that I have committed 
 great faults ; I did so because I am a man, and all men are 
 liable to err; but I declare to your royal highness that none 
 of them proceeded from knavery, and that nothing of that 
 kind will be found in the whole course of my conduct /' a 
 declaration which the Regent and the Duke of Bourbon bore 
 frank testimony to, at the same time that they suggested 
 the expediency of his leaving the kingdom, for which pur- 
 pose they offered to supply him with money, his whole 
 property having been confiscated ; but Mr. Law, though in 
 possession of only 800 louis d'ors, the wreck of a fortune of 
 10,000,000 of livres, refused to receive any assistance from
 
 FINANCIAL SKILL 125 
 
 other funds than his own, and on the 22nd of December, 
 1720, arrived at Brussels, whcro he was received with the 
 greatest respect by tire governor and resident nobility. 
 Early in January, 1721, he appeared at Venice, under the 
 name of II. du Jardin, where he is said to have had a con- 
 ference with the Chevalier dc St. George, and the famous 
 Cardinal Albcroni, minister of Spain. From Venice he tra- 
 velled through Germany to Copenhagen, where he had the 
 honour of an audience with Prince Frederick. During his 
 residence at the Danish capital he received an invitation 
 from the British ministry to return to his native country, 
 with which he complied, and was presented, on his arrival, 
 to George I. by Sir John Norris, the admiral of the Baltic 
 squadron. 
 
 It is justly referred to as an evidence of the integrity of 
 purpose of this remarkable man, the most extraordinary 
 projector of modern times, that he died hi comparative 
 indigence, at Venice, in 1729, bequeathing to the world a 
 scheme of finance, which, under more judicious control, has 
 greatly enlarged the entire system of modern trade and 
 commercial enterprise. 
 
 In contrast to this let us now examine the history of 
 a distinguished American financier, whose memory his 
 countrymen delight to cherish, as one of the foremost 
 patriot merchants to whose liberality and tact they owe 
 the success of the revolution, which secured their independ- 
 ence. At the age of fifteen Robert Morris was left an 
 orphan. Previously to this, he had been placed, by his 
 father, in the counting-house of one of the first merchants 
 in Philadelphia, Mr. Charles Willing. 
 
 Robert had been sent to school in that city, and accord-
 
 126 FINANCIAL SKILL. 
 
 ing to liis own account he had " learnt out," and when his 
 father expressed dissatisfaction at his son's slow progress, 
 the boy replied, " I have learned, sir, all that the master 
 could teach me." 
 
 Robert had talents and taste, but not for classic lore. 
 As a clerk in the counting-house, he was remarkable for 
 his faithfulness and close application to business. His car- 
 nest endeavours to advance the interests of his master, as 
 he always called Mr. Willing, were duly appreciated. 
 
 An auspicious beginning this, for a mercantile career. 
 
 On one occasion, during the absence of Mr. Willing, his 
 clerk, Robert Morris, was informed of a sudden rise of the 
 price of flour in a distant commercial port. He immedi- 
 ately purchased all of the article which he could procure, 
 and it proved a wise and profitable speculation. 
 
 The testimony which Mr. Charles Willing gave on his 
 death-bed to the good character of his clerk, was an invalu- 
 able legacy ; his last words to him, were : " Robert, always 
 continue to act as you have done." 
 
 No sooner had he completed his apprenticeship than he 
 was taken into partnership by Mr. Thomas Willing. At 
 the age of twenty-one he entered into that partnership 
 which lasted nearly forty years. Robert Morris had no 
 capital to bring into the partnership, excepting an exten- 
 sive knowledge of commercial concerns, unwearied applica- 
 tion to business, and sterling integrity. He was the acting 
 partner, and his adventurous spirit, guided by prudence, 
 soon rendered him conspicuous at home and abroad. Phi- 
 ladelphia had at the time no house so extensively engaged 
 in commerce as that of Willing and Morris. From England 
 they imported a vast amount of manufactured articles, and
 
 FINANCIAL SKILL. 127 
 
 Bent back, besides money, articles of colonial produce. The 
 interests of the house of Willing and Co. were very near to 
 the heart and purse of Robert Morris, but when what ho 
 believed to be the real good of his country came to be 
 opposed in the balance, the young merchant looked away 
 from these interests, and earnestly contemplated the demon- 
 strations that seemed to threaten objects of even higher 
 moment. 
 
 Accordingly, when the merchants of Philadelphia formed 
 an agreement to import no more British goods, he preferred 
 sacrificing his own personal interests to the higher interests 
 of his country, and signed the agreement. 
 
 But such bold and disinterested measures did not avert 
 the threatened terrible crisis. 
 
 In the early part of the year 1775, a company of about 
 one hundred men were assembled at the City Tavern in 
 Philadelphia, to celebrate St. George's day the tutelary 
 Baint of Old England. On that occasion, there were pre- 
 sent hearts loyal and true to St. George and the dragon. 
 
 The king's health was given, as usual. They were in 
 the midst of moderate hilarity, when the astounding newa 
 of the battle of Lexington was communicated to the com- 
 pany. 
 
 If a bomb-shell had exploded in their midst, the con- 
 sternation could not have been greater. Most of the 
 company instantly fled to their homes; a few remained 
 as though petrified by the horrible intelligence. Among 
 them was Robert Morris. 
 
 Into the general policy of the British government, and 
 the odious " Stamp Act," which finally led to the declara- 
 tion of independence by the American colonies, it is unne-
 
 128 FINANCIAL SKILL, 
 
 cessary to enter here. Doubtless, there were some who 
 saddened at the thought of a separation from the dear old 
 mother country ; but Mr. Morris had pledged himself to 
 maintain with life and fortune what he regarded as the 
 interests of the oppressed colonies; and it is in the position 
 which he accordingly occupied as an American statesman 
 and financier that we are now to view him. Soon after this 
 crisis, the people, knowing well his ability to aid the 
 country with his wise counsels, selected him as one of 
 their representatives in the Colonial Congress. 
 
 There his commercial knowledge was put in requisition 
 He was appointed on a secret committee for the impoi- 
 tation of arms, ammunition, gunpowder, and military 
 stores, without which the war could not be prosecuted. 
 
 He was, too, a member of the Naval Committee, to devise 
 ways and means for furnishing the country with a naval 
 armament, and was one of the first to sign the Declaration 
 of Independence. 
 
 Gloomy and disheartening was the condition of the 
 country. Congress was obliged to remove from Phila- 
 delphia to Baltimore, because it was believed that the 
 feeble, half-clothed army of Washington could offer no 
 successful resistance to the progress of Lord Cornwallis. 
 On the very day that Congress made this removal, Robert 
 Morris borrowed ten thousand dollars on his own respon- 
 sibility, relying solely on the promise of indemnification 
 from that departing Congress, which might at any moment 
 be dissolved. 
 
 Without this aid, the exertions of the great Washington, 
 the commander-in-chief would have been useless. The 
 hope and confidence with which it inspired the army,
 
 FINANCIAL SKILL. 129 
 
 enabled them to arrest the dreaded advance upon Phila- 
 delphia. 
 
 The army was then encamped at the place now called 
 New Hope. The general wrote to Mr. Morris that he could 
 not carry out his plans without money. His letter was dis- 
 patched by a confidential messenger, who entered the almost 
 deserted city, and safely delivered it to Mr. Morris, in his 
 counting-house. 
 
 There sat the patriotic merchant, now almost solitary, in 
 that very place which, only a short time previoiisly, had 
 been the resort of substantial citizens from all parts of 
 the country. 
 
 Specie ! How was he to raise it for his friend? His own 
 vaults were empty. Gloomy and almost hopeless he re- 
 volved the matter in his mind, till the shades of twilight 
 warned him that it was his usual hour for leaving the 
 counting-house. As he slowly walked through the streets, 
 fearing that he should not be able to accomplish what his 
 patriotism led him ardently to desire, he suddenly came 
 upon an intimate friend a friend indeed. "What's the 
 news?" inquired the friend, the anxious countenance of 
 Mr. Morris doubtless prompting the inquiry 
 
 "The most important news," replied Mr. Morris, with 
 his usual directness and decision; "the most important 
 news is, that I require a certain sum in specie, and that 
 you must let me have it." The friend looked grave and 
 thoughtful. "My note and my honour will be your se- 
 curity," earnestly continued Mr. Morris. 
 
 " Robert, thou shalt have it," was the reply. And what 
 was the result ? 
 
 The victory of Washington over the Hessians at 
 I
 
 130 FINANCIAL SKILL. 
 
 Trenton ; for without the all-powerful u means," even 
 the valour of the comraander-in-chief would have been 
 unavailing. 
 
 His knowledge of financial concerns, and his unwearied 
 zeal, were of immense value. He borrowed money to meet 
 pressing demands, on his own responsibility, when the state 
 of the public treasury was such that the government could 
 not procure a loan. Judge Peters of Philadelphia, who 
 was a personal friend of Morris, and a cordial co-operator 
 with him in the struggle for freedom, has left on record 
 the following characteristic anecdote : 
 
 "In 1779 or 1780, General Washington wrote to me a 
 most alarming account of the condition of the military 
 stores, and enjoined iny immediate exertions to supply 
 the deficiencies. 
 
 "There were no musket-cartridges but those in the men's 
 boxes, and they were wet ; of course, if attacked, a retreat 
 or a rout was inevitable. The board of war had exhausted 
 all the lead accessible, having caused even the spouts of 
 the houses to be melted, and had offered, abortively, the 
 equivalent in paper, of two shillings per pound for lead. 
 I went on the evening of the day on which I received 
 this letter, to a splendid entertainment given by Don Mi- 
 raillcs, the Spanish minister. My heart was sad, but I had 
 the faculty of brightening my countenance even under 
 gloomy disasters ; yet, it seems, not sufficiently adroitly at 
 that time. Mr. Morris, who was one of the guests, accosted 
 me in his usual blunt and disengaged manner 
 
 " I see some clouds passing across the sunny countenance 
 you assume; what is the matter f 
 
 "After some hesitation I showed him the general's letter.
 
 FINANCIAL SKILL. 131 
 
 He played with my anxiety, which he did not relieve for 
 some time. At length, however, with great and sincere 
 delight, he called me aside, and told me that the Holkar 
 privateer had just arrived at his wharf, with ninety tons of 
 lead, which she had brought as ballast. ' You shall have 
 my half of this fortunate supply/ said Mr. Morris; 'there 
 are the owners of the other half;' indicating gentlemen in 
 the apartment. 
 
 "'Yes; but I am already under heavy personal engage- 
 ments, as guaranty for the department, to those and other 
 gentlemen.' 'Well,' rejoined Mr. Morris, 'they will take 
 your assumption with my guaranty.' 
 
 " I instantly, on these terms, secured the lead, left the 
 entertainment, sent for the proper officers, and set more 
 than one hundred people to work during the night. Before 
 morning a supply of cartridges was ready and sent off to 
 the army." 
 
 In 1781, Mr. Morris was unanimously elected by Con- 
 gress to the office of " Superintendent of Finance." This 
 office he had, in effect, long enjoyed, and practically filled. 
 
 Mr. Morris, in liis reply to President Washington, on the 
 subject of this appointment, writes as follows : 
 
 " So far as the station of superintendent of finance, or 
 indeed any other station or office, applies to myself, I 
 should, without the least hesitation, have declined an 
 acceptance ; for, after upwards of twenty years' assiduous 
 application to business, as a merchant, I find myself at that 
 period when my mind, body, and inclination, combine to 
 make me seek for relaxation and ease. Providence has so 
 far smiled on my endeavours as to enable me to prepare 
 for the indulgence of those feelings in such a manner as
 
 132 FINANCIAL SKILL. 
 
 would be least injurious to the interests of my family. If, 
 therefore, I accept this appointment, a sacrifice of that ease, 
 of much social enjoyment, and of my material interests, 
 must be the inevitable consequence. 
 
 " Putting myself out of the question, the sole motive is 
 the public good ; and this motive, I confess, comes home to 
 my feelings. The contest we are engaged in, appeared to 
 me, in the first instance, just and necessary ; therefore I 
 took an active part in it ; as it became dangerous, I thought 
 it the more glorious, and was stimulated to the greatest 
 exertions in my power, when the affairs of America were 
 at the worst." 
 
 In the continuous history of this distinguished American 
 merchant, we have a remarkable example of what probity, 
 firmness, integrity, and zeal, may accomplish. What it 
 achieved for himself was great. He rose to wealth and 
 honour, and might have attained to greater worldly dis- 
 tinctions had it not been for his own moderation and vir- 
 tuous reserve. As superintendent of finance, one of his 
 first acts was to establish a national bank ; while by his 
 own personal credit alone, he supplied nearly the whole 
 munitions of war, during the struggle of his fellow country- 
 men for independence. 
 
 In one of his letters written at this trying period, Mr. 
 Morris says, "The late movements of the army have so 
 completely drained me of money, that I have been entirely 
 obliged to pledge my personal credit very deeply in a 
 variety of instances, besides borrowing money from my 
 friends, and advancing, to promote the public service, 
 every shilling of my own." 
 
 During the time that Mr. Morris was engaged in public
 
 FINANCIAL SKILL. 133 
 
 service, he gave over his own business concerns to the 
 hands of ethers, that he might exclusively fix his attention 
 upon his official duties. He adopted as an invariable rule, 
 never to recommend any one to office. In consequence of 
 this he did not secure a band of pensioned defenders and 
 supporters. He stood almost alone to bear the brunt of the 
 complaints and imprecations of unsatisfied claimants. 
 
 His character as a merchant was marked by sterling 
 honesty this was the basis of all his success. His enter- 
 prise and foresight formed only the valuable auxiliaries to 
 these. 
 
 At the conclusion of the war he was among the earliest 
 who engaged in the East India and China trade. For this 
 purpose he dispatched the ship Empress, Captain Green, 
 from New York to Canton, and it was the first American 
 vessel that ever appeared in that port. 
 
 His enterprise led him to make another attempt, which 
 was then a novel one. With the aid of Mr. Gouverneur 
 Morris he marked out a passage to China, termed an "out 
 of season" passage, round the south cape of New Holland. 
 This was safely accomplished by Captain Bead, in the ship 
 Alliance, in six months, which was then considered a re- 
 markably short passage. It was quite astonishing to 
 the most experienced navigators, and the lords of the 
 British admiralty made application to Mr. Morris, to learn 
 the route of the ship. 
 
 While thus active and enterprising, Mr. Morris was 
 generous and liberal in dispensing his money for the good 
 of others. Not only did he sacrifice to the public good in 
 various ways, but his ear was open to the demands of 
 suffering humanity, and his ready hand extended for its
 
 134 DECISION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 relief. His hospitality was proverbial, and this hospitality, 
 though cordial, was said to be "without the slightest tinge 
 of ostentation." In domestic life he was kind and cheerful, 
 and in his friendships, warm and devoted. 
 
 Robert Morris was remarkable for his independence and 
 decision of character. He never cringed to human being, 
 or courted the countenance of living man. His patience 
 and perseverance were indomitable, and his hopefulness, 
 even under the most gloomy circumstances, unfailing. 
 
 These were the elements of his success. Integrity, enter- 
 prise, foresight, activity, liberality, benevolence, kindness, 
 independence, decision, patience, perseverance, hopeful- 
 ness, and we must add, promptness, boldness, and punctu- 
 ality devotion to his own business, and a sincere desire to 
 aid others in promoting their interests. 
 
 CHAPTER VIL 
 
 DECISION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 " I shall remember, 
 When Cseser says do this, it Is performed." 
 
 SHAKSPEAKR. 
 
 THERE are certain qualities which are essential to the suc- 
 cess of the man in business, the origin of which is directly 
 traceable to the supreme standard of human conduct, as sot 
 forth in the divine law. Of these are honesty, integrity, 
 truthfulness, self-restraint, and self-denial. But there are
 
 DECISION OF CHARACTER. 135 
 
 others not a whit less indispensable to any great success, 
 which may be characterised as the virtues of acquirement 
 and education. Foremost among these must be j laced 
 decision of character. "We designate this a virtue of edu- 
 cation, we might perhaps still more correctly call it one 
 of self-education, for no man is destitute of it naturally, 
 and those who have become the slaves of indecision, pro- 
 crastination, and delay, will find that an appeal to their 
 own conscience as clearly tells them that these are the 
 fruit of their own self-indulgence as are the vices of the 
 drunkard or the thief. "We propose, in the first place, to 
 point out some of the sources of the deplorable vice of in- 
 decision ; and foremost among these must be placed the 
 spirit of procrastination. It is one of the golden rules for 
 the man of business, " Never put off till to-morrow, what 
 can be done to-day." Depend upon it, whatever present 
 difficulties urge to procrastination, delay will only increase 
 them. The decided man does the present work at the 
 present time ; and is thereby as ready for the next call of 
 duty as is the day-labourer for hia appointed task after the 
 mid-day meal, or the night's repose. Yet let not the young 
 reader jump rashly to the conclusion that all that is need- 
 ful is to be in a hurry. The very next source of indecision 
 which wo would mention is the want of deliberation ; and 
 to that we would join the want of method and orderly 
 arrangement. The man who rushes to his object, without 
 counting the cost or estimating the means, is like the 
 young unbroken colt which dashes off like the wind, ex- 
 hausts its inexperienced strength in one violent effort, and 
 blindly dashes against the obstacle which it aims at over- 
 leaping; while the well trained courser husbands its strength,
 
 136 DECISION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 reserves the strain for the right moment of action, and bear- 
 ing its rider over every obstacle, brings him unexhausted 
 to the goal. 
 
 The man of decision plans before he executes. He de- 
 cides, in fact, on what he is to do, and having so done, he 
 then proceeds calmly and deliberately to execute it. It is 
 your procrastinator who is always in a hurry. Twenty 
 things in hand at once, and in such troubled haste to do 
 every thing at once, to finish to-day what should have 
 been done yesterday, and to gather up the residue of many 
 delays, that he never has time to do any thing welL The 
 first cure for this is to learn to be self-dependent. We 
 must indeed be to sonic extent controlled by circumstances, 
 but we must also learn to make them subservient to our 
 plans ; and to do what should and must be done in spite of 
 obstacles. "You will often," says Foster, "see a person 
 anxiously hesitating a long tune between different, or op- 
 posite determinations, though impatient of the pain of such 
 a state, and ashamed of its debility. A faint impulse of 
 preference alternates toward the one, and toward the other ; 
 and the mind, while thus held in a trembling balance, is 
 vexed that it cannot get some new thought, or feeling, or 
 motive, that it has not more sense, more resolution, more of 
 any thing that would save it from envying even the deci- 
 sive instinct of brutes. It wishes that any circumstance 
 might happen, or any person might appear, that could de- 
 liver it from the miserable suspense. 
 
 " In many instances, when a determination is adopted, it 
 is frustrated by this indecision. A man, for example, re- 
 solves to make a journey to-morrow, which he is not under 
 an absolute necessity to make, but the inducements appear,
 
 DECISION OF CHARACTER. 137 
 
 this evening, so strong, that he does not think it possible 
 he can hesitate in the morning. In the morning, however, 
 these inducements have unaccountably lost much of their 
 force. Like the sun that is rising at the same time, they 
 appear dim through a mist ; and the sky lours, or he 
 fancies that it lours ; the fatigue appears formidable ; and 
 he lingers, uncertain, till an advanced hour determine the 
 question for him, by the certainty that it is now too late to 
 go." 
 
 Such a condition of mind when acquired is not easily 
 overcome. The mind is not to be broken off such habits at 
 once. The very elements which make it so susceptible of 
 training, make it as easily moulded by evil as by good in- 
 fluences. How true is the following picture of the unde- 
 cided man. " Ho thinks of some desirable alteration in his 
 plan of life ; perhaps in the arrangements of his family, or 
 in the mode of his intercourse with society. "Would it be 
 a good thing? He thinks it would be a good thing. It 
 certainly would be a very good thing. He wishes it were 
 done. He will attempt it almost immediately. The fol- 
 lowing day, he doubts whether it would be quite prudent. 
 Many things are to be considered. May there not be in 
 the change some evil of which he is not aware ! Is this a 
 proper time ? What will people say 1 And thus, though 
 he does not formally renounce his purpose, he recedes 
 from it, with a wish that he could be fully satisfied of the 
 propriety of renouncing it. Perhaps he wishes that the 
 thought had never occurred to him, since it has diminished 
 his self-complacency, without promoting his virtue. But 
 the next day, his conviction of the wisdom and advantage 
 of such a reform comes again with great force. Then, is it
 
 138 DECISION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 BO practicable as I was at first willing to imagine ? Why 
 not ? Other men have done much greater things ; a reso- 
 lute mind is omnipotent ; difficulty is a stimulus and a 
 triumph to a strong spirit ; ' the joys of conquest are the 
 joys of man.' What need I care about people's opinion ! 
 It shall be done. He makes the first attempt. But some 
 unexpected obstacle presents itself; he feels the awkward- 
 ness of attempting an unaccustomed manner of acting ; the 
 questions or the ridicule of his friends disconcert him ; his 
 ardour abates and expires. He again begins to question 
 whether it be wise, whether it be necessary, whether it be 
 possible ; and at last, surrenders his purpose, to be perhaps 
 resumed when the same feelings return, and to be in the 
 same manner again relinquished." 
 
 In truth, it is; justly said, a man without decision does 
 not belong to himself. He is fit for nothing but to be the 
 tool, and drudge, and slave of others. He cannot respect 
 himself ; he cannot trust in himself, or depend on his own 
 actions, but is swayed about like a jjead log, moving on the 
 tide of circumstances which ebb and flow from the actions 
 of others. Hundreds of great historical examples might 
 be referred to in illustration of the value of decision of 
 character. Perhaps none evermore remarkably displayed it 
 than Oliver Cromwell. The reader would do well, indeed, 
 to study his career, and that of his royal rival, with this 
 single idea in riew. It will be found to be the key to 
 much of the success of the one, and the failure of the 
 other. Cromwell, beginning with his own little troop, 
 raised among his neighbours and dependents, wanting in 
 means, money, influence, position, still never trusted any- 
 thing to another that could be done by himself. With his
 
 DECISION OF CHARACTER. 139 
 
 great object iu view be went ou undismayed by difficulties, 
 obstacles, dissuasions, or dangers. While Charles sum- 
 moned parliaments to dissolve them ; mustered armies 
 only to be out-man ceuvred; and negotiated with such want 
 of candour and straightforwardness, that he may be said 
 to have died on the scaffold, as much the victim of dis- 
 honest indecision of purpose, as of despotic stretch of 
 power. It requires, indeed, vast decision of character, to 
 be a despot. This it was that made Napoleon what he 
 was, and the same great mental qualification made of 
 Wellington what he was, a general capable of conquer- 
 ing the world's conqueror. But a far better example for 
 our purpose is Columbus. His idea of a new world was 
 no hasty thought, rashly attempted to be executed. He 
 tested it by all the learning and practical evidence within 
 his wide sphere ; and then achieved it in defiance of the 
 dishonesty of courtiers, the selfishness of kings, and the 
 cowardice and jealousies of his agents. That single man, 
 with his doubting and fainthearted crew in the midst of 
 the great untraversed ocean, is a lesson for all men, and all 
 times. What was he to them 1 He believed in the undis- 
 covered world beyond ; but they thought of it only as a 
 deceitful dream. Yet he compelled their wills to bend to 
 his, and won his victory by an army of cowards. 
 
 The merchant has not to contend with difficulties such 
 as this, though he, too, trusts his plans to the ocean, and 
 has often to see his anticipated success with as wide an 
 Atlantic between him and its attainment. But his diffi- 
 culties are not the less because they meet him in another 
 shape. His opinion must be formed promptly, and he must 
 oftentimes act upon it as quickly. Mercantile news ar-
 
 140 DECISION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 rives by the telegraph ; he must decide in an instant what 
 course he is to pursue with reference to it, and send back 
 his reply with the same lightning speed. He cannot ask 
 advice. With celerity and certainty, like that of the aerial 
 messenger, his mind comes to the decision, and the moment 
 after he begins to act upon it. 
 
 Again, he is called to decide upon a purchase, for an- 
 other purchaser treads upon his heels. Hundreds of 
 pounds depend upon his immediate determination. If he 
 be a laggard, where there are so many competitors, they 
 will rush on, and he be trampled under foot, or left 
 lamenting in the rear. 
 
 The merchant may be called upon to undertake a matter 
 which concerns hundreds of persons, and involves thou- 
 sands of pounds, and when questioned about the time of 
 commencing operations, must reply, instead of "to-morrow" 
 " this very hour." Should he not thus reply, the tide may 
 turn, the very tide 
 
 " Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune." 
 
 Mr. Coutts, the celebrated banker, was a remarkable 
 instance of what may be achieved by promptness and de- 
 cision of character ; yet in him it would seem to have been 
 a hereditary virtue. An interesting family anecdote will 
 suffice to illustrate this. His great grandmother was Miss 
 Grizel Cochrane, daughter of Sir John Cochrane, the asso- 
 ciate of Sydney and Russell in the project for liberating 
 their country from the tyranny of the Stuarts. Sir John 
 was taken prisoner, after a desperate resistance, on the 
 failure of Argyle's rising against James H. At that time, 
 the mail between Edinburgh and London was conveyed 
 by a mounted rider in his saddle-bags. Orizel Cochrano
 
 DECISION OF CHARACTER. 141 
 
 having heard her grandfather say that if time could only 
 be gained, even after the warrant was signed for her fa- 
 ther's execution, he did not doubt but he could effect his 
 deliverance. The daughter's resolution was at once taken, 
 singular as it may appear. Knowing the time when the 
 warrant was expected, she attired herself in men's clothes ; 
 and, fitly armed and mounted, she waited in a lonely spot, 
 betwixt Berwick and Belford, till the carrier of the mail- 
 bag that inclosed her father's death-warrant came in sight. 
 Her pistols proved even more prompt arguments than she 
 had hoped. The mounted mail-carrier, whose bags con- 
 tained no treasures of his own, yielded them at the first 
 summons. A second warrant was sent for, and again 
 seized by the same heroic maiden ; and, by this time, her 
 grandfather had succeeded, by paying an enormous secret 
 bribe to the king's Jesuit confessor, Father Petre, in pro- 
 curing a pardon from king James. 
 
 Somewhat of the firmness of old Grizel Cochrane would 
 seem to have descended as the inheritance of the banker, 
 though it assumed a form better suited to peaceable times. 
 On one occasion, during a sudden panic, so great was the 
 run upon the bank of which he was then only a junior 
 partner, that all was in dismay. The heads of the firm 
 had already resolved on suspending payment ; the notice 
 was ready written out, and the orders given, when he 
 was summoned, as a mere matter of form, to give his 
 concurrence to the proceeding. This he instantly re- 
 fused ; took the matter in his own hand ; while he pri- 
 vately negotiated delay, and obtained security to satisfy 
 some of the largest demands, he publicly announced his 
 intention of keeping the bank open beyond the usual hour,
 
 142 DECISION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 iu order that all who cared for it might have their money ; 
 and by his prompt decision, and the firmness and compo- 
 sure of his manner, arrested the panic which, but for him, 
 would have involved thousands, along with himself, in ruin. 
 
 His great ambition, through life, was to establish his 
 character as a man of business ; and he succeeded in 
 acquiring a character such as few men have enjoyed. 
 Instances are related of his refusing to overlook a single 
 penny in accounts, even with friends, to whom he had been 
 in the habit of dispensing his hospitality with the freeest 
 hand. Tet he was liberal in dispensing his wealth to the 
 poor, though we must regret that his private life was not, 
 in every respect, such as can be held up for a model to 
 the man of business. 
 
 It is ob vious that the decision of character which enabled 
 the young banker so promptly to arrest the threatened 
 ruin of his house, was aided by a clearness of intellect, 
 and by courage. The calm self-command requisite to 
 cope with such a danger, is actually greater than that of 
 the soldier amid the grim strife of war. He was in the 
 position of a subaltern who is called in to the tardy council 
 of war in order to share in the responsibility of an igno- 
 minious, but apparently inevitable surrender. But instead 
 of concurring in the supposed necessity he takes the com- 
 mand, and undismayed by timid councils and faint-hearted 
 coadjutors, faces the danger before which it had been re- 
 solved to give way. The promptness of Mr. Courts' timely 
 interference reminds us of an incident of a very different 
 character, yet exhibiting a similar ready courage, in the 
 career of the celebrated surgeon and comparative anato- 
 mist, John Hunter. In his ardour for the practical study
 
 DECISION OF CHARACTER. 143 
 
 of science, he had sought occasional relaxation from 
 severer mental occupation, in the instructive amusement 
 of watching the peculiar habits and instincts of various 
 animals, for which purpose he kept several domiciled 
 within his immediate reach. His biographer Sir Everard 
 Home, relates the following anecdote of an incident which 
 originated in this peculiar source of scientific pleasure : 
 ' Two leopards which were left chained in an out-house, 
 had broken from their confinement and got into the yard 
 among some dogs, which they immediately attacked ; the 
 howling this produced alarmed the whole neighbourhood. 
 Mr. Hunter ran into the yard to see what was the matter, 
 and found one of them climbing up the wall to make hia 
 escape, while the other was surrounded by the dogs. He 
 immediately laid hold of them both and carried them back 
 to their den ; but as soon as they were secured, and he had 
 time to reflect on the risk of his own situation, he was so 
 much agitated that he was in danger of fainting." 
 
 This was one of those critical emergencies in which only 
 the man of courage and prompt decision is capable of act- 
 ing at all. To ponder, and weigh the danger is to loose 
 the opportunity. The risk must be run, but even this is 
 immensely diminished by the very decidedness of the 
 courage which grapples with its worst consequences and 
 BO often averts them. 
 
 On this form of courageous and prompt decision Foster 
 remarks, "An intelligent man, adventurous only in thought, 
 may sketch the most excellent scheme, and after duly ad- 
 miring it, and himself as its author, may be reduced to 
 say, What a noble spirit that would be which should dare 
 to realize this I A noble spirit 1 is it I ! And his heart
 
 144 DECISION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 may answer in the negative, while he glances a mortified 
 thought of inquiry round to recollect persons who would 
 venture what he dares not, and almost hopes not to find 
 them. Or if by extreme effort he has brought himself to 
 a resolution of braving the difficulty, he is compelled to 
 execrate the timid lingerings that still keep him back 
 from the trial. A man endowed with the complete char- 
 acter, says, with a sober consciousness as remote from the 
 spirit of bravado as it is from timidity, Thus, and thus, is 
 my conviction and my determination ; now for the phan- 
 toms of fear ; let me look them in the face ; they will find 
 I am not made of trembling materials : ' I dare do all that 
 may become a man.' I shall firmly confront every thing 
 that threatens me in the prosecution of my purpose, and I 
 am prepared to meet the consequences of it when it ia 
 accomplished. I should despise a being, though it were 
 myself, whose agency could be held enslaved by the 
 gloomy shapes of imagination, by the liaunting recollec- 
 tions of a dream, by the whistling or the howling of winds, 
 by the shriek of owls, by the shades of midnight, or by 
 human words or frowns. I should be indignant to feel 
 that in the commencement of an adventure I could think of 
 nothing but the deep pit by the side of the way where I 
 must walk, into which I may slide, the mad animal which 
 it is not impossible that I may meet, or the assassin who 
 may lurk in a thicket of yonder wood. I disdain to com- 
 promise the interests that rouse me to action, for the pri- 
 vilege of a disgraceful security. 
 
 tt As the conduct of a decisive man is always individual, 
 and often singular, it is to be expected that the trial of 
 courage will sometimes be great. For one thing, he may
 
 DECISION OF CHARACTER. 145 
 
 be encountered by the strongest disapprobation of many 
 of his connexions, and the censure of the greater part of 
 the society where he is known. In this case, it is not a 
 man of common spirit that can shew himself just as at 
 other times, and meet their anger in the same undisturbed 
 manner as he would meet some slight inclemency of the 
 weather ; that can, without harshness or violence, continue 
 to afreet every moment some part of his design, coolly re- 
 plying to each ungracious look and indignant voice, I am 
 sorry to oppose you ; I am not unfriendly to you, while 
 thus persisting in what excites your displeasure ; it would 
 please me to have your approbation and concurrence, and 
 I think I should have them if you would seriously con- 
 sider my reasons ; but meanwhile, I am superior to opinion, 
 I am not to be intimidated by reproaches, nor would your 
 favour and applause be any reward for the sacrifice of my 
 object. As you can do without my approbation, I can cer- 
 tainly do without yours ; it is enough that I can approve 
 myself, it is enough that I can appeal to the last authority 
 in the creation. Amuse yourselves, as you may, by con- 
 tinuing to censure or to rail ; / shall continue to act : I do 
 not fear you ; allow me to go on." 
 
 This is a spirit which the young man entering on life 
 cannot too assiduously cultivate. The weakness which, on 
 the eve of some important step in life, prompts us to ask 
 ourselves, What will this or that friend, or neighbour, or 
 acquaintance, think or say ! is a form of moral cowardice 
 capable of defeating every good and worthy aim. The 
 intelligent youth, of good principle and virtuous action, 
 will not find any difficulty in discriminating between 
 this weakness and the blind obstinacy which refuses to 
 
 K
 
 146 DECISION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 be influenced by the superior wisdom and experience of 
 those wiser and better informed. This the man of deci- 
 sion is ever the most ready to yield to, because the most 
 essential difference between the vice of obstinacy and the 
 virtue of decision is, that the former is without reason, 
 the mere result of blind self-will, while the other is the 
 fruit of wise deliberation, and pursued because it is 
 believed to be the best and the only right course. Here 
 then we have the position in which the man of firmness 
 will despise and give no ear to all that meddling busy- 
 bodies will say. If he has fully satisfied himself that the 
 course resolved upon is the right one, then let the world 
 laugh, he may be well content to wait till their laugh is 
 done, and they own that it had been wiser to have tarried 
 to see what was to be the result. 
 
 Dr. John Hunter, to whom we have referred, was a re- 
 mai&}blp^|iwle of what may be accomplished by a 
 calm, steady^well directed aim of life, in defiance of eveiy 
 obstacle. Perhaps no man who has ever attained to emi- 
 nence began life with less promise. His brother, Dr 
 William, had long preceded him. Originally destined for 
 the church, the latter had early abandoned his first inten- 
 tions for the medical profession, and while a mere youth, 
 with all the world before him, he gave proof cf his innate 
 consciousness of power and decision of character by the 
 course he shaped out for himself. As he and the cele- 
 brated Dr. Culleu, then a young man like himself, were 
 riding one day in a low part of the country, the latter 
 pointed out to him his native place, Long Calderwood, 
 Been at a considerable distance, and remarked how con- 
 spicuous it looked. " Well," exclaimed he, with some
 
 DECISION OF CHARACTER. 147 
 
 degree of energy, "if I live I shall make it more con- 
 spicuous." This he lived fully to verify, and while he left 
 a reputation which is an honour to his birth-place and his 
 country, he bequeathed to the University of Glasgow, 
 where he had received the elements of his education, the 
 results of his frugality and wonderful success, in the sum 
 of 70,000 realized for the purpose of completing a mu- 
 seum for the benefit of posterity. Of him let it suffice to 
 remark that he was frugal alike of his time and his money 
 regarding both as valuable means committed to his charge, 
 not to waste but to use, and turn to good account. He 
 was an early riser, and every interval of leisure from his 
 professional engagements, however brief, was diligently 
 employed in his museum or his library. He said indeed 
 of himself, notwithstanding all his original discoveries, 
 and his remarkable eloquence, that he considered his chief 
 success in life due to his never wasting time, or missing 
 the opportunity of action. 
 
 John Hunter, the brother of William, was the youngest 
 of the family, a spoiled child, and idle youth. He was 
 seventeen years of age when first sent to a grammar 
 school, but he preferred the sports of the field and rustic 
 amusements, and at the age of twenty we find him in 
 London, with no education or qualifications apparently 
 for any occupation or business of life. In so far he cer- 
 tainly presents no model for the imitation of youth. 
 The sight of his brother's position in life, however, added 
 to his own sense of his deficiencies, stimulated the dor- 
 mant energies of a great mind. With a decision of char- 
 acter altogether unusual in one so destitute of previous 
 training, he offered himself to his brother as anatomical
 
 148 DECISION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 assistant, resolved to take his place among the great men 
 of his age. Such was his astonishing industry, that we find 
 him, in the second year, able entirely to relieve his brother 
 from the superintendence of the department of practical 
 anatomy. At the age of thirty-six we still find him, with 
 unabated energy, but with very limited means, and with 
 few friends, settling in London to commence the great 
 professional struggle all are destined to encounter who 
 enter on this particular path of life, which is generally 
 found to be crowded with competitors whom good for- 
 tune has already signalized with success. Scarcely can any 
 situation of greater anxiety be conceived, than that of 
 an able and active-minded man sitting down to practise 
 medicine in a city hi which he is comparatively a stranger, 
 and which is already supplied with numerous rival practi- 
 tioners, on whom the public has already pronounced a 
 favourable verdict. Such at this time was the position of 
 Mr. Hunter, as one of his biographers simply but emphati- 
 cally expresses it, " the practice of surgery now and for a 
 long tune afterwards afforded no opening for him ; Haw- 
 kins, Bunfield, Sharpe, Potter, embraced almost the wholj 
 of family practice, whilst Adair and Tomkius carried from 
 him the chief of the practice derived from the army." 
 Disheartening, and indeed gloomy as these prospects now 
 were, ho returned with unabated ardour to his scientific 
 pursuits, and laid the foundation of that eminence which 
 he afterwards attained. If the difficulties of this world be 
 met with philosophy, and with a firm resolution to over- 
 come them, they may generally be surmounted, and they 
 then leave the moral victor both the wiser and the happier 
 for the conflict. So was it with John Hunter ; late as he
 
 DECISION OF CHARACTER. 149 
 
 began, he may bo said to have recovered his lost time. 
 After his resolution was taken, which determined the 
 whole course of Ivis successful career, he is believed never 
 to have slept more than four hours in the night, super- 
 adding to this, when exhausted, a brief repose after dinner. 
 His death occurred under circumstances peculiarly illus- 
 trative of the remarkable decision of character which 
 formed so important a source of his success in life. His 
 arduous mental application at length brought on a pain- 
 ful disease in the brain, which rendered the slightest 
 irritation a source of suffering and danger. He was, ac- 
 cordingly, obliged to guard with the utmost care against 
 every source of excitement, until the circumstances oc- 
 curred in which he conceived that his duty required 
 him to brave a danger which he had reason to fear 
 might be fatal. Rarely has a man displayed decision of 
 character under more singular circumstances urging to 
 hesitation and delay. " A law," says Dr. Adams, who had 
 a personal knowledge of all the circumstances, "con- 
 cerning the qualifications required for the admission of 
 pupils, had been earned contrary to the wishes of Mr. 
 Hunter. At this time he was applied to by a youth 
 ignorant of the new regulation, and consequently unpro- 
 vided with any documents. His former residence was at 
 a great distance, and he was anxious not to lose time 
 during an expensive stay in London, in fitting himself 
 for professional service. Mr. Hunter, to relieve himself 
 from the irksomeness of pleading or explaining, requested 
 the case might be drawn up in the form of a letter ad- 
 dressed to himself. This he proposed to bring with him 
 at the meeting of the next board. Notwithstanding thia
 
 150 DECISION* OF CHARACTER. 
 
 great caution, however, he felt the probability of a contest 
 which he might prove unable to support. On the suc- 
 ceeding day the writer of this, (Dr. Adams,) had a very 
 long conversation with him, in which we were insensibly 
 led to his complaint ; a subject of all others the most 
 interesting to his friends, and on which he never ws 
 backward in conversing. He was willing to hear every 
 argument against the probable existence of an organic 
 infirmity ; but it was easy to see that his own opinion 
 remained the same. Nor did he fail on this occasion, 
 to revert to the effect which it had on his temper. On 
 the following day, I am informed from good authority, he 
 told a baronet, who called on him in the morning, that he 
 was going to the hospital ; that he was fearful some 
 unpleasant rencounter would ensue, and if such should be 
 the case, he knew it must be his death." Notwithstanding 
 this presentiment his resolution was taken, and he deter- 
 mined to hazard even such momentous consequences, 
 rather than neglect what he esteemed his duty, in defend- 
 ing a youth against what appeared to him an unjust and 
 oppressive regulation. 
 
 The resolution must be considered rash, yet the gener- 
 osity and firmness of mind which dictated the decision, 
 cannot but excite our admiration. The consequences 
 were as he anticipated. On the 16th October, 1790, he 
 went, in his usual state of health to St. George's hospital, 
 and on the conclusion of the exciting business which had 
 induced him to be present, he withdrew to an adjoining 
 apartment and almost immediately expired. 
 
 In the whole career of this remarkable man, we have 
 singular evidence of what decision of character may ac-
 
 DECISION OF CHARACTER. 151 
 
 eomplish, if accompanied with the necessary practical 
 power, the will to act as well as to resolve. For, says 
 Foster, " many persons, who have been conscious and proud 
 of a much stronger grasp of thought than ordinary men, 
 and have held the most decided opinions on important 
 things to be done, have yet exhibited, in the listlessness or 
 inconstancy of their actions, a contrast and a disgrace to 
 the operations of their understandings. For want of some 
 cogent feeling impelling them to cany every internal 
 decision into action, they have been still left where they 
 were ; and a dignified judgment has been seen in the 
 hapless plight of having no effective forces to execute 
 its decrees. 
 
 "It is evident then, that another essential principle of 
 the character is, a total incapability of surrendering to in- 
 difference or delay the serious determinations of the mind. 
 A strenuous will must accompany the conclusions of 
 thought, and constantly urge the utmost efforts for their 
 practical accomplishment. The intellect must be invested, 
 if! may so describe it, with a glowing atmosphere of pas- 
 sion, under the influence of which, the cold dictates of rea- 
 son take fire, and spring into active powers." This also 
 must be cultivated. Some men undoubtedly possess more 
 of it than others, but no man is destitute of the power of 
 choosing, resolving, and acting up to his decision, if he is 
 willing to make the needful sacrifices. "Revert," says the 
 ist, " once more in your thoughts to the persons most 
 remarkably distinguished by this decision. Yon will per- 
 ceive, that instead of allowing themselves to sit down de- 
 lighted after the labour of successful thinking, as if they 
 had performed some great thing, they regard this labour
 
 152 DECISION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 but as a circumstance of preparation, and the conclusions 
 resulting from it as of no more value, till applied to the 
 greater labour which is to follow, than the entombed lamps 
 of the Kosicrucians. They are not disposed to be content 
 in a region of mere ideas, while they ought to be advanc- 
 ing into the scene of realities ; they retire to that region 
 sometimes, as ambitious adventurers anciently went to 
 Delphi, to consult, but not to reside. You will thereforo 
 find them almost uniformly in determined pursuit of some 
 object, on which they fix a keen and steady look, and 
 which they never lose sight of, while they follow it through 
 the confused multitude of other things. 
 
 "The manner of a person actuated by such a spirit, 
 seems to say, Do you think that I would not disdain to 
 adopt a purpose which I would not devote my utmost 
 force to effect ; or that having thus devoted my exertions, 
 I will intermit or withdraw them, through indolence, 
 debility, or caprice ; or that I will surrender my object 
 to any interference except the uncontrollable dispensations 
 of Providence ? No, I am linked to my determination with 
 iron bands ; my purpose is become my fate, and I must ac- 
 complish it unless arrested by calamity or death." 
 
 How truly does this correspond to the actual evidence 
 already presented in the closing scene of John Hunter's 
 life. Yet let the reader remember, that the first twenty 
 years of that life, the seed-time of our being, was literally 
 thrown away. This is not to be received as any basis 
 of hope to the indolent, for few indeed who waste that 
 precious time, are ever able to recover their ground. But 
 it is to be taken as an indisputable proof that no man is 
 incapable of resolute action, or of the abandonment of the
 
 DECISION OF CHARACTER. 153 
 
 baneful vices of irresolute procrastination and delay. 
 "There is no man so irresolute as not to act with deter- 
 mination in many single cases, where the motive is power- 
 ful and simple, and where there is no need of plan and 
 perseverance ; but this gives no claim to the term cha- 
 racter, which expresses the habitual tenor of a man's 
 active being. The character may be displayed in the 
 successive unconnected undertakings, which are each of 
 limited extent, and end with the attainment of their ob- 
 jects. But it is seen to the greatest advantage in those 
 grand schemes of action, which have no necessary point of 
 conclusion, which continue on through successive years, 
 and extend even to that dark period when the agent him- 
 self is withdrawn from human sight. 
 
 " I have repeatedly remarked the effect of what has been 
 called a ruling passion. When its object is noble, and an 
 enlightened understanding directs its movements, it ap- 
 pears to me a great felicity ; but whether its object be 
 noble or not, it infallibly creates, where it exists in great 
 force, that active ardent constancy, which I describe as a 
 capital feature of the decisive character. The subject of 
 such a commanding passion wonders, if indeed he were at 
 leisure to wonder, at the persons who pretend to attach 
 importance to an object which they make none but the 
 most languid efforts to secure. The utmost powers of the 
 man are constrained into the service of the favourite 
 cause by this passion, which sweeps away, as it advances, 
 all the trivial objections, and little opposing motives, and 
 seems almost to open a way through impossibilities. This 
 spirit comes on him in the morning as soon as he recovers 
 his consciousness, and commands and impels him through
 
 154 DECISION OF CHAKACTER. 
 
 the day with a power from which he could not emancipate 
 himself if he would. When the force of habit is added, 
 the determination becomes invincible, and seems to assume 
 rank with the great laws of nature, making it nearly as 
 certain that such a man will persist in his course as that in 
 the morning the sun will rise." 
 
 Still let the reader, and especially the young reader, 
 bear in remembrance, that decision of character is only a 
 virtue and a blessing to its possessor when turned to good 
 account. In hundreds of cases it has served only to arm 
 its possessor with additional powers for evil, and to make 
 him a curse instead of a blessing to mankind. 
 
 Some remarkable examples might be refeired to, where, 
 notwithstanding considerable success in life, the full en- 
 joyment of it, or the proper extension of its fruits to others 
 has been frustrated by the want of this essential element 
 of a perfect man of business. Perhaps the most striking 
 instance of this that we could refer to, is to be found in 
 the late Lord Chancellor Eldon, who is indeed worthy to 
 rank alongside of the famous Dutch governor of New 
 York, surnamed Walter the Doubter. 
 
 Horace Twiss, the biographer of the Lord Chancellor 
 the Earl of Eldon, begins his life by sundry researches into 
 old Scottish peerage books and other heraldic records, of 
 the twelfth and other remote centuries, groping about for 
 notes concerning certain Scotts of Balweary in Fife, from 
 whom he would willingly trace the descent of the Chan- 
 cellor. Even the old Scottish wizard, Michael Scott, is 
 not forgotten. The task, however, is a very bootless one. 
 William Scott, son of William Scott of Sandgate, New- 
 castle, the father of the Er.rl, was apprenticed in September
 
 DECISION OF CHARACTER. 1"5"5 
 
 1716, for a fee of 5, to a Newcastle tradesman, and main- 
 tained an honest repute through life as a coal merchant. 
 The Lord Chancellor has himself recorded a sufficiently 
 characteristic incident in early life, that appears to have 
 supplied him with a maxim for future guidance, in which 
 originated perhaps some of his virtues and also not a few 
 of his faults as a public man. " I have seen it remarked," 
 says Lord Eldon in his Anecdote Book, " that something 
 M-hich in early youth captivates attention, influences future 
 life in all stages. When I left school, in 1766, to go to 
 Oxford, I came up from Newcastle to London in a coach, 
 then denominated, on account of its quick travelling, aa 
 travelling was then estimated, a fly. Being, as well as I 
 remember, nevertheless, three or four days and nights on 
 the road : there was no such velocity as to endanger over- 
 turning or other mischief. On the pannels of the carnage 
 were painted the words 'Sat dto, si sat bene,' 'That is 
 quick enough done, which is well done :' words which 
 made a most lasting impression on my mind, and have had 
 their influence upon my conduct in all subsequent life. 
 Their effect was heightened by circumstances during and 
 immediately after the journey. Upon the journey a 
 Quaker, who was a fellow-traveller, stopped the coach 
 at the inn at Tuxford, desired the chambermaid to come 
 to the coach-door, and gave her a sixpence, telling her that 
 he forgot to give it her when he slept there two years be- 
 fore. I was a very saucy boy, and said to him, ' Friend, 
 have you seen the motto on this coach f ' No.' ' Then 
 look at it : for I think giving her only sixpence now is 
 neither sal cito nor sat bene.' After I got to town, my 
 brother, now Lord Stowell, met me at the White Horse in
 
 156 DECISION OF CHARACTER. 
 
 Fetter Lane, Holborn, then the great Oxford house, as I 
 was told. He took me to see the play at Drury Lane. 
 When we came out of the house it rained hard. There 
 were then few hackney-coaches, and we got both into one 
 sedan-chair. Turning out of Fleet Street into Fetter Lane, 
 there was a sort of contest, between our chairmen and 
 some persons who were coming up Fleet Street, whether 
 they should first pass Fleet Street, or we in our chair first 
 get out of Fleet Street into Fetter Lane. In the struggle, 
 the sedan-chair was overset with us in it. This, thought I, 
 is more than sat cito, and it certainly is not sat bene. In 
 short, in all that I have had to do in future life, profes- 
 sional and judicial, I have always felt the effect of this 
 early admonition on the paimels of the vehicle which con- 
 veyed me from school." 
 
 The maxim here adopted for a rule in life was obviously 
 in itself a good one, but liable to abuse ; and suited as it 
 would appear to have been to the natural disposition of 
 Lord Eldon, it became his excuse to himself, and his 
 defence to others, for every act of indecision, procrasti- 
 nation, and delay. He succeeded, indeed, by a singular 
 combination of fortunate circumstances, added to his own 
 talent as a lawyer, and somewhat unscrupulous partizan- 
 ehip as a politician, in achieving a success such as few 
 men have attained to. But the character which survives 
 him is not such as good men would covet. In him obsti- 
 nacy took the place of decision, and procrastination that 
 of wise deliberation, so that he now has the reputation of 
 having been the most obstinate adherent to the obsolete 
 political prejudices of a past age of any English minister 
 since the revolution settlement, while such was his pro-
 
 DECISIOX OF CHARACTER. 157 
 
 crastination as a judge, that the court of Chancery became 
 odious by the immense accumulation of arrears, and the 
 name of the Lord Chancellor Eldou has almost become a 
 byeword as the representative of a dilatory judge. 
 
 That which could thus injure the reputation of a great 
 judge with posterity, will much more effectually damage 
 the merchant, the trader, and the man of business, in the 
 transactions on which his whole success depends. He 
 must not be rash indeed ; for the inverse of Lord Eldon's 
 favourite maxim will ever be found true, that that is 
 never well done which is done in a hurry. Deliberation 
 is indispensable to decision, since obstinacy alone resolves 
 and acts without reason. The habit to be cultivated is 
 promptly to weigh all the reasons for action, deliberately 
 to decide in accordance with the manifest dictations of 
 sound reason, aud this done, to act firmly and decidedly, 
 without reference to what others may think or say, and 
 without fear of any labour or personal discomfort that the 
 path of duty may necessarily involve. Above all, that 
 must never be left off till the morrow which should be 
 done to-day. This is one of the most fatal sources of 
 procrastination, a prolific evil which accumulates around 
 its victim an ever increasing source of difficulty until 
 progress or decision become alike impossible. The man 
 of decision may be said to add to his days, his time is 
 ever his own, every hour has its duties, and produces its 
 fruits; and to the man of business especially, industry 
 and prompt decision combined will prove better capital to 
 trade with than thousands of pounds where they are 
 wanting. It need only be added that the power of deciding 
 promptly increases with the habit. The whole bearings
 
 158 FIDELITY TO TUUST. 
 
 of the case arise in well ordered method before the mind 
 of him who has accustomed himself to weigh conflicting 
 motives and diverse plans ; and thus he comes at length 
 to be able to decide with every change of circumstance, to 
 master the difficulties of each hour, and according to the 
 old familiar simile, to take time by the forelock. 
 
 CHAPTER VIIL 
 
 FIDELITY TO TRUST. 
 
 my son 1 
 
 The ostentatious virtues which still press 
 For notice and for praise ; the brilliant deeds 
 Which live but in the eye of observation 
 These have their meed at once: but there's a Joy 
 To the fond votaries of fame unknown, 
 To hear the still small voice of conscience speak 
 Its whispering plaudits to the silent souL 
 
 HANNAH MURK. 
 
 WHILE thus treating in detail of the various indispensable 
 requisites to success in life, we are necessarily led to 
 examine, apart from each other, some at least which are 
 in reality inseparable. In the chapter, for example, de- 
 voted to the illustration of diligence and integrity, some 
 of the manifestations of virtue have been noticed which 
 might with equal propriety be ranked under the present 
 head. To be faithful, indeed, to any important trust 
 committed to us, we require every virtue which could tend
 
 FIDELITY TO TRUST. 159 
 
 to our own success. The lawyer, the banker, the mer- 
 chant, the trader, or the managing clerk, or confidential 
 servant, is each bound to display diligence, integrity, 
 economy, firmness, and perseverance, in turning to the 
 very best account the property of others committed to his 
 trust. In doing so, conflicting interests will frequently 
 occur. Like Joseph in the house of Potiphar, the trusted 
 servant will not infrequently fiud himself in a position 
 wherein his own advantage will seem to demand the 
 betrayal of his trust, but this is only to be accepted as 
 an opportunity of displaying his integrity. At every 
 sacrifice, fidelity must be maintained, while, hi the long 
 run, it will not fail to be found in this also, that honesty 
 is the best policy. 
 
 The history of Jean Baptiste Colbert furnishes a most 
 happy instance of the truth of the latter sound though 
 homely maxim. Young Colbert was the descendant of au 
 ancient baronial family of France, but a succession of mis- 
 fortunes had reduced his branch of the old family to indi- 
 gence, and the father of Colbert was thankful to apprentice 
 him, at the age of fourteen, to a wealthy woollen-draper in 
 Rheims. 
 
 His father, though reduced in circumstances, still re- 
 tained the pride of ancient descent, happily accompanied 
 in his case with a more sterling sense of honour than 
 those which have too frequently passed under that name 
 among men of the world. Trained in principles of virtue 
 under the domestic roof, and taught in the school of ad- 
 versity the necessity for diligent perseverance and self- 
 reliance, young Colbert entered on his new duties re- 
 solved to be a good shopkeeper and tradesman, and not
 
 160 FIDELITY TO TRUST. 
 
 without hope that diligence in business might yet enable 
 him to attain to a less humble sphere. Colbert was in 
 his fifteenth year, and still fulfilling his duties under the 
 wealthy woollen-draper of Rheims, when the incident oc- 
 curred which put his integrity to the test, and gave an 
 entirely new direction to his whole future course of life. 
 An eminent banker, M. Cenani, of the firm Cenani and 
 Mezerani of Paris, possessed an estate and chateau in 
 the neighbourhood of Rheims, and being about to furnish 
 it in a style suited to his rank and means, the old wool- 
 len-draper received orders to send to him the requisite 
 supply of crimson cloth for hangings to the principal 
 apartments. The execution of this order was committed 
 to young Colbert. Furnished with the necessary invoice 
 and directions, and accompanied by a porter carrying the 
 various pieces of cloth from which M. Cenani was to 
 make his choice, Master Colbert set off to the banker's 
 chateau, well pleased with the trust confided to him, 
 and resolved to execute it in a way that should estab- 
 lish his character with his master as a trustworthy and 
 confidential assistant. 
 
 Arrived at the chateau, Colbert summoned the porter 
 and demanded to know if this was the residence of M. 
 Cenani. With an answer in the affirmative he was 
 ushered into the entrance hall, where another of the 
 wealthy owner's suite was ready to receive him. 
 
 " I wish to see M. Cenani," said Baptiste to the atten- 
 dant ; and, followed by the porter, the young woollen- 
 draper knocked at the door to which he was directed, 
 and was soon ushered into the presence of a young man, 
 loosely attired in a rich dressing-gown.
 
 FIDELITY TO TRUST. 161 
 
 * I come," said Baptiste, bowing, " with several piece* 
 of cloth for Monsieur to choose from." 
 
 The young Banker carelessly approaching the bales, and 
 scarcely looking at them, as he touched each piece suc- 
 cessively put one aside, saying, "I like this best; what is 
 its price F* 
 
 " Fifteen crowns a-yard," answered Baptiste. 
 
 " Very well," said the latter ; it is for hangings for my 
 study." 
 
 " If you wish me to measure it before you, sir," hastily 
 added young Colbert. 
 
 "It is quite unnecessary, I may trust M. Guillaume. 
 Thirty yards at fifteen crowns makes four hundred and 
 fifty crowns ; here they are." And going with a negli- 
 gent air to his desk, the Banker took out a handful of 
 money, which ho gave to Baptisto and directed him to 
 sign the receipt. 
 
 The required acknowledgment was duly given, the 
 remaining pieces of cloth put up and removed by the 
 porter, and young Colbert, with the money under his 
 cloak, hastened to return to the sign of the golden fleece, 
 where the old woollen-draper of Rheims stood watching 
 for his return. 
 
 * "Well !" exclaimed the master, saluting his young 
 agent as he entered the booth with a look of confidence 
 inspired by his belief in the satisfactory fulfilment of his 
 commission, "Well ; Jean Baptiste, have you made a sale! 
 you have committed no blunders I hope with M. Cenani." 
 
 " I think not, master," replied the youth, " M. Cenani 
 has selected one of the best pieces and I have here the 
 money for you, all correctly counted down ." 
 L
 
 162 FIDELITY TO TRUST. 
 
 " No mistake then, I think," said the woollen-draper, with 
 a cheerful smile, which faded rapidly from his face, as the 
 porter, who stood by him still uncovering the returned 
 pieces, quietly said, " I am not so sure about that, master." 
 " Not so sure ! not so sure !" exclaimed the anxious trader 
 in the utmost trepidation, " what has he done 1 what 
 blunder now ! fool that I was to trust that thoughtless 
 boy with such a commission. But indeed I might have 
 expected this. But I warn you, if you have made a 
 mistake you shall go to M. Cenani, and if he refuse to 
 correct it you shall pay it out of your wages." As he 
 spoke he anxiously examined the several bales of cloth. 
 "No. 3, I see, is wanting ; it was worth six crowns : no, 
 eight crowns. What have you sold it at, sirrah f ' 
 
 " Eight crowns 1" cried Baptiste, astounded ; " are you 
 sure of that, master ?' 
 
 " Perhaps you would make out, you little rascal, that I 
 have made the mistake. I tell you it was worth eight 
 crowns. I will lay a wager that the fellow sold it for 
 ix." 
 
 " On the contrary, sir, I am ashamed to say, I have sold 
 it for fifteen ; but * 
 
 " Fifteen 1 fifteen f interrupted the woollen-draper. "Fif- 
 teen ! well done Baptiste ; you will one day be an honour 
 to your family. Fifteen crowns and for a piece not 
 worth six 1 Thirty yards at fifteen crowns seven crowns 
 profit ; thirty yards, two hundred and ten crowns six 
 hundred and thirty francs profit. Well done, young hope- 
 ful," exclaimed he, " taking his apprentice's hand f 
 
 "Would you take advantage, master f said Baptiste, 
 drawing back instead of advancing.
 
 FIDELITY TO TRUST. 163 
 
 Terhaps you want to go shares," said the dishonest 
 shopkeeper. 
 
 " Sir," interrupted young Colbert, snatching up his hat, 
 "I cannot agree to any such thing; I will go to the gentle- 
 man and beg of him to excuse me, and return him tho 
 money he overpaid." 
 
 With these words Baptiste, who had been gradually 
 approaching the street door, rushed out before the knavish 
 old woollen-draper, who stood in amazement and wrath 
 at this unforseen occurrence, could interpose to prevent 
 him. 
 
 " Can I see M. Cenani f ' asked the breathless Baptiste 
 of the valet who had opened the door to him on his first 
 visit. 
 
 " I do not think you can see him," replied the valet ; 
 " my master is dressing." 
 
 "I beg to be admitted to him immediately," said Bap- 
 tisto, his looks as urgent as his tones ; * it is absolutely 
 necessary I should see him f he followed the servant as he 
 retired to deliver his message, and overheard the reply : 
 
 " He cannot see me now." 
 
 " Oh, pray sir, one word," said the imploring voice of 
 Baptiste. 
 
 " What brings you here ! I paid you did I not f ' asked 
 the Banker, turning angrily to Baptiste. " I am engaged. 
 Go." 
 
 With that fearlessness which the consciousness of doing 
 right confers, Baptiste advanced into the room. 
 
 "Sir," said he to the Banker, who, astonished at his bold- 
 ness, had the order already on his lips to turn him out, 
 " Sir, I have imposed upon you unintentionally, it is true
 
 164 FIDELITY TO TRUST, 
 
 but that does not make you the less wronged." Then 
 taking advantage of the surprise of M. Cenani, the young 
 woollen-draper proceeded to empty his pocket on a table, 
 adding, "Here are the four hundred and fifty crowns 
 that you gave me just now ; be so good as to return me 
 the receipt I gave you, and to take your money. The 
 cloth that I sold to you, instead of being worth fifteen 
 crowns a-yard, is only worth eight. Take back two hun- 
 dred and ten crowns. There sir, see if it is right ?" 
 
 " Are you sure of what you say," exclaimed the Banker, 
 changing his tone ; ** are you certain there is no mistake 1" 
 "You have still the piece of cloth in your possession, 
 sir ; is it not marked No. 3 f 
 
 "It is," said the valet, going to examine. "That number 
 is marked at eight crowns, sir ; I do not mistake. I beg 
 your pardon, sir, but if you had found out the mistake 
 before me I should never have forgiven myself." 
 
 " Stay a moment f cried the Banker, " I am no judge 
 of cloth." 
 
 Colbert eagerly assured the Banker that the piece was 
 not worth more than eight crowns. M. Cenani smiled at 
 his simplicity, remarking that he might easily have re- 
 tained the money to himself, and now begged his accept- 
 ance of it. But young Colbert indignantly put from him 
 the idea of his having originally retained it ; and equally 
 rejected the offer of it as a gift, saying he had no right or 
 claim to it, he had only done his duty, and could not 
 accept of it. M. Cenani was struck with the straightfor- 
 ward honesty and fine bearing of the lad. He inquired 
 his name and age, and on discovering his connection 
 with a family of illustrious descent, he expressed his
 
 FIDELITY TO TRUST. 166 
 
 surprise at finding him in such a situation. He had 
 already ascertained the reduced circumstances of the 
 elder Colbert, and was so interested in the conversation 
 with his young protege as to forget his engagement, 
 when his valet abruptly put an end to the conversation 
 by announcing his carriage. 
 
 This was the turning point in the career of young Bap- 
 tiste Colbert. Bowing to M. Cenani, he ran down the 
 staircase of the chateau, and was bounding into the street, 
 when he was seized by the collar by his enraged master, 
 who had followed him, and now abused him in the most 
 violent terms. All remonstrances from poor Baptists 
 were in vain. "Hia master was, on the whole, not a bad 
 man ; but he was greedy, and had a hasty temper, and 
 these two evil qualities led him into this mean and sin- 
 ful forgetfulness of his duty. 
 
 " Get from my sight and from my employment," said he, 
 in answer to Baptiste's explanations. u Go I say, follow 
 the advice I give you it is my last. Never enter my 
 door again." 
 
 Baptiste had expected his master's rage, and was pre- 
 pared for it, but the idea of his dismissing him had never 
 entered his head ; nevertheless, ho did not repent his con- 
 duct, though it was with a mind disturbed by many con- 
 flicting feelings that he slowly bent his steps to return to 
 his father's house. 
 
 While young Colbert was narrating to his parents his 
 unexpected misfortunes, and alternately listening to the 
 regrets and the commendations of the family circle, who 
 acknowledged the honourable integrity of his conduct, 
 though they could not avoid many fears and regrets at
 
 ] 66 FIDELITY TO TRDST. 
 
 the sacrifice it had involved. M. Cenani, the Parisian 
 banker, was revolving in his mind, as his carriage rolled 
 along, the incident of the morning. The conduct of young 
 Colbert, added to his engaging appearance and manners, 
 had made an unusual impression on his mind. Entering 
 the neighbouring town of Eheims, he ordered his driver 
 to stop at the sign of the Golden Fleece, and there learned 
 from one of the shop lads in the absence of his master, that 
 young Colbert had been dismissed from his situation for 
 his integrity and independence. His resolution was taken. 
 Ascertaining the humble abode of the reduced family, he 
 drove thither, surprised them in the midst of their sad fore- 
 bodings at the misfortune of the morning, and forthwith 
 offered to take young Colbert with him to Paris, whither 
 he returned on the morrow, and furnish him with a situa- 
 tion of trust in the banking-house of Cenani and Mazerani. 
 The youth was so dazzled by the idea of a journey to Paris 
 as to forget the consequences which it involved in the sepa- 
 ration from his parents and the happy family circle of his 
 youth. His father, however, fully appreciated the advan- 
 tageous offer that had been made. All difficulties and 
 scruples were speedily overcome, and on the morrow, 
 after fond and tearful adieus, we behold the discarded 
 woollen-draper whirled along on the road to Paris, in the 
 comfortable travelling carriage of M. Cenani. 
 
 Arrived in Paris, young Colbert found himself in a new 
 world. But though interested with all that he saw, he did 
 not fail to remember that he must diligently pursue the 
 line of duty pointed out by his kind patron if he would 
 hope to achieve ultimate success. Gathering instruction 
 from all he saw and heard, he closely adhered to his duty
 
 FIDELITY TO TUUST. 167 
 
 as clerk in the banking-house of Messrs. Cenani and Ma- 
 zerani, and speedily rose in estimation. He mastered the 
 details of finance while still a youth ; and on attaining man- 
 hood, was selected to the important and gratifying trust of 
 executing the pecuniary transactions of the bank with the 
 money changers and financiers of the provinces and foreign 
 countries with which they transacted business. 
 
 In fulfilment of his new duties Colbert made the circuit 
 of all the French provinces ; and commerce being his prin- 
 cipal study, his mind was occupied in devising means to ren- 
 der it more flourishing. His acknowledged skill and expe- 
 rience in these important departments soon obtained him 
 notice, and led to his introduction to relatives who had 
 forgot the Colberts in their poverty. In 1648, when he 
 was about thirty, Saint Pouage, his near relation, placed 
 him with his brother-in-law Letellier, then secretary of 
 state, by whom he was introduced to Cardinal Mazarin, 
 prime minister of Anne of Austria, regent of France dur- 
 ing the minority of Louis XIV. At this period commenced 
 the factious intrigues which marked the regency of Anne. 
 Mazarin, who had more penetration than any other man of 
 his time, understood and appreciated the character of Col- 
 bert, and employed him in several important confidential 
 transactions. Amply satisfied with his conduct, he next 
 engaged him as amanuensis and private secretary. From 
 this he was advanced to be intendant or steward of the 
 Cardinal's vast fortune ; and proving himself in each 
 new situation worthy of the trust, the Cardinal at length 
 created him privy-counsellor, and associated him with 
 himself in all public business. Having proved his zeal 
 in the wars of the Fronde in 1649 and 1650, he soon ad-
 
 168 FIDELITY TO TRUST. 
 
 mitted him into his full confidence. At this epoch the 
 powerful minister, pursued by public hatred, and an object 
 of dislike to men of the highest rank in the kingdom, was 
 obliged to retire to Cologne. Colbert remained at Paris 
 as comptroller of the Cardinal's household, and the agent 
 of his correspondence with the Queen Regent. He was 
 the bearer of the minister's despatches to that princess, 
 and received hers in return ; acquitting himself of the 
 delicate commission in a manner that secured the ample 
 approbation of his powerful patrons ; and when Hazarin 
 returned to France, induced him to extend his favours to 
 his family. 
 
 Colbert's success was now such as enabled him to assume 
 the position which had once belonged of right to his 
 family. He solicited and obtained in marriage the hand 
 of Marie, the daughter "of Jacques Charron, Baron of 
 Menars ; and while thus taking the place which had been 
 lost by the misfortunes of his family, he was not forgetful 
 of the old circle at Rheims. Through his interest his father 
 was created a baron, and placed in a situation suited to his 
 abilities. His grandfather, Henri Passort, was made privy- 
 counsellor and afterwards drew up that famous civil code 
 known as that of 1667. 
 
 His brothers were likewise advanced to honourable and 
 lucrative posts, and Colbert, created Marquis De Croissy, 
 continued to give such proofs of high ability and conscien- 
 tious fidelity in every trust confided to him by the Cardinal, 
 that the latter said to Louis XIV. when on his deathbed, 
 " I owe everything to you, sire ; but I think that I acquit 
 myself in some degree to your majesty in leaving you Col- 
 bert."
 
 FIDELITY TO TRUST. 169 
 
 Louis XIV. appreciated Colbert's fidelity and genius so 
 highly, that in 1G61 he created him comptroller-general of 
 finance. Previous to this the most important financial 
 plans had been entrusted to Fouquet, subservient agent 
 of the crafty Mazarin, who appears to have been employed 
 by the Cardinal in executing those projects by which his 
 own private wealth was secured by sacrificing the interests 
 of the state, and in which therefore he could not hope to 
 command the co-operation of his zealous but upright 
 steward. The fate of the two agents of the Cardinal fur- 
 nishes a memorable lesson. Fouquet, condemned to death 
 for mal-administnition of the finances, was only pardoned 
 to linger on a wretched existence in the dungeons of 
 the citadel of Pegnerol ; while Colbert was pursuing new 
 schemes for the good of his country. For these his early 
 education as a banker peculiarly fitted him. At this period 
 France carried on no regular trade but between the pro- 
 vinces and the capital, and even this trade was confined 
 to the produce of the soil. France was ignorant of her 
 own resources and the wealth that national industry can 
 command. The principal roads were impassable ; Colbert 
 had them repaired, and new ones opened. The junction 
 of the two seas by which France is bounded had before 
 been proposed ; Colbert had the great canal of Languedoc 
 executed by Riquet. He projected the Canal de Bourgoyne, 
 established a general insurance office for the benefit of ma- 
 ritime towns, founded a chamber of commerce, and by 
 a skilful stroke of policy taught the nobility that trade 
 might be engaged in without losing caste. Nantes, St. 
 Malo, and Bourdeaux, are still inhabited by merchants who 
 belong to families as noble as that from which the young
 
 170 FIDELITY TO TRUST. 
 
 woollen-draper of Rheims was sprung, and who may trace 
 their mercantile skill, and honourable success to the genius 
 and influence of the Marquis of Croissy. 
 
 In every way Colbert showed himself a man of genius 
 and of a liberal mind. He brought the light of science into 
 the various departments of his administration ; he caused 
 the first statistical tables of the population to be made out, 
 and collected the old charters and historical records of the 
 kingdom ; while his own magnificent private library in- 
 cluded at his death 14,300 valuable manuscripts. He ^as 
 a man of unyielding firmness, strict in demanding implicit 
 obedience to his commands, orderly to the minutest trifles, 
 and as frugal and economical when the master of a king- 
 dom's finances, as when his whole wealth was the salary 
 of a banker's clerk. He died in 1683, at the age of sixty- 
 four, not without much grief and many sad forebodings at 
 the reckless prodigality of the sovereign, and his unjust and 
 unwise persecution of his Protestant subjects, whom Col- 
 bert had in vain interposed to protect. On his deathbed 
 a letter was brought to him from the king, but he refused 
 to open it : " I will hear no more of him," he exclaimed, 
 u he must leave me in peace now. Had I done for my God 
 what I have done for that man, I could die content." It 
 was a memorable expression, which, while it attests by the 
 most solemn pledge the consciousness of integrity, contains 
 also a most earnest warning to all, that even while pursuing 
 the path of worldly integrity and honour, we be not forget- 
 ful that we have a Master in heaven, to whom also we owe 
 obedience, and who has a greater right than any earthly 
 master to require of us fidelity to our trust, and to demand 
 an account of our stewardship. Colbert left to his family a
 
 FIDELITY TO TRUST. 171 
 
 fortune of ten million livres, the fruit of his own rigid 
 economy, and the just reward of his faithful services to his 
 king and country. But what was a far nobler legacy to his 
 descendants, he left behind him a character unstained by a 
 single blot, and revered even now by his countrymen as 
 the model of a faithful administrator of the responsibilities 
 of government, and one of the noblest examples which the 
 history of his country discloses of unsullied fidelity to so 
 great a trust. 
 
 One of Colbert's sons was created Marquis of Seignelay, 
 another returned to the scene of his father's earliest labours 
 to assume the high office of Archbishop of Rheims. His 
 brother obtained the title of Marquis de Croissy ; and his 
 three daughters were successively sought in marriage by 
 the dukes of Chevereux, Aignau, and Mortemar. Such was 
 the reward of strict integrity and fidelity to trust, achieved 
 by the friendless apprentice of a woollen-draper of Rheims. 
 
 Such a character as that which we have here presented 
 to the reader is well deserving of study. It is not always 
 an easy, nor a pleasant thing to do our duty. It does not 
 invariably seem even to be a profitable thing. But we 
 must learn to cultivate the spirit of integrity, fidelity, and 
 a high-souled earnestness of obedience to every dictate of 
 conscience, independently of all idea of self aggrandize- 
 ment, content to believe that what God requires of us can- 
 not but be the best and most truly advantageous course 
 Shame ! indeed, we might well say of him who is only 
 honest and upright, because it is his interest to be so. He 
 who recognizes such a motive plainly says that he is pre- 
 pared to betray his trust whenever his own interest may 
 seem to require it Such motive* we trust will never be
 
 172 FIDELITY TO TRUST. 
 
 permitted to enter the thoughts of any of our readers. Yet, 
 be it remembered, fidelity to trust involves a great deal 
 more than mere honesty, we not only must not take of our 
 master, but we must beware lest we rob him of his time, of 
 his just share of our diligence, of his claim to our prudence, 
 forethought, or cautious attention to whatever may involve 
 his interests in danger. What the Bible calls eye-service is 
 a most dishonest betrayal of trust. It is doubly a wrong, 
 for it is betraying by an appearance of service, and adding 
 deceit to unfaithfulness. In every trust, indeed, of what- 
 ever nature, which we undertake, we are bound to fulfil 
 it as if our own interests and not another's were involved. 
 We must learn indeed in all things to be guided solely by 
 principle; to do right only because it is right, and not with 
 reference to the opinion of others. The danger arising 
 from a slavish dread of the world's opinion has been illus- 
 trated already under one aspect, in the chapter on Decision 
 of Character, but we have the authority of the divine word 
 that " the fear of man bringeth a snare :" and experience 
 teaches, that the praise of man is little less dangerous. A 
 happy spirit of conscientious independence is displayed in 
 the following entry in the diary of Elizabeth Fry : "Yester- 
 day, my sister, Eliza Fry, was here, and she remarked, that 
 for the sake of others, (she meant the fear of not setting a 
 good example) she would not do so and so. I said it struck 
 me that those who do their duty with integrity, are serving 
 others as well as themselves, and do more real good to the 
 cause of true religion, than in looking much outwardly 
 either to what others do or think. I think that conscience 
 will sometimes lead us to feel for others, and not act so 
 as materially to hurt a weak brother ; but I believe we
 
 FIDELITY TO TRUST. 173 
 
 hhould seldom find that we hurt those whose opinion would 
 be worth caring for, if we kept close to the witness in our 
 own hearts. If I were going to do a thing, I should en- 
 deavour to find whether it appeared to me in any way 
 wrong, and whether I should feel easy to do it ; looking 
 secretly for help where it is to be found, and there I be- 
 lieve I should leave it ; and if it led me to act rather differ- 
 ently from some, I should probably be doing more good to 
 society, than in any conformity merely on accjnnt of others ; 
 for if I should be preserved in the way of obedience in 
 other things, it would in time show from whence such 
 actions sprung." 
 
 We have already referred to M. Necker, the well known 
 Parisian banker, whose political skill proved so little fitted 
 to cope with the overwhelming difficulties which preceded 
 the complete developement of the first French Revolution. 
 Though incapable, however, of averting the evils of that 
 terrible crisis, or even of devising such means as men of 
 greater abilities and political skill might have suggested 
 for moderating the fury of the revolutionary outbreak, no 
 one has ever questioned his honesty of purpose. Placed on 
 one occasion in a singularly trying position, where it seem- 
 ed impossible to retain the royal favour without sacrificing 
 the public trust committed to him, he proved his just 
 claims to the confidence which had been reposed in him, 
 by choosing rather to risk a severe personal loss than 
 save himself by the betrayal of his trust. The unfortunate 
 Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, anxious to discharge 
 some private debts to the amount of 1,500,000 livres, sent 
 cno morning to M. Necker, and requested that he would 
 assist her with that sum, and charge it to the public ac-
 
 174 FIDELITY TO TRUST. 
 
 counts. M. Necker felt equally impressed with a regard 
 for the honour of his royal mistress, and the fidelity which 
 he owed his sovereign ; he told the Queen that the money 
 should be instantly procured, although it should neither 
 come from, nor be placed to, the state. Accordingly, in 
 less than an hour, the money was advanced to her majesty 
 out of his own private estate. The Queen understanding 
 this, was so struck with the generosity of the action that 
 she laid the whole affair before the Bang ; who immedi- 
 ately sent for M. Necker, and complimenting him on his 
 integrity and nobleness of heart, directed him at the same 
 time to reimburse himself out of the royal treasury. 
 
 In that tremendous outburst of popular fur}' which soon 
 after involved the royal family of France in the misery 
 which thousands shared, many noble acts of generous 
 fidelity served to relieve the horrors of its troubled scene. 
 Of these the following is an interesting example. During 
 the Reign of Terror, a lady of Marseilles, about to emigrate, 
 wished, before her departure, to place a considerable pro- 
 perty, in plate, linen, and other articles, in a place of safety. 
 To bury property in cellars had become so common, that 
 they were now among the first places that were searched 
 on any suspicion of concealed treasures ; and to convey 
 the things out of the house, even by small portions at a 
 time, without being discovered, was not to be hoped for. 
 The lady consulted with an old and faithful servant, who, 
 during a great number of years that he had been in the 
 family, had given such repeated proofs of his fidelity and 
 attachment to it, that she placed unbounded confidence in 
 him. He advised her to pack the things in trunks, and 
 deposit them in a garret at one end of the house ; then to
 
 FIDELITY TO TRUST. 175 
 
 wall up the door into it, and new plaster the room adjoin- 
 ing, so as to leave no trace by which it could be discovered 
 that it had any communication with another apartment. 
 This advice was followed, and the plan executed without 
 the privacy of any other person than the servant, who 
 walled up the door-way and plastered over the outer room ; 
 and when all was finished, the lady departed, leaving the 
 care of the house entirely to him. 
 
 Soon after her departure, the servant received a visit from 
 the municipal officer, who came with a party of his myrmi- 
 dons to search the house, as belonging to an emigrant, and 
 suspected of containing considerable property. They exam- 
 ined every room, every closet, every place in the house, but 
 nothing of any value was to be discovered : some large arti- 
 cles of furniture, which could not conveniently be disposed 
 of, and which it was judged best to leave in order to save 
 appearances, were the only things found. The officer said it 
 was impossible the other things could be conveyed away, 
 and threatened the servant with the utmost severity of jus- 
 tice if he did not confess where they were concealed. He, 
 however, constantly refused to give any information, and 
 was carried before the commune. Here he was again in- 
 terrogated, and menaced even with the guillotine if he did 
 not confess where his mistress's property was concealed ; 
 but he still remained unshaken in his resolution, and faith- 
 ful to his trust ; till at length the officers believing it im- 
 possible, that if he really were in possession of the secret, 
 he could retain it with the fear of death before his eyes, 
 were persuaded that he was not in his mistress's confi- 
 dence, and dismissed him. They obliged him, however, to 
 quit the house, and a creature of their own was placed in
 
 176 FIDELITY TO TRUST. 
 
 it. Again and again it was searched, but to no purpose ; 
 nor was the real tmth ever suspected. But when the reign 
 of the terrorists was closed by the fall of the leaders, the 
 faithful servant, who beheld their downfal with exulta- 
 tion as his own triumph, on a representation of his case to 
 the new magistracy, was replaced in the house of his mis- 
 tress, and at length had his reward in being able to deliver 
 up, safe and uninjured, the entire property which had been 
 confided in so singular a manner to his trust. 
 
 Solomon has said : " The integrity of the upright shall 
 guide them ; n and no other or better guide can be desired. 
 But many virtues must be combined for its full manifesta- 
 tion. It is a wise old popular maxim which says, "Be just 
 before you are generous ;" and with the man of business it 
 may be confidently said that economy is the root of all 
 practical virtues. 
 
 Do not understand economy to be a mean, selfish prin- 
 ciple ; it is far removed from avarice or stinginess. 
 
 The sum of one thousand pounds was once wanted to 
 complete a work that would be a great public benefit. The 
 person who had offered the subscription paper until the 
 requisite sum was all secured excepting one thousand 
 pounds, was advised to call upon a distinguished merchant, 
 well known for his closeness in making a bargain. 
 
 * No ; I shall not offer the paper to him," said he, " for 
 he is proverbially niggardly." "You are mistaken," was 
 the reply; "he is a rigid economist with regard to his own 
 personal expenditures, in order that he may be able 
 to be just and liberal on a large scale. Go to him by all 
 means." 
 
 The advice was taken, and the ready subscription of the
 
 FIDELITY TO TRUST. 177 
 
 entire sum required was the consequence. "Xot mean, 
 but wisely economical," thought the applicant, as he 
 pocketed the order for the money. 
 
 There is such a thing, then, as generous economy. The 
 merchant who is careful and shrewd in making a bargain, 
 and demands the exact payment of his just dues, is much 
 more likely to be liberal as a public benefactor, than he 
 who is reckless about his own expenditures, and careless 
 about collecting or demanding what is due to himself. It 
 may be added also, that by such economy the merchant 
 places himself above every temptation which besets the 
 needy and extravagant man. In thousands of cases the first 
 step which has led to the betrayal of trust is extravagance. 
 It was the undue gratification of his own selfish passions 
 and desires which led the well known London banker 
 Fontleroy on from step to step, until he at length died an 
 ignominious death on the scaffold. The dishonesty of the 
 banker's or the merchant's clerk has most generally been 
 found traceable to the same source. A painful illustration 
 of this recently occuiTed in Glasgow. A youth, a native 
 of Ireland, had obtained, through the interest of some 
 powerful friends, a confidential situation in the post office 
 of that great commercial town. He was connected with a 
 family of old descent, such as are so frequently to be met 
 with in Ireland ; the nominal possessors of estates, bur- 
 dened by debts, mortgages, annuities, and incumbrances of 
 all sorts, until the unhappy inheritor may be said to be heir 
 only to a monstrous and complicated debt. An additional 
 accompaniment, however, invariably attached to such an 
 inheritance, is a foolish and ridiculous pride of descent, 
 which shuts out the whole race from every effort at 
 M
 
 178 FIDELITY TO TRUST. 
 
 honourable industry. These "poor gentlemen" of Ireland 
 form indeed one of the most wretched and incurable in- 
 cumbrances of that unfortunate country. They do not 
 even occupy the position ascribed to the unjust steward 
 who said, "I cannot dig, to beg I am ashamed," for while 
 they look upon honest industry as a disgrace, they feel no 
 shame in the mendicant's occupation. The consequence is, 
 that the youth, educated in the idea of being a gentleman 
 by birth, while destitute of the means to sustain his heredi- 
 tary position in life, and generally equally deficient in the 
 education that should qualify him even to associate with 
 the class whose name he assumes, looks down 'with ineffa- 
 ble disdain on the industrious trader or merchant, and feels 
 himself insulted by the proposal to share in their labours 
 and seek to be a participant hi their rewards. To this class, 
 however, a government situation, even if it be only that of 
 a warder or a clerk in a public office, conveys no such 
 stain. According to this singular code of honour, the clerk 
 in the merchant's counting house, who superintends the 
 exchange of the varied productions of the world, and 
 freights the merchant navies of Britain with her manufac- 
 tures, to be exchanged for the spices of India or the gold of 
 Peru, is a mean, plebeian pettifogger; while the salaried 
 scribe who superintends the engrossing of custom-house 
 dues, and the tariff of taxation on the same exports and 
 imports, is a government official and a gentleman ! False 
 pride is, under every circumstance, a mean and degrading 
 vice, and in its consequence is often the fruitful source of 
 many other vices by its perverting influence on the mind. 
 It sets up an erroneous standard of excellence ; confounds 
 the ideas of right and wrong, and begets a false ambition
 
 FIDELITY TO TRUST. 179 
 
 which has for its highest goal unworthy and altogether 
 deceptive ends. Our young readers may indeed set it down 
 as an infallible rule in life that whatever leads us to de- 
 spise honest industry, or to be ashamed of a diligent and 
 persevering occupation in the business of life, is a source 
 of evil, allied in its nature to dishonesty and crime. 
 
 George P , the young Irishman to whom we have 
 
 referred, arrived in Glasgow in the month of March, 1845, 
 with his head filled with many foolish notions of his own 
 
 importance as a gentleman, the sou of the P of Ohal- 
 
 laran, and the possessor of an official appointment in the 
 
 post office, chiefly through the interest of Lord . 
 
 Transported from the neighbourhood of a little country 
 town in Ireland, with its sporting squires and squireens, 
 and its idle peasantry, he was altogether astonished by the 
 bustle and industry of the great manufacturing city of the 
 west of Scotland. The family name which he had been 
 accustomed to have recognized as the badge of gentility at 
 the county gatherings and balls, excited no more sensa- 
 tion among the bustling citizens of Glasgow, than the 
 Browns, and Smiths, and Campbells, to be seen on every 
 sign board in the streets. Unhappily the previous educa- 
 tion of George P had little prepared him for turning 
 
 such experience to account. Instead of learning the folly 
 and valuelessness of the idle pretensions he had been nur- 
 tured in, he was more than ever bent on playing the gentle- 
 man and the Irish squire. Confined by the duties of his 
 office during the day, his evenings were spent with a few 
 companions as empty-headed and foolish as himself, in 
 figuring in the dress circles of the theatre, bedizened with 
 rings and chains, and the like gewgaws, or parading the
 
 180 FIDELITY TO TRUST. 
 
 principal thoroughfares, flauntily dressed, and with cane 
 and cigar, objects of envy only to some of the poor unedu- 
 cated rabble, who looked upon them as the perfect realiza- 
 tion of happy idleness. Such proceedings are the first 
 steps in the course which have led thousands to ruin. Late 
 hours, and sinful excesses, begat listlessness on the morrow; 
 expenses increased, in the foolish ambition to excel in dress 
 and display, and to spend freely amid riotous companions, 
 until the limited salary of his office proved totally inade- 
 quate to his extravagant outlay. Conscience was not al- 
 together silent. From time to time George P saw 
 
 his danger, and resolved to economize, to retrench, to 
 abandon the courses which he could not fail to see must 
 lead to ruin. But Solomon has truly said, He that hath 
 no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken 
 down and without walls." The good resolutions of the 
 morning faded away and were forgotten, or even laughed 
 at, when surrounded by the evening's boon companions. 
 Money was needed fop the expenses entailed by extrava- 
 gance and dissipation. With a trembling heart and a 
 
 blanched cheek, George P applied to his own use a 
 
 money inclosure passing through his hands, noting at the 
 same time the name and address with the resolution of send- 
 ing it to its proper destination anonymously so soon as his 
 next quarter's salary was due. The money thus acquired 
 by the betrayal of his trust purchased for him only a few 
 nights of guilty pleasure, burdened by the consciousness 
 of dishonour, and the terror of detection, which made him 
 wish a hundred times that he had never touched it. He 
 refrained for a while from his idle companions, but by and 
 bye the first impressions wore off, his nights hung heavy
 
 FIDELITY TO TRUST, 181 
 
 on his hand, no honourable ambition offered a just incen- 
 tive to his mind, no kind friend was at hand to strengthen 
 his waning resolutions ; and once more he resumed his 
 former pleasures, with only some vague, and undefined 
 resolutions of moderation and economy. We need not 
 follow him in his course. The admonitions of conscience 
 were in vain, and the warnings of the divine law were un- 
 heeded perhaps unknown. " My son, if thine heart be 
 wise, my heart shall rejoice, even mine. Yea, my reins 
 shall rejoice when thy lips speak right things. Let not 
 thine heart envy sinners, but be thou in the fear of the 
 Lord all the day long ; for surely there is a reward, and 
 thine expectation shall not be vain. Hear, my son, and be 
 wise, and guide thine heart in the way. Be not among 
 wine-bibbers, among liotous eaters ; for the drunkard and 
 the glutton shall come to poverty, and idleness shall clothe 
 a man with rags." 
 
 We have already referred to the great value of decision 
 of character as an element of success in life. There is 
 scarcely any case in which it is of more value, or more 
 difficult to practise, than in forsaking idle and worthless 
 
 companions. So it was felt by poor George P . Again 
 
 rmd again, when left to his own solitary reflections, and 
 forced to listen to the voice of conscience, he resolved to 
 abandon his idle companions, to retrench his foolish extra- 
 vagances in dress and useless luxuries, and to devote his 
 whole energies to the duties of his office. We knew of 
 one young man who had the courage under somewhat 
 similar circumstances to act upon such a resolution. 
 Assembling his whole circle of acquaintance together by 
 invitation to a supper at his own lodgings, he hospitably
 
 182 FIDELITY TO TRUST. 
 
 entertained them, and so soon as it was done he told them 
 plainly the convictions of his conscience as to the ten- 
 dency of the course of idleness and dissipation he had 
 been accustomed to in their society, his firm resolution 
 to pursue a different system, "and for this purpose," 
 added he in conclusion, " our intercourse is henceforth at 
 an end ; if we meet, it shall be as strangers that never met 
 before I" He had his reward. Freed from the temptations 
 which, but for this decided step, might, and indeed must, 
 have proved his ruin, he adopted an entirely new course of 
 life, devoted himself with resolute assiduity and persever- 
 ance to his profession, and were we at liberty to mention 
 his name, it would be recognized as that of one of the 
 most distinguished living sculptors, whose works reflect 
 honour on modern British art. 
 A far different fate, however, was chosen by poor George 
 
 P , he had not the courage and firmness to abandon 
 
 his vicious companions, or to forsake the follies which 
 had proved so fertile a source of vice and misery. He 
 only resolved to be more cautious, less extravagant, and, 
 as usual, his good resolutions proved "like the morning 
 cloud and early dew." They yielded to the first tempta- 
 tion. Money must be had. No other resource seemed 
 at hand, and once more he had recourse to the betrayal 
 of his trust. Conscience, seared by repeated neglect 
 of its warnings, ceased to admonish with its first force ; 
 impunity gave courage in crime, till at length the ter- 
 rible news reached his father, that George P was a 
 
 prisoner in Glasgow gaol, awaiting his trial for theft and 
 embezzlement. The evidence was indisputable, he was 
 convicted and sentenced to banishment, while his crimes
 
 FIDELITY TO TRUST. 183 
 
 have brought not only misory but ruin on all connected 
 with him. This story is no fiction. Many of our readers 
 may recall the incidents as they appeared not long since in 
 the public prints, accompanied with bitter reflections on 
 the exercise of the patronage of government, by which 
 offices of trust are thus filled at the solicitation of political 
 allies and partizans. 
 
 The beginning of evil is as the letting out of water ; 
 the little streamlet seems altogether insignificant at the 
 outset, but if unheeded, it widens and deepens, until the 
 torrent defies human power to check it. Let him who 
 occupies a situation of trust remember, what indeed it 
 is incumbent on all to bear in view, that extravagance is 
 the beginning of many evils, and the pregnant source of 
 nearly every temptation which saps at the foundations of 
 integrity and fidelity to trust. It is the beginning of that 
 state of mind in which our proper business ceases to be a 
 source of pleasure, and duty becomes an irksome task ; in 
 which the restraints and the requirements of our daily 
 avocations seem to interfere even with what we choose 
 to call reasonable pleasures, and thus the business of life 
 becomes a thing apart from ourselves. Even if, under such 
 temptations, we do not give way to the dishonesty which 
 tampers with the money or the possessions of another, it 
 is still to be born in remembrance that fidelity to trust in- 
 volves a great deal more than that. If we are in the em- 
 ployment of another, our master's time is no less his pro- 
 perty than are his jewels or his money. Or if we are 
 engaged in confidential business as a banker, a lawyer, an 
 accountant, or the director of any institution in which the 
 interests of others arc involved, then each of these situa-
 
 134 FIDELITY TO TRUST. 
 
 tions implies a trust committed to us, which, if we neglect 
 or attend to in a listless, careless, and indifferent manner, 
 altogether unlike the spirit with which our own self- 
 interest is pursued, we are as unfaithful as he who steals 
 his employer's purse. The Rev. James Hamilton, of Lon- 
 don, remarks, in illustrating the apostolic maxim, " be not 
 slothful in business," "Those violate this precept who 
 have a lawful calling, a proper business, but are slothful in 
 it. When people are in business for themselves, they aro 
 in less risk of transgressing this injunction ; though even 
 there it sometimes happens that the hand is not diligent 
 enough to make its owner rich. But it is when engaged in 
 business, not for ourselves but for others, or for God, that 
 we are in greatest danger of neglecting this rule. The 
 servant who has no pleasure in his work, who does no 
 more than wages can buy, or a legal agreement enforce ; 
 the shopman, who does not enter con amore into his em- 
 ployer's interest, and bestir himself to extend his trade as 
 he would strive were the concern his own ; the scholar, 
 who trifles when his teacher's eye is elsewhere, and who is 
 content if he can only learn enough to escape disgrace ; 
 the teacher, who is satisfied if he can only convey a decent 
 quantum of instruction, and who does not labour for the 
 mental expansion and spiritual well-being of his pupils, as 
 he would for those of his own children ; the magistrate or 
 civic functionary, who is only careful to escape public cen- 
 sure, and who does not labour to make the community 
 richer, or happier, or better for his administration ; the 
 minister, who can give his energies to another cause than 
 the cause of Christ, and neglect his Master's business in 
 minding his own ; every one, in short, who performs the
 
 FIDELITY TO TRUST. 185 
 
 work which God or his brethren have given him to do, in a 
 hireling and perfunctory manner, is a violator of the divine 
 injunction, ' Not slothful in business.' There are some 
 persons of a dull and languid turn. They trail sluggishly 
 through life, as if some painful viscus, some adhesive slime 
 were clogging every movement, and making their snail- 
 path a waste of their very substance. They do nothing 
 with that healthy alacrity, that gleesome energy which 
 bespeaks a sound mind even more than a vigorous body ; 
 but they drag themselves to the inevitable task with re- 
 monstrating reluctance, as if every joint were set in a 
 socket of torture, or as if they expected the quick flesh to 
 cleave to the next implement of industry they handled. 
 Having no wholesome love to work, no joyous delight in 
 duty, they do every thing grudgingly, in the most super- 
 ficial manner, and at the latest moment. Others there are, 
 who, if you find them at their post, you will find them doz- 
 ing at it. They are a sort of perpetual somnambulists, 
 walking through their sleep ; moving in a constant mys- 
 tery ; looking for their faculties, and forgetting what they 
 are looking for ; not able to find their work, and when 
 they have found their work not able to find their hands ; 
 doing every thing dreamily, and therefore every thing con- 
 fusedly and incompletely ; their work a dream, their sleep 
 a dream, not repose, not refreshment, but a slumbrous 
 vision of rest, a dreamy query concerning sleep ; too late 
 for every thing, taking their passage when the ship has 
 sailed, insuring their property when the house is burned, 
 locking the door when the goods are stolen men, whose 
 bodies seem to have started in the race of existence before 
 their minds were ready, and who are always gazing out
 
 136 FIDELITY TO TRC. -T. 
 
 vacantly as if they expected their wits were coining np by 
 the next arrival." 
 
 Such slothful dreamers are each and all of them unfaith- 
 ful to their trust. They betray the interests of all who 
 have any connexion with them, sacrifice the prospects of 
 those who should be most dear to them, and frequently 
 involve themselves in disgrace and ruin. It is unworthy 
 of men to pursue any object in such a way. The truly 
 virtuous man pursues even the innocent pleasures and 
 reasonable pastimes in which he may indulge with more 
 heart than this. Whatever he does, is done with energy, 
 and furnishes his mind with occupation and enjoyment. 
 To such a mind no task seems too mean, and no trust too 
 insignificant to be unworthy of his best energies in its 
 execution. One of our most eloquent living writers, Mr. 
 John Ruskin, remarks, in his " Seven Lamps of Architec- 
 ture," "However mean or inconsiderable the act, there is 
 something in the well doing of it, which has fellowship 
 with the noblest forms of manly virtue; and the truth, 
 decision, and temperance, which we reverently regard as 
 honourable conditions of the spiritual being, have a re- 
 presentative or deliberative influence over the works of the 
 hand, the movements of the frame, and the action of the 
 intellect. And as thus every action, down even to the 
 drawing of a line or utterance of a syllable, is capable of a 
 peculiar dignity in the manner of it, which we sometimes 
 express by saying it is truly done, so also is it capable of 
 dignity still higher in the motive of it. For there is no 
 action so slight, nor so mean, but it may be done to a pur- 
 pose, and ennobled therefore ; nor is any purpose so great 
 but that slight actions may help it, and may be so done as
 
 FIDliLTTY TO TRUST. 187 
 
 to help it much, most especially that chief of all purposes, 
 the pleasing God." In this lies the guide to honourable 
 rectitude of life. As good old George Herbert writes 
 
 "A sen-ant with this clause 
 Makes drudgery divine." 
 
 In the same spirit the Apostle contrasts the eye-service 
 of men-pleasers, with the singleness of heart of him who 
 fears God ; and in like spirit the modern divine exhorts : 
 " Have a calling in which it is worth while to be busy. 
 There are many callings in which it is lawful for the Chris- 
 tian to 'abide.' He may be a lawyer like Sir Matthew 
 Hale, or a physician like Haller, Heberden, and Mason 
 Goode. He may be a painter like West, or a sculptor like 
 Bacon, or a poet like Milton and Klopstock and Cowper. 
 He may be a trader like Thornton and the Hardcastles, or 
 a philosopher like Boyle and Boerhaavo. He may be a 
 hard- working artizan like the Yorkshire Blacksmith and 
 the Watchmaker of Geneva ; or he may toil for his daily 
 bread like the Happy Waterman, and the Wallseud Miner, 
 and the Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, and many a domestic 
 servant of humble but pious memory.' 1 
 
 Every position in life involves a trust, in which we are 
 bound to be faithful, diligent, watchful, and persevering. 
 Nor can it be considered out of place here to remind the 
 reader that while diligence and fidelity in the business of 
 life is incumbent on all, these duties muttt not engross all 
 our care ; for each has a trust committed to him more mo- 
 mentous than all the things of time. Life, health, means, 
 opportunities, and providences, are all committed to our 
 trust. Christ himself literally described them as a steward- 
 ship, for which we must render account. Have we been
 
 188 PUNCTUALITY AND METHOD. 
 
 faithful or unfaithful, while "diligent in business," have we 
 also been "serving God P If not, the close of a busy ca- 
 reer, with the smiling approval of the world, the fair charac- 
 ter in the estimation of men, the " spotless fame," of the 
 merchant, the trader, the lawyer, or the clerk, may be 
 summed up in the mournful confession " I have betrayed 
 iny most precious trust. I have lost a life-time." 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 PUNCTUALITY AND METHOD. 
 
 Celerity comraanoB the wings of time 
 
 And method holds the reigns, by which to guide 
 
 Ills mettled steed ; that, even in its prime 
 
 And ready for the ready man to ride, 
 
 Falls lame and laggard in the powerless hands 
 
 Of tardy sloth and impotent delay. 
 
 DIER. 
 
 PUNCTUALITY and method are to some extent only differing 
 phases of decision of character. They take their rise in 
 that valuable feature of the well-regulated mind, and like 
 it form an invaluable and indispensable characteristic of the 
 man of business. It is surprising how many of the discom- 
 forts and the petty annoyances of life are escaped by the 
 man of method and punctuality. The course of his exist- 
 ence moves smoothly on, like some well constructed and 
 stately engine, the regular and unceasing movements of
 
 PUNCTUALITY AND METHOD. 189 
 
 which seem the fittest emblem of calm, self-possessed 
 dignity and power ; while the unpunctual man, ever in a 
 hurry, bustling, fretting, scolding, and loosing the present 
 in his vain struggle to recover what is beyond his reach, 
 resembles some crazy, jolting, ill-devised machine, which 
 moves with such an uneasy commotion and din, that it fills 
 the mind of the onlooker with uneasiness, and apprehension, 
 if not of open contempt. There are some men who seem to 
 have lost some early portion of their life by their unpunctu- 
 ality, and to spend all the rest of their existence in a vain 
 struggle to recover their lost time. This is no mere fanciful 
 idea ; it is surprising how much confusion and disorder the 
 loss even of a single wasted hour will often occasion. The 
 uupunctual man, behind time on the Monday morning, feels 
 the consequence of it through the whole week. He scarcely, 
 perhaps, divines the cause ; but that single hour which 
 was allowed to be wasted, put the work of the whole day 
 into disorder, intruded its confusion on the morrow, and 
 poisoned the duties of the week. 
 
 We feel that we can never depend on the unpunctual 
 man, and hence such a character must be ruinous to the 
 man of business. But what is even worse, the unpunctual 
 man feels that he cannot depend on himself. The habit 
 of procrastination, and disorderly haste, so grow upon him, 
 that the things he is most determinately resolved on doing, 
 his own conscience whispers to him, may very probably, for 
 all that, never be done. He becomes, in truth, as hopelessly 
 the slave of a wretched and ever increasing habit of mind, 
 as if he were the bond slave of another's will. Such a 
 man Foster has pictured as one who " can never be said to 
 belong to himself j since, if he dared to assert that he did,
 
 190 PTmCTUALITY AND METHOD. 
 
 the puny force of some cause, about as powerful, yon 
 would have supposed, as a spider, may capture the hap- 
 less boaster the very next moment, and triumphantly show 
 the futility of the determinations by which he was to hare 
 proved the independence of his understanding and his will. 
 He belongs to whatever can seize him ; and innumerable 
 things do actually verify their elaim on him, and arrest 
 him as he tries to go along ; as twigs and chips, floating 
 near the edge of a river, are intercepted by every weed, 
 and whirled in every little eddy. Having concluded on a 
 design, he may pledge himself to accomplish it, if the five 
 hundred diversities of feeling which may come within the 
 week, will let him. As his character precludes all foresight 
 of his conduct, he may sit and wonder what form and direc- 
 tion his views and actions are destined to take to-morrow , 
 as a farmer waits the uncertain changes of the clouds to 
 decide what he shall do. 
 
 "This man's opinions and determinations always depend 
 very much on other human beings j and what chance for 
 consistency and stability, while the persons with whom he 
 may converse, or transact, are so various? This very 
 evening he may talk with a man whose sentiments will 
 melt away the present form and outline of his purposes, 
 however firm and defined he may have fancied them to be. 
 A succession of persons whose faculties were stronger than 
 his own, might, in spite of his irresolute re-action, take him 
 and dispose of him as they pleased. An infirm character 
 practically confesses itself made for subjection, and passes 
 like a slave from owner to owner." 
 
 How is such a man to make his way through the world ! 
 It is a favourite saying, that " we are the creatures of cir-
 
 PUNCTUALITY AND BIETHOD. 101 
 
 cunistanccs," and doubtless there is much truth in it. 
 Cromwell born in this nineteenth century had lived and 
 died a plain country fanner. Columbus perchance a studi- 
 ous mathematician, rather than a bold mariner. Napoleon, 
 if he had been the subject of England, instead of Fiance, 
 might at most have figured as one among hundreds of 
 her able military men. Sir Walter Scott in an earlier 
 age had been well content to be a leader in the nameless 
 raids and forays of the Scottish borders; and Luther, a 
 century earlier or later, might have died an unknown 
 monk, or an obscure parish priest. Let us only suppose 
 the whole of the mighty dead living in our own day, sur- 
 rounded by the circumstances that environ us, and how 
 different would the whole course of existence of each have 
 been. Yet no circumstances could ever have made these 
 men their slaves. Napoleon, in the little island of Elba, or 
 even in the remote prison-rock amid the melancholy main, 
 was still the same indomitable man who had made Europe 
 bend to his will ; and Columbus, when he stopped at the 
 convent gate to solicit its charitable gift of bread and 
 water for his child, was the same resolved and enthusiastic 
 being as when, amid the wide waste of the Atlantic, he 
 subdued the adverse wills of a whole mutinous ship's crew 
 to his own. We must indeed be controlled by circum- 
 stances, but the man of method and punctuality alone has 
 these under his command ; like the well-skilled rider who 
 guides his high mettled steed, and by its means accom- 
 plishes a long day's journey, while the unpractised man 
 who ventures on its back, if he can succeed in keeping his 
 seat, is led hither and thither, aimlessly at its will. " It is in- 
 evitable," says Foster, u that the regulation of every man's
 
 192 PUNCTUALITY AND METHOD. 
 
 plan must greatly depend on the course of events, which 
 come in an order not to be foreseen or prevented. But 
 even in accommodating the plans of conduct to the train of 
 events, the difference between two men may be no less 
 than that in the one instance the man is subservient to the 
 events, and in the other the events are made subservient 
 to the man. Some men seem to have been taken along 
 by a succession of events, and, as it were, handed forward 
 in quiet passiveness from one to another, without any de- 
 termined principle in their own characters, by which they 
 could constrain those events to serve a design formed 
 antecedently to them, or apparently in defiance of them. 
 The events seized them as a neutral material, not they the 
 events. Others, advancing through life with an internal 
 invincible determination of mind, have seemed to make 
 the train of circumstances, whatever they were, conduce 
 as much to their chief design as if they had taken place on 
 purpose. It is wonderful, how even the apparent casual- 
 ties of life seem to bow to a spirit that will not bow to 
 them, and yield to assist a design, after having in vain 
 attempted to frustrate it." 
 
 One great advantage which results to the orderly man 
 from his punctual habits of method, is, that his energies 
 are never wasted or frittered away. He husbands his 
 strength till the appointed time ; calmly meets the diffi- 
 culty, or the laborious task, at the moment fixed upon as 
 the fittest for coping with its obstacles, and resolutely 
 applying his well-arranged powers, the thing which to the 
 disorderly, hurried, and undecided man would appear an 
 altogether insurmountable difficulty, yields before him like 
 water to the vessel's prow. Look at the ship, becalmed
 
 PUNCTUALITY AND METHOD. 193 
 
 and without a pilot, with sluggish sails flapping against 
 the mast, swayed alternately by wind and tide, ever in 
 motion, and yet never nearer its destined port. Just such 
 is the irresolute man. Every breeze that blows makes 
 him its sport, and every turn of the tide of fortxme finds 
 him dragging helplessly along in its current. But see tho 
 same ship with all its sails bent, a prosperous wind urging 
 it on, the pilot at the helm, the seamen ready, each at hia 
 appointed post of duty, and the rude ocean yields to its 
 prow, and flings up its spray unheeded and harmless on its 
 sides. No better picture could be conceived of the man of 
 order, method, and punctual decision. The wind changes 
 in a moment all hands are ready, the ship is brought 
 about, the sails are set anew, and moving on a different 
 tack, but with the same port in view, the gallant ship 
 chishcs onward in its course. 
 
 Punctuality with regard to money matters is another 
 form in which the well-ordered method of a business man 
 proves one of the readiest sources of comfort and pros- 
 perity. Punctuality in payment may be said to double our 
 means. The man of disorderly habits, with no proper ac- 
 count of income or expenditure, and no just estimate of 
 the relative proportion of his means and his obligations, 
 is perpetually exposed to the annoyance and vexation of 
 having demands made on him, not so much beyond hia 
 means, as disproportioned to the chance provisions of the 
 moment. He may be compared to a general, who, neglect- 
 ing the discipline of his forces, may be surprised at any 
 moment by the attack of the most insignificant foe, not 
 because his numbers are insufficient, but because they are 
 not at hand. The skilful commander, with but half the 
 N
 
 194 PUNCTUALITY AND METHOD. 
 
 number, well disciplined, and ever ready at a moment's 
 notice, is equal to almost any emergency. The homely 
 proverbs of Franklin, the fruits of his own experience, 
 abound in maxims relating to this indispensable virtue. 
 Punctuality, with regard to time and money, is one of 
 those good old fashioned virtues which Franklin delighted 
 to honour. Poor Eichard's aphorisms have been quoted 
 and requoted, till they are not only as familiar as house- 
 hold words they are actually such. "Time is money" 
 "Creditors have better memories than debtors," and other 
 similar pithy proverbs ; who thinks of referring them to 
 Franklin ? They come so home to " men's business and 
 bosoms," that with one consent they have adopted them as 
 their own. 
 
 Creditors certainly have more pleasant memories than 
 debtors, but according to the philosophical principle, that 
 we inevitably remember what we strive to forget, debts 
 must cling very tenaciously te the memory. 
 
 "Sell to a man who is punctual in his payments, at a 
 less profit than to him who is not. One shilling sure, is 
 better than two in expectation, and will avail you more 
 in an emergency. The way to get credit is to be punc- 
 tual the way to preserve credit is not to abuse it. 
 Settle often ; have short accounts ; they are truly said to 
 make long friends." Such are some of the wholesome 
 advices of the homely moralist, which the reader will do 
 well to lay to heart, for they contain not a little practical 
 wisdom. It is a wise maxim in every concern of life, never 
 to put off till to-morrow what can be done to-day ; but in 
 nothing will its value be more directly found than in all 
 money payments. According to the system of credit and
 
 PUNCTUALITY AND METHOD. 195 
 
 bills which now prevails in the conducting of many mer- 
 cantile transactions, it is not always possible, or perhaps 
 advisable, to insist on the plan of ready payment even when 
 the most convenient and economical. But if this system of 
 credit has proved of value to some judicious and cautious 
 men, it has proved the ruin of many more. The sanguine 
 dreamer purchases goods, signs his bill for an amount far 
 beyond what he possesses, and flatters himself that before 
 the three or the six months of credit are gone ho will have 
 realized the means of paying what he has become bound 
 for. Perhaps by a series of similar transactions, each of 
 which enables him for the time being to make up a part of 
 the required sum, he keeps afloat for a time. But by and 
 by the bills become due, and the money is no where to be 
 had. Time is asked, and one or two additional months of 
 credit are grudgingly yielded, at a heavy additional cost, 
 and loss of character. So affairs go on ; the unhappy man 
 feeling himself meanwhile involved in an inextricable vor- 
 tex ; compelled to go on, getting ever deeper and deeper, 
 and at last, feeling it a relief to summon his creditors to- 
 gether and confess his utter inability to meet one half of 
 the engagements for which his credit is pledged. This is a 
 case in which firmness and moderation, humble views, and 
 the determined resolution to adhere to punctuality in the 
 whole range of business transactions, would, in hundreds 
 of cases, save present misery and disgrace, while it proved 
 the road to ultimate success. We know an old gentleman, 
 the possessor of much wealth, and of no less universal 
 esteem, who, when asked how he had been able to realize 
 so great a fortune, since it was well known that he begun 
 life with very humble means, his answer was sufficiently
 
 196 PUNCTUALITY AND METHOD. 
 
 simple, but equally significant, "By never buying but when 
 I had the means to pay; and never selling but to those 
 who had the means to buy." If this rule were universally 
 adopted, we believe it would prove an infallible safeguard 
 against the chief difficulties with which the merchant and 
 trader have to contend. 
 
 There is another form of punctuality with reference to 
 pecuniary transactions which must not be omitted here. 
 " Detain not the wages of the hireling," says the inspired 
 rule of life, and there are few of the divine commands 
 relative to the ordinary transactions between man and man 
 which breathe more of the spirit of wisdom and love per- 
 vading the whole divine law. Many a cry has gone up to 
 heaven against those unpunctual ones who have carelessly 
 kept back the hard-earned wages of the poor. It is a ne- 
 glect indeed, which fully as often originates in the selfish 
 thoughtlessness of the wealthy, as in the delays occasioned 
 by straightened means. They have known no pecuniary 
 difficulties themselves, and little think of how great impor- 
 tance to the poor man the hard-earned trifle may be, which 
 they esteem a matter of perfect indifference however long 
 it be delayed. This we shall illustrate by an incident which 
 came within our own knowledge. A lady in Glasgow, who 
 had been born to affluence, and married to a man of for- 
 tune, was left, by his death, in such straightened circum- 
 stances, that after parting with every available relic of her 
 former wealth, she was compelled to remove to a humble 
 and obscure lodging, and to depend solely for her mainten- 
 ance on what she and her only daughter could obtain by 
 their needles. Grief and privations together, preyed on the 
 health of the poor lady, and she was soon laid on a bed
 
 PUNCTUALITY AND METHOD. 197 
 
 of sickness, and left dependent both for caie and support 
 on the unaided exertions of her daughter. One Saturday 
 evening the shades of twilight were gathering around the 
 humble dwelling, while the daughter sat by her mother's 
 bedside busily plying her needle. It was a cold October 
 evening, but there was no fire in their grate ; the poor girl 
 was faint and weary, but there was no food in the house, 
 and no money to buy it. Could she only finish the work 
 she had in hand before it grew dark she would yet be able to 
 purchase food and medicine for her poor mother, and enable 
 them both to pass over the coming Sabbath. The daughter 
 had been taught by her pious mother in happier days to be- 
 lieve in the ever-watchful fatherhood of God, and still she 
 strove to trust in his goodness and love. But it seemed as if 
 he had forgotten them, and the bread and water which he had 
 promised should be given to his people seemed no longer 
 attainable. Her temples throbbed with pain, but still sho 
 worked, for the night was creeping on apace, and there was 
 no candle in the house to enable her to pursue her labours 
 after dark. At length, however, the work was finished ; it 
 had to be taken a long way off and the poor mother must 
 be left alone on her sick bed, probably for hours, ere her 
 daughter could return. But she comforted her with the 
 promise of food as well as the needful medicine, and com- 
 mending her in silent prayer to the protection of her hea- 
 venly Father, Miss C set forth on her errand. Long 
 
 had the sick mother lain in solitude, the twilight was 
 darkening into night when she was disturbed in the midst 
 of anxious reveries and fears by a tap at the door, which, 
 after being repeated more than once was succeeded by tho 
 entrance of a gentleman who inquired for the inmate of the
 
 198 PUNCTUALITY AND METHOD. 
 
 house by a strange name. It was a benevolent Christian 
 engaged on an errand of mercy to a poor neighbour of Mrs. 
 
 C . He had come by chance to the wrong house, but, 
 
 interested in the lonely sufferer, he sat down, and conversed 
 with her for a little, and finding in her one familiar with 
 the faith and the trust of a disciple of o\ir Saviour, he 
 directed her thoughts to him who has promised never to for- 
 sake his people, and left her at length, cheered by this un- 
 expected Christian sympathy. Roused to renewed confi- 
 dence and trust, she waited the return of her daughter with 
 the promised supplies for their most urgent wants. But it 
 seemed as if the confidence was vain, and God had forgot- 
 ten to be gracious. Miss C had carried the produce of 
 
 her hard toil to her employer, a lady whose abundance of 
 the good things of this life had made her unmindful of the 
 privations of others. The whole sum thus hardly earned 
 was only eightpence, and the lady having no change, 
 carelessly desired the poor girl to call again. How her 
 heart sunk within her, as faint and sick at heart she slowly 
 wandered homeward to tell her mother of her fruitless 
 journey. The morrow was the Sabbath, and neither food 
 nor fire were in their friendless dwelling. With a feeling 
 
 of surprise that made her start, Miss C was welcomed 
 
 by her mother with a cheerful voice, as she told her how 
 pleasantly the hours of her absence had been beguiled by 
 the kind sympathy of a Christian stranger, and how her 
 fainting heart had been cheered and filled with fresh confi- 
 dence in the divine goodness by his encouraging words. It 
 seemed to add a new difficulty to her perplexed mind, for 
 she had been pondering all the weary road home how she 
 was to break the sad truth to her mother ; and now these
 
 PUNCTUALITY AND METHOD. 199 
 
 words of confidence and hope seemed only to increase the 
 overwhelming bitterness of the reality which must be told. 
 The room was now quite dark, she sat down on a chair by 
 the bedside, and something jingled and fell on the floor as 
 she moved. Startled by the sound, she stooped, and groping 
 on the floor, picked up two half-crowns which the stranger 
 had silently deposited there before he withdrew. With a 
 hasty exclamation of glad surprise she once more put on 
 her bonnet; and telling her mother she would soon be 
 back, she hastened from the house. It was rapidly drawing 
 towards midnight, and Sabbath morning was at hand. But 
 soon she returned with food, coals, candles, and every 
 requisite for their present necessities ; and as she recounted 
 to her mother the doubts and despairing thoughts of her 
 solitary walk homeward, they both resolved never again to 
 question the watchful care of an all-seeing God. The 
 gentleman never returned, though they often wished, in 
 more prosperous days, to bo able to tell him how timely 
 
 ho had ministered to their necessities; but Miss C 
 
 has been heard to say, when recounting this remarkable in- 
 cident of her early life, that she could not have more fully 
 felt the supply of their necessities to have come directly 
 from God, had it been let down, as in the vision of St 
 Peter, directly from heaven. 
 
 This simple narrative of an actual recent occurrence in 
 real life affords a striking illustration of the duty of strict 
 punctuality in reference to all the payments of wages and 
 dues to those who may be employed by us, and proves how 
 thoroughly the divine maxim is based in the spirit of love 
 which marks the whole scheme of providence, when wo 
 are commanded to detain not the wages of the hireling.
 
 200 PUNCTUALITr AND METHOD. 
 
 Yet even this is in many cases nothing more than a bad 
 habit. We know one gentleman possessed of great wealth, 
 solely acquired by his own industry, but having in early 
 life been frequently compelled to delay payments from 
 necessity, it has grown to be such a habit with him, that 
 though liberal and generous in his charities, he will hardly 
 be induced to pay an account till it has been again and again 
 forced on his notice. How much misery may this single 
 habit of procrastination have occasioned to many a poor 
 tradesman, to whom the supposed trifle of a few shillings or 
 a few pounds were perhaps of more value than thousands 
 could be to him. The example may suffice to show us how 
 carefully we require to guard against every procrastinat- 
 ing habit, both for our own comfort and the interests and 
 well-being of others. 
 
 Extravagance and wastery are like armed robbers who 
 meet us on the highway, or break into our house, and carry 
 off our means by open force ; but procrastination is the 
 secret thief that steals on us unawares, pilfers row and 
 again, whilst we are least thinking of it, and in the end too 
 often proves the greater robber of the two. Procrastina- 
 tion steals our time, our character, our mental habits, our 
 social enjoyments, our self-respect, our worldly means, and 
 our peace of mind. No exertion therefore can be too great 
 to cope with so insidious yet baneful an adversary. The 
 judicious mentor to whom we have already referred, re- 
 marks, in his "Life in Earnest," "Make the most of 
 TIME. Some have little leisure, but there are sundry ex- 
 pedients, any one of which, if fairly tried, would make that 
 little leisure longer. Economy. Most of the men who have 
 died enormously rich, acquired their wealth, not in huge
 
 PUNCTUALITY AND METHOD. 201 
 
 windfalls, but by minute and careful accumulations. It 
 was not one vast sum bequeathed to them after another, 
 which overwhelmed them with inevitable opulence j but it 
 was the loose money which most men would lavish away, 
 the little sums which many would not deem worth look- 
 ing after, the pennies and half-crowns of which you would 
 keep no reckoning, these are the items which, year by year 
 piled up, have reared their pyramid of fortune. From 
 these money-makers let us learn the nobler "avarice of 
 time." One of the most elaborate poems of recent times 
 was composed in the streets of London by Dr. Mason Good, 
 a physician in busy practice, during the brief snatches of 
 time, when passing from one patient's door to another 
 In order to achieve some good work which you have 
 much at heart, you may not be able to secure an entire 
 week, or even an uninterrupted day; but try what you 
 can make of the broken fragments of time. Glean up its 
 golden dust ; those raspings and parings of precious dura- 
 tion, those leavings of days and remnants of hours whicn 
 so many sweep out into the waste of existence. Perhaps, if 
 you be a miser of moments, if yeu be frugal and hoard up 
 odd minutes and half-hours and unexpected holidays, your 
 careful gleanings may eke out a long and useful life, and 
 you may die at last richer in existence than multitudes, 
 whose time is all their own. The time which some men 
 waste in superfluous slumber and idle visits and desultory 
 application, were it all redeemed, would give them wealth 
 of leisure, and enable them to execute undertakings for 
 which they deem a less worried life than theirs essential." 
 The golden rule for the economizing of time is to be 
 found in the homely maxim : "Never put off till to-morrow
 
 202 PUNCTUALITY AND METHOD. 
 
 what can be done to-day," and to this may be added another 
 no less wholesome advice to the indolent procrastinator : 
 " Never leave to another to do, what you can do yourself !" 
 It is indeed one of the most practical maxims of Poor 
 Ilichard's proverbs, including in it much shrewd satire : 
 "If you want a thing done, go; if not, send!* All these 
 habits of trusting to others, or to the morrow ; of esteem- 
 ing odd half hours as trifles, and spare moments as value- 
 less, and so deferring to some indefinite future, what should 
 be done now, are mere disguises under cover of which 
 the thief Procrastination is pilfering your treasures ; and 
 among these the punctual man regards as most costly and 
 valuable of all his Time. The man of fortune, if reduced 
 to beggar}', may recover his wealth, but time lost cannot 
 be recalled. According to the old conventional impersona- 
 tion, Time as we look on him coming to us seems an old 
 man, grey, and bent with years ; it is not till he is past 
 that we discover he has wings, and flies too swiftly to be 
 overtaken. " A singular mischance," says the Rev. James 
 Hamilton, "has occurred to some. At the instant when 
 heiushered them on existence, God gave them a work to 
 do, and he also gave them a competency of time, so much 
 time, that if they began at the right moment, and wrought 
 with sufficient vigour, their time and their work would end 
 together. But a good many years ago a strange misfortune 
 befel them. A fragment of their allotted time was lost. 
 They cannot tell what became of it, but sure enough it has 
 dropped out of existence ; for just like two measuring-lines 
 laid alongside, the one an inch shorter than the other, their 
 work and their time run parallel, but the work is always 
 ten minutes in advance of the time. They are not irro-
 
 PUNCTUALITY AND METHOD. 203 
 
 gular. They are never too soon. Their letters are posted 
 the very minute after the mail is shut ; they arrive at the 
 wharf just in time to see the steamboat off; they come in 
 sight of the terminus precisely as the station-gates are 
 closing. They do not break any engagement nor neglect 
 any duty ; but they systematically go about it too late, 
 and usually too late by about the same fatal interval. 
 How can they retrieve the lost fragment, so essential to 
 character and comfort P 
 
 The cure suggested is to get up, if it be but a quarter of 
 an hour earlier. Be ready for the duties of the day, if it 
 be only fifteen minutes sooner than you have been for the 
 past years of your life. Time cannot be recalled, but he 
 may be, and sometimes has been redeemed. Dr. John 
 Hunter, has already furnished us with one memorable 
 example of this, and others might bo referred to ; but let 
 it be borne in remembrance by those who meditate such 
 a feat that if it is to be done, it must be done at once. It 
 must literally be begun to-day, or all hope of its accom- 
 plishment is vain. How wretched is the idea, did we only 
 sufficiently think of it, of time hanging heavily on our 
 hands. Yet are there thousands, who, rather than enjoy 
 the luxury which springs from a healthful diligence, con- 
 vert this great blessing into a curse, and spend their exist- 
 ence miserably striving to "kill time." Justly does the 
 nervous poetess, Joanna Baillie, say : 
 
 " Time never bears such moments on his wing, 
 As wlu-n he flies too swiftly to be marked." 
 
 Happy indeed is the busy man whose conscience tells him 
 that he is well and wisely employed. To him time is an 
 unfailing treasure ; a source of present enjoyment and ot
 
 204 PUNCTUALITY AND METHOD. 
 
 future reward. But the other method by which the reform* 
 ing procrastinator may redeem his time, and even the in- 
 dustrious and ever-active man may greatly add to its value, 
 is that to which we have already referred under the name 
 of Method. Punctuality and Method are in truth the right 
 and the left hand of Time. The man who possesses them is 
 never in a hurry, and yet never too late. Things move on 
 around him in well-ordered system, and every duty seems 
 to fall involuntarily into its right place. How different is 
 it with the man devoid of Order and Method. " He has 
 got twenty or thirty letters and packets to carry to their 
 several destinations ; but instead of arranging them before- 
 hand, and putting all addressed to the same locality in a 
 separate parcel, he crams the whole into his promiscuous 
 bag, and trudges off to the west end, for he knows that he 
 has got a letter directed thither ; that letter he delivers, 
 and hies away to the city, when lo ! the same handful 
 which brings out the invoice for Cheapside contains a brief 
 for the Temple, and a parliamentary petition, which should 
 have been left, had he noticed it earlier, at Belgrave- 
 square ; accordingly he retraces his steps and repairs the 
 omission, and then performs a transit from Paddington to 
 Bethnal-green ; till in two days he overtakes the work of 
 one, and travels fifty miles to accomplish as much as a 
 man of method would have managed in fifteen." 
 
 Yet all this is not to be gained without some self-denial. 
 We must be prepared to prefer duty to pleasure. A thou- 
 sand cases occur in which it seems fur pleasanter to put 
 off the execution of present duty to some indefinite future. 
 The school-boy thinks his lesson a most irksome task, and 
 did not wiser heads control him, and forbid procrastination,
 
 PUNCTUALITY AND METHOD. 205 
 
 lie would grow up an idle, ignorant dullard. So is it too 
 often with men. Stern necessity alone will compel them 
 to pursue what is after all fully as much for their own true 
 interests, as education is for the youth. This spirit which 
 tempts the idle to put off to a future day whatever seems 
 most hard to accomplish, or least pleasant to engage in, is 
 happily illustrated by Bunyan, in his parable of Passion 
 and Patience which Christian witnessed at the house of 
 the Interpreter. The children Passion and Patience illus- 
 trate the spirit of self-denying duty, and of procrastinating 
 impatience. " Passion seemed to be much discontented, but 
 Patience was very quiet. Then Christian asked, what ia 
 the reason of the discontent of Passion ? The Interpreter 
 answered, the governor of them would have him stay for 
 his best things till the beginning of next year ; but he will 
 have them all now : but Patience is willing to wait. Then 
 I saw that one came to Passion, and brought a bag of trea- 
 sure ; and poured it down at his feet ; the which he took 
 up and rejoiced therein, and withal laughed Patience to 
 scorn. But I beheld but a while, and he had lavished all 
 away, and had nothing left him but rags." This is the 
 course of thousands in this world's business. The spirit of 
 virtuous self-denial lies at the very root- of all promptitude, 
 punctuality, and method in human life. The man who 
 prefers present pleasure to duty, can never be a punctual 
 man. The habit of yielding what ought to be done, to that 
 which his inclinations tempt him to do, grows on him till it 
 becomes a mastering passion. He ceases at length to be 
 capable of prom^dy and punctually performing the daily 
 calls of business, and every step in life is only accom- 
 plished by a painful straggle, and an effort for which his
 
 206 ECONOMY. 
 
 enervated energies are scarcely capable. With the self- 
 denying man it is altogether different. He begins, indeed, 
 by doing his duty because it is such, and in spite of the 
 temptations to avoid it, or the inducements to put it off till 
 some more pleasant engagement has been met; but by and 
 by it becomes not only a pleasure to him, but as it were a 
 part and necessary law of his being, so that at length it 
 would be a trying and painful sacrifice to be compelled to 
 delay even the least pleasing duty which may devolve upon 
 him. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ECONOMY. 
 
 These have their meed at once ; but there's a Joy 
 To the fond votaries of fame unknown, 
 To hear the still small voice of conscience speak 
 Its whispering plaudit to the silent soul 
 
 HANNAH MORK. 
 
 THERE are few points on which the beginner in life is 
 more apt to err, with the most fatal results, than in bring- 
 ing to a true standard the world's estimation of good and 
 evil. Whosoever aims at success in life, whatever be tho 
 department of science, or art, law, commerce, or trade, 
 which he selects, must resolve to boldly face the world's 
 dread frown, and often do that which his conscience tells 
 him to bo right in defiance of the opinion of others. Self-
 
 ECONOMY. 207 
 
 reliance, which is the ordinary practical form of decision 
 of character, is an essential means towards the attainment 
 of all true greatness ; but there is something even worse 
 to cope with than the world's frown, and that is, the world's 
 dread laugh. According to the foolish code of life which 
 regulates the- opinions and the practice of thousands, that 
 extravagance and unregulated profusion which aims at 
 keeping up an appearance before the world, even at the 
 expense of honesty, integrity, and all fair dealing between 
 man and man, is regarded as at worst a sort of generous 
 excess, a failing which leans to virtue's side; while the 
 self-denying spirit of virtuous economy, which deems it 
 indispensable to purchase only when it can pay, and to 
 sacrifice many desirable luxuries and appearances rather 
 than infringe on the essential duties of honestly paying 
 every man his due, and providing not only for present but 
 for future contingencies, is esteemed a mean-spirited and 
 beggarly turn, unworthy of a gentleman. 
 
 Such opinions as these pervade a large class of the com- 
 munity, and exercise no unimportant influence on society. 
 In what are called the upper ranks of life, there are hun- 
 dreds of so-called gentlemen, who esteem even the obliga- 
 tions contracted among scoundrels who frequent the gam- 
 ing-table and the race-course, as debts of honour, and yet 
 deem it no discredit to leave the tradesmen who have 
 ministered to their luxuries and their necessities to suffer, 
 and even to incur the risk of ruin and starvation, for want 
 of the payment of their just claims. Nay, so far does this 
 false spirit of miscalled honour mislead its votaries, that 
 these " gentlemen" learn to view it as no disgrace to wear 
 clothes they have never paid for, and probably never
 
 208 ECONOMY. 
 
 will; to invite their companions to share in feasts, and 
 displays, and to indulge in costly wines, which are in 
 reality not their own ; and to talk in haughty contempt of 
 "tailors' and grocers' bills," while the only term that can be 
 properly applied to themselves is that of legal swindlers. 
 
 Such is manifestly not the road to success in life. It 
 may perhaps, however, be thought by many of our readers 
 that they are exposed to no such temptations ; that they 
 do not frequent the gaming-table, or bet on the race-course. 
 Yet true as such may be, still the poison which thus viti- 
 ates one important class of society extends its malign in- 
 fluence to many others. The merchant treads upon the 
 noble's heels, and aims at rivaling him in extravagant and 
 costly display. The trader follows the example of the 
 merchant. Even the mechanic is not always beneath, or 
 above the silly temptation of aping in dress, or manners, 
 or mode of life, the noble or the princely merchant. Thus 
 is the first blow struck at the root of healthful progress. 
 Disease creeps insidiously into the vitals ; extra vagance be- 
 gets debt, difficulties, falsehood, degradation, dishonesty, 
 and thus onward too often, even to open crime. The 
 father, that he may maintain a false social position, stints 
 the education of his children, while he is corrupting their 
 manners, and tainting their morals. Thus does one little 
 evil, like the grain of the "mustard tree" of scripture, the 
 smallest of all seeds, take root and spring up until it grows 
 into a mighty poison-tree, the baleful shadow of which 
 wraps thousands in its gloom. How tremendous therefore 
 must be the responsibility of those, who, placed in a situa- 
 tion where their example exercises so lai-ge an influence, 
 employ it only to scatter the seeds of misery and crime.
 
 ECONOMY. 209 
 
 Amid the dangers which most surely militate against 
 success in life, none are to be more strictly and watchfully 
 guarded against than those which present themselves in 
 the insidious guise of attractive example, or seductive per- 
 sonal gratification. Dr. Chalmers thus eloquently denoun- 
 ces the wrong perpetrated on society by those who, placed 
 in a position where their influence or example is powerful 
 in guiding others, act only in a manner to lead them 
 astray: "The evil is an outrage of far greater enormity 
 than tyrant or oppressor can inflict, in the prosecution of 
 his worst designs against the political rights and liberties 
 of the commonwealth. The very semblance of such designs 
 will summon every patriot to his post of observation ; and, 
 from a thousand watch-towers of alarm, will the outcry of 
 freedom in danger be heard throughout the land. But 
 there is a conspiracy of a far more malignant influence 
 upon the destinies of the species that is now going on ; 
 and which seems to call forth no indignant spirit, and to 
 bring no generous exclamation along with it. Throughout 
 all the recesses of private and domestic history, there is an 
 ascendency of rank and station against which no stern 
 republican is ever heard to lift his voice though it be an 
 ascendency, so exercised, as to be of most noxious opera- 
 tion to the dearest hopes and best interests of humanity. 
 There is a cruel combination of the great against the ma- 
 jesty of the people we mean the majesty of the people's 
 worth. There is a haughty unconcern about an inheritance, 
 which, by an unalienable right, should be theirs we mean 
 their future and everlasting inheritance. There is a deadly 
 invasion made on their rights we mean their rights of 
 conscience ; and, in this our land of boasted privileges, are
 
 210 ECONOMY. 
 
 the low trampled upon by the high we mean trampled 
 into all the degradation of guilt and of worthlessness. 
 They are utterly bereft of that homage which ought to be 
 rendered to the dignity of their immortal nature ; and to 
 minister to the avarice of an imperious master, or to spare 
 the sickly delicacy of the fashionables in our land, are the 
 truth and the piety of our population, and all the virtues of 
 their eternity, most unfeelingly plucked away from them. 
 It belongs to others to fight the battle of their privileges 
 in time. But who that looks with a calculating eye on 
 their duration that never ends, can repress an alarm of a 
 higher order! It belongs to others generously to struggle 
 for the place and the adjustment of the lower orders in the 
 great vessel of the state. But, surely, the question of their 
 place in eternity is of mightier concern than how they are 
 to sit and be accommodated in that pathway vehicle which 
 takes them to their everlasting habitations." 
 
 Such is the high, yet not too elevated view which the 
 eloquent divine has taken of those destinies involved in 
 such examples as we refer to. Economy, we repeat, a wise, 
 consistent, high-principled economy, is one of the best and 
 surest safeguards against such temptations, and if it de- 
 mands some self-denial it leads to far more substantial 
 rewards. Economy extended to every department of life, 
 to time, to money, to attendance, to moderation of expecta- 
 tions and desires, is the surest guide to happiness and to 
 success. It can convert the same business into a source of 
 wealth for one man, which has led another to bankruptcy, 
 and enable one to live in ease and abundance upon an 
 estate on which a previous owner found rank a burden 
 which it could not sustain. A gentleman in Surrey once
 
 ECOXOMT. 211 
 
 held a farm worth 200 a year in his own hands, till he was 
 obliged to sell half of it to pay his debts, and let the other 
 half to a farmer, on a lease of 21 years. After a while, the 
 farmer wanted to buy the land. "How is this," said the 
 gentleman, "that I could not live upon the farm, being my 
 own, while you have paid rent, and yet are able to pur- 
 chase it?" "0," said the farmer, "two words make all the 
 difference; you said go, and I say come; you lay in bed, or 
 took your pleasure, and sent others about your business ; 
 and I rise betimes, and see my business done myself." 
 
 This was economy both of time and of labour, and its 
 reward we see was abundant. But it even leads to economy 
 of health and longer life. The man who rises every morn- 
 ing at six, and after a healthful, industrious, and cheerful 
 occupation of his time in the active duties, and the inno- 
 cent social enjoyments of life, retires to bed at eleven, to 
 enjoy a sweet and undisturbed repose, literally lengthens 
 his actual existence, when we compare him with the votary 
 of pleasure, who listlessly forsakes his weary couch at ten 
 or eleven in the forenoon, drags through the morning, as 
 if existence were an insufferable evil, and life a curse 
 instead of a blessing ; and after a late dinner, and still later 
 dice or cards, or the like foolish means of abusing time, 
 retires to seek sleep at two or three in the morning. The 
 former has been asleep for three hours before the jaded 
 votary of pleasure retires to rest, but he is up five hours 
 before him, refreshed with "kind nature's sweet restorer :" 
 he is ready at once to begin with cheerfulness the busi- 
 ness of the day ; and that day is just three hours longer 
 than that of the indolent voluptuary. Does the reader 
 imagine how much difference this simple gaining of three
 
 212 ECONOMY. 
 
 hours a d:iy, will make on the actual length of a waking 
 life-time; The difference between the rising at six and 
 going to bed at eleven, and rising at eleven, and going to 
 bed at three ? The former has a day of seventeen hours 
 length, with seven hours for sleep, abundance for an 
 active, healthy man. The latter has a day of only fourteen 
 hours, with ten hours in bed perhaps little enougli for 
 the weary tossings of dissipation and ennui. In one year 
 the man of moderation and industry will have gained ninety- 
 one days and three hours ; and in a period of thirty years 
 ho will have actually enjoyed a waking existence of nearly 
 seven and a half years more than the other ; so that the 
 indolent votary of pleasure, even if his life be extended to 
 seventy years, the threescore and ten of our existence, 
 has lived shorter than thousands who die at an earlier age. 
 This must at once indicate to the young reader one effec- 
 tual and essential means of economy which is within the 
 reach of all. A good old homely proverb says, "Early to 
 bed and early to rise will make a man healthy, and wealthy, 
 and wise." It is a proverb full of truth. Time is literally 
 money. 
 
 To thousands it is health and wisdom, and length of 
 days to thousands more. It is, above all, to those who have 
 the wisdom to use it well, one of the most obvious means of 
 redeeming time, and as such, has already been referred to ; 
 while, even in what would bo deemed the most adverse cir- 
 cumstances, industry and economy of time bring with them 
 the blessings which God in his mercy designed, even whca 
 for man's sins the earth was cursed, and he was doomed to 
 till it, and bring forth its fruits by the sweat of his brow. 
 A correspondent of the New York Evangelist gives a strik-
 
 ECONOMY. 213 
 
 ing notice of the Rev. John A. Sherman, a Missionary in 
 Benares, upon the Granges, 500 miles above Calcutta. 
 While at Andover, Mass., though on a passing visit, and 
 in a foreign land, where he wished to notice things around 
 him, he read, during the ten days of his stay, Henry's Life 
 of Calvin, a recent German work in three large octavos, 
 besides much in periodicals, in addition to spending consid- 
 erable time in social intercourse, preaching twice, and deliv- 
 ering a most interesting lecture, of two hours' length, on 
 India. 
 
 About two years of Mr. Sherman's time in India has been 
 spent in translating and printing the Bible in the Hindos- 
 tan language, for the British and Foreign Bible Society. 
 While engaged in this translation, he applied himself from 
 four in the morning till eight in the evening, notwithstand- 
 ing the intense and sultry heat of Calcutta. And strange 
 as it may seem to some, he assigns this very fact of his 
 intense application, as a leading cause of his uninterrupted 
 health and vigour. "The man who would live in India," 
 he says, "must have plenty of work; if not, he will yield 
 to the enervating influence of the climate, and lounge away 
 his days upon the sofa, and consequently be tossing all 
 night on his sleepless couch, for want of the requisite 
 fatigue. Then comes dejection of spirits, and utter pros- 
 tration of the whole man." 
 
 The true secret indeed of economy in time, as in money, 
 is, to watch and guard against the loss of the smallest frac- 
 tions. For one fortune made by some lucky chance, thou- 
 sands have been the result of patient industry and the per- 
 severing economy which looks after every penny. A sound 
 and truthful popular maxim says : "Take care of the pence,
 
 214 ECONOMY. 
 
 and the pounds will take care of themselves." Our odd 
 comic humorist, Thomas Hood, has made a pleasant jest of 
 this in one of his quaint illustrations, by picturing a man at 
 his desk before an open window, with his money counted 
 out before him ; and while, in accordance with his favourite 
 maxim, he is holding the pence, the wind is blowing all his 
 pound-notes out of the window ! This practical pun of the 
 humorist, however, in no way invalidates the accuracy of 
 the proverb. Within the last few years, a merchant of 
 London, who, after attaining to many civic honours, at 
 length reached the distinguished office of chief Magis- 
 trate and Lord Mayor of London, stated on a public occa- 
 sion that he had arrived in the great metropolis some thirty 
 years before with only one shilling in his pocket. Economy 
 and patient perseverance were the sole elements of his suc- 
 cess. By never wasting a penny unnecessarily, he was at 
 length enabled to contribute his hundreds, and even his 
 thousands, when worthy objects presented their claims to 
 his wisely economical, yet liberal and benevolent heart. 
 
 Another and somewhat different example of the fruits of 
 economy and industry, exemplified in an American mer- 
 chant, may be here referred to. Joseph May having in early 
 life been unfortunate in business, formed afterwards the 
 somewhat singular resolution never to be rich. He had 
 probably learned in the providential frustration of his first 
 wishes, the danger of setting our affections inordinately on 
 earthly things. Abandoning all idea of the comprehensive 
 undertakings of a mercantile life in which he had origin- 
 ally embarked, he sought and obtained a situation, the 
 moderate salary of which promised abundantly to satisfy 
 his moderate desires.
 
 ECONOMY. 215 
 
 But because Joseph May had resolved not to be rich, 
 was he therefore idle 1 By no means. For more than 
 forty years he held a place in an insurance office, which 
 gave him a competence for his family. When free from 
 the duties of the office he found enough to do. 
 
 He read one or two hours in the morning, and as much 
 in the evening. He was fond of the old English classics 
 and the best historians ; Paley, and other moral writers ; 
 and was a practical student of u Political Economy." He 
 utterly despised avarice, but unless he had been a syste- 
 matic economist both of money and time, he never could 
 have accomplished the vast amount of good which he actu- 
 ally did. 
 
 He was not able to bestow large donations on public 
 institutions, but he was a valuable friend, promoter, and 
 director of them. His private charities are not to be 
 numbered. Without much trouble he might be traced 
 through every quarter of the city by the footprints of his 
 benefactions. Pensioners came to his door as they do in 
 some countries to the gate of a convent. The worthy poor 
 found in him a friend, and the unworthy he tried to re- 
 form. 
 
 He suggested to those who were on the verge of poverty, 
 principles of economy and kinds of labour, by which they 
 were enabled to put themselves into a comfortable estate. 
 His aid to those in distress and need was in many cases 
 not merely temporary and limited to single applications, 
 but as extensive as the life and future course of its object. 
 He seemed, indeed, to live by the good emperor's maxim > 
 never to leave any interval between one benevolent act and 
 another.
 
 216 ECOXOMT. 
 
 Joseph May thus exhibited, in a beautiful way, Industry) 
 Economy, and Benevolence, as sister graces. He had his 
 enjoyment of life all the way along, but in a very different 
 manner from a contemporary, Stephen Qirard, of Phila- 
 delphia. 
 
 Stephen commenced life where so many wealthy men 
 have begun, namely, at the very bottom of the hill. He went 
 from France to America as a cabin-boy, when only ten or 
 twelve years of age, without education, excepting a limited 
 acquaintance with the elements of reading and writing. 
 He was willing to perform any labour, however humble 
 and arduous, by which money could be obtained, for he 
 had determined to be rich. "With this resolution as firmly 
 fixed as our own Ben Lomond or Skiddaw, he went to 
 work in good earnest Industry his right hand, and Econ- 
 omy the left. 
 
 He adopted, says one of his biographers, that system of 
 business which would most effectually ensure the result 
 he aimed at; making it a fixed principle to practise the 
 most rigid economy; to shut his heart against all the 
 blandishments of life ; to stand to the last farthing, if that 
 farthing were his due ; to bar out all those impulses which 
 might for small objects take money from his purse; to 
 plead the statute of limitations against a just claim, because 
 he had a right to do so by the law ; to use men as mere 
 tools to accomplish his purposes ; to pay only what he had 
 contracted to pay to his long-tried and faithful cashier, who 
 had been the cause of much of his good fortune, and when 
 he died in his service, to manifest the most hardened and 
 unnatural indifference to his death, without making the 
 least provision for his family.
 
 ECONOMY. 217 
 
 The desire of wealth, as the means of influence, was the 
 master-spirit which conquered the soul of Stephen Girard, 
 and paralyzed all other feelings ; and it had grown to such 
 strength that sympathy for his kind seldom enlivened the 
 solitude of his frozen heart. 
 
 " Drive thy business, or it will drive thee," says Frank- 
 lin's Poor Richard, and it seems to have been Girard's 
 motto. Up before the morning lark, he soundly rated any 
 of his workmen who permitted him to gain the preced- 
 ence in time ; his life was one of unceasing labour, which 
 allowed but little relaxation, excepting that which was 
 required by nature. 
 
 He constantly wore an old coat, cut in the French style, 
 and remarkable only for its antiquity; generally preserv- 
 ing the same garment in constant use for four and five 
 years. Nor did he maintain a costly equipage. An old 
 chair, or chaise, distinguished chiefly for its rickety con- 
 struction as well as its age, drawn by an indifferent horse, 
 suited to such a vehicle, was used in his daily journey to 
 the Neck, where lay his farm, to the laborious cultivation 
 of which he devoted the greater portion of his leisure tune. 
 
 But even here, where it might have been supposed that 
 he would exercise the ordinary rites of hospitality, no 
 friend was welcomed with a warm feeling. In one in- 
 stance an acquaintance was invited to witness his improve- 
 ments, and was shown to a strawberry-bed, which had 
 been, in the greater part, gleaned of its contents, and told 
 that he might gather the fruit in that bed ; when the owner 
 took leave, stating that he must go to work in a neighbour- 
 ing bed. The acquaintance finding that this tract had been 
 nearly stripped of its fruit by his predecessors, soon strayed
 
 218 ECONOMY. 
 
 to another tract, which appeared to bear more abundantly, 
 when he was accosted by Mr. Girard "I told you," said 
 he, " that you might gather strawberries only in that bed." 
 Such was his hospitality. 
 
 The results of his industry, and the economy which 
 eeemed at the time so niggardly, may be seen in the city 
 of Philadelphia, in beautiful dwelling-houses row after 
 row reared by him and bearing his name, but more than 
 all, in that magnificent marble edifice, Girard College. 
 
 Who knows how many years this mysterious man 
 
 "The stoic of the mart, a man without a tear" 
 who knows how many anxious years he employed in plan- 
 ning and preparing this college for destitute orphans ? It 
 might have been in view of his own desolate condition, 
 when cast, a friendless orphan, among strangers and 
 foreigners, that he devised this splendid charity for poor, 
 forlorn, fatherless children ; we fear, however, it must 
 rather be ascribed to weak personal vanity. This example 
 by no means furnishes a perfect model, yet it abundantly 
 proves what economy may achieve. Industry and Econ- 
 omy might have been the appropriate inscription upon the 
 marble portico, beneath which stands the statue of Stephen 
 Girard. 
 
 Mr. Philip Hone relates the following illustrative anec- 
 dote. Several years since, a merchant in the Dutch trade, 
 who had been a resident in New York fifteen or twenty 
 years, had in his possession a silk umbrella of uncommonly 
 large proportions, which attracted the notice of a friend in 
 company, who said to him in jest 
 
 "I should not be surprised to hear, that you brought 
 out that umbrella with you from Holland."
 
 ECONOMY. 219 
 
 "You have guessed right," replied the Dutchman; "I 
 did bring it when I came to this country, and have had it 
 in constant use ever since ; but I have sent it once, during 
 the time, to Holland, to be newly covered." 
 
 " Now this gentleman was liberal and charitable," adds 
 Mr. Hone, " but he took good care of his umbrella, and 
 died worth a million of dollars." " The fact is," adds an 
 American writer, in commenting on this anecdote, " as a 
 people, we do not practise economy as constantly and aa 
 systematically as do many other nations." 
 
 The economy of the Frenchman who wraps the remain- 
 ing morsels of sugar in a piece of paper, and takes them 
 away in his pocket from the caf, seems quite ridiculous, 
 but Monsieur carries this minute economy into all the 
 details of daily life, and is thus able to live a whole year 
 on a sum which would not suffice for more than a single 
 month for a fashionable young merchant in one of our 
 larger cities. 
 
 Thrift is the best means of thriving. This is one of 
 the truths which force themselves upon the most simple 
 understandings, when it is almost the only means. Hence, 
 there is no lack of such sayings as, " A pin a day is a groat 
 a year f or that we have already quoted, " Take care of the 
 pence and the pounds will take care of themselves." Per- 
 haps the former of these maxims, which bears such strongly 
 marked features of homelier times, may be out of date in 
 these days of inordinate gains and still more inordinate 
 desires; when it seems as if nobody could be satisfied 
 unless he can dig up gold from the soil, and achieve a 
 fortune as by the cast of a lottery. But those that so hasten 
 to be rich, are most frequently doomed to disappointment,
 
 220 ECONOMY. 
 
 as the speculations of thousands have proved to their 
 bitter cost within the last few years. 
 
 But there are modes of economy that lead to sorrow, no 
 less than these inordinate desires. "We have already pointed 
 to the curse of those who withhold the wages of the hire- 
 ling. But there is another form of the same selfish spirit, 
 which grudges the just reward of the labourer, pinches the 
 wages of the servant, or greedily monopolizes the profits of 
 another's labour. In all this the divine law offers the true 
 standard of guidance. " There is that scattereth, and yet 
 increaseth; and there is that withholdeth, but it tendeth 
 to poverty." This by no means refers to mere charity and 
 benevolence. We often see, indeed, the wealthy trader, 
 ready with his ostentatious donations to many public chari- 
 ties, who is yet criminally chargeable with the unwise 
 economy of which we speak. The man who by means of his 
 wealth is able to command the services of the ingenious 
 mechanician, the inventor, the skilled workman, or the artist, 
 and while turning his productions to a large account, is con- 
 tent to pay the originator some mere fraction of the results, 
 is guilty of an economy on which no blessing can accrue. 
 He is robbing the hireling of the just fruits of his labour, 
 and has no right to look for a blessing on the return. It is 
 a robbery, no less sinful in the eye of God, tlian those 
 breaches of the divine law which subject their perpetrators 
 to the awards of a human tribunal. But there is another 
 mode of economy no less reprehensible, and on which con- 
 science must assure every man that no blessing can attend. 
 We allude not to the robbing of man, but of God, a sinful 
 economy by which some of his most precious gifts are 
 turned into a curse. a We allude to the doing of week-day
 
 ECONOMY. 221 
 
 business upon the Sabbath. "We allude to that violence 
 which is rudely offered to the feelings and the associations 
 of sacredness, by those exactions that an ungodly master 
 lays at times on his youthful dependents when those hours 
 which they were wont to spend in church, they are called 
 upon to spend in the counting-house when that day, which 
 ought to be a day of piety, is turned into a day of posting 
 and of penmanship when the rules of the decalogue are 
 set aside, and utterly superseded by the rules of the great 
 trading establishment; and every thing is made to give 
 way to the hurrying emergency of orders, and clearances, 
 and the demands of instant correspondence. Such is the 
 magnitude of this stumbling-block, that many is the young 
 man who has here fallen to rise no more that, at this 
 point of departure, he has so widened his distance from 
 God, as never in fact, to return to him that, in this dis- 
 tressing contest between principle and necessity, the final 
 blow has been given to his religious principles that the 
 master whom he serves, and under whom he earns his pro- 
 vision for time, has here wrested the whole interest of hia 
 eternity away from him that, from this moment, there 
 gathers upon his soul the complexion of a hardier and 
 more determined impiety and conscience once stifled now 
 speaks to him with a feebler voice and the world obtains 
 a firmer lodgement in his heart and, renouncing all his 
 original tenderness about Sabbath, and Sabbath employ- 
 ments, he can now, with the thorough unconcern of a fixed 
 and familiarized proselyte, keep equal pace by his fellows 
 throughout every scene of profanation and he who wont 
 to tremble and recoil from the freedoms of irreligion with 
 the sensibility of a little one, may soon become the most
 
 222 ECONOMV. 
 
 daringly rebellious of them all and that Sabbath which he 
 has now learned, at one time, to give to business, he, at 
 another, gives to unhallowed enjoyments and it is turned 
 into a day of visits and excursions, given up to pleasure, 
 and enlivened by all the mirth and extravagance of holiday 
 and, when sacrament is proclaimed from the city pulpits, 
 he, the apt, the well trained disciple of his corrupt and cor- 
 rupting superior, is the readiest to plan the amusements of 
 the coming opportunity, and among the very foremost in 
 the ranks of emigration and though he may look back at 
 times, to the Sabbath of his father's pious house, yet the 
 retrospect is always becoming dimmer, and at length it 
 ceases to disturb him and thus the alienation widens every 
 year, till, wholly given over to impiety, he lives without 
 God in the world." 
 
 The punishment of such unwise economy is not slow or 
 uncertain. It has proved indeed the most fruitful source 
 of misery and crime. A gentleman who was in the habit, 
 for more than twenty years, of daily visiting convicts, states 
 that, almost universally, when brought to a sense of their 
 condition, they lamented their neglect of the Sabbath, and 
 pointed to their violation of it as the principal cause of 
 their ruin. That prepared them for, and led them on, step 
 by step, to the commission of other crimes, and finally to 
 the commission of that winch brought them to the prison, 
 and often to the gallows. He has letters almost innumer- 
 able, he says, from others, proving the same thing, and that 
 they considered the violation of the Sabbath the great 
 cause of their ruin. He has attended three hundred and 
 fifty at the place of execution, where they were put to death 
 for their crimes, and nine out of ten who were brought
 
 ECONOMY. 223 
 
 to a sense of their condition attributed the greater part of 
 their departure from God to their neglect of the Sabbath. 
 Another gentleman who was conversant with prisoners for 
 more than thirty years, stated, that he found in all his ex- 
 perience, both with regard to those who had been capitally 
 convicted and those who had not, that they referred to the 
 violation of the Sabbath as the chief cause of their crimes ; 
 and that this has been confirmed by all the opportunities 
 he had had of examining prisoners. Not that this has been 
 the only cause of crime; but, like the use of intoxicating 
 liquors, it has greatly increased public and private immo- 
 rality, and been the means, in a multitude of cases, of pre- 
 mature death. 
 
 Examples of the good effects of the contrary course are 
 no less abundant. - Seven young men, in a town in Massa- 
 chusetts, started in the same business nearly at the same 
 time. Six of them had some property or assistance from 
 their friends, and followed their business seven days in a 
 week. The other had less property than either of the six. 
 He had less assistance from others, and worked in his busi- 
 ness only six days in a week. He is now the only man 
 who has property, and has not failed in his business. 
 
 The same has been frequently noted in our own country, 
 and though the punishment of the Sabbath-breaker and the 
 evil-doer be not always witnessed in this life, yet abund- 
 ant examples do prove that even here there is that gather- 
 eth and it tendeth to poverty. The following fact, com- 
 municated by a respectable merchant of New York, is well 
 worthy of notice : "I have particularly observed," says the 
 gentleman, " that those merchants in New York who have 
 kept their counting-rooms open on the Sabbath day, during
 
 224 ECONOMY. 
 
 my residence there (twenty-five years,) have failed without 
 exception." 
 
 In another part of the country an old man remarked, "I 
 can recollect mdre than fifty years ; but I cannot recollect 
 a case of a man, in this town, who was accustomed to work 
 on the Sabbath, who did not fail or lose his property before 
 he died." 
 
 At the second annual meeting of the Society for Pro- 
 moting the due Observance of the Lord's Day, the Eev. H. 
 Stowell stated, that at a large meeting, which was held at 
 Manchester, to petition the legislature on the better observ- 
 ance of the Sabbath, a leading spinner came forward, and 
 said, that there was nothing more common than to hear 
 from his brother spinners and master manufacturers this 
 assertion, " If you stop the mill altogether on Sunday, you 
 must frequently stop it on Monday also; because, if the 
 engine gets out of order, or any other necessary repair be 
 required, it must be done on the Sunday, or the mill cannot 
 proceed on the Monday." Now, all this seems mighty 
 plausible, said the good man, but I can prove it to be false ; 
 for in my mill I never suffer a stroke to be struck on the 
 Sabbath; and on one occasion my boiler had suffered a 
 misfortune on a Saturday, and I feared the mill must stop 
 on the Monday, but determined to try what could be done. 
 I sent for a leading engineer, and said to him, " Can you 
 have the mill ready to work on Monday morning T "Yes, 
 certainly I can." "But then," said I, "you mean to work 
 on Sunday?" "Of course, sir." "But," said I, "you shall 
 not do it in my mill." " But I cannot mend the boiler, if I 
 do not," said he. I said, " I do not care, you shall not work 
 ill my mill on Sunday. I would rather that my mill stood
 
 ECONOMY. 223 
 
 the whole of Monday, than that the Sabbath should be 
 violated in it!" The man said, "You are different from all 
 other masters." I said, "My Bible, not the conduct of 
 others, is my rule ; and you must do it without working on 
 Sunday, or I will try to get somebody else." This had the 
 desired effect : they set to work, and worked till twelve 
 o'clock on the Saturday night, and began again at an early 
 hour on Monday morning. The repairs were finished, and 
 the mill was in full work at the usual hour on Monday. 
 
 It would be running into a hasty extreme to say, that no 
 man ever sustained any pecuniary loss by obedience to the 
 divine commandments. On the contrary, whosoever would 
 be the disciple of Christ must learn to take up his cross 
 and follow him. But certainly no man ever really lost by 
 such willing obedience. Tliat would indeed be a strange 
 success in life to aim at, which only secured the comforts 
 of a few fleeting years by the sacrifice of all that are to 
 follow. The merchant is well content to submit to many 
 hours of anxiety, and to not a few present risks and sacri- 
 fices with a view to the future, and shall not he show the 
 like wisdom when far more momentous concerns are in- 
 volved in his decision ? Yet while we dare not hold out as 
 an inducement to the strict obedience to known duty, that 
 it must invariably bring as its reward present success as 
 well as future gain ; yet thousands of instances prove the 
 truth of the divine declaration that "godliness has the pro- 
 mise of this life as well as of that which is to come." A 
 chemist and druggist once remarked to an American 
 author, "There was a time when I used to court business 
 on the Lord's day ; and, sheltering myself under the alleged 
 necessity of being at hand to supply medicine in case of 
 p
 
 226 ECONOMY. 
 
 illness, I employed myself in preparing a quantity of tinc- 
 tures, weighing packets of soda-water powders, and many 
 such like things, not because they were needed, but really 
 for the sake of saving time on other days. At that time I 
 did take more money on the Sabbath than on any other day, 
 not a penny in a shilling of which was for matters of real 
 necessity. When I began to see it my duty to act differently, 
 and refused to sell on the Sabbath, perfumery, cigars, and 
 other matters of mere luxury and fancy, I offended a few of 
 my customers, and expected to find that I had seriously in- 
 jured my business ; but hi a little time people fell into my 
 arrangements, and left off coming for such things. I now 
 enjoy my Sabbaths undisturbed, except in cases of real 
 need, to which, of course, I readily attend. Every customer 
 whom I would wish to return has come back to me ; and, 
 taking into account the saving of Sunday expenses, which 
 almost invariably countervail Sunday gains, I can say, with 
 humble thankfulness, that my prosperity is now greater 
 than ever." To this we may add the following example of 
 practical experience. A distinguished practitioner was 
 harassed with calls on the Sabbath his Sabbaths were 
 broken he was detained from public worship; it was a 
 trial to him to be obliged to serve his patrons so often and 
 so constantly on the Sabbath. At length he adopted this 
 expedient : he let it be known that he viewed the Sabbath 
 as the Lord's day sacred to his worship, and that he must 
 regard his calls upon the sick on that day as works of ne- 
 cessity and mercy, and that he should make no charge for 
 his services on that day. He supposed that people would 
 not call on him in these circumstances, that they would 
 have too much goodness to ask his services gratuitously,
 
 ECONOMY. 227 
 
 and that he should have few calls and be free to attend 
 public worship. But to his surprise it increased the evil ; 
 if his services were to be given on the Sabbath, every body 
 wanted him on the Sabbath ; and he was sent for here and 
 there and all about. There was no keeping the Sabbath 
 so. He accordingly changed the tables, and gave out tliat 
 ho should make a double charge for travels and visits 
 on the Sabbath, and of course it would cost as much again 
 to be sick on the Sabbath as any other day of the week. 
 This expedient had the desired effect; he could finish his 
 business by Saturday night, and with the exception of a few 
 extreme cases, he could have for his own use that blessed 
 day of rest, which is one of the most remarkable evidences 
 God has given to man of his benevolent care over all his 
 works. 
 
 Here, therefore, is a wise economy which he who aims at 
 success in life, must not fail to practise. That God has 
 said of his Sabbath, "on it thou shall do no work," should 
 be sufficient reason for this. But even the experience of 
 the world teaches us that the day of rest is as indispensable 
 as the nightly repose by which tired nature recruits her 
 exhausted strength. 
 
 One advice more remains to be added as a guide to that 
 judicious economy on which success in life depends. Every 
 man knows, or ought to know, what his income is. If he 
 be above the rank of a pauper, it is sufficient for his sub- 
 sistence, however limited it be. Let him remember there- 
 fore that one of the most indispensable of all means to suc- 
 cess, peace of mind, worldly comfort, honest dealing, and 
 ultimate prosperity, is to live within his income. The first 
 step towards this must necessarily be to ascertain what that
 
 223 ECONOMT. 
 
 income is. Tlie next is to suit his mode of life to his cir- 
 cumstances. But if, with the knowledge of having only a 
 very limited income, he choose to vie with those who pos- 
 sess the means of sustaining a higher position in society, 
 flattering himself with vague hopes, meanwhile, that all will 
 turn out well; that his prospects are such as promise a 
 future increase; and that he intends at some undefined 
 future to retrench, and save ; then all chance of success in 
 life may be pronounced to be over. It is easy to step up- 
 ward, but it is a most difficult and painful thing to come 
 down in life, and they who adopt the foolish mode of 
 temporary gratification here referred to, purchase for 
 themselves a thousand mortifications, for which they will 
 neither receive, nor deserve the sympathy of others. The 
 man with only 100 a-year knows that thousands are liv- 
 ing and rearing families in habits of honest industry on the 
 half of it. It is manifest folly, therefore, for him to tell him- 
 self or attempt to persuade others that it cannot suffice. The 
 same argument must still more strongly apply to the man 
 of two. three, or four hundred pounds a-year, of income, 
 Yet, in every rank of life we see men, heedless of this grent 
 duty of a wise economy, struggling on amid daily miseries 
 of their own creating, and purchasing future suffering for 
 themselves and all who depend on them. It would be easy 
 to multiply examples of the practical fruits of economy. 
 The life of Franklin is a wonderful instance of what may 
 be accomplished by economy of time, of means, of labour, 
 and indeed of all the faculties and gifts which Providence 
 places within our reach. A wise economy may be said to 
 have been the key note to all his wonderful success in life. 
 Among those who, like him, have risen to distinction in
 
 ECONOMY. 229 
 
 literary or scientific life, from humble beginnings, and 
 without the usual aids of education, and position in early 
 life, economy both of means and of time have been pre- 
 eminently applicable for the accomplishment of their suc- 
 cess. We might refer to Dr. Adam, the son of a small 
 Scottish crofter. During his student life at Edinburgh, his 
 humble suburban lodging cost him fourpence a week, his 
 usual dinner was a penny roll and a glass of water. His 
 means of subsistence was secured by devoting a consider- 
 able portion of his time to private tuition ; yet so well was 
 the remainder turned to account, that, at the age of twenty, 
 he secured the head mastership of one of the chief scholastic 
 institutions in Edinburgh without patronage or external 
 aid, but simply by force of merit. Many similar instances 
 could bo quoted, but enough has been advanced to prove 
 the indispensable necessity of economy in every depart- 
 ment of life for securing success, while it is no less apparent 
 that by this wise virtue almost any obstacle may be sur- 
 mounted, and every difficulty converted into a means of 
 triumph.
 
 230 FORESIOHT AND PRUDENCE. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 FORESIGHT AND PRUDENCE, 
 
 " Hope at the prow, but prudence at the helm, 
 Caution to wisely watch and take command 
 While yet 'tis timely. Fools are cautious too 
 When 'tis too late, and prudent when 'tis vain. 
 All aim at present good ; a wiser few 
 Look to the future ; but THE WISE are they 
 Who make the future and the present one, 
 The future in the present ever felt, 
 And with high destiny attain to both.' 
 
 JANE STBEL. 
 
 THE conduct of man in relation to the most momentous 
 concerns of life, is likened in the sacred scriptures to cer- 
 tain virgins, who, in accordance with old eastern customs, 
 took their lamps and went forth to meet the bridegroom. 
 But the description of them adds: five of them were wise, 
 and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their 
 lamps, and took no oil with them ; but the wise took oil in 
 their vessels with their lamps. The sequence is familiar we 
 doubt not to our youngest readers ; but its lesson is one of 
 the most momentous ones in relation to our chief concerns 
 as immortal beings which the divine revelation conveys. 
 It is also not without its force and value in relation to our 
 ordinary affairs in this life. It shows in the most striking
 
 FORESIGHT AND PRUDENCE. 231 
 
 manner Hie contrast between those, who, thinking only of 
 the present moment, are suddenly found wanting when the 
 crisis arrives, and with lamps in their hands are abandoned 
 to darkness while they seek in vain what prudent foresight 
 ought to have known and provided for, and those who 
 wisely " working for the future in the present," are found 
 prepared for the most sudden and unexpected call. 
 
 We are placed in this life, whatever be our social posi- 
 tion, like a pilot at the helm. Constant vigilance is de- 
 manded of us. The duty of the Christian is to be watchful, 
 as he who values the mighty interests he has at stake. So 
 also, each in his lesser degree, must the merchant, the 
 banker, the trader, the artizan, be ever watchful and provi- 
 dent for the future, if he would avoid its dangers, and 
 secure not only the safety of the future, but even the 
 peaceful enjoyment of the present hour. We must learn 
 moreover to test our experience and learn wisdom there- 
 by. 
 
 There is a forecasting of events, which, in its effects, 
 amounts almost to prescience. Experience is the teacher 
 who gives the lessons, often dear-bought, which produce 
 this foreseeing wisdom. 
 
 Has a merchant failed in an enterprise for which he 
 entertained sanguine hopes of success, he carefully exa- 
 mines into the causes of failure. Were these ocean, wind, or 
 fire elements against which no human wisdom could fore- 
 fend he yields submissively to Him who holds the waters 
 " in the hollow of his hand ;" who " rides upon the whirl- 
 wind and directs the storm." But has the failure been owing 
 to his own neglect of some means which he might have 
 used, and which would have insured success, he neglects
 
 232 FORESIGHT AND PRUDENCE. 
 
 them not again. His ships are strong from keel to top- 
 mast ; his captains honest, courageous, and circumspect j 
 his crews able-bodied and temperate ! 
 
 The news arrives from a distant country of a failure in 
 crops; he does not wait to hear that famine is stalking 
 over that land ; he sends immediately his ships freighted 
 with breadstuff's. 
 
 Accustomed to look closely at causes and consequences, 
 he calculates with almost mathematical certainty upon the 
 rise and fall of stocks. His less observant neighbours 
 regard him as an oracle. When he " opes his lips" they 
 eagerly listen for hints by which they may shape their own 
 course, in the counting-house, and on Change. Though it 
 may be while they thus have their ears and eyes wide 
 open, the sapient trader, who is perhaps withal somewhat 
 selfishly prudent, will keep his own counsel, sealing Ida 
 tongue to the roof of his mouth ; such silence being often 
 no more than ordinary prudence. Prudence will indeed 
 often manifest itself by silence, and is at least always 
 opposed to open-mouthed rashness. Prudence is eautious 
 and deliberating. Prudence consults about the most suit- 
 able means to accomplish her designs, and the necessary 
 watchfulness to guard them from being shipwrecked. Her 
 place is at the helm. When the gallant ship is under full 
 sail, and with a stiff breeze careering over the waves, she 
 warns, "Beware of breakers ahead !" and when Hope cries 
 "Land! land!" she whispers, "Beware of a lee-lurch!" 
 Even when the destined port is in view, she is still ready 
 to cry : "Look out for shoals or hidden rocks 1" 
 
 He who starts in life without Prudence at his elbow, is 
 like the foolish builder who founded his dwelling on the
 
 FORESIGHT AND PRUDENCE. 233 
 
 sand, and dreamt not that the sun would ever be clouded, 
 or the winds blow : 
 
 "Like one who draws the model of a house 
 Beyond his power to build it ; who, half through, 
 Gives o'er, and leaves his part created cost 
 A naked subject to the weeping clouds, 
 And waste for churlish winter's tyranny." 
 
 But when Prudence guides the course, she bids us count 
 the cost, and then dig deep, and found strongly and 
 patiently, building on the firm rock, so that the fiercest 
 storms may prove vain ; where foresight has provided 
 against them : 
 
 " When we mean to build, 
 
 We first survey the plot, then draw the model, 
 
 And when we see the figure of the house, 
 
 Then must we rate the cost of the erection; 
 
 Which, if we find ouU-eifihs ability, 
 
 What do we then, but draw anew the model ?** 
 
 The rashness of speculation, which has been the causa 
 of ruin to thousands, is most earnestly to be deprecated. 
 There is a wonderful propensity among mankind to believe 
 in what is called " luck" good luck or bad luck. It is a 
 pleasant thing to say : " Oh, I am a lucky fellow I" " I 
 can venture upon this speculation, though it would be pre- 
 sumptuous for some unlucky dog to do so." Yet how fool- 
 ish and absurd is the notion ! Will men never learn that 
 causes and effects are indissolubly joined together, that not 
 even a sparrow falls unseen by God, and that there is no 
 such thing as cluuvo ? 
 
 It would seem not. He who trusts to luck and fails, 
 tries again ; this time he succeeds ; why, he does not 
 inquire, but thanks his good fortune. Not reverently
 
 234 FORESIGHT AND PRUDENCE. 
 
 indeed ; for how is that to be expected of an idolater of 
 blind chance} but nevertheless, he worships at her shrine ; 
 and because she has, as he supposes, once smiled upon 
 him, he looks again for her favours, and without the slight- 
 est calculation, rushes into new experiments, and still 
 rasher speculations. 
 
 They are unsuccessful his luck has turned. Poor, fool- 
 ish one ! Happy will it be for him, if he learn, before his 
 head whiten with age and misfortune, that one of the chief 
 plague-spots of human life is this trusting to "luck." 
 
 "No divinity was adored by the Romans," says Michelet, 
 " under more names than Fortune that god, whoever he 
 be, that causes success." But a nobler and wiser than the 
 Romans, or the Frenchman says 
 
 "There's a Divinity that shapes our ends, 
 Rcmgh-hew them how we will" 
 
 With this confidence in a superintending Providence, 
 take your circumstances as they are, and make the best of 
 them. Goethe has changed the postulate of Archimedes 
 Give me a standing-place and I will move the world into 
 the precept Make good thy standing-place and- move the 
 world. So was it that Luther moved the world, not by 
 waiting for a favourable opportunity, but by doing his 
 daily work. We ought not to linger in inaction till Blu 
 cher comes up, but like the great British commander, the 
 moment we catch sight of him in the distance, to rise and 
 charge. 
 
 The want of foresight and prudence in the management 
 of the affairs of life may, in not a few instances, be traced 
 to the romantic expectations induced by novel-reading;
 
 FORESIGHT AND PRUDENCE. 235 
 
 one of the most fertile sources of injury and debility to the 
 human mind. 
 
 In badly conceived novels and romances, the means to 
 produce a given end are so entirely inadequate to tho re- 
 sults as often to be ludicrously impossible ; yet minds, not 
 accustomed to reason from cause to consequence, and 
 highly excited by the bewitching narrative, do not stop to 
 calculate probabilities, or to test its truth by the lessons of 
 experience. The poison is sweet, though deadly. 
 
 The brilliant success of the hero of a favourite novel 
 excites the most sanguine expectations of similar success. 
 Some unheard-of old uncle is to die, and leave his immense 
 property to the romantic young man or some fanciful old 
 lady is to adopt him as her protege, and bequeath him her 
 vast estates; or some beautiful and rich young lady is to 
 bo equally fascinated by his wonderful charms, and bestow 
 npon him her hand and fortune. Vain and childish as such 
 follies may seem, they have proved the bane and ruin of 
 hundreds. While he thus revels in enchanted bowers, 
 listening to the witching charmer Imagination, he becomes 
 spell-bound incapable of action, and even of a clear per- 
 ception of things as they are. Nay, he learns to despise 
 that very respectable and very useful quality, common 
 sense. His conduct in life proves that he does so ; and not 
 until all his cloud-built castles have melted into air, and 
 proved themselves "the baseless fabric of a vision," does 
 he begin to look back on his mad and profitless course ; 
 most frequently after all the true chances of life, and the 
 opportunities of Providence, have been despised and for 
 ever lost. 
 
 Whatever be the course of life we are destined to pur-
 
 236 FORESIGHT AND PRUDENCE. 
 
 sue, we can never wisely forget that we are rational 
 beings, endowed with the divine gift of reason, with an 
 intelligence which separates us from all the other beinga 
 of the animated creation, with their limited instincts ; and 
 with an immortal soul, which, while it gives us the means 
 of partaking of the highest enjoyments of intellectual 
 culture, also imposes on us the responsibility of employing 
 these high faculties in a way worthy of so noble and 
 divine a gift. Prudence and foresight must teach the 
 young man that if he employ his leisure hours in storing 
 his mind with a knowledge of languages, or a skill in 
 mathematics and geography, an insight into the experience 
 of voyagers and travellers, or an understanding of the 
 principles of science hi relation to the laws of nature, and 
 the varied phenomena which they produce ; any or all of 
 these may sooner or later prove of great practical value, 
 while they cannot but afford present gratification and en- 
 joyment. If they do nothing else, they strengthen the 
 intellect, practise tho reasoning faculties, and thus qualify 
 the mind for every duty. They serve for tho mind as 
 healthy exercise does for the body, and are no less indis- 
 pensable to it. The thoughtless man might thus reason : 
 what has the literary student, or the lawyer, or the mer- 
 chant's or banker's clerk, to do with walking, or running, 
 or any open-air exercise ? his work is all sendentary, his 
 whole duties are at the desk ! But common sense tells us 
 that if he do not cultivate such healthful exercise, he will 
 not be long able for sedentary duties. Even so is it with 
 the mind. The diligent cultivation of all its highest facul- 
 ties may not seem at all needed, or even desirable, for the 
 manufacturer of cotton goods, or the trader in hardwares ;
 
 FORESIGHT AND PRUDENCE. 237 
 
 but the man who thinks of nothing else all his life but the 
 daily routine of such business, will grow no less enervated 
 in mind than he who sits from day to day at his desk 
 without taking reasonable exercise will grow enervated, 
 and at length diseased in his body. 
 
 But if the exclusive devotion of the mind to so limited a 
 circle of cares and duties bo injurious to it, how much 
 more enervating must be its occupation on such silly and 
 enfeebling studies as romances and fictitious tales? If the 
 former be folly, the latter is madness. It is one of the 
 commonest and worst forms of intellectual dissipation, pro- 
 ducing on the mind precisely the same effects as the use 
 of intoxicating liquors does on the body. It is, in short, nei- 
 ther more nor less than mental dram-drinking. Prudence, 
 once forewarned, cannot surely shut her eyes against a 
 source of danger so insidious and yet escape destruction. It 
 is in every way an evil; it leads to the waste of precious time 
 which might be far more pleasantly employed in acquiring 
 useful and valuable knowledge. It leads to the injury and 
 the destruction of the powers of the mind, fitted for noble 
 purposes,and capable of effecting the most important results. 
 It also leads to the waste of our sensibilities, until they 
 grow excitable and yet callous, as the drunkard's palate. 
 How often do we see men and women who can be moved 
 to tears by the fictitious woes of the hero of a novel, or 
 evince the most tender susceptibility at the mimic suffer- 
 ings of the theatrical tragedy, and yet display no sympathy 
 for the thousands of suffering poor, the widows, the orphans, 
 the abandoned, and the dying, for whom the benevolent 
 in vain implore their interest and aid. 
 
 How different from all this was it with the distinguished
 
 238 FORESIGHT AND PRUDENCE. 
 
 philanthropist to whom we have already referred, Sir 
 Thomas Fowel Buxton ; by vigorous physical exercise, he 
 strengthened his bodily frame, and fitted himself for the 
 utmost exertion and endurance in whatever he should 
 undertake. By no less vigorous mental exercise, he pre- 
 pared his mind for whatever future work lay before him. 
 What, it might be asked by many, had a London brewer to 
 do with a college education ? Of what possible use could 
 Greek, or Latin, or metaphysics, or logic, be to help in the 
 manufacture of porter ! Such questioners would indeed 
 most probably pronounce all such learning as calculated 
 only completely to unfit the young student from ever en- 
 gaging to any good purpose in the brewer's establishment. 
 Yet look at the actual fact. The student passed from 
 Trinity College to the London counting-house with his 
 mind invigorated by healthy studies, and trained to dili- 
 gent application. Nothing was too mean for him, or in- 
 capable of being benefited by his intelligence or experience. 
 The oldfashioned and cumbrous formulas which the count- 
 ing-house clerks had adhered to without change for fifty 
 years, gave way at once before his intelligent discrimina- 
 tion and judgment. He could be found at his desk when 
 needed, at six in the morning; was a better clerk than 
 the oldest commercial scribe trained for a life-time at the 
 brewers' ledgers, and in fact, he wrought such a change on 
 the old establishment that he made not only his own for- 
 tune but that of all the partners. Wise prudence there- 
 fore, it is manifest, will never bid the young man neglect 
 the cultivation of his mind. If he is to be only a shoe- 
 maker, or a tailor, or a grocer, or baker, still, the more he 
 cultivates his mind the better ; the fitter will he be for the
 
 FORESIGHT AND PRUDENCE. 239 
 
 duties of life. Prudence, indeed, will warn him to use this, 
 as all other means of enjoyment and recreation, not only 
 wisely, but circumspectly and temperately. The student, 
 or the -commercial clerk, must by no means neglect a 
 reasonable and healthful amount of physical exercise, yet 
 this of course could not justify any neglect of duty. It 
 would furnish no proper apology for his absence at 
 business hours, or for the omission of any requisite obliga- 
 tion. So also, while the young man, in every sphere of life, 
 aims at cultivating his mind, lie will also remember that 
 there is a time for everything, and that prudence no less 
 strongly urges upon him to read, and acquire knowledge, 
 and inform his understanding, than she warns him to 
 beware, that not even wise and beneficial occupations of 
 leisure time be ever permitted to intrude on the hours of 
 business. 
 
 But we now turn to an entirely different aspect in the 
 course of a successful career, in which prudence and fore- 
 sight are no less indispensable as our pilots if we would 
 escape shipwreck. We have just passed through a great 
 commercial crisis, not in this country only, but in Europe, 
 which to some even of our most prudent and wary leaders, 
 seemed to threaten the entire destruction of commercial 
 credit and the total extinction of all the sources of national 
 prosperity. The history of this remarkable crisis requires 
 not a chapter but a large volume to do it justice. Unlike 
 some equally extensive and injurious ebulitions of an 
 unrestrained spirit of speculation, it had for its pri- 
 mary aim an object of real worth, since the first discovery 
 of the power of steam, and the possibility of control- 
 ling it, and converting it into a motive power, some of
 
 240 FORESIGHT AND PRUDENCE. 
 
 the most remarkable revolutions in the whole social con- 
 dition of society have been effected by its means. What 
 the final results of it shall yet be it would be vain to try to 
 define. Already it is breaking up the isolation of the 
 various states of Europe, it has bridged over the broad 
 Atlantic, and may be held to have put an end to the insular 
 position of Britain, on which so much of our past safety fro ra 
 the perils and the miseries of war have depended. Tiie 
 steam-ship accomplished much of this; but it was not to 
 be thought that the great power thus revealed to us should 
 be limited only to the sea. Land-carriages of many kinds 
 were devised, a growing conviction of the possibility of 
 realizing a hitherto unthought of velocity of locomotion 
 took hold of the public mind, and at length the idea was 
 fully developed of substituting for our great open high- 
 ways the tram-roads or rail-ways, already in use in coal 
 mines and mineral districts. So far all was well. The 
 project was a wise one, its benefits seemed undoubted, and 
 it was speedily resolved to test it on an ample scale by 
 the construction of a railway between London and Man- 
 chester. A company was formed, the necessary number of 
 shares allotted, an Act of Parliament obtained, and the 
 railway at length completed, though at an enormous cost 
 Very little calculation was needed to prove that this gigan- 
 tic undertaking, however beneficial it might prove as a 
 national facility of conveyance and transport between the 
 capital and one of the chief centres of trade and manufac- 
 ture, could not possibly remunerate the original share- 
 holders. But it was speedily discovered that there were 
 other means of acquiring wealth connected with such 
 undertakings, besides that of the honest shareholder who
 
 FORESIGHT AND PRUDENCE. 241 
 
 invested his money in it because he believed it to be a 
 prosperous and beneficial undertaking, in the fair profits 
 of which he might ultimately expect to share. It was not 
 at all needed that the speculator should tarry for the 
 honest realization of the profits of the plan. All that was 
 requisite was that he should be able to persuade others 
 that profits would ultimately accrue, and so get them to 
 covet the possession of shares. Hence originated the 
 whole gambling system styled " THE RAILWAY MANIA of 
 1845." Dishonest speculators bought shares in a company 
 which they secretly employed means to enchance v". the 
 popular estimation, and then taking advantage of the 
 demand thus created for them, realized enormous profits 
 by the mere transfer of bits of paper. It was not long of 
 being seen by men of judgment and experience that such 
 proceedings must end in serious loss to many ; but mean- 
 while the conviction gained ground that fortunes were 
 being made at a stroke, that a great legal lottery had been 
 established, in which, any one that chose might realize as 
 high prizes as he pleased, and hence all care for a distant 
 future was scouted as unworthy of thought. "The history 
 of the railway mania of 1845," says Francis, in his History 
 of the Bank of England, "is not the least remarkable among 
 those delusions which from time to time arise to throw 
 aside legitimate trade and paralyse national commerce. 
 From 1842 discounts had been easy and money plentiful, 
 the funds maintained a high rate ; low interest only could 
 be obtained. lu 1844, it was remarked that there had been 
 a larger continuance of a plentiful supply of money than 
 had occured in the memory of the oldest capitalists. A 
 desire to speculate grew out of these circumstances, and 
 Q
 
 242 FORESIGHT AND PRUDENCE. 
 
 England was seized with her ancient phrenzy. For some 
 time it was legitimate, and confined within its proper 
 sphere ; but the desire spread, the contagion passed to all, 
 and from the clerk to the capitalist the fever reigned un- 
 controllable and uncontrolled." 
 
 It was literally a temporary national insanity. Eetired 
 gentlemen, half-pay officers, and widows, hastened with 
 their little savings, and with the whole capital on which 
 their existence depended, to invest them in railway shares ; 
 clerks anticipated their salaries to partake of the golden 
 shower; retired country clergymen hastened to make 
 their fortunes by the same means; so strong grew the faith 
 in the virtues of the new field of speculation that honest 
 trustees invested the little inheritance of the widows and 
 orphans, entrusted to their care, in the same promising ad- 
 ventures; cautious tradesmen began to covet a share in 
 the same overflow of sudden wealth ; until, at length, the 
 whole restraints of commercial prudence and rational 
 foresight seemed swept away in the insane haste to 
 make rich. " The fever," says Mr. D. M. Evans, in his 
 Facts and Figures of the Commercial Crisis of 1847-1848, 
 "made rapid advances. The abundance of money, to- 
 gether with the absence of profitable channels of em- 
 ployment, soon exerted its wonted influence. Projectors 
 mapped out undertakings, engineers patronised them, the 
 schemes were advertised, and applications inundated the 
 committees. 
 
 "The year 1845 opened, and in the course of January, six- 
 teen new companies were registered. These did not 
 materially augment the speculation, but they gave fresh 
 zest to business. The share-market was becoming more
 
 FORESIGHT AND PRUDENCE. 243 
 
 than ordinarily active, and in the succeeding three months 
 the number of projects registered had increased from six- 
 teen to fifty-two for the month of April. In the mean- 
 while railway progress, and the prospect of a large con- 
 sumption of iron, created an immense demand for that 
 article so that with the combined action of cheap capital, 
 and the formation of these undertakings, a wild rage ex- 
 isted for an adventure in the various descriptions of the 
 staple. Thus encouraged, confidence soon gained ground, 
 and the primary and legitimate movement resulted hi an 
 overwhelming and destructive mania." 
 
 As usual in all fever-fits of speculation the mania was ex- 
 tended to every conceivable object. First the materials 
 directly in demand were the subjects of it, and within three 
 months, from January to March 1845, Scotch pig iron rose in 
 the market from 60 shillings to 120 shillings per ton. New 
 iron companies were formed, and thus a new mode of creat- 
 ing shares invented, which proved no less fatal to the 
 worldly prospects of thousands than the railway share 
 system itself. 
 
 But now began the full fever-fit of speculation. At first 
 a few great trunk lines were all that had been thought of, 
 but soon it seemed as if no village hi the kingdom was to 
 be esteemed too insignificant to be embraced within the 
 benevolent schemes of railway speculators. The Conti- 
 nent, too, furnished its shares, the Colonies also had their 
 schemes, and for a time there seemed no limit to the value 
 which might be attached. The York and North Midland 
 Railway, under the special guidance of the arch-speculator, 
 rose from 50 to 117, per share, and men flattered them- 
 selves that they could go to bed worth half a million more
 
 244 FORESIGHT AND PRUDENCE. 
 
 than they had rose possessed of in the morning, all by 
 means of an equitable and legitimate transfer of railway 
 scrip. The delusion which had seized the public mind 
 went on increasing and extending its influence day by day. 
 The more cautious, who had held back at first, were sooner 
 or later tempted by the fallacious tales of fortunes realized, 
 and at length all honest and patient efforts of industry 
 seemed to be beneath the notice of an enterprising man 
 of spirit, who, it seemed, might realize by a singular adven- 
 ture, and almost by a stroke of his pen, more than he could 
 have hoped for as the fruits of the industry of a life time. 
 "There was no check," says the author of the Commercial 
 Crisis, "no impediment to the improvement of shares, 
 and the concourse of operators daily and hourly augmented. 
 The Board of Trade having assumed the power of issuing 
 decisions as to the particular schemes which would first 
 meet attention at the hands of Government, furnished 
 another potent incentive to adventure. Such was the ex- 
 citement then among the speculators, that bargains were, 
 made in the favourite shares at the coffee-houses and >ther 
 places of resort in the city, long after the conclusion of 
 business at the Stock-exchange. The appearance of tha 
 Gazette was impatiently looked for, and its contents eagerly 
 perused. 'This form of the prevailing mania' it was obser- 
 ved, 'is beyond the reach, of course, of all caution, or control, 
 and as all concerned have access to the important informa- 
 tion sought exactly at the same time, this is a matter of 
 secondary consequence. It is only those who are upon the 
 spot, and witness its violence, and the general infection 
 arising from it, both within and without the walls of the 
 Stock-exchange, who can form an idea of the perilous task
 
 FORESIQIIT AND 1'KUDKNCE. 245 
 
 nndertaken by the Board of Trade in putting forth these 
 decisions, and which are the fuel for this fire.' 
 
 "Between the months of May and June the increase of 
 speculation was fearful. The papers teemed with adver- 
 tisements unrestricted to the limits of ordinary announce- 
 ments. Columns scarcely sufficed to give the world a 
 knowledge of each scheme. Lists of provisional commit- 
 tee-men, which in the beginning of the year had seldom 
 exceeded a dozen or twenty names, now extended their 
 length to ten times that number. Earls and Marquises 
 struggled with London capitalists and rustic landowners to 
 add attractiveness by the sanction of their names ; the 
 needy barrister professed affection for a seat at the coun- 
 cils of boards which seemed likely to bring more profit 
 than the law, and was as importunate as most persons to 
 be ensured that position. Numberless M.P.S, with a few 
 Aldermen, made a traffic on their presumed responsibility ; 
 the plurality churchman, and the ill-provisioned curate also, 
 were not behind in the general scramble ; and the lifesome 
 sketch of the country being engaged in one universal game 
 of hazard, was, without the least exaggeration, realized. 
 Never before were 'such times or such prospects.' The 
 fortunes made in some few cases maddened their gainers ; 
 their success soon spread, rich and poor were alike sus- 
 ceptible ; and the 'great chance' was not neglected." 
 
 One more quotation will bring us to the point to which 
 we have already alluded in passing, and show by what 
 means this spirit of speculation overturns every dictate of 
 FORESIGHT and PRUDENCE, and sets at defiance all the les- 
 sons of experience. Money seemed no longer to be needed 
 for the purpose of making a fortune. Credit seemed almost
 
 246 FORESIGHT AND PRUDENCE. 
 
 equally dispensable, a discovery had been made, which was 
 to create sources of wealth undreamt of before. An ordinary 
 profit of two or three per cent, was looked upon as worth- 
 less, however steady and well secured. Nothing less than 
 eight or ten per cent, seemed deserving of acceptance by the 
 man of proper spirit. "Capital" it was remarked, "among 
 the daring city speculators has been of little consideration. 
 Men without houses or homes, clerks at small salaries in 
 banks and merchants' establishments, have as openly pro- 
 claimed themselves buyers and sellers of the favourite 
 shares, as if they represented their employers. The work 
 has not been confined only to London, but it has also ex- 
 tended itself to Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Glasgow, 
 Dublin, Hull, Edinburgh, and Bristol, in all which towns 
 markets have been established, and as much, if not more 
 business transacted than in London. Indeed the whole 
 circle of society is so entangled in the mania, that when 
 one link goes, the weight of responsibility will be found 
 vastly embarrasing to those who possess property that may 
 be jeopardized by such a crisis." 
 
 The history of the exposures which followed showed 
 how widely men, believed to be just and honourable, may 
 be tempted from the path of rectitude, when once they 
 have given way to the spirit of cupidity. Railway directors 
 were proved to have employed the money first paid for tho 
 shares of railways in buying them back at higher prices, in 
 order to create a false idea of their value, and thereby lead 
 to the sale of a reserved number for their own private 
 behoof at a greatly advanced price. Others, anticipating 
 the wants of the company, bought up iron-rails, or what- 
 ever else was most in demand, that they might sell again
 
 FORESIGHT AND PRUDENCE. 247 
 
 to themselves, as directors, and at a greatly advanced 
 price, what they had bought as individuals with this ob- 
 ject in view. Such proceedings were manifestly based on 
 the grossest breach of faith, and some of their perpetra- 
 tors have not altogether escaped the obloquy and the 
 punishment due to their base betrayal of trust, and the con- 
 fidence reposed in them. 
 
 But what we now desire especially to enforce on the 
 young reader, with a view to his success in future life, is 
 the necessity of guarding against the undue spirit of 
 acquisitiveness in which this excessive and ruinous specu- 
 lation originates. Perhaps the prudent reader has already 
 resolved in his own mind; "I shall beware of speculating 
 in railway shares!" but therein he would only show his 
 entire misapprehension of the danger. It is not railway 
 shares that are the evil. Railways are most excellent 
 things, and, notwithstanding the ruin which their formation 
 has brought upon thousands, they are destined to be the 
 source of some of the most important social and commer- 
 cial improvements of modern times. It was not the making 
 of railways, in a calm, judicious spirit, guided by a just 
 estimate of necessary outlay and probable returns, which 
 led to the fearful crisis of 1847, but the mad spirit of 
 speculation which converted this legitimate and useful pro- 
 ject into a universal system of gambling. This, however, 
 the young speculator may rely upon, that when banks and 
 all other creditable and guaranteed securities are able to 
 give no more than two, or two and a half per cent, interest 
 for money, schemes which engage to make a return of from 
 eight to ten per cent, cannot possibly be safe ones. If they 
 do hold out the chance of such great realizations, they
 
 248 FORESIGHT AND PRL'DE.NCK. 
 
 also hold the opposite chance of the total loss both of prin- 
 cipal and interest, and in nine-tenths of cases, the latter 
 proves the true result, as is now painfully experienced by 
 thousands of beggared annuitants, widows, orphans, and 
 the like, who unwisely invested their little all in these 
 fallacious securities. But what the young beginner must 
 still more remember as the result of experience, is, that 
 such fever fits of speculation seem to return, almost peri- 
 odically, though always under some new and seductive 
 disguise. Here, therefore, is a fit object on which to exer- 
 cise prudence and foresight, remembering that it was not 
 railways, but unbounded speculation that led to so much 
 misery and ruin. The most valuable necessaries of life 
 may be made the subject of such imprudent speculation, 
 and indeed it is the wise element of foresight which proves 
 the most efficient monitor to draw the line between the 
 judicious mercantile adventure, which cannot be made 
 without some risk, and the extravagant and unprincipled 
 dealings of the speculator which are in no degree different 
 in principle from the gambler who risks his whole for- 
 tune on a cast of the die. Few things have been made 
 the subject of more ruinous speculation than corn, the 
 very staff of life, and nothing is in itself so safe or so bene- 
 ficial as to be incapable of being thus perverted to gam- 
 bling purposes. Not only may banking, for example, be 
 thus converted into a source of commercial danger and 
 wide spread ruin by such means, but it has been already 
 shown in a former chapter, that the origin of the modern 
 system of banking was accompanied by just such a ruinous 
 mania for speculation as that which has abruptly arrested 
 the completion of the railway system of the kingdom. But
 
 FORESIGHT AND PRUDEXCE. '249 
 
 it was not the banking scheme of Law, defective as it 
 was in some very essential points, but the mania for 
 speculation which a sudden increase of monetary facilities 
 gave room for, that involved France nearly in national 
 bankruptcy, and by the influence of evil example, left 
 England in a nearly similar predicament. It is of im- 
 portance to review some features of this great historical 
 beacon which seems to stand forth prominently as a warn- 
 ing against all such deceptive and ruinous sophistries of 
 trade, in order that the inexperienced beginner in life may 
 say how closely the famous Mississippi scheme, which made 
 nearly the whole of France bankrupt, and the South Sea 
 scheme, which left England little better, resembled, in their 
 speculative operations, the great railway mania of 1847. 
 The main, and not unimportant difference in the latter case 
 is, that though the speculation was not a whit less extrava- 
 gant, unprincipled, and ruinous, the object which suffices as 
 the cloak and excuse for it, was really a beneficial one, had 
 it been pursued with any degree of judgment or prudence; 
 and hence, now when we are recovering from the frightful 
 shock that seemed to threaten the total prostration of our 
 commercial security and credit, we find some substantial 
 fruits remaining in the great railway system established 
 between the chief cities and districts of the kingdom. But 
 this, it must be remembered, has been secured at the cost, 
 and, indeed, in thousands of cases, by the ruin of the original 
 shareholders. In some of these very railways which are 
 so convenient-to the traveller, the original shareholder can 
 hardly get fifty shillings for what he paid fifty pounds, while 
 in others the shareholders would literally be thankful to 
 any one who would take them for nothing.
 
 250 FORESIGHT AND PRUDENCE. 
 
 When the famous John Law returned to Scotland, it 
 was at a time when Great Britain was suffering deeply 
 from commercial difficulties. He offered to the British 
 Parliament his proposal for supplying the nation with 
 money by a new system of banking. 
 
 " Gold and silver," he said, "must cease to be the medium 
 of exchange." 
 
 His scheme, at this time, seems to have been a paper 
 circulation, based upon the landed credit of Great Britain. 
 The whole kingdom was to be thrown into "a vast farm, 
 on the credit of which certain commissioners were to issue 
 notes, whose circulation was to be enforced by statutes 
 which were to make them the sole medium of exchange." 
 
 But the House of Commons were too sagacious, or too 
 slow, to seize upon this gigantic speculation with avidity, 
 and John Law left his native country, to seek a more 
 promising field for his exploits. This he found all ready 
 for the reaping, in France. Louis XIV. had left a king- 
 dom impoverished by his extravagance and his schemes 
 for personal and national aggrandizement. 
 
 In the language of Francis Wharton, "All industry in 
 France had been checked, because the poor man's wages 
 were insufficient to buy the necessaries, whose price had 
 been doubled by imposts ; all manufactures were stopped, 
 because the producer found that the demand for his staples 
 had ceased ; and commerce was rapidly sinking, because 
 the nation which could not raise its domestic necessaries, 
 could not find money to squander on foreign luxury. The 
 fields and the granaries of the kingdom were shorn and 
 emptied, and were converted into one great poor-house, in 
 which the peasantry collected themselves in hecatombs
 
 FORKSIOHT AND PRUDENCE. JJ51 
 
 to expiate in a summary way the crimes of the great 
 monarch." 
 
 Mr. Law first opened a bank in Paris, which issued a 
 vast amount of stamped paper. A sudden stimulus was 
 given to the expiring commerce and manufactures of 
 France a kind of galvanic shock, which looked like life 
 and strength, but there was neither national nor com- 
 mercial integrity to guard it from abuse. 
 
 The king, Louis XV, took Mr. Law's bank under his 
 protection, and assumed, as a national debt, the outstand- 
 ing notes, amounting to 55,000,000 of livres. Soon after 
 followed the Mississippi scheme, a government measure. 
 
 As a first stroke, the bank distributed two billions of 
 livres in paper, without even the shadow of security, ex- 
 cepting government credit, which at that time was only a 
 name. 
 
 Our readers will not have forgot the great railway specu- 
 lator, King Hudson, presented with an enormous sum, sub- 
 scribed by his deluded dupes, made a member of parliament, 
 his daughter asked in marriage by one of the oldest families 
 in the kingdom, and for a time, no honours or rewards 
 thought too great for him, so was it with the French 
 comptroller general. Among his suitors might be found 
 peers of France and princes of the royal blood. But the 
 Mississippi scheme fell with a tremendous crash, involving 
 tens of thousands in its fall, and its inventor, John Law, 
 was obliged to flee from a vindictive mob, who would 
 gladly have torn him limb from limb. "There was scarcely 
 a breathing-time between his highest elevation and his 
 final ruin." The rage for speculation was at this same 
 tune equally frantic in England. In 1720, during the reign
 
 252 FORESIGHT AND PRUDENCE. 
 
 of Queen Anne, the great South Sea Bubble, which had for 
 some time been expanding, and filling the minds of thou- 
 sands with golden dreams, burst into thin air. 
 
 The Queen had granted her royal charter to "The Gover- 
 nor and Company of merchants trading to the South 
 Seas." The national debt of Great Britian, or a goodly 
 part of it, formed the stock of the company. 
 
 One Blunt, a scrivener, played the same high game in 
 England, aa Law had done in France, and without the 
 honest faith in his own plans, which the latter undoubtedly 
 originally had. There was at that time throughout 
 Europe, among all classes, a peculiar propensity to follow 
 any cunning and unprincipled schemer, such as is mani- 
 fested in every fever-fit of speculation, and was abundantly 
 shown hi the late railway mania. Some of the nobles of 
 England aided Blunt in carrying out his scheme. The 
 South Seas were represented as the inexhaustible mine 
 from which wealth was to flow in upon the fortunate pos- 
 sessors of stock in the company. 
 
 Blunt, who had been the prime mover of all this excite- 
 ment, was everywhere received with adulation little short 
 of adoration. His low birth was entirely forgotten, and 
 the highest aristocracy of England welcomed him with the 
 cordiality which the noblest in Europe would have found 
 it impossible to command. The title of baronet was con- 
 ferred upon him, he became Sir John Blunt, as a token of 
 approbation and royal favour. 
 
 The wonderful success of the South Sea Bubble led to 
 the formation of all kinds of companies, and these fancy 
 stocks suddenly rose to an immense value. 
 
 The rage for speculation liad become so intense, that
 
 FORBSIGUT AND PRUDENCE. 253 
 
 'Change Alloy, the place in London where these muttera 
 were transacted, was crowded from morning till night with 
 a dense mass of people, elbowing and jamming each other 
 as though gold were worth more than life itself. 
 
 "Statesmen and clergymen deserted their high stations 
 to enter upon this grand theatre of speculation and gam- 
 bling. Whigs and Tories buried their weapons of political 
 warfare, discarded party animosities, and mingled together 
 in kind and friendly intercourse ; lawyers, physicians, mer- 
 chants, and tradesmen, forsook their business, and disre- 
 garded their engagements, to whirl giddily along with the 
 swollen stream, to be at last ingulfed in the wide sea of 
 bankruptcy." 
 
 Females mixed with the crowd, and forgetting the sta- 
 tions and employments which nature had fitted them to 
 adorn, dealt boldly and extensively in the bubbles that 
 rose before them, and like those by whom they were sur- 
 rounded, rose from poverty to wealth, and from that were 
 again thrust down to beggary. 
 
 Ladies of high rank, regardless of every appearance of 
 dignity, drove to the shops of their milliners and haber- 
 dashers, and there met stock-brokers whom they regularly 
 employed, and through whom extensive sales were daily 
 negotiated. The history of this older scrip and stock bears 
 a marvellous resemblance to that of our own day. 
 
 Bubbles were blown into existence on every hand, and 
 stocks of every conceivable nature, name, and description, 
 were issued to an unparalleled extent. 
 
 Among the many companies thus formed was "Tho 
 Globe." Bits of playing card, on which was stamped in 
 wax the Globe Tavern, was issued as permits to become
 
 254 FORESIGHT AND PRUDENCE. 
 
 shareholders in a new sail-cloth manufactory. "No name 
 was subscribed to these permits, and no prospect existed 
 that they would ever be worth one farthing, and yet they 
 sold in the thronged Alley for sixty guineas each. 
 
 " The shares of another bubble created by Sir Richard 
 Steele, for the establishment of a Jish pool for bringing 
 fresh fish by sea to London, sold as high as 160 per cent." 
 
 A company was created to settle the Bahama Islands, 
 another for raising hemp and flax in England, and another 
 to fish for wrecks on the Irish coast. The companies 
 fonned for insurance were numerous. One was created 
 with a capital of two millions of pounds, for the insurance 
 of horses and other cattle. A second for insurance and 
 improvement of children's fortunes. A third for insurance 
 against losses by servants ; and a fourth to insure against 
 theft and robbery. 
 
 The novelty and impracticability of these schemes seem to 
 have been their greatest recommendation ; as, for example, 
 the bubble by which perpetual motion was to be produced, 
 with all its attendant advantages to the mechanical world. 
 
 Another bubble, which was projected by a clergyman, 
 was for "the purpose of importing a number of large 
 jackasses from Spain," of which one would suppose 
 there was already an abundant supply in England at that 
 time. 
 
 At last the invention of speculators seems to have been 
 completely exhausted, and a subscription was advertised, 
 and a large number of shares taken, "for an undertaking 
 which shall in due time be revealed I" 
 
 Though the infatuation prevailed to an incredible extent, 
 some few persons were left with the full possession of
 
 FORESIGHT AND PRUDENCE. 265 
 
 reason, and with boldness enough to ridicule the extra 
 vagant folly of the multitude. 
 
 One advertisement that appeared, was admirably calcu- 
 lated to burlesque the companies which had been created. 
 It was as follows : " At a certain place, on Tuesday next, 
 books will be opened for a subscription of two millions 
 for the invention of melting down saw-dust and chips, and 
 casting them into clean deal boards, without cracks or 
 knots!" 
 
 The managers of the great South Sea scheme grew 
 envious, and rashly determined to annihilate all the 
 smaller bubbles. Legal proceedings were forthwith insti- 
 tuted against them, and almost instantaneously they all 
 collapsed, like so many soap-bells, and dispersed. 
 
 Tho'isands were thus reduced to beggary, and distracted 
 to see their fancied wealth turn to waste paper in their 
 hands. But the original scheme rested on no more sub- 
 stantial basis. The great bubble itself burst, and filled the 
 kingdom with gloom and despair. 
 
 The honest and upright were ingulfed with the knave 
 and the scoundrel; the noble in rank and the princely in 
 wealth were stript of their imaginary riches; hundreds of 
 individuals, who had for some time lived in splendour, 
 surrounded by every luxury that wealth could bestow, 
 parted from their kindred and homes, and, expatriating 
 themselves from their native land, found an asylum in dis- 
 tant countries, and, broken-hearted by misfortunes, were 
 consigned to an early grave among strangers. 
 
 It is well that these facts should be presented to the 
 young British merchant, and to all, indeed, who may be 
 tempted above measure by that delusive charmer Specu-
 
 256 FORESIGHT AND PRUDEXCK. 
 
 lation. In a thousand ways she seeks to seduce from the 
 honest paths of patient industry: at one time, railway 
 schemes are her bait; at another, mining, iron-founding, 
 banks of exchange, or the like. Still more recently her 
 bait has taken the more attractive form of a lump of gold. 
 But under every disguise she is the same ruinous divinity 
 to her votaries. 
 
 Nor must the young reader forget what we have already 
 endeavoured in some degree to inculcate, that all specu- 
 lation is dangerous and delusive. These great fever-fits of 
 speculation to which we have referred are produced by the 
 universal sproad of this unwise and hurtful spirit. But 
 every year witnesses the ruin of the votaries of specu- 
 lation. The daring recklessness with which men enter 
 into business without capital, and launch into the moat 
 extravagant undertakings, depending solely on a fortunate 
 chance, on which they can no more certainly reckon than 
 on the cast of a die, does not deserve the name of enter- 
 prise. It may be much more truly termed gambling, and 
 in the majority of cases is more justly described as dis- 
 honesty and fraud. Even the honest trader, who aims at 
 only buying what he can pay for, and attaining to wealth 
 by the patient accumulation of the fruits of honest industry, 
 cannot guard himself too cautiously against the seductive 
 offers of credit. This is the guise under which thousands 
 are tempted to speculate beyond their means, and find, 
 when too late, that they have flung away the fair prospects 
 that were leading to certain competency, sacrificed their 
 good name and true credit, and made themselves the bond- 
 slaves of debt and a thousand difficulties and humiliations 
 for the remainder of their lives.
 
 OKXTLKXKSS AND COUttTKSY. 25? 
 
 CHAPTER XIL 
 
 G KNTLEN KSS AND COUKTESY. 
 
 How oft the sterner virtues show, 
 
 Determined justice, truth severe 
 Firmness and strength to strike the blow, 
 
 Courage to face the peril near ; 
 Tet wanting hearts that feel the glow 
 
 Of love, or for the rising tear 
 Responsive sympathy ere know, 
 
 Life's light without life's warmth to cheer. 
 
 j. a w. 
 
 TUB ami at success which this volume is designed both to 
 guide and to illustrate, has been fitly styled by some the 
 Battle of Life. It is in truth ;iu arduous struggle, in which 
 none but the 7-esolute, the determined, and the unflinching, 
 succeed. Courage, firmness, daring, and perseverance, 
 have all been referred to, as among the indispensable 
 means to its attainment. Hence it is peculiarly needed 
 to stimulate those gentle, timid, and faint-hearted ones, 
 who are ready to give up the battle in the morning, and 
 almost without a struggle, to own themselves unequal to 
 the strife. It must be owned that there are men who 
 seem born to conquer and command. "There is in the 
 material construction of some persons, much more than of 
 others, some quality which augments, if it does not create, 
 both the stability of their resolution, and the energy of
 
 268 GENTLENESS AND COURTESY. 
 
 then- active tendencies. There is something that, like the 
 ligatures which one class of the Olympic combatants bound 
 on their hands and wrists, braces round, if I may so describe 
 it, and compresses, the powers of the mind, giving them a 
 stead}- forcible spring and re-action, which they would 
 presently lose, if they could be transferred into a constitu- 
 tion of soft, yielding, treacherous debility. The action of 
 strong character seems to demand something firm in its 
 corporeal basis, as massive engines require, for their weight 
 and for their working, to be fixed on a solid foundation. 
 Accordingly I believe it would be found, that a majority of 
 the persons most remarkable for decisive character, liave 
 possessed great constitutional finnnese. I do not mean an 
 exemption from disease and pain, nor any certain measure 
 of mechanical strength, but a tone of vigour, the opposite 
 to lassitude, and adapted to great exertion and endurance. 
 This is clearly evinced in respect to many of them, by the 
 prodigious labours and deprivations which they have borne 
 in prosecuting their designs. The physical nature has 
 seemed a proud ally of the moral one, and with a hardness 
 that would never shrink, has sustained the energy that 
 could never remit. 
 
 A view of the disparities between the different races of 
 animals inferior to man, will show the effect of organiza- 
 tion on disposition. Compare, for instance, a lion with the 
 common beasts of the field, many of them composed of a 
 larger bulk of animated substance. What a vast superi- 
 ority of courage, impetuous movement, and determined 
 action ; and we attribute this difference to some great dis- 
 similarity of modification in the composition of the ani- 
 mated material. Now it is probable that some difference
 
 OENTLENESS AND COURTESY. 259 
 
 partly analogous subsists between human bodies, and that 
 this is no small part of the cause of the striking inequalities 
 in respect of decisive character. A very decisive man has 
 probably more of the physical quality of a lion in hia 
 composition than other men. 
 
 It is observable that women in general have less inflexi- 
 bility of character than men ; and though many moral 
 influences contribute to this difference, the principal cause 
 is, probably, something loss firm in the corporeal texture. 
 Now one man may have in his constitution a firmness of 
 texture, exceeding that of other men in a much greater 
 degree than that by which men in general exceed women. 
 
 If there have been found some resolute spirits power- 
 fully asserting themselves in feeble veliicles, it is so much 
 the better ; since this would authorize a hope, that if all the 
 other grand requisites can bo combined, they may form a 
 strong character, in spite of the counteraction of an un 
 adapted constitution. And on the other baud, no consti- 
 tutional hardness will form the true character, without 
 those grand principles ; though it may produce that false 
 and contemptible kind of decision which we term obstinacy; 
 a mere stubbornness of temper, which can assign no rea- 
 sons but its will, for a constancy which acts in the nature 
 of dead weight rather than of strength ; resembling less 
 the re-action of a powerful spring than the gravitation of a 
 big stone." 
 
 Against this unreasoning obstinacy we have already pro- 
 tested, as a vice which only assumes the aspect of firmness 
 without any claim to its line qualities. It must be owned 
 as a tnith, however, which is readily discernible by most 
 men that these hardy but indispensable elements of sue-
 
 260 GENTLENESS AND COURTESY. 
 
 cess, courage, firmness, daring, and tenacity of purpose, are 
 what may be very appropriately styled unamiablo virtues 
 The man who resolutely holds to his purpose in opposition 
 to the wishes or will of others, almost of necessity excites 
 their anger. Even when he is aiming at their own good he 
 will frequently be compelled to exercise his greatest firm- 
 ness in bearing with their unreasonable displeasure. Hence 
 there may justly be said to be a strong tendency in the 
 man of firmness to assume an unloveable aspect, against 
 which therefore it is indispensable that he be on his 
 guard. Foster remarks of the man of extraordinary de- 
 cision : " When this character is dignified by wisdom and 
 principle, great care is yet required in the possessors of it 
 to prevent it from becoming unamiable. As it involves 
 much practical assertion of superiority over other human 
 beings, the manner ought to be as mild and conciliating as 
 possible ; else pride will feel provoked, affection hurt, and 
 weakness oppressed. But this is not the manner which 
 the man whom I am considering, will be naturally most 
 inclined to wear. Rather, he will have a manner of stern- 
 ness, reserve, and incompliance. He will have the appear- 
 ance of keeping himself always at a distance from social 
 equality; and his friends will feel as if their friendship 
 were continually sliding into subserviency, while his inti- 
 mate connexions will think he does not attach the duo im- 
 portance either to their opinions or to their regard. His 
 manner, when they differ from him, or complain, will be in 
 danger of giving the impression of careless inattention, 
 and sometimes of disdain. 
 
 When he can accomplish a design in his own person 
 alone, he may separate liimself to tho work with the cold
 
 GENTLENESS AND COURTESY. 261 
 
 self-iuclosed individuality on which no one has any hold, 
 which seems to recognize no kindred being in the world, 
 which takes little account of good wishes and kind concern, 
 any more than it cares for opposition, which seeks neither 
 aid nor sympathy, and which seems to say, I do not want 
 any of you, and I am glad that I do notj leave me alone 
 to succeed or die. This has a very repellent effect on the 
 friends who wished to feel themselves of some little im- 
 portance, in some way or other, to a person whom they are 
 constrained to respect. "Wlien assistance is indispensable 
 to his undertakings, his mode of signifying it will seem 
 rather to command the co-operation than to invite it. 
 
 In consultation, his manner will indicate that when he is 
 equally with the rest in possession of the circumstances of 
 the case, he does not at all expect to hear any opinions 
 that shall coiTect his own, but is satisfied that either his 
 own conception of the subject is the just one, or that his 
 own mind must originate that which shall be so. This 
 striking difference will be apparent between him and his 
 associates, that their manner of receiving his opinions is 
 that of agreement or dissent ; his manner of receiving 
 theirs is that of sanction or rejection. He has the tone of 
 authoritatively deciding on what they say, but never of 
 submitting to decision what himself says. Their coinci- 
 dence with his views does not give him a firmer assurance 
 of his being right, nor their dissent any other impression 
 than that of their incapacity to judge. If his feeling took 
 the distinct form of a reflection, it would be, Mine is the 
 business of comprehending and devising, and I am here to 
 rule this company, arid not to consult them ; I want their 
 docility and not their arguments; I am come, not to seek
 
 262 GENTLENESS AXD COURTESY. 
 
 their co-operation in thinking, but to induce their concur- 
 rence in executing what is already thought for them. Of 
 course, many suggestions and reasons which appear im- 
 portant to those from whom they come, will be disposed of 
 by him with a transient attention, or a light facility, that 
 will seem very disrespectful to persons who possibly hesi- 
 tate to admit the full persuasion that he is a demi-god, and 
 that they are but insects. Lord Chatham, in going out of 
 the House of Commons, just as one of the speakers against 
 him concluded his speech by emphatically urging what 
 he perhaps rightly thought the unanswerable question, 
 ' Where can we find means to support such a war ? turned 
 round a moment, and gaily replied, 'Gentle shepherd, tell 
 me where.' 
 
 Even the assenting convictions, and practical compli- 
 ances, yielded by degrees to this decisive man, may be some- 
 what undervalued; as they will appear to him no more 
 than simply coming, and that perhaps very slowly, to a 
 right apprehension; whereas himself understood and 
 decided justly from the first, and has been right all this 
 while. 
 
 He will be in danger of extending but little tolerance to 
 the prejudices, hesitation, and timidity, of those with 
 whom he has to act. He will say to himself, I wish there 
 were anything like manhood among the beings called 
 men ; and that they could have the sense and spirit not to 
 let themselves be hampered by so many silly notions and 
 childish fears. Why cannot they either determine and 
 proceed with some promptitude and vigour, or let me, that 
 can, do it for them? Am I to wait till debility become 
 strong, and folly wise ! If full scope bo allowed to thesa
 
 GUNTLKNESS AND COURTESY. 263 
 
 tendencies, they will make even a man of elevated virtue a 
 tyrant, who, while he is conscious of the rectitude of his 
 designs, will be regardless of every thing but the accom- 
 plishment of them. He will forget all respect for the feel- 
 ings and liberties of beings who are to be regarded as but 
 a subordinate machinery, to be actuated, or to be thrown 
 aside when not actuated, by the spring of his commanding 
 spirit." 
 
 The unamiable spirit which the dominance of decision of 
 character is apt to engender, manifests itself unconsciously 
 in all the transactions of life. The man of firmness, arriv- 
 ing at his own prompt conclusions, cannot bear with the 
 slower deliberation of others, and if he be not possessed of 
 peculiar tact, will not infrequently defeat his purpose 
 by his impatience to act. How often do we meet with the 
 unamiable decided man who has summoned together the 
 committee of which ho is convener, or the firm of which 
 he is a partner, or the deliberate body of whatever kind 
 it be, with which he chances to be connected in carrying 
 out some common object. But his whole manner plainly 
 tells that he has summoned them not to deliberate on the 
 business, but to adopt the conclusions at which he has 
 already arrived. 
 
 Having set forth in fonner chapters the sterner virtues 
 which are requisite for success, wo wish now to enforce 
 those milder virtues which should accompany them, and 
 which, if not altogether so indispensable to the attainment 
 of the great object of life, are at least absolutely required 
 for its enjoyment. All men seek wealth, not as a thing in 
 itself covetable, but as the means by which all other covet- 
 able things may be attained. Happiness is what every
 
 2'M GBKTLKXESS AND COURTESY. 
 
 man desires, however diverse be the modes by which it is 
 aimed at, and in this light, therefore, these milder virtues 
 are no less indispensable to success than any we have re- 
 ferred to. But still more than this, it will not be difficult 
 to show that gentleness and courtesy are the most valuable 
 allies of firmness, without which its purpose is often 
 defeated. It is undoubtedly true that "the men most dis- 
 tinguished for decision, have not, in general, possessed a 
 large share of tenderness; and it is easy to imagine that 
 the laws according to which our nature is formed, will with 
 great difficulty allow the combination of the refined sensi- 
 bilities with a hardy, never-shrinking, never-yielding con- 
 stancy. Is it not almost of the essence of this constancy 
 to be free from even the perception of such impressions as 
 cause a mind, weak through susceptibility, to relax or to 
 waver ; just as the skin of the elephant, or the armour of 
 the rhinoceros, woxild scarcely even feel the application 
 of a force by which a small animal, with a skin of thin and 
 delicate texture would be pierced or lacerated to death! 
 No doxibt, this firmness consists partly in overcoming 
 feelings, but it may consist partly too in not having 
 them. To be tremblingly alive to gentle impressions, and 
 yet to be able to preserve, when the prosecution of a de- 
 sign requires it, an immoveable heart, amidst even the most 
 imperious causes of subduing emotion, is perhaps not an 
 impossible constitution of mind, but it is the utmost and 
 the rarest endowment of humanity. 
 
 If you take a view of the first rank of decisive men, you 
 will observe that their faculties have been too much bent 
 to arduous effort, their souls have been kept in too military 
 an attitude, they have been begirt with too much iron, for
 
 GENTLENESS AND COURTF.ST. 265 
 
 the melting movements of the heart. Their whole being 
 appears too much arrogated and occupied by the spirit of 
 severe design, compelling them to work systematically 
 toward some defined end, to be sufficiently at ease for the 
 indolent complacency, the soft lassitude, of gentle affec- 
 tions, which love to surrender themselves to the present 
 felicities, forgetful of all enterprises of great pith and 
 moment. The man seems rigorously intent still on his 
 own affairs, as he walks, or regales, or mingles with do- 
 mestic society ; and appears to despise all the feelings that 
 will not take rank with the grave labours and decisions of 
 intellect, or coalesce with the unremitting passion which is 
 his spring of action : he values not feelings which he can- 
 not employ either as weapons or as engines. He loves to 
 be actuated by a passion so strong as to compel into exer- 
 cise the utmost force of his being, and fix him in a tone, 
 compared with which, the gentle affections, if he had full 
 them, would bo accounted tameness, and their exc 
 causes, insipidity. 
 
 Yet we cannot willingly allow that tenderness is totally 
 incompatible with the most impregnable inflexibility that 
 can exist in the world; nor can we help believing that 
 such men as Timoleon, Alfred, and Gustavus Adolphus, 
 must liavo been very fascinating domestic associates, when- 
 ever the urgency of their affairs would allow them to with- 
 draw from the interests of statesmen and warriors, to 
 indulge the affections of men : most fascintfting, for, with a 
 relative or friend who had any perceptions, all the value of 
 their stronger character would be recognised in the gentler 
 one ; the man whom nothing could subdue, would exalt the 
 quality of the tenderness which softened him to recline."
 
 266 GENTLENESS AND COURTEST. 
 
 "NVo may unhesitatingly adopt it as an unerring conclu- 
 sion that no essential human virtues are incompatible with 
 each other. The divine law, which has summed up our 
 whole obligations and duties to our fellow-inen in the single 
 word love, has thereby shown that all the virtues pertaining 
 to this must be within the reach of every man. Were it 
 otherwise we would unquestionably be compelled to choose 
 between certain virtues, to resolve to be unamiable because 
 we must be firm ; and to be discourteous because we are 
 resolute. But man is placed in no such dilemma. The 
 h'rm man need never be unamiable, nor the resolute man 
 discourteous; while ho who possessing all those sterner 
 virtues of which the conqueror and the hero are produced, 
 has along with them the gentler ones whereof proceed the 
 philanthropist, will unquestionably exceed the mightiest 
 conqueror in true greatness. The man of firmness must 
 often refuse a request, oppose the inclinations of others, 
 and overt lira their plans, but it is only the unamiable man 
 who will do it in a discourteous manner. As in a thousand 
 cases such opposition proves in the end to be for the best 
 interests of all concerned in it, it depends very much on 
 the manner in which it is done, whether the firm man who 
 has witlistood their wishes be regarded like the robber who 
 has stolen their property, or like the wise physician who 
 has put a temporary restraint on their diet, and enforced 
 some unpleasant regimen, in order to effect a permanent 
 restoration of health. Yet the rude, ungracious granting 
 of a request may give as much pain as a refusal ; indeed 
 more, provided the refusal be couched in gentle, regretful 
 terms, with a manner which proves their sincerity. 
 
 A merchant especially, has much granting and refusing
 
 GENTLENESS AND COURTESY. 267 
 
 to do in the course of his life, and ho should learn to 
 do both courteously. 
 
 The fact is, there is no need of going through this 
 crowded world with the arms akimbo, and sharp elbows 
 thrusting into everybody's sides. The man who, amid 
 a throng of people, attempts thus to make his way, will 
 meet with resistance, and perchance hard knocks, in re- 
 turn : while ho who keeps his elbows closely by his side, 
 stands upright, treads upon nobody's toes, and says gently, 
 in a dignified manner, " By your leave, sir," is sure to open 
 a direct path to the object in view. This is an entirely 
 different mode from an obsequious, crouching, cringing 
 mode of what is called " currying favour." 
 
 This last expression has indeed been denounced by 
 rhetoricians as "not elegant f yet, after all, what other 
 equally expressive phrase have we, in good broad Eng- 
 lish, to designate that flattering, officious kind of servili- 
 ty with which men who have no self-respect seek to gain 
 favour I 
 
 All the world agree to hate meanness, although there 
 might be some diversity of opinion about what constitutes 
 the unpopular enormity. 
 
 l-'ew better examples of dignified courtesy can be pre- 
 sented to young men than that of Washington. At the 
 early age of thirteen he compiled for himself a code of 
 manners and morals, which one of his biographers says, 
 " was fitted to soften and polish the manners, to keep ahv e 
 the best affections of the heart, to impress the obligation 
 of the moral virtues, to teach what is due to others in the 
 social relations, and above all, to inculcate the practice of 
 a perfect self-control."
 
 CCS GENTLENESS AND COURTESY. 
 
 In studying the character of Washington, it is obvious 
 that this code of rules had an influence upon his whole 
 life. His temperament was ardent, his passions strong, and, 
 amidst the multiplied scenes of temptation a.id excitement 
 through which ho passed, it was his constant effort and 
 ultimate triumph to check the one and subdue the other. 
 His intercourse with men, private and public, in every walk 
 and station, was marked with a consistency, a fitness to 
 occasions, a dignity, decorum, condescension and mildness; 
 a respect for the claims of others, ami a delicate perception 
 of the nicer shades of civility, which were not more the 
 dictates of his native good sense and incomparable judg- 
 ment, than the fruits of a long and unwearied discipline. 
 
 Do the young men of the present day emulate this ex- 
 ample ! Do they begin at the early age of thirteen that 
 course of long and unwearied discipline ? Do they not 
 rather think to make their way through the difficulties 
 of life as Hannibal is said to have done across the Alps, 
 by pouring vinegar upon them? Or as it has been 
 humorously remarked : they take a lesson from the 
 housemaid, who brightens her fire-irons by nibbing them 
 with something rough. 
 
 The nideness and nonchalance which some young men 
 affect, and which others perhaps find some difficulty in 
 laying aside, they will heartily despise when a few added 
 years have given them more knowledge of mankind. The 
 brusque, dashing, saucy style of many a young clerk or 
 student, leads the sage, sensible merchant, or grave pro- 
 fessor, to predict his career of failure and disgrace. 
 
 " Such are not the elements from which docility or wis- 
 dom proceed," says the experienced teacher. " Discourtesy
 
 OE.VTLKNKSS AND COL'llTESV. 269 
 
 and iiideiiess are foreign even to the follies of youth." " I 
 shall uever employ such a young man to transact business 
 for me," says the experienced merchant. " No, indeed ; 
 should I intnist affairs of importance to this hot-headed, 
 uncontrolled, uncourteous youth, lie would drive away my 
 customers, insult the men who are his subordinates, and 
 provoke me to anger. My clerks must be gentlemanly 5a 
 their deportment and incapable of discourtesy." 
 
 The good manners which constitute the true gentleman 
 arc not to be acquired from books of etiquette, we would 
 rather advise them to be sought in the Bible. The Chris- 
 tian is the true gentleman, and the golden rule which 
 teaches us ever to prefer another to ourselves contains tho 
 whole code of true etiquette. 
 
 " Good manners are the blossom of good sense," says 
 Pope. Merc superficial manners are the result of tact, but 
 genuine courtesy springs from the heart. It " vauuteth 
 not itself, is not puffed up doth not behave itself un 
 seemly," because it has a just appreciation of what is duo 
 to others, and a cordial good-will to all mankind. 
 
 Tho amiable virtues which give such a dignity to firm- 
 ness have rarely been characteristic of the conqueror; 
 partly, no doubt, because the actions in which he most pro- 
 minently appears afford little scope for the display of such 
 qualities. Yet among these, courtesy has been found 
 useful even by the man of mere worldly tact and pru- 
 dence, where higher motives did not suggest its exercise, 
 t'jw men have ever manifested less sympathy with tho 
 common feelings and sufferings of humanity than Napoleon 
 Kuouaparte. Ilo was well content to wade through blood 
 to a throne. The sacrifice of thousands of lives was re-
 
 27 U GENTLENESS AND COURTESY. 
 
 solved upon with the same indifference to the consequences 
 it involved to others as if it had been a mere move on the 
 chessboard. He had no law but his own will. At Cairo 
 he slaughtered the insurgent citizens without remorse. 
 At Jaffa he enforced the massacre of between two aud 
 three thousand prisoners of war, who had surrendered on 
 the promise of safety ; and when it became necessary to re- 
 turn to Egypt, he ordered the secret administration of 
 poison to his own wounded soldiers, on a plea which all 
 the sophistry of his admirers cannot palliate, much less 
 defend. Yet even this stern, remorseless, bloody con- 
 queror, could practise the most winning courtesies to the 
 humblest subaltern of his armies, when he had a purpose 
 to serve, for lie knew well, by experience, that gentleness 
 and firmness are often indispensable to success. We see, 
 however, in his mode of displaying such unwonted char, 
 actoristics that they had their origin in cold, calculating 
 policy. Nevertheless in BO far as they were wise and 
 beneficial they are not unworthy of imitation, though thej 
 will be all the better for proceeding from higher motives. 
 It is at all times easier for the proud man to condescend 
 to such courtesies to his inferiors, rather than to his equals, 
 and hence in those who, like Napoleon, practise the ami- 
 able virtues only with a view to selfish ends, they are not 
 unfrequently seen accompanied with the singular contrast 
 of the most offensive hatcaur, and with expressions of con- 
 tempt, sufficing to betray the hollow source of the politic 
 suavity, and the deep rooted selfishness by which it is con- 
 trolled. 
 
 When Napoleon returned from his victorious Italian 
 campaign, his mind was filled with projects of ambition
 
 G LXT.LKN.EaS AND COUKTiiSl. 2?1 
 
 which had only been developed and matured since his 
 victories furnished him with a hasis for further movement. 
 On reaching Paris, he seemed careful to preserve, as 
 much as possible, the habits and appearance of a private 
 citizen : lodging in iiis former by no means conspicuous 
 abode, the name of which, from its distinguished inhabi- 
 tant, was soon changed into Sue de la Victoire; resuming 
 his favourite pursuits and studies ; and though his presence 
 was courted by the highest circles, among whom he occa- 
 sionally appeared, avoiding the honours of public distinc- 
 tion and applause, but frequently receiving a select circle 
 of friends to the unostentatious table where Josephine 
 generally presided. Ho was thoroughly aware that much 
 both of meditation uud observation must precede any new 
 [luu of action; and estimated at their proper value the 
 opinion both of saloons and of mobs. He once said, when 
 greeted by some noisy expression of popular favour, "Bali ! 
 they would crowd as eagerly around me if 1 were on my 
 way to the guillotine." At this period he was reserved 
 and thoughtful, like one too much engaged in important 
 designs, to take pleasure in the ordinary current of convei- 
 sation. Wherever lie appeared, it was as the victor of Lodi, 
 Arcola, and llivoli, disdaining the transparent artifice of 
 veiling his military bluntncss in those brilliant circles, 
 where a man of inferiority to him both in tact and ability 
 would have been ambitious to ehine. 
 
 In the camp as well as in the capital, he had maintained 
 a similar reserve, especially with his officers. It has been 
 said that his character changed with his elevation, and, that 
 in proportion as fortune lavished on him her favours, his 
 coldness and reserve increased. But this is a wrong view
 
 272 GENTLENESS AND COURTESY. 
 
 of his conduct. No great captain was ever more beloved 
 l>y his officers, as well as by all who served under him ; but 
 to those who were immediately about him, he felt it no- 
 fiessary to observe a certain degree of dignity in his de- 
 meanour, in order to ensure that ready vuHjuestioning 
 obedience which is all-important in war. With the com- 
 mon soldiers, however, he often put himself on a footing 
 of perfect equality. In the n'eld he disdained not to share 
 the rations, or to drink from the canteen of the sentinel ; 
 and the French private soldier, often as intelligent as those 
 whom fortune had placed above him, used to accost the 
 geueral-in-chief with more frankness than he would have 
 ventured to display in addressing his own captain. In his 
 conversations at St. Heleua,he often mentioned the pleasure 
 ho had derived from his intercourse with the men, and 
 gave many instances of their intelligence and observation, 
 On one occasion, during his Italian campaigns, a common 
 trooper addressed him, as he was riding past, and told the 
 general that he thought he could suggest the movement 
 which ought to be adopted. Napoleon listened to him, 
 und heard him detail some operations which he had him- 
 self resolved on a little before. In this way he won the 
 hearts of the soldiers, and encouraged the display of talent 
 :.nd genius, which, throughout his whole career, he missed 
 no opportunity of rewarding. No one, perhaps, possessed 
 in a greater degree the secret of calling forth all the phy- 
 sical, moral, and mental energies of his troops, and of sus- 
 taining their courage arid perseverance amid the greatest 
 tlifficulties, by wisely blending conciliation and courtesy 
 ath firmness. 
 By this single means, added to his qualities as a great
 
 OENTLEKESS AND CODRTKST. 273 
 
 commander, Napoleon's name has been sufficient to exer- 
 cies a remarkable influence on revolutions framed and 
 accomplished long after he was in his grave, and to thia 
 alone must be ascribed the fact that the president of the 
 new Republic of France is of tho race of Napoleon. 
 
 In contrast to the stern policy of the great modern con- 
 queror who revolutionized Europe, wo may present a 
 pleasing incident of travel, graphically and amusingly 
 narrated by Mr. Robert Chambers, in his Tracings of tho 
 North of Europe. Passing across Norway and Sweden, he 
 thus describes his success in obviating the unpleasant 
 results of a mistake, among foreigners of whose language 
 ho was totally ignorant, almost solely by a courteous and 
 amiable deportment: "We paused for tho night at Skal- 
 jcrnstugan, being the second station within the Swedish 
 frontier, and comparatively a poor one. Having come on 
 in advance of my fellow-travellers, I endeavoured to pre- 
 pare tea against their arrival, but succeeded very badly. 
 In the principal house there was no fire. Making my way 
 into another, I found there both fire and water, but no 
 other of tho necessary articles. The fact turned out to be, 
 that thia latter house was not a part of the inn at all. The 
 honest woman in charge of it was continually endeavouring 
 to impress something upon mo ; but, hopeless of under- 
 standing her, I persisted in putting a kettle upon her fire, 
 and sitting down in front of it to warm myself. A dirtyish 
 gentleman, who proved to be a customhouse-officer, was 
 constantly coming in to try and explain or accommodate 
 matters; but it was all in vain. I held to the boiling 
 kettlt. as the one great principle in the case, and utterly 
 refused to go to the house which had no fire. At length,
 
 274 GENTLENESS AND COURTEST. 
 
 by some treaty among the various powers, tea-things were 
 brought in from the other house, and wo did effect one of 
 the roughest of all possible meals. I am afraid our whole 
 conduct was rather arbitrary here ; yet as I kept up a con- 
 stant demonstration of good-humour, and at the last con- 
 ferred a rix-dollar on the lady of the kettle, I suppose we 
 came off without leaving any very marked tarnish upon 
 the English name. It is, by the way, most important on 
 such occasions, and indeed on all occasions, in travelling, 
 to keep up at least an appearance of good-humour. It puts 
 the people amongst whom you are thrown at their ease> 
 and disposes them to sei-ve you. In all my sojournings 
 amongst strangers, I have ever found that a smiling face 
 is the best passport, and that even jealousy and prejudice 
 are softened by it; as if, by holding out the usual signals 
 by which men judge that you have no bad feeling in your 
 bosom, you extinguished everything of the same kind in 
 theirs. I should, indeed, add my belief that, if the smile 
 be the expression of a genuine feeling within, it will be 
 the better in all respects for the wearer." 
 
 There is much truth in the remark that the genuine 
 urbanity and courteousness which springs from the heart 
 will always be found the most efficient. Few things in- 
 deed are more difficult to counterfeit, yet if, even when it 
 in assumed for a purpose, it proves so potent an instrument 
 for success, it is surely well worth the possession of every 
 man in every circumstance of life, since in none can it 
 prove an impediment, or be felt to be an unpleasant com- 
 panion. But not only are courtesy and amiable gentleness 
 means of success, but the opposite passions of anger, rage, 
 and revengeful feelings, are notoriously the most certain
 
 GENTLENESS AND COURTESY. 27B 
 
 means of throwing the man who indulges in them off his 
 guard. So completely is this recognised to be the case, 
 that it is not infrequently urged as a reason of apology for 
 imprudent language, that it was uttered in a passion. Such 
 angry and unbridled feelings are indeed opposed to all 
 eelf-government. The passionate man is like the drunkard : 
 he tells what in wiser moments he would wish to conceal, 
 gives utterance to language which he has no sooner calmed 
 than he repents of, and altogether places himself at the 
 mercy of the man of greater self-control. It is therefore 
 one of the most indispensable virtues to leani to govern 
 the temper. Angry words win nothing but contempt. 
 Have you ever chanced to catch a glance at yourself in a 
 mirror, when in a violent rage! Did you not make a 
 ridiculous picture ? Be assured that at such a time the 
 face is even less distorted than the mind. The distortion 
 anger occasions to the features of the face, renders it a 
 striking exponent of mental character. The lines become 
 fixed, in time, and, alas ! so does the habit, until we hear 
 people complain that they cannot restrain their temper, 
 soley because they did not begin soon enough. Even as a 
 matter of policy, a man should gain control over his tem- 
 per, for what abiding influence can he exercise over others, 
 if ho be not master over himself I 
 
 If a man intended to go headlong to ruin, not only with 
 out sympathy, but amid the merriment and ridicule of his 
 enemies, he could not pursue a course more certain for 
 the accomplishment of his purpose than by allowing his 
 emotions to be worked into a state of exasperation. A 
 person who has acquired, no matter by what means, this 
 unhappy temperament, is always at the mercy of others.
 
 276 GENTLENESS AND COURTESY. 
 
 He is incapable of being a master in the useful and ho- 
 nourable sense of the word ; and, as a servant ho is not 
 trustworthy, even with every desire to be honest and faith- 
 ful in the execution of that which is committed to his care. 
 In short, if a person wishes to be useless, and cut as miser- 
 able a figure ia the world as he possibly can, he should by 
 all means acquire this irritability of temper, but other- 
 wise, ho should by every means avoid them. 
 
 Reference has been made to the fact that woman is less 
 frequently gifted with firmness than man. Yet it is at the 
 same timo well worthy of note that woman very frequently 
 obtains a wise and most beneficent control, chiefly by means 
 of that gentle suasion which proves so much more effec- 
 tive than vehement passion, or overbearing resolution. 
 There is indeed a feeling in every good man's heart which 
 responds more readily to kindliness and courtesy, than to 
 rude authority. " Oblige me by doing this," is the lan- 
 guage of courtesy, and is employed under the dictates of 
 true gentlemanly feeling, even in speaking to the humblest 
 menial from whom obedience might bo exacted in the 
 most authoritative terms. But such courtesy costs nothing 
 to the giver, while it sweetens tho labour of the servant, 
 and often converts eye-service into a willing and hearty 
 obedience. The same language is still more incumbent 
 where no obligations impose the duty of service on those 
 to whom application is made for aid or co-operation. The 
 skilful ship carpenter, when constructing a swift sailing 
 vessel, leaves ample breadth behind, swelling out the stern 
 so as to afford abundant room for cabins, berths, and sa- 
 loons, but he carefully tapers off the stem, sacrificing every 
 other object in order to securo the absence of anything
 
 GENTLENESS AND COUUTESY. 277 
 
 that could obstruct its progress, or offer needless resistance 
 to the waves. Our young readers, however, have no doubt 
 occasionally seen a steam-vessel backing out of some har- 
 bour, or narrow creek, with broad end foremost, and rais- 
 ing up a wide breast-work of foam, as it rudely seeks 
 to push the waves before it, instead of gliding through 
 them with its smooth and acutely pointed stem, fashioned 
 to the very form of the waves. Just such are the two 
 very different ways that the opposite classes of men we 
 refer to seem to make way through the world. We can 
 scarcely describe the discourteous class better than by say- 
 ing that they seem always to set sail with their broad end 
 foremost, and all is immediately confusion, disturbance, and 
 opposition around them. In committees, in public meet- 
 ings, even in religious assemblies we meet such men, who, by 
 their discourtesy, incite others to oppose them out of shere 
 pugnacity, and without reference to their opinions, while 
 there are others who bring with them such gentle and 
 winning ways, that men yield to them in spite of their own 
 inclinations and convictions, it seems so difficult to raise 
 opposition against plans modeled with so much gentleness 
 and courtesy. Not only phrenologists, but all writers who 
 treat of the human mind, recognise as one of its faculties, 
 tendencies, or by whatever name they prefer to call it, the 
 organ of Combativenesa. It is a most useful faculty to all 
 of us when kept in moderation. It is this that stirs in us 
 the needful resolution for self-defence, the energy to repel 
 injuries, to resist encroachments on our rights, and to pre- 
 serve the interests of those who are dear to us, or are in 
 trusted to our care. But this most useful faculty is also 
 liable to be excited for less desirable purposes; and no-
 
 278 GENTLENESS AND COL'UTESY. 
 
 thing so frequently effects this as clownish discourtesy 
 Wo see it in the play-ground, where a merry group of 
 school-boys are at their sports, full of mirth aud glee, and 
 abounding in hearty good feeling for one another, but some 
 boorish, ill-tempered, or overbearing fellow joins them ; he 
 gives one a coarse word, another a rude push ; he com- 
 plains of the arrangements of the game, or of the division 
 of the parties engaged, and presently nil is confusion and 
 discord. Just so is it with older assemblies. These are 
 but children of a larger growth. The courteous trader, 
 busy in the mart, on change, in some bank committee, 
 commercial co-partnery, or other trading company, is sug- 
 gesting arrangements for the good of all. Their wisdom 
 is recognised, but the winning ways of their proposer are 
 even more powerfully felt, and the whole assembly is 
 swayed by this overruling spirit of kindly sympathy to una- 
 nimity of purpose when perchance some blustering over- 
 bearing member arrives, and presently all are by the ears. 
 Deliberation is at an end; and the chance is, that when 
 matters come to a vote, the majority will be more influ- 
 enced by the spirit of opposition than the wise council of 
 deliberate judgment and sound experience. In truth, did 
 our subject admit of it, we might show how often even the 
 wars of great nations, involving the misery and death of 
 thousands have originated in just such hasty excitations 
 to irascibility. The American war, which deprived Great 
 Britain of so many colonial possessions, owed its continu- 
 ance and all its worst features to the obstinate and iras- 
 cible feelings of one or two men. The wise man will do 
 well to bear this in mind, for success in life cannot always 
 be independent of those deliberations in which all are
 
 GENTLENESS AND COURTESY. 279 
 
 frequently called to take a part in our free country, where 
 public meetings, elections, representative and corporate 
 assemblies, sway the movements by which our rights are 
 protected, and our national interests secured. "Curious," 
 says a quaint living writer, in his usual sententious but 
 somewhat sarcastic fashion "curious, how all Europe is 
 but like a set of parishes of the same county ; participant 
 of the self-same influences, ever since the Crusades, and 
 earlier; and these glorious wars of ours are but like 
 parish brawls, which begin in mutual ignorance, intoxi- 
 cation, and boastful speech, which end in broken windows, 
 damage, waste, and bloody noses, and which one hopes the 
 general good sense is now in the way towards putting 
 down, in some measure !" We would willingly hope that 
 it is so, but till the same good sense exercises a larger in- 
 fluence on the every-day transactions of social life, it would 
 be rash to place very great dependence on the effects likely 
 to result from its sway over the amenities of international 
 dealings and interests. Yet the following anecdote may 
 suffice to show how open are all hearts to the kindly influ- 
 ence which true courtesy begets : An English gentleman, 
 taking the grand tour, towards the middle of the eighteenth 
 century, when travellers were more objects of attention 
 than at present, on arriving at Turin, sauntered out to see 
 the place. He happened to meet a regiment of infantry 
 returning from parade, and taking a position to see it pass, 
 a young captain, evidently desirous of making a display 
 before the stranger, in crossing one of the numerous 
 water-courses with which the city is intersected, missed 
 his footing, and trying to save himself, lost his hat. The 
 spectators laughed, and looked at the Englishman, expeot-
 
 2bO GENTLENESS AND COURTESY. 
 
 ing him to laugh too. On the coutray, he not only retained 
 his composure, but promptly advanced to where the hat 
 rolled, and taking it up, presented it with an air of kind- 
 ness to its confused owner. The officer received it with a 
 blush of surprise and gratitude, and hurried to rejoin his 
 company. There was a murmur of applause, and the 
 stranger passed on. Though the scene of a moment, and 
 without a word spoken, it touched every heart. 
 
 On the regiment being dismissed, the captain, who was 
 a young man of consideration, in glowing terms related the 
 circumstance to his colonel. The colonel immediately 
 mentioned it to the general in command ; and when the 
 Englishman returned to IMS hotel, he found an aid-de-camp 
 waiting to request his company at dinner, at head quarters. 
 In the evening he was taken to court, at that time the 
 most brilliant court in Europe, and was received with 
 particular attention. Of course during his stay at Turin 
 he was invited everywhere ; and on his departure he was 
 loaded with letters of introduction to the different States 
 of Italy. Thus a private gentleman of moderate means, 
 by a graceful impulse of Christian feeling, was enabled to 
 travel through a foreign country, then of the highest in- 
 terest for its society as well as for the charms it still pos- 
 sesses, with more real distinction and advantage than can 
 ever be derived from the mere circumstance of birth and 
 fortune, even the most splendid. 
 
 When we consider how little cost of labour or sacrifice 
 this gentle spirit requires, no other consideration should bo 
 needed to induce its practise. It was the maxim of a cele- 
 brated minister, that if a child but lisped to give you 
 pleasure, you ought to be pleased." When occasionally
 
 GENTLENESS AND COURTESY. 281 
 
 preaching in the villages, he used to be delighted in visit- 
 ing the poor, and, when solicited, would regale himself 
 with their brown bread and black tea; but took care, 
 at the same time, that they should lose nothing by their 
 attention. B When a poor person shows anxiety to admi- 
 nister to your comfort," he would say, " do not interrupt 
 him. Why deprive him of the pleasure of expressing his 
 friendship f 
 
 " If a civil word or two will render a man happy," said a 
 French king, " he must be wretched indeed who will not 
 give them to him." Were superiors to keep this in view, 
 yea, were all mankind to observe it, how much happier 
 would the world be than what it is ! We may say of this 
 disposition, " that it is like lighting another man's candle 
 by one's own, which loses none of its light by what the 
 other gains." 
 
 Notliing can more fitly serve as a comparison, in small 
 things, of our progress through life, than the daily walk 
 in the crowded city thoroughfares. To the inexperi- 
 enced eye it seems as if it were impossible to make way 
 through the throng. It is told of an old lady who had 
 arrived in London from some quiet little rural village, and 
 been taken the first thing on the following morning to see 
 the cathedral of St. Paul. She had only to cross the nar- 
 row thoroughfare to return to the friendly lodging where 
 she had taken up her abode ; but long after she was found 
 standing on the steps of the cathedral porch, waiting, as 
 she told her friend, till this crowd would go by ! To her 
 inexperienced eye the ordinary bustle of a London thorough- 
 fare seemed to be some great crowd gathered by some sud- 
 den and altogether extraordinary attiuction. Suppose two
 
 282 GENTLENESS AM> COUIITESY. 
 
 raeu about to proceed through these thoroughfares, the one 
 a self-willed, rude, or obstinate man, resolved to make hu 
 way in defiance of the throng, straight to his destined 
 course, moving along with arms akimbo, many would 
 doubtless give way and let the rude passenger go by; 
 eome would return his discourtesy, with a jostle and thrust 
 as they passed, while others, more irascible, or sensitive 
 to such injuries, would resent his conduct, demand expla- 
 nation or apology, and his injudicious outset would end in 
 an altercation, and very possible an arrest and appearance 
 before a magistrate. But at the very time when he set out 
 on his unwise course, his more prudent companion has 
 been passing through the same thoroughfares. Here he 
 gently gives way, there he threads his course sideways 
 through an unusually crowded spot, or pauses for a second 
 till another passes on, and thus by moving now a little to 
 the one side, and again a little to the other, he glides 
 through the crowd like the steamer through the river, and 
 reaches his goal without the sense of any unusual obstruc- 
 tion; while his companion, jostled, fretted, irritated, and 
 perchance injured, will bo ready to affirm that the very 
 same thoroughfare was crowded with bullies and pugilists, 
 and that a general conspiracy had seemed organized against 
 his progress. Just so is it in the journey of life. We meet 
 men with irascible tempers and incompliant dispositions, 
 who have been fighting all their days with difficulties of 
 their own raising, and rendering success impossible by their 
 own ungentle ways ; wliile others with much less talent, 
 achieve success fully as much by their courteous mode of 
 transacting business, as by their ability for the execution 
 of their undertakings. We know at this moment a man of
 
 GENTLENESS AND CuUUTESY. 283 
 
 Unusual ability in a difficult profession, who Las succes- 
 sively begun business in Glasgow, Edinburgh, York, Man- 
 Chester, and London. In each of these places his ability 
 has met with speedy recognition, his prospects have seemed 
 of the most promising description, and friends have not 
 been wanting to aid him ; but an irritable temper, and 
 violent manner have ruined all. Each place has been suc- 
 cessively forsaken, under the belief that he is a deeply in- 
 jured man, and that each of these places is the very worst 
 in the world for a man of his ability and enterprise. It is 
 indeed an invariable characteristic of the obstinate irascible 
 man, that he never can be brought to imagine he was in 
 the wrong ; and so now the individual of whom we speak 
 has reached London, that great world of busy life, where 
 thousands perish unheeded and unknown. With a family 
 dependant on his exertions, life is still to begin; the 
 hope that buoyed up his earlier years must be well nigh 
 gone; and past experience too plainly says that without a 
 radical change in his whole conduct success is impossible. 
 There is a vast amount of truth in the old familiar fable 
 of .<Esop, of the wind and the sun. Both tried which 
 could first make the traveller part with his cloak ; but let 
 the wind blow and bluster till it was tired he only wrapped 
 it the closer around him, and clung to it the tighter ; whereas 
 it no sooner gives way to the sun, than he with the insinu- 
 ating warmth of his rays, gradually induced him first to 
 relax his hold, and finally to throw it aside and fling him- 
 self down beneath the shade of a tree I Many of the 
 duties of life require great self-denial, and are difficult and 
 oven painful to perform, some of those that have been 
 pointed out in former chapters are of this class, and we
 
 284 GENTLENESS AND CODRTKSY. 
 
 have had to urge them upon the reader's attention aa 
 means which he must submit to, however uupalatable, if 
 he would attain siiccess; but with those which we now 
 enforce it is altogether different. They are such as may 
 be coveted for their own sake, no less than for the objects 
 to be attained by them, and even if success were equally 
 attainable by violence and compulsion, as by gentleness 
 and courtesy, the man of well-regulated mind would no 
 more think of adopting the former than of choosing some 
 rugged and mountainous track in preference to a smooth 
 and level road which led equally direct to his journey's 
 end. It was the great aim of the distinguished scholar, 
 Dr. Arnold, to make his pupils feel " like Christian gentle- 
 men." This ought to-be the aim of every teacher, and the 
 ambition of every man. The true gentleman is not ne- 
 cessarily limited to the man of rank, and wealth, and high 
 station. The merchant, the trader, the artizan, the humblest 
 labourer, may dignify his lowly position by displaying the 
 feelings of true gentleness and Christian self-denial ; and 
 while it will teach him to prefer another to himself, it 
 will not on that account prove a barrier to his success in 
 every honourable career. 
 
 " An English writer," says Professor Francis Lieber, " to 
 express most strongly his admiration of Plato's works, says 
 tliat they are pervaded by a spirit, almost, of a Christian 
 gentleman. An officer of the army or navy may be tried 
 for ' conduct unbecoming a gentleman* a charge ruinous 
 to his career, if the court pronounces him guilty. ' On the 
 word of a gentleman,' is considered among men of cha- 
 racter equivalent to a solemn asseveration ; and the chai'ge 
 he is no gentleman,' as one of the most degrading that
 
 GENTLENESS AND COURTESY. 285 
 
 can be brought against a man of education. You would 
 understand me at once as being desirous of conveying a 
 grave idea, were I to say that Socrates, though condemned 
 by vulgar and ferocious cuvy, died passionless, a philo- 
 sopher and a gentleman; or, that Charles the First, of 
 England, after liaving long dispensed with veracity, and 
 often stooped to unworthy practices, demeaned himself, 
 during his trial and on the scaffold, like a gentleman. 
 
 We naturally ask, then, what is the meaning of this 
 comprehensive term, and is there anything substantial in 
 the character which it designates, or is it an idol, arbi- 
 trarily set up by fickle Fashion beside morality, perhaps 
 above religion? Has it become a caricature, however 
 innocent at first, or ought it to be well known and atten- 
 tively cultivated ? 
 
 I must not detain you with the well-known etymologies 
 of the word, given among others by Gibbon, nor with its 
 meaning in the English law. Blackstone's Commentaries, 
 or any proper book of reference, will speedily satisfy the 
 curious on this point. Lot us rather endeavour to ascer- 
 tain what is meant at present by those who choose their 
 words with care and knowledge, when they use the term 
 gentleman in its highest acceptation. I believe it signifies 
 that character which is distinguished by strict honour, self 
 possession, forbearance, generous as well as refined feel- 
 ings, and polished deportment a character to which all 
 meanness, explosive initableness and peevish fretfulness 
 are alien ; to which, consequently, a generous candour, 
 scrupulous veracity, courage, both moral and physical, 
 dignity, self-respect, a studious avoidance of giving offence 
 to others or oppressing them, and liberality in thought,
 
 286 GENTLENESS AND COURTESY. 
 
 argument, and conduct, are habitual and have become 
 natural. Perhaps we are justified in saying that the 
 character of the gentleman implies an addition of refine- 
 ment of feeling, and loftiness of conduct to the rigid dic- 
 tates of morality and purifying precepts of religion. It 
 seems to me that we always connect the ideas of honour, 
 polish, collectedness of mine] and liberal disposition, with 
 the word gentleman, and feel that its antagonistic charac- 
 ters are if you permit me, in the spirit of philosophical 
 inquiry, to use words, some of which do not often find a 
 befitting place in a gentlemanly discourse the clown, the 
 gossip, the backbiter, the dullard, coward, braggart, fretter, 
 swaggerer, bully, ruffian, and the blackguard, according to 
 that peculiar attribute of the gentleman, the opposite to 
 which we may be desirous of pointing out in the antago- 
 nistic character." 
 
 The true gentleman is obviously only another name for 
 the true Christian, and indeed the divine law is the only in- 
 fallible guide which will be found applicable to every diffi 
 cult and doubtful case with which we are called upon to 
 deal in the multifarious transactions of life. The world's 
 code of honour is a mere conventional and most imperfect 
 version of the Divine code of honour, and the mutual 
 understandings by which the whole transactions of the 
 mart and the change are carried on are only of value in so 
 far as they are consistent with its more ample requisitions 
 Yet while we characterize their requisitions as ample, they 
 are at the same time the easiest of all to understand, and 
 leave the man whose life is guided by their rule, in no per- 
 plexity to determine between right and wrong. "In all 
 spheres of our lives," says Professor Lieber, " there occur
 
 GENTLENESS AND COURTESY. 287 
 
 many acts of so complex a nature, that, if they arc sub- 
 mitted to a long process of reasoning, which possibly may 
 appear the more impartial, the more heartlessly it is 
 undertaken, they will allow of a perplexing number of 
 arguments, for and against, of bewildering precedents on 
 either side, and of distinctions more embarrassing than un- 
 ravelling, so that in the end we see our way less clearly 
 than at the beginning acts, from which, nevertheless, a 
 mind instinct witli genuine gentlemanliness will shrink at 
 once, as being of doubtful candour, dangerous to honour, 
 of suspicious honesty, or inclining to what is illiberal or 
 undjgnifiud. No merchant or artizan, no advocate or 
 statesman, teacher or minister no citizen, in whatever 
 tircle he may move none of you in your preparatory 
 spheres, can avoid being called upon promptly to decide 
 in cases of this nature. Acts, somewhat tinctured witli 
 what we would call unhandsome, or slightly tainted with 
 what may bo mean, cannot always be distinctly discerned as 
 such by the reasoning faculties, and all these acts are never- 
 theless dangerous, because they are infusions of impurity 
 into our soul, where nothing is at rest, but everything, 
 good or evil, is in constant perfusing and assimilating 
 activity a psychological law which is subject to far 
 fewer exceptions, if any, than the corresponding law of 
 assimilation of matter in the animal body. 
 
 History is full of these instances; daily life surrounds 
 us with them, and although the pure principles as well as 
 precepts of religion are invaluable, and of primordial im- 
 portance to all ethic vitality, and for which indeed you 
 can find no substitute, seaixih where you may, yet a keen 
 and instinctive sense and glowing love of honour, watchful
 
 288 OBNTLEXESS AND COURTESY. 
 
 and prompt self-respect, and habitual recoiling from wlial 
 is low, vulgar, coarse and base in thought, feeling, deed, or 
 manner, fonn an active moral co-efficient, or, if I may say 
 so, an additional faculty quickly to receive impressions, 
 upon which religious consciousness decides and works." 
 
 In no path of life is this high principle of Christian 
 honour more requisite than in that of the trader or the 
 merchant. Where our own interests are involved, con- 
 science will sometimes bo silenced by self-interest and 
 covetousness, and then it is that the man of true gentleness 
 shows the source of his integrity and the comprehensive 
 force which he recognises in the Golden Rule, "Do to 
 another as you would have another do to yon." 
 
 Our vigorous English poet, Tennyson, thus strikingly 
 characterizes the difference between the man of rank or 
 mere social position, and the true gentleman, in his beauti- 
 ful poem entitled "In Memoriam," and dedicated to the 
 memory of a lost friend whom he regarded as one of the 
 noblest specimens of what a good man ought to be : 
 
 The chnrl In spirit, up or down 
 
 Along tlie scale of ranks, through all, 
 To who msr rrmsp a golden ball, 
 
 By blood a king, at heart a clown ; 
 
 The chnrl In spirit, howe'er ho veil 
 
 His want in forms for fashion's sake, 
 
 Will let his coltish nature break 
 At seasons through the pflded pale: 
 
 For who can always act ? T.ut he 
 
 To whom a thousand memories call 
 
 Not being less but more than all 
 T.'ie 3nt!en he seemed to b,
 
 LIBERALITY AND BENEVOLENCE, 289 
 
 So wore his outward best, and join'd 
 
 Each office of the social hour 
 
 To noble manners, as the flower 
 And native growth of noble mind; 
 
 Nor ever narrowness or spite, 
 
 Or villain fancy fleeting by, 
 
 Drew in tho expression of an eye, 
 Where God and Nature met in light 
 
 And thus he bore without abuse 
 
 The grand old name of gentlemen, 
 
 Defamed by every charlatan, 
 And soiled with all ignoble use! 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 LIBERALITY AND BENEVOLENCE. 
 
 The wealth that circulates like social blood 
 From rich to poor, from palace to the hut 
 Is like the life-1 lood genial In Its flow; 
 But that which stagnates In tho hoarded vault 
 Or bank, or merchant's safe, is the disease 
 That, lurking in the veins, transforms the blood, 
 Till it forsakes the cold extremities, 
 And throttles with plethoric greed of all 
 
 The miser heart. 
 
 \V. \ 
 
 NOTHING dignifies the pursuit of wealth so much as the 
 consideration, that by its acquisition a man gains tho power 
 of doing good. How thoroughly was this exemplified in the 
 career of the noble British trader, Sir Thomas Fowell 
 T
 
 290 IJBKRALITY AND BENEVOLENCB. 
 
 Buxton. Without bis wealth he might have been the 
 active citizen, the good husband aud father, and even the 
 benevolent neighbour and kind friend ; for acts of gener- 
 osity and benevolent sympathy for others are in no de- 
 gree limited to the wealthy. But, without his worldly 
 means, ho could never have been the great philanthropist 
 and statesman which his life so nobly proves to be com- 
 patible with the most zealous devotion to trade. 
 
 It may indeed be safely affirmed, that the great majority 
 of our most active practical philanthropists Lave sprung 
 from the merchant and trading classes. The very habits 
 of assiduous perseverance and zeal, which they acquire in 
 business, fit them in an especial manner for the like acti- 
 vity in their new career ; while the absence of all stimulus 
 to exertion, which is the lot of him who inherits wealth and 
 rank, has proved in hundreds of cases the incentive only to 
 indolence, if not to vice. 
 
 But perhaps the young reader, who has been laying to 
 heart our former precepts, now exclaims : Economy and 
 generosity 1 Blowing cold and hot with the same breath ! 
 Certainly ; is it not perfectly philosophical ! Generosity 
 in its highest sense is entirely consistent with economy ; 
 nay, the very promoter of it. This kind of generosity, 
 however, more properly belongs to what is called liberality 
 that diffusive benevolence which a man can indulge who 
 lias honestly and honourably acquired wealth. 
 
 Generosity is that noble consideration which one man 
 shows for the interests of another. Its influence may be 
 felt by all who are associated with him, in the counting- 
 house, on 'Change, and in the social circle. It arises from 
 a warm, cordial sympathy with his fellow-men, and is an
 
 lIItKUALITY AND BENEVOLENCE. 291 
 
 endearing and wonderfully popular trait of character. 
 Generosity, indeed, carries with it the applauses of the 
 unthinking millions, while simple justice stands by, un- 
 heeded. 
 
 The reader, however, lias already been reminded of the 
 true force of the homely maxim, " Be just before you are 
 generous," and is not likely now, we trust, to mistake tho 
 hasty inconsideration which seeks the gratification of a 
 momentary impulse to benevolence, without regard to the 
 obligations of duty. Such miscalled generosity is often only 
 another form of selfishness, nor is any act of life a worthy 
 one which proceeds from mere impulse, and not in obedi 
 ence to reason. But amid all our aims at success in life, 
 we must never forget that wealth is merely a means to it 
 while true, virtuous happiness is the real end which all 
 wise men pursue. Tho poet Crabbe has liappily illustrated 
 the difference between the generous and the selfish pursuit 
 of happiness, in the picture he has drawn of the two 
 hrothers, Walter and William : 
 
 " Content not always waits upon success. 
 And more may h enjoy wno pn-i 
 Walter and William took (t)icir father dead,) 
 Jointly the trade to which they both were bred. 
 When fixed, they married, and they quickly found 
 With due success their honest labours crowned: 
 Few were their losses, but although a fc-.v, 
 Walter was vexed: and -oiiiewliat peevish grew 
 'You pnt your trust in every pleading f 
 Said he to William, and grew strong end cooL 
 ' Brother, ft.rbea; . i ' take yonr due, 
 
 Nor let my lack of caution injure ym. 
 Half-friends they parted- -better so to close, 
 Tlian longer wait to part entirely tous.
 
 292 LIBERALITY AND BENEVOLENCE. 
 
 Walter had knowledge, prudence, Jealous care* 
 He let no idle views his bosom share ; 
 Be never thought nor felt for other men, 
 ' Let one mind one, and all are minded then ;' 
 Friends he respected, and believed them Just ; 
 Bat they were men, and he would no man trurt; 
 He tried and watched his people day and night! 
 The good it harmed not ; for the bad 'twas right : 
 He could their humours bear, nay, disrespect- 
 But lie could yield no pardon to neglect ; 
 That all about him were of him afraid, 
 1 Was right,' he said' go should we be obeyed.' 
 These merchant maxims, much good fortune too, 
 And ever keeping one grand point in view, 
 To vast amount his onoe small portion grew. 
 
 William was kind and easy ; he complied 
 With all requests, or grieved when he denied. 
 Prone to compassion, mild with the distressed, 
 He bore with all who poverty professed, 
 And some would he assist, nor one would he arrest. 
 He had some loss at sea, bad debts on land, 
 His clerk absconded with somt bills In hand, 
 And plans so often failed that he no longer planned. 
 To a small house (his brother's) he withdrew, 
 At easy rent the man was not a Jew . 
 And there his losses and his cares h. bore, 
 Nor found that want of wealth could make him poor. 
 
 No, he in fact was rich ; nor could he move. 
 But he was followed by the looks of love; 
 All he had suffered, every former grief 
 Made those around more studious In relief; 
 He saw a cheerful smile in every face, 
 And lost all thoughts of error and disgrace. 
 Pleasant it was to see them in their walk, 
 Hound their small garden, and to hear them talk ; 
 Their common comforts they hail all in view; 
 Light were their troubles, and their wishes few;
 
 LIBERALITY AND BENEVOLENCE. 293 
 
 Thrift made them easy for the coming day, 
 
 Religion took the dread of death away ; 
 
 A cheerful spirit still ensured content, 
 
 And love smiled round them whereso'er they irent 
 
 Walter, meantime, with all his wealth's increase, 
 Gained many points, but could not purchase peace. 
 When he withdrew from business for an hour, 
 Some fled his presence, all confessed his power. 
 He sought affection, but received, instead, 
 Fear undisguised, and love-repelling dread ; 
 He looked around him' Harriet, dost thou love? 1 
 ' I do my duty,' said the timid dove. 
 ' Good Heaven 1 your duty ? Prithee tell me now 
 To love and honour was not that your vow? 
 Come, my good Harriet, I would Kladly seeK 
 Tour inmost thought Why can't the woman speak i 
 Have you not all things ?' ' Sir, do I complain T 
 ' No, that's my part, which I perform in vain ; 
 I want a simple answer, and direct 
 But yon evade ; yes I 'tis as I suspect. 
 Come then, my children 1 Watt upon your knew 
 Vow that yon love me.' Yes, sir, If yon please.' 
 'Again I By Heaven, it mads me, I require 
 Love .... I would spend 
 A thousand pounds to get a single friend. 
 I've not a friend in all the world not one : 
 I'd be a bankrupt sooner ; nay, 'tis done ; 
 In every better hope of life I fail ; 
 You're all tormentors, and my house a JaiL 
 TU to your uncle's cot yon wish to run, 
 To learn to lire at ease and be undone : 
 Him yon can love who lost his whole estate, 
 And I, who gave yon fortunes, have your hate. 1 " 
 
 This is perhaps au overdrawn picture, yet it is not with- 
 out its lesson. If forced to choose between the splendid 
 misery of many a wealthy, heartless man, and the virtuous 
 contentment of homely domestic circles, what wise man
 
 294 LIBERALITY AND BENEVOLENCE. 
 
 would hesitate in his choice. But what we rather seek 
 QOW to inculcate is, that prudence is in no degree incom- 
 patible with true benevolence ; and that it does not require 
 that a man be like William, so lowly in his views, and so 
 unambitious in all his desires, as "William was, in order to 
 win the love and enjoy the domestic happiness which he 
 justly estimated higher than all wealth. The Bible pro- 
 nounces the love of money to be the root of all evil. 
 From this springs greed, dishonesty, meanness, selfishness, 
 and a whole host of hateful vices ; but money is in itself 
 the instrument of all good. It is justly styled the sinews of 
 war. By its means we war against disease, poverty, ignor- 
 ance, vice. It is by means of money that we maintain 
 infirmaries, hospitals, schools for the poor, refuges for the 
 destitute, and missions for the ignorant and the heathen 
 of our own and other lands. 
 
 Nothing dignifies the pursuit of wealth so highly as the 
 consideration, that by its acquisition a man gains the power 
 to do good. 
 
 The toil and labour the anxiety and care who would 
 willingly encounter them merely to hoard up dross! 
 Dross, indeed, to him who does not make a right use of 
 it pure silver, when invested for the public welfare 
 refined gold, when paid into the treasury of suffering 
 humanity. 
 
 A man need not wait till he moulders in his coffin with 
 the green grass over hie grave, before his means are ap- 
 plied to noble purposes, as is so often done by the vain 
 bolfish man. 
 
 So did not Thomas Eddy of New York, who has boeu 
 styled the Howard of America; a man so remarkable
 
 LIBEIIAUTY AND ISKNEVOLENCK. 296 
 
 alike for his success in life, and the uso which he made of 
 it, that we must glanco here botli at his mode of gaining 
 and expending his wealth. By death deprived of his father 
 at an early ago, Thomas Eddy though a member of the 
 Society of Friends, must have taken up arms, and bat- 
 tled it manfully with life while yet very young. 
 
 At the age of fifteen he became acquainted with William 
 Savary, the same it is believed who gave the benevolent 
 impulse to the distinguished philanthropist Mrs. Elizabeth 
 Fry, which rendered her life so useful and so beautiful, a 
 man who exercised an influence for good upon his whole 
 future career. 
 
 Thomas Eddy says of this friend : " I have often thought 
 there never was so nearly perfect a character within my 
 knowledge, in our society, and none that more extensively 
 inculcated, and effectually diffused, true practical Cliris- 
 tian principles." 
 
 Thomas Eddy reached New York at the ago of twenty- 
 one, with little more than twenty-five pounds in his pocket 
 his whole capital. His first step looked like wild extra- 
 vagance. He took board at the rate of thiily-six shillings 
 a week. At this rate his twenty-five pounds would last 
 only a very few weeks. It was a bold, but not a rash or 
 inconsiderate adventure. The sagacious young man knew 
 well what he was about. Observe the reasons for his 
 choice of lodgings. " Samuel Elwin, late of Newport, 
 John Glover, and two or three other respectable mer- 
 chants, boarded at the same house ; becoming acquainted 
 with them was highly useful to me, as it was the first 
 opportunity 1 had ever had of acquiring a knowledge of 
 commerce, and the course of mercantile dealing. I knew
 
 296 LIBERALITY AND BENEVOLENCE. 
 
 that it was out of my power to support myself with 
 I then possessed, and that I must soon como to want, unless 
 I could succeed in business. I endeavoured by every 
 means in my power to acquire information. Sometimes, 
 on noticing an article intended to be sold at auction, I 
 would procure a sample, and call on some dealer in the 
 article, and get him to offer me a fixed price on my fur- 
 nishing it ; in this way, by first ascertaining where I could 
 dispose of the goods, I would purchase, provided the price 
 would afford me a profit. On this plan, I have found a 
 good purchaser for goods, bought and delivered them, and 
 re :eived the money, which enabled me to pay the auc- 
 tioneer for them, without my advancing one shilling!" 
 
 Well might Thomas Eddy add, " I was obliged to live 
 by my wits, and this necessity was of great service to me 
 afterwards." 
 
 Was the soul of Thomas Eddy narrowed down to a pin's 
 point, and his heart frozen to an icicle by this course of 
 industry and economy this slow process of money-mak- 
 ing, by taking care of the pennies ? Most assuredly not ; 
 he had become deeply imbued with the true spirit of 
 Christianity, and entered with enthusiasm into every plan 
 which presented itself, or which ho could devise, for the 
 benefit of the human race. He resolved to devote himself 
 to the amelioration of human misery whenever it came 
 within his reach. The vicious and vile, who were con- 
 sidered beyond the pale of sympathy, attracted first his 
 attention, and he successfully laboured in establishing a 
 better prison discipline than had previously existed in New 
 York. Mr. Eddy also found time to cultivate his intellect 
 and to turn his powers of mina to the best account. In
 
 LIBERALITY AND BENEVOLENCE. 297 
 
 1801, he published a volume on the State Prison of New 
 York, one of the most admirable papers which have 
 been written on the important topics of which it treats, 
 namely, causes of crime, punishments, reformation, prison 
 discipline, &c. No one had studied the subject more 
 thoroughly, or was better versed in its principles ; and the 
 work shows him to have been well acquainted with the 
 writings of Beccaria, Montesquieu, Howard, &c. 
 
 The New York hospital, and the asylum for the insane at 
 Bloomingdale, as well as other valuable institutions, owe 
 their existence principally to the exertions of Thomas Eddy. 
 In connection with John Murray, a brother of Lindley Mur- 
 ray the grammarian, he went among the scattered, miser- 
 able remnant of the Indians in the State of Now York, to 
 attempt the alleviation of their condition. He formed a 
 friendship with the famous Red Jacket, and artists could 
 scarcely find a subject better adapted to the canvass, than 
 that of the excellent Quaker, smoking the calumet of peace 
 with this Indian orator by his side, and surrounded by the 
 fierce warriors of the tribe. Alas ! That so little could 
 be effected for the wasting red men even by this warm- 
 hearted philanthropist. Inthralled by intemperance in 
 the worst of all slavery, the poor Indians find no release 
 from their thraldom till death loosens their chains. Woe 
 to commerce or civilization, or the progress of society, 
 when they are only means of carrying moral and physical 
 poison to the untutored savage ! 
 
 When works of public utility were projected, Thomas 
 Eddy was among the foremost to promote them. Dr. 
 llossack, in his life of De Witt Clinton, mentions the mer- 
 chant as second only to Clinton, as instrumental " in effect-
 
 298 LIBERALITY AND BENEVOLENCE. 
 
 ing a direct internal communication between Lake Erie 
 and the Atlantic, by means of the Erie Canal." 
 
 Ho laboured indefatigably for the establishment of free 
 schools in New York. The New York Bible Society, 
 formed only two years after the British and Foreign Bible 
 Society, ranks him among its first and most efficient patrons 
 Philanthropy, public spirit, religion noble trio ! 
 
 "There is a Joy in worth, 
 A high, mysterious, soul-pervading charm, 
 Which, never daunted, ever bright and warm, 
 Mocks at the idle, shadowy ills of earth, 
 Amid the gloom is bright, and placid in the storm. 
 
 It asks, it needs no aid : 
 It makes the strong and lofty soul its throne ; 
 There in its self-created heaven alone- 
 No fear to shake, no mem'ry to upbraid 
 It sits a lesser god ; life, life is all ita own. 
 
 fbe stoic was not wrong : 
 There la no evil to the virtuous brave, 
 Or in the battle-strife or on the wave ; 
 Worshipped or scorned, alone or In the throng, 
 He Is himself alone, not earth's or fortune's slave 1 
 
 Power, and wealth, and fame, 
 Are but as reeds upon life's troubled tide; 
 Give me but these, a spirit tempest- tried, 
 A brow unshrinking, and a soul of flame, 
 The Joy of conscious worth Its courage and its priile." 
 
 It is not without a just sense of pride that the Americana 
 refer to men like Eddy who have thus made the name of 
 merchant not honourable only, but illustrious. Of the mer- 
 chants of Boston, the Hon. Edward Everett says : " They 
 have indeed been princes in the pure and only republican
 
 LIBERALITY AND BENEVOLENCE. 299 
 
 sense of the word, in bestowiug princely endowments on 
 the public institutions ; and to him who asks for the monu- 
 ments of their liberality, we may say as of the architect of 
 St. Paul's, ' Look around you.' 
 
 " In every part of the old world except England, the 
 public establishments, the foundations for charity, educa- 
 tion, and literary improvement, have been mostly endowed 
 by the sovereign; and costly edifices arc generally the 
 monuments of an opulence which had its origin in feudal 
 inequality. If displays of wealth are witnessed in our 
 cities, it is wealth originally obtained by frugality and en- 
 'terprise; and of which a handsome share has been appro- 
 priated to the endowment of those charitable and philan- 
 thropic institutions which are the distinguishing glory of 
 modern times." 
 
 "We shall only refer to one other of the merchant princes 
 of New York, a man who proved by his conduct through 
 life how thoroughly the strict probity and sense of honour 
 of the merchant is compatible with the lofty course of 
 generous philanthropy, which is so beautifully exempli- 
 fied in the career of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, and in that 
 of Thomas Eddy of New York. Still more they show how 
 completely the Christian and the merchant are reconcilable ; 
 and indeed how indispensable to all true philanthropy, are 
 the still higher principles which form the main-spring of 
 the Christian's actions through life. It is the most wonder- 
 ful evidence of the divine origin of the Christian faith that 
 it is equally compatible with the palace and the cottage ; it 
 has strengthened the arm of the soldier on the battle-field, 
 as well as encouraged the heart of the benevolent mission- 
 ary when waging war with moral darkness, and spiritual
 
 300 LIBERALITY AND BENEVOLENCE. 
 
 foes. It has ennobled the king more than his crown, and 
 has sustained the poor slave amid his hopeless bondage. 
 We cannot offer a better example of mercantile character 
 when thus elevated by the still higher principles of the 
 Christian, than one given of Jonathan Goodhuc of New 
 York, by the Rev. Henry W. Bellows, on the occasion of 
 his death : 
 
 "In a community like ours," he remarks, "there is espe- 
 cial danger that the Christian standard will decline, and 
 with it the conQdence of the public in the reality of Chris- 
 tian faith and virtue. We live confessedly in the midst of 
 great temptations and seductions. There is nothing, per- 
 haps, concerning which men doubt each other more than 
 in regard to their power to withstand the temptation of 
 money ; that every man has his price is a received maxim 
 of terrible import, whose practical disproof concerns the 
 interests, and even the credibility of the gospel more than 
 tongue can tell. 
 
 The world needs to see men springing up in its busiest 
 and most exposed paths, walking amid the flames of its 
 most devouring passions, handling its most seductive and 
 betraying objects, in contact with its most poisonous coils, 
 und yet maintaining there, principles which are above the 
 sphere in which they move aims that stoop not to the level 
 on which they stand ; a purity that is not to be contamin- 
 ated; a character above suspicion or reproach. 
 
 What wo particularly need, then, is the example of men 
 who are thrown into the hottest part of the furnace of 
 temptation, and yet come out unscathed. It is no uncom- 
 mon thing to hear men, fortifying their own moral resolu- 
 tion by assailing the ordinary objects of human desire:
 
 LIBEIIALITY AND BENEVOLEXCK. 301 
 
 denying the desirableness of fortune ; charging the neces- 
 sary principles on which business is conducted with in- 
 trinsic immorality, and attributing to wealth itself all the 
 evils which come from a passionate 'love of money.' When 
 these words proceed from the mouths of the unsuccessful, 
 or from those withdrawn from the walks of trade, they in- 
 dicate a very suspicious kind of past experience, and a 
 very doubtful sort of uuworldliness. 
 
 Let it be understood that the merchant occupies a post 
 of peril ; that he handles a most dangerous substance ; that 
 he is of all men most exposed to the evils of worldliness ; 
 that his principles are destined to fearful trial ; that ho is 
 to live in constant excitement, with anxiety, hope, fear, 
 adventure, risk, as his stormy element; that mercantile 
 misfortune has its imminent moral perils, and commercial 
 success equal and peculiar dangers. Let the merchant 
 understand that he places himself, for the sake of certain 
 valuable and not unworthy considerations, in a position in 
 which he is to expect little tranquility of mind ; small con- 
 trol of his own time, and little direct opportunity for cul- 
 tivating tastes and pursuits usually regarded as protective 
 to the moral nature. 
 
 Let him understand tliat ho is, more than any other man, 
 to deal directly with what is, by general consent, the most 
 seductive, exciting, and treacherous commodity in the 
 world; that which most tempts integrity, moves the baser 
 passions, absorbs the faculties, chills the humane affections, 
 and dulls the spiritual senses; that which was the object 
 of our Master's most emphatic warning. But let him at 
 the same time recognise the Christian lawfulness and pro- 
 vidoEtial importance of his calling, and appreciate the force
 
 302 LIBERALITY AND BENEVOLENCE. 
 
 of the truth that the possible moral advantages of a posi- 
 tion are proportioned to its moral perils, so that no man's 
 opportunities of forming and exemplifying the Christian 
 character in some of its most commanding attributes, are so 
 great as those of the merchant. In no mau is superiority to 
 worldliness so much honoured, no man's integrity is so 
 widely known or so much venerated! Honour, upright- 
 ness, brotherly kindness, purity and singleness of purpose, 
 moderation and essential superiority to worldly maxims 
 and ambitions these qualities, if they exist in him at all, 
 exist in him in spite of daily trials and temptations. If 
 any man's principles require to be sound to the core, it is 
 his. No man occupies a more commanding moral position, 
 displays a more useful character, or wins a more sincere 
 and compulsory reverence, than the Christian merchant. 
 
 Jonathan Goodhuc, the son of the Hon. Benjamin Good- 
 hue of Massachusetts, came to New York about forty 
 years ago, and entered upon mercantile life. The public 
 knew him only as a merchant. He has filled no political 
 offices, nor made himself conspicuous in any philanthropic 
 causes. 
 
 His life has been as private as an extensive business 
 would allow ; his career as ordinary and common-place 
 as any man's among us of similar age and commercial 
 regulations. He is but one among a thousand in our 
 community of equal wealth, similar connections in busi- 
 ness, and like relations with the public. Indeed, more 
 thau almost any other citizen of similar intelligence, 
 experience and standing, might he be styled a private 
 person. 
 
 Why then is it, that with an almost unequalled demon-
 
 LIBERALITY AND BENEVOLENCE. 303 
 
 stration of sorrow and bereavement, this community gathers 
 about his grave, and testifies in its sincerest and heartiest 
 forms, its reverence and love I 
 
 Whence this burst of admiration, respect, and affection, 
 coming simultaneously from every portion of the public ; 
 uttered through the resolutions of commercial bodies ; 
 speaking from the lips of the press, and above all, falling 
 in tones of tenderness from private tongues in all classes 
 of society ? It is as if every one had lost a friend, a guide, 
 an example ; one whom he is surprised to find has been 
 equally the object of respect and affection to ten thousand 
 others. 
 
 It is the recognised worth of private character which 
 has extorted this homage ! Jonathan Goodhue had suc- 
 teeded, during a long and active life of business, in which 
 he beoame known to almost nil our people, through the 
 ordinary relations of trade and commerce, in impressing 
 them with a deep and unquestioning sense of his personal 
 integrity and essential goodness. 
 
 If we ask ourselves what the public is now so gratefully 
 contemplating in the memory of Jonathan Goodhue, we 
 find that it is not his public services, not his commercial 
 importance, not even his particular virtues and graces. It 
 is the man himself ; the pure, high-minded, righteous 
 man, with gentle and full affections, who adorned our 
 nature, who dignified the mercantile profession, who was 
 superior to his station, his riches, his exposures, and made 
 the common virtues more respected and venerable than 
 shining talents or public honours ; who vindicated the 
 dignity of common life, and carried a high, large, and 
 noble spirit into ordinary affairs ; who made men recog-
 
 304 LIBERALITY AND BENEVOLENCE. 
 
 nise something inviolable and awful even in the private 
 conscience, and thus gave sanctity and value to our com- 
 mon humanity. This was the power, this the attraction, 
 this the value of his life. Ho has shown that a rich man 
 can enter the kingdom of heaven. Ho stands up by accla- 
 mation as the model of a Christian merchant. 
 
 The distinguishing moral traits of Mr. Goodhue, were 
 pxirity of mind, conscientiousness, benevolence, and love of 
 freedom. Perhaps the first was the most striking in a man 
 in his position. Originally endowed with a sensitive and 
 elevated nature, and educated among the pure and good, 
 he brought to this community, at mature age, the simpli- 
 city and transparency of a child, and retained to the last 
 a manifest purity of heart and imagination. I think no 
 man ever ventured to propose to him any object or schema 
 which involved mean or selfish motives. Ho shrank, with 
 an instinctive disgust, from the low, the unworthy, and 
 compelled all to feel, that lie was a ' vessel made to hon- 
 our,' which could admit no base mixtures in its crystal 
 depths. 
 
 His purity of mind was still further evinced, in the diffi- 
 culty with which he conceived of foul motives or wrong 
 intentions in others. It was remarked by one who enjoyed 
 his daily and familiar intercourse, that he never heard him 
 speak in derisive scorn of any man but in one instance. 
 His purity of mind manifested itself in the childlike cha- 
 racter of his tastes, manners, and pleasures. Ho had no 
 taste for notoriety, influence, social conspicuousness, excit- 
 ing speculation, or brilliant success. And thus hs main- 
 tained the equanimity, elasticity, and spontaneous cheer- 
 fulness of his youth, even to his latest days.
 
 LIBERALITY A\D BENKVOLEXCE. 305 
 
 Probably conscientiousness would be first named as Mr. 
 Goodhue's characteristic quality. Duty, I doubt not, was 
 the word, if not ofteuest upon his lips, most deeply stamped 
 upon his heart. He was accustomed to refer his conduct, 
 in little and i;i great thiags, to the court of conscience. 
 
 Nor was this sense of duty in him the stem and narrow 
 principle it is sometimes seen to be, even in the good. He 
 had the nicest sense of justice a most tender and solicit- 
 ous regard for others' rights, and was ever on the watch 
 to learn and to fulfil his obligations in the least particular 
 to every human creature. His conscientiousness was not 
 more manifest in the undeviating rectitude of his mercan- 
 tile and commercial career, than in social and domestic 
 life. 
 
 If the testimony of the commercial world is to bo taken, 
 his counting-room was to him a sanctuary in which he of- 
 fered the daily sacrifices of justice, truth, and righteous- 
 ness, and sent up the incense of obedience to that great 
 precept, ' Do unto others as you would that they should do 
 unto you.' It was the pervading control and influence of 
 this sense of duty, which enabled him to say at the very 
 close of his life, 'I am not conscious that I have ever 
 brought evil 011 a single human being.' 
 
 And this suggests another characteristic of Mr. Good- 
 hue his benevolence, which, when I mention it, seems, as 
 each of his other traits does, the most striking of all. It 
 did not {n him take the form of a public philanthropy, al- 
 though for thirty years he was most assidious and deeply 
 interested in the duties of the Savings' Bank, and a gover- 
 nor of the hospital offices, which he would not relinquish 
 even amid the infirmities of his few last years, because he 
 u
 
 306 LIBERALITY AND BENEVOLENCE. 
 
 loved the intercourse of the sick and the poor. His bene- 
 volence was rather a constant and unwearied desire to 
 make all within his reach happy. He loved to make the 
 human heart rejoice ; loved to call up even momentary 
 feelings feelings of satisfaction in the breasts of those 
 with whom he had only a passing intercourse. 
 
 Who so scrupulous as he to discharge the little cour- 
 tesies of life with fidelity ! Whose eye turned so quickly 
 to recognise the humblest friend ? Whose smile and hand 
 so ready to acknowledge the greetings of a most extensive 
 circle of acquaintances. His charities were as large as his 
 heart and his means ; nor can we overrate the worth of 
 that beaming goodness which overleaps the barrier of sta- 
 tion and wealth, and makes for its possessor a place in the 
 humblest and most obscure." 
 
 Such is the beautiful character which has been drawn of 
 a Christian merchant, who found the business of life com- 
 patible with its highest duties, and who, while winning 
 success in the world's sense of gain, proved the possibility 
 of winning wealth without sacrificing the tinier riches 
 which is the good man's sure inheritance. The same 
 writer from whose depiction we liave drawn this full ac- 
 count of one so worthy to be held up as a model to others, 
 adds : " The foundation of all that was admirable in his 
 character was Piety. A profound reverence and love for 
 God, was the central and pervading sentiment of his heart. 
 To please God, to do his Maker's will 011 earth as it is done 
 in heaven, this was the rule, the impulse, and the secret 
 source of his upright career." 
 
 These examples carry with them an important and most 
 valuable lesson to all who aim at worldly success. The
 
 UBERAL1TY AND BENEVOLENCE. 307 
 
 sacred moralist tells us, "There is that scattereth, yot 
 increaseth, and there is that withholdeth, but it tendeth to 
 poverty." On the just interpretation of this passage de- 
 pends the true discriminating spirit which finds liberality 
 compatible with economy, and the zealous industry for the 
 honest acquirement of wealth consistent with the most 
 large-hearted benevolence. Nor is it, after all so difficult 
 a task to discriminate between economy and meanness, or 
 between benevolent liberality and imprudence or ostenta- 
 tious waste. In the first place, it is a very simple rnlc that 
 we must only be liberal with what is our own, and the 
 virtuous man will not rarely have to exercise the conscien- 
 tious duty of withholding as well as of giving. But it is 
 equally incumbent on us not to begin our retrenchments 
 by robbing the poor. We must be well assured that we 
 have restricted every needless expense, and abandoned 
 every extravagant and useless luxury, before we can be 
 justified in withdrawing our mite from our suffering fellow- 
 creatures, or withholding our hand from the noble appeals 
 of the Christian missionary or the philanthropist. It is 
 sad to think how much of the rich man's wealth, and of 
 the poor man's narrow means, are squandered on objects 
 not simply useless, but noxious and baneful. The annual 
 sums expended in our own country upon tobacco and 
 intoxicating drinks, might suffice for all the missionary 
 and philanthropic schemes which Christian benevolence 
 could suggest. Without touching on the question of total 
 abstinence from both of these, which so many urge as a 
 duty upon all, it surely indicates a most unhealthy state 
 of mind, when thousands can thus be found to deny them- 
 selves the luxury of distributing of their means to tho
 
 308 LIBERALITY AND BENEVOLENCE. 
 
 suffering, the ignorant,, and the poor, rather than restrain 
 themselves in some silly or noxious habit, such as smokingj 
 snuffing, or drinking beer. The examples we have already 
 referred to in this chapter, show how very different has 
 been the course of those who, while achieving abundant suc- 
 cess, have adorned their career by the noble spirit which 
 recognises such success as the gift of God, and them- 
 sel v es as the appointed stewards of this world's means, which 
 liave been given them in charge, and for which they have 
 yet to render an account. In pointing out the requisites 
 towards success in life, we necessarily treat of them here 
 one by one ; but the reader must not on that account con- 
 ceive that he may select from them such as suit his pecu- 
 liar inclinations and neglect the rest. The most dissimilar 
 of them are essential to each other : Industry and Econ- 
 omy, to Benevolence and Liberality ; Courtesy and Oentle- 
 uess, to true Decision of Character and unyielding Firmness, 
 when required ; while a high-toned Christian principle ia 
 like the cord which binds all the rest together, and makes 
 of them one united and consistent whole.
 
 EMPLOYMENT OF LEISURE HOURS. 309 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 EMPLOYMENT OF LEISURE HOURS. 
 
 Tlie poet's or historian's page by one 
 
 Made vocal for the amusement of the rest ; 
 
 The sprightly lyre, whose treasure of sweet sounds 
 
 The touch from many a trembling chord shakes out j 
 
 And the clear voice symphonious, yet distinct, 
 
 And in the charming strife triumphant still ; 
 
 Beguile the night, .... 
 
 Cards were superfluous here, with all the tricks 
 
 That Idleness has ever yet contrived 
 
 To fill the void of an unfurnished brain. 
 
 COWPEB. 
 
 IT lias been justly remarked : " Tell me how a man em- 
 ploys his leisure hours, and I will tell you what he is I" It 
 is, in truth, a safe and infallible test of character. Man 
 was never designed for an isolated, but for a social being; 
 and his mind is so constituted that it readily adapts itself 
 to the requisite union by which nearly all human objects 
 are wrought out. In the nursery, in the school-room, in 
 the play-ground, in the counting-house, the public assem- 
 bly, the army, the church or law-courts, or in parliament 
 itself, we see this adaptation of the mind fur social and 
 civic co-operation. But in all such united labours the 
 individual is, to some extent, merged in the body of 
 which he has become a part, or yields himself up to the 
 guidance and control of some master spirit, by whom the
 
 310 EMPLOYMENT OF LEISURE HOURS. 
 
 weaker majority are swayed and moulded to his will. 
 But it is in the hours of relaxation, of domestic intercourse, 
 or of solitary occupation, that the individual becomes his 
 own master, and shows truly what he is. The value of 
 these hours of leisure cannot be too highly estimated. 
 They are more precious than all the wealth which the 
 busy day secures, and on the employment of them most 
 frequently depends the true enjoyment, and the right use, 
 of the hours devoted to the cares and duties of life. 
 
 Most men entertain a very mistaken idea as to what 
 education really is. We have heard men, possessed of 
 considerable energy, and still in the vigour of life, deplor- 
 ing the want of advantages in early years, and the de- 
 ficiencies of their education in many important points 
 which they now regarded as irremediable, when in reality 
 they were daily wasting leisure hours, which, if properly 
 applied, would have secured for them far greater attain- 
 ments in any department of knowledge than they could 
 possibly have acquired under any system of youthful 
 training. It is indeed an undoubted fact that all men who 
 achieved remarkable success in life have been in the main 
 self-educated. Many of them have literally been their own 
 teachers in the very rudiments of knowledge. Hogg, the 
 Scottish poet, had even the alphabet to acquire after he 
 attained to manhood, and the far more distinguished poet 
 Robert Burns, learned little more than the simple reading 
 of English at the humble village school. But what is still 
 more worthy of note is this, that the real education of a 
 man, which fits him for his special vocation in life, must 
 be acquired by himself, or it cannot be taught at all. 
 Every year our college-taught men, are quitting the halls
 
 EMPLOYMENT OF LEISURE HOURS. 311 
 
 of Oxford and Cambridge, or the more accessible Univer- 
 sities of London, Edinburgh, and Dublin, with parchment 
 attestations to their abundant scholarship, and meanwhile 
 men who never entered a college hall are fully as often 
 found writing our books, editing our newspapers, managing 
 our civic, political, and commercial affairs, guiding our vast 
 manufacturing interests, and even enriching us with im- 
 portant mechanical inventions and scientific discoveries. 
 The first living English chemist was only a bookbinder's 
 assistant when he attracted the notice of Sir Humphrey 
 Davy, and Davy himself was originally but an imperfectly 
 educated country apothecary. We have already referred 
 to the celebrated Dr. Hunter, who had attained to man- 
 hood without almost acquiring the rudiments of educa- 
 tion ; and we may point to Franklin as even a more re- 
 markable example of what the diligent employment of 
 leisure hours may effect, in converting the humble jour 
 neyman printer into the man of science, and the confiden- 
 tial statesman and diplomatist. Franklin says in his auto- 
 biography, " From the poverty and obscurity in which I 
 was born, and in which I passed my earliest years, I have 
 raised myself to a state of affluence and some degree of 
 celebrity in the world. My posterity will perhaps be 
 desirous of learning the means which I employed, and 
 which, thanks to Providence, so well succeeded with me. 
 I desire, with all humility, to acknowledge that I attribute 
 the happiness of my past life to his Divine Providence, 
 which led me to the means I used, and gave the success." 
 
 Now what were these means I First, the education 
 received from others ; but, secondly, and far more impor- 
 tant, his own self-culture.
 
 312 EMPLOYMENT OF LEISURE HOURS. 
 
 Boston is a notable place among the chief cities of 
 America, and a man may feel some pride in claiming it as 
 his birth-place ; no doubt every Boston boy is delighted 
 to say, " Benjamin Franklin was a Boston boy." 
 
 He went to a grammar school when he was eight years 
 old, but continued there less than a year. While hi the 
 school, however, he went rapidly from the first class to the 
 second, and at the end of the year was to have been placed 
 in the third. It was his father's intention to give him a 
 college education, and devote him to the service of the 
 church, but he found it too expensive, and Benjamin was 
 taken from the grammar school and placed in another 
 school to learn writing and arithmetic. There he learned 
 soon to write a good hand, but failed entirely in arith- 
 metic. 
 
 And now, Benjamin Franklin's school-education was 
 completed. He was ten years of age when his father, who 
 was a tallow-chandler, took him into the shop to cut wicks, 
 fill moulds for candles, and do any other drudgery about 
 the establishment. 
 
 His home-education, however, was of a substantial, 
 wholesome character. 
 
 " My father," says Franklin, u liked to have at his table, 
 as often as he could, some sensible friend or neighbour to 
 converse with, and always took care to start some useful 
 topic for discourse, which might tend to improve the 
 minds of his children. By this means he turned our atten- 
 tion to what was good, just, and prudent, in the conduct of 
 life ; and little or no notice was ever taken of what related 
 to the victuals on the table." 
 
 Such was the beginning of the life of this distinguished
 
 EMPLOYMENT OF LEISURE HOURS. 313 
 
 man. It seemed to hold out no very promising prospect for 
 his future career. Two years were spent in the tallow- 
 chandler's, then, after casting about in various directions 
 in search of a more congenial occupation, that of a 
 cutler was selected. But there also, difficulties, if not 
 distaste, interfered ; another change followed, and for want 
 of better he was apprenticed at last to his brother as a 
 printer. But Franklin was of that class who have been 
 justly termed self-made men. His school-education was 
 all over before he was ten years old, but the far more im- 
 portant self-education may be said to have only begun then. 
 The first thing that should be noticed in Franklin's self- 
 culture, is his love of reading. 
 
 " From my infancy," says he, " I was passionately fond 
 of reading, and all the money that came into my hands 
 was laid out in the purchasing of books. My first acquisi- 
 tion was Bunyan's works, in separate little volumes. I 
 afterward sold them, to enable me to buy R. Barton's His- 
 torical Collections. They were small chapmen's books, 
 and cheap ; forty volumes in all. There was among my 
 father's books, Plutarch's Lives, which I read abundantly, 
 and I still think that time spent to great advantage. There 
 was also a book of Defoe's, called, An Essay on Projects, 
 and another of Dr. Matthews', called, An Essay to do Good, 
 which, perhaps, gave me a turn of thinking that had an 
 influence on some of the future events of my life." 
 
 It was this " bookish inclination" that decided the father 
 to make Benjamin a printer. In a little time he made pro- 
 gress in business, and became useful to his brother; still, 
 he did not give up reading. "Often," he says, "I sat up 
 In my chamber, reading the greatest part of the niijht, when
 
 314 EMPLOYMENT OF LEISURE HOURS. 
 
 the book was borrowed in the evening and to be returned 
 in the morning." 
 
 "After some time, a merchant, an ingenious, sensible 
 man, Mr. Matthew Adams, who had a pretty collection of 
 books, frequented our printing-office, took notice of me, 
 and invited me to see his library, and very kindly pro- 
 posed to lend me such books as I chose to read." 
 
 It was no doubt considered, by some, as a wonderful 
 piece of condescension in a Boston merchant to take so 
 much notice of a printer's boy. Little did the disinterested 
 man himself suppose that he was doing a kindness that 
 would send his name down to after ages. 
 
 Again Le remarks in his Autobiography at a somewhat 
 later period . * About this time I met with an odd volume 
 of the Spectator. I bought it, read it over and over, was 
 much deliglited with it, and wished to imitate it. I took 
 some of the papers, and making short hints of the senti- 
 ments in each sentence, laid them by a few days, and then, 
 without looking at the book, tried to complete the papers 
 again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length, <ind 
 as fully as it had been expressed before, in any suitable 
 words that should occur to me. Then I compared my 
 Spectator with the original, discovered some of my faults, 
 and corrected them." 
 
 What boy of fourteen or fifteen would now, by himself, 
 take all this pains for the improvement of his stylo ? Yet 
 every boy might do it if he had as strong a desire to write 
 good English as Franklin had. 
 
 Another and still more important branch of Franklin's 
 self-culture was the moral training at which he aimed with 
 a degree of honest perseverance and self-examination such
 
 EMPLOYMENT OF LEISURE HOURS. 315 
 
 as has rarely been equalled. The efforts he made for 
 intellectual self-education were not to be compared with 
 those he undertook for the cultivation of morality. He 
 concluded that the mere speculative conviction, that it is 
 our interest to be completely virtuous was not sufficient to 
 prevent our slipping; and that the contrary habits must 
 be broken, and good ones acquired and established, before 
 we can have any dependance on a steady, uniform recti- 
 tude of conduct. For this purpose he tried the following 
 singular, but very characteristic method : 
 
 " I included," he says, " under thirteen names of virtues, 
 all that at that time seemed to me necessary or desirable, 
 and annexed to each a short precept, which fully expressed 
 the extent I gave to its meaning. 
 
 These were : 
 
 1. TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to 
 elevation. 
 
 2. SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or 
 yourself; avoid trifling conversation. 
 
 3. ORDER. Let all your things have their places; let 
 each part of your business have its time. 
 
 4. RESOLUTION. Eesolve to perform what you ought; 
 perform without fail what you resolve. 
 
 5. FRUGALITY. Make no expense but to do good to 
 others or yourself; that is, waste nothing. 
 
 6. INDUSTRY. Lose no time; be always employed in 
 something useful ; cut off all unnecessary actions. 
 
 7. SINCERITY. Use no hurtful deceit ; think innocently 
 and justly ; and if you speak, speak accordingly. 
 
 8. JUSTICE. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting 
 the benefits that are your duty.
 
 316 EMPLOYMENT OF LEISURE HOURS. 
 
 9. MODERATION. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting in- 
 juries so much as you think they deserve. 
 
 10. CLEANLINESS. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, 
 clothes, or habitation. 
 
 11. TRANQUILITY. Be not disturbed at trifles or at 
 accidents, common or unavoidable. 
 
 12. CHASTITY. 
 
 13. HUMILITY. 
 
 Franklin adds : * I made a book, in which I allotted a 
 page for each virtue. I ruled each page with red ink, so 
 as to have seven columns, one for each day of the week, 
 marking each column with thirteen red lines, marking the 
 beginning of each line with the first letter of one of the 
 virtues, on which line, and in its proper column, I might 
 mark, by a little black spot, every fault I found upon ex- 
 amination to have been committed respecting that virtue 
 upon that day." 
 
 What zeal, ardour, and perseverance must it have re- 
 quired to keep the pages of the little book clear of spots. 
 Among the mottoes to this account book was the appro- 
 priate tribute to Wisdom, from the Proverbs of Solomon : 
 
 K Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left 
 hand riches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasant- 
 ness and all her paths are peace." 
 
 Franklin also prefixed the following brief, but earnest 
 prayer to his tables of examination : 
 
 " Bountiful Father ! Merciful Guide ! Increase in me 
 that wisdom which discovers my truest interest. Strengthen 
 my resolution to perform what that wisdom dictates." 
 
 On following out this rigid scheme of self-examination, 
 he was surprised to find himself so much fuller of faults
 
 EMPLOYMENT OF LEISURE HOURS. 317 
 
 than he had imagined, but he had the satisfaction of seeing 
 them diminish. He says : 
 
 "To avoid tho trouble of renewing now and then my 
 little book, which, by scraping out the marks on tho paper 
 of old faults, to make room for new ones in a new course, 
 became full of holes, I transferred my tables and precepts 
 to tho ivory leaves of a memorandum-book, on which the 
 lines were drawn with red ink that made a durable stain, 
 and on those lines I marked my faults with a black-lead 
 pencil, which marks I could easily wipe out with a wet 
 sponge. I always carried my little book with me. 
 
 " It may be well my posterity should be informed that 
 to this little artifice, with the blessing of God, their ancestor 
 owed the constant felicity of his life, down to his seventy- 
 Dinth year." 
 
 Franklin's later history is too well known to require repe- 
 tition hero ; but it may be well to remark that when he 
 had attained nearly to the highest honours his country 
 could bestow, he was never ashamed to recall these humble 
 incidents. It was a feeling based on well-grounded self- 
 respect which gave birth to the pride he felt in having 
 been a printer or, to give it a better name, the satisfaction 
 that ho manifested in going back to his early life. When 
 elevated in station above most of his countrymen, he was 
 kind and courteous to all. He neither cringed before the 
 great, nor exalted himself in the presence of the lowly. 
 Into whatever company he was thrown, he maintained his 
 own dignity as a man. His father, in his boyhood, fre- 
 quently repeated the Proverb of Solomon, u Secst thou a 
 man diligent in his calling, he shall stand before kings, he 
 shall not stand before mean men." Franklin refers to this,
 
 3IQ EMPLOYMENT OF LEISURE HOURS. 
 
 and says, "I did not think then, that I should ever literally 
 stand before kings, which, however, has since happened ; 
 for I have stood before five, and even had the honour of 
 sitting down with one, the King of Denmark, to dinner." 
 
 Let us now turn to another, but no less distinguished 
 man, who also owed to his own persevering self-culture, and 
 to the judicious occupation of his leisure hours, his own 
 wonderful success in life, and the achievement of a reputa- 
 tion surpassed by that of few of the most distinguished 
 men whose names adorn the annals of our country. 
 
 A young man, observes Sir R. Kane, wanting to sell 
 spectacles in London, petitions the corporation to allow 
 him to open a little shop without paying the fees of free- 
 dom, and he is refused. He goes to Glasgow, and the 
 corporation refuse him there. He makes acquaintance 
 with some members of the University, who find him very 
 intelligent, and permit him to open his shop within their 
 walls. He does not sell spectacles and magic lanterns 
 enough to occupy all his time ; he occupies himself at 
 intervals in taking asunder and remaking all the machines 
 he can come at. He finds there are books on mechanics 
 written in foreign languages ; he borrows a dictionary, and 
 in his leisure hours learns those languages, to read those 
 books. The professors, as well as the students of the Uni- 
 versity wonder at him, and are fond of dropping into his 
 little room in the evenings, to tell him what they are doing, 
 and to look at the queer instruments he constructs. A 
 machine in the University collection wants repairing, and 
 he is employed. He makes it a new machine. The steam 
 engine is constructed ; and the giant mind of Watt stands 
 out before the world the author of the industrial suprem-
 
 EMPLOYMENT OF LEISURE HOURS. 319 
 
 acy of this country, the herald of a new force in civilization. 
 But was Watt educated ? Where was he educated I At his 
 own work-shop, and in the best manner. Watt learned 
 Latiii when he wanted it for his business. He learned 
 French and German; but these things were tools, not ends. 
 He used them to promote his engineering plans, as he used 
 lathes and levers. In the interesting work entitled " Pur- 
 suit of Knowledge under Difficulties," it is remarked, "All 
 the inventions and improvements of recent times, if 
 measured by their effects upon the condition of society, 
 Bink into insignificance, when compared with the extra- 
 ordinary results which have followed the employment of 
 steam as a mechanical agent. To one individual, the illus- 
 trious James Watt, the merit and honour of having first 
 rendered it extensively available for that purpose are pre- 
 eminently due. 
 
 "Watt's inexhaustible ingenuity displayed itself in 
 various other contrivances besides those which make part 
 of his steam-engine. An apparatus for copying letters and 
 other writings, now in extensive use ; a method of heating 
 houses by steam; a new composition for the purposes of 
 sculpture, having the transparency and nearly the hardness 
 of marble ; a machine for multiplying copies of busts and 
 other performances in carving or statuary, are enumer- 
 ated among his minor inventions. But it is his steam- 
 engine that forma the great monument of his genius, and 
 that has conferred upon his name its imperishable renown. 
 This invention has already gone far to revolutionize the 
 whole domain of human industry ; and almost every year 
 is adding to its power and its conquests. In our manufac- 
 tures, our arts, our commerce, our social accommodations,
 
 320 EMPLOYMENT OF LEISURE HOURS. 
 
 it is constantly achieving what, little more than half a 
 century ago, would have been accounted miracles and im- 
 possibilities. 'The trunk of an elephant, it has been finely 
 and truly said, that can pick up a pin, or rend an oak, is as 
 nothing to it. It can engrave a seal, and crush masses of 
 obdurate metal like wax before it, draw out, without 
 breaking, a thread as fine as gossamer, and lift a ship of 
 war like a bauble in the air. It can embroider muslin and 
 forge anchors ; cut steel into ribbands, and impel loaded 
 vessels against the fury of the winds and waves.' An- 
 other application of it is perhaps destined to be produc- 
 tive of still greater changes on the condition of society than 
 have resulted from any of its previous achievements. It 
 had been employed, for several years, at some of our col- 
 lieries, in the propelling of heavily loaded carriages over 
 railways; but the great experiment of the Liverpool and 
 Manchester Railway, for the first time, practically demon- 
 strated with what hitherto almost undreamt-of rapidity 
 travelling by land may hereafter bo carried on through 
 the aid of steam. Coaches, under the impetus communi- 
 cated by this, the most potent, and at the same time the 
 most perfectly controllable of all our mechanical agencies, 
 have already been drawn forward at the flying speed of 
 forty, forty-five, and even fifty miles an hour. If so much 
 has been done already, it would be rash to conclude that 
 even this is to be our ultimate limit of attainment." 
 
 The celebrated James Ferguson another striking exam- 
 ple of self-taught genius encountered immense obstacles 
 early in life on the common road to knowledge, and nobly 
 overcame them all. The following extracts from his auto- 
 biography will give some idea of the victory he achieved.
 
 EMPLOYMENT OF LEISURE HOURS. 321 
 
 I was born in the year 1710, says he, a few miles from 
 Keith, a little village in the north of Scotland, and can 
 with pleasure say, that my parents, though poor, were 
 religious and honest. 
 
 . As my father had nothing to support a large family but 
 his daily labour, and the profits arising from a few acres of 
 land which he rented, it was not to be expected that he 
 could bestow much on the education of his children ; yet 
 this was not wholly neglected j for at his leisure hours he 
 taught them to read and write. It was while he was teach- 
 ing my elder brother to read the Scotch Catechism that I 
 acquired my reading. Ashamed to ask my father to In- 
 struct me, I used, when he and my brother were abroad, to 
 take the Catechism, and study the lesson which he had been 
 teaching my brother; and when any difficulty occurred, I 
 went to a neighbouring old woman, who gave me such 
 help as enabled me to read tolerably well before my father 
 had thought of teaching me. 
 
 Some time after he was agreeably surprised to find mo 
 reading by myself. He thereupon gave me further in- 
 struction, and also taught me to write, which, with about 
 three months I afterwards had at the grammar school at 
 Keith, was all the education I ever received. 
 
 My taste for mechanics arose from an odd accident 
 (He might rather have said that this taste was oddly de- 
 veloped.) When about seven or eight years of age, a part 
 of the roof of the house being decayed, my father, desirous 
 of mending it, applied a prop and lever to an upright spar, 
 to raise it to its former situation, and to my great astonish- 
 ment, I saw him, without considering the reason, lift up 
 the ponderous roof as if it had been a small weight. I at- 
 x
 
 322 EMPLOYMENT OF LEISURE HOURS. 
 
 tributed this at first to a degree of strength that excited my 
 terror, as well as wonder; but, thinking further of the 
 matter, I recollected that he had applied his strength to 
 the end of the lever which was farthest from the prop, and 
 finding, on inquiry, that this was the means whereby the 
 seeming wonder was effected, I began making levers, 
 (which I then called bars,) and by applying weights to 
 them in different ways, I found the power gained by my 
 bar was just in proportion to that of the lengths of the 
 different parts of the bar on each side of the prop. I then 
 thought it was a great pity that by means of this bar a 
 weight could be raised but a very little way. I soon 
 imagined that by pulling round a wheel, the weight might 
 be raised to any height by tying a rope to the weight, and 
 winding the rope round the axle of the wheel, and another 
 to the rope that coiled around the axle. By means of a turn- 
 Ing lathe which my father had, and a little knife, I was enabled 
 to make wheels and other things necessary for my purpose. 
 
 Here was the mechanical philosopher and practical 
 mechanic reasoning from facts, and establishing theory by 
 experiments. Not content with trying experiments with 
 his machines, he went still farther, and because he had no 
 books to refer to, made one for himself. Let this be a 
 lesson to the reader. The man who sits idly bewailing his 
 early disadvantages, while his present leisure is being 
 squandered in idleness or unprofitable relaxation, is a 
 spendthrift as well as a querulous grumbler, and may fitly 
 be likened to old .ZEsop's waggoner. 
 
 Ferguson thus continues his autobiography, after giving 
 an account of his first literary attempts in which he after- 
 wards found he had been long anticipated in his original
 
 EMPLOYMENT OF LEISURE HOCKS. 323 
 
 discoveries in mechanics : As my father could not afford 
 to maintain me while I was in pursuit only of these matters, 
 he put me out to a neighbour to keep sheep, which I con- 
 tinued to do for some years, and in that time I began to 
 study the stars in the night. In the daytime I amused 
 myself by making models of mills, spinning-wheels, and 
 such other things as I happened to see. 
 
 I then went to serve a considerable farmer in the neigh- 
 bourhood. He soon observed that when my work was 
 over I went into a field with a blanket about me, lay down 
 on ray back, and stretched a thread with small beads upon 
 it at arm's length, between my eye and the stars, sliding 
 the beads upon it till they hid such and such stars from 
 my eye, in order to take their apparent distances from one 
 another, and then, having a candle by me, and laying the 
 thread down on a paper, I marked the stars thereon by the 
 beads, according to their respective positions. My master at 
 first laughed at me, but when I explained my meaning to 
 him, he encouraged me to go on, and that I might make 
 fair copies in the daytime of what I had done in the night, 
 he often worked for me himself. I shall always have a 
 respect for the memory of that man. 
 
 One day he happened to send me with a message to the 
 minister at Keith, to whom I had been known from my 
 childhood. I carried my star-papers to show them to him, 
 and found him looking over a large parcel of maps, which 
 I surveyed with great pleasure, as they were the first I had 
 ever seen. He then told me that the earth is round like a 
 ball, and explained the map of it to me. I requested him 
 to lend me that map to take a copy of it in the evenings. 
 He cheerfully consented to this, giving me at the same
 
 324 EMPLOYMENT OF LEISURE HOURS. 
 
 time a pair of compasses, a rule, pens, ink, and paper, and 
 dismissed me with an injunction not to neglect my master's 
 business by copying the map, which I might keep as long 
 as I pleased. My master often took the thrashing-flail out 
 of my hands, and worked himself, while I sat by him in 
 the barn, busy with my compasses, rule, and pen. When 
 I had finished the copy, I proceeded with it to the minister, 
 and showed it to him. While we were conversing to- 
 gether, a neighbouring gentleman happened to come in, 
 and the minister immediately introduced me to him, show- 
 ing him what I had done. He expressed great satisfaction, 
 asked me some questions about the construction of maps, 
 and told me that if I would go and live at his house, ho 
 would order his butler, Alexander Cantley, to give me a 
 great deal of instruction. This Cantley was a man whom 
 I had seen making sun-dials, and of whom I had already 
 conceived a high opinion. I told the gentleman, 'Squire 
 Grant, that I should rejoice to be at his house, as soon as 
 the time was expired for which I was engaged with my 
 present master. Here the biography of Ferguson intro- 
 duces us to another remarkable instance of self-acquired 
 knowledge. 
 
 When the time of my servitude, he remarks, was out, 
 I left my good master, and went to the gentleman's house. 
 Sir. CaJttUey, the butler, soon became my friend, and con- 
 tinued so till his death. He was the most extraordinary 
 man that I ever was acquainted with, or perhaps ever shall 
 see, for he was a complete master of arithmetic, a good 
 mathematician, a master of music, understood Latin, Frencli, 
 and Greek, let blood extremely well, and could even pre- 
 scribe as a physician on any urgent occasion. He was
 
 EMPLOYMENT OF LEISURE HOURS. 325 
 
 what is generally called self-taught, but I think he might, 
 with much propriety, have been termed God Almighty's 
 scholar. 
 
 He immediately began to teach me decimal arithmetic 
 and algebra, for I had already learned vulgar arithmetic 
 from books, at my leisure hours. He then proceeded to 
 teach me the elements of geometry, but to my inexpres- 
 sible grief, just as I was beginning that branch, he left Mr. 
 Grant, and went to the late Earl of Fife's. The good 
 family I was then with could not prevail with me to stay 
 after he was gone, so I left them, and went to my father's. 
 
 Mr. Cantley made me a present of Gordon's Geographical 
 Grammar, which at that time was to me a great treasure. 
 There is no figure of a globe in it, although it contains a 
 tolerable description of the globes, and their use. From 
 this description, I made a globe in three weeks, having 
 turned the ball thereof out of a piece of wood ; which ball 
 I covered with paper, and delineated a map of the world 
 upon it, made the meridian ring and horizon of wood, and 
 covered them with paper, and graduated them, and was 
 happy to find that by my globe, (which was the first that 
 I ever saw,) I could solve the problems. 
 
 After various changes, during which the ingenious boy 
 found less kind and forbearing masters, he at length re- 
 turned home so completely debilitated, that he was con- 
 fined to bed for two months, and at one time, despaired of 
 ever recovering the use of his left arm. 
 
 In order, he says, to amuse myself in this low state, I 
 made a wooden clock, the frame of which was also of wood, 
 and it kept time pretty well ; the bell on which the hammer 
 struck the hours was the neck of a broken bottle. Having
 
 326 EMPLOYMENT OF LEISURE HOURS. 
 
 no idea how any time-keeper could go but by a weight and 
 a line, I wondered how a watch could go in all positions. 
 Happening one day to see a gentleman ride by my father's 
 house, I asked him what o'clock it was ; he looked at his 
 watch, and told me. As he did that with so much kindness 
 and good nature, I begged him to show me the inside of 
 his watch, and though he was an entire stranger, he im- 
 mediately opened the watch, and put it into my hand. I 
 saw the spring-box with part of the chain around it, and 
 asked him what it was that made the box turn round. He 
 told me that it turned round by a steel spring within it. I 
 asked how a spring within a box could turn the box so as 
 to wind all the chain about it; this he fully explained. I 
 thanked the gentleman, and told him I understood the 
 thing very welL I then tried to make a watch with 
 wooden wheels, and made the spring of whalebone. I en- 
 closed the whole in a wooden case very little bigger than 
 a teacup. But a clumsy neighbour one day happened to 
 let it fall, and turning to pick it up, set his foot upon it, 
 and crushed it all to pieces, which so provoked my father 
 that he was almost ready to beat the man, and discouraged 
 me so much that I never attempted to make such another 
 machine again. 
 
 As soon as I was able to go abroad, I carried my 
 clock, and copies of some maps to the late Sir James Dun- 
 bar, of Durn. He received me in a very kind manner, was 
 pleased with what I showed him, and desired I would 
 clean his clocks. This, for the first time, I attempted, 
 and then began to pick up some money in that way 
 about the country, making Sir James* house my home at 
 his desire.
 
 EMPLOYMENT OF LEISURE HOURS. 327 
 
 Lady Dipple, the sister of his kind patron, subsequently 
 directed Ferguson's ingenious imitative taste to painting, 
 and he removed under her care to Edinburgh, where he 
 began the occupation of a portrait painter, by means of 
 which he honourably maintained himself during the 
 greater part of his life. 
 
 Astronomy, however, continued to the last to be his 
 favourite study, and while we admire the astonishing ac- 
 quirements of this self-taught genius, we see also the limits 
 to self-education when pursued under such adverse circum- 
 stances. With an education equal to such fine natural gifts 
 and great energy and perseverance, Ferguson might have 
 become one of the most distinguished among the astro- 
 nomers of Europe. As it was, he was the very first to 
 render it a popular study. He thus describes his return to 
 his favourite astronomical recreations, during a visit he 
 paid to Inverness : When I was there I began to think 
 of astronomy again. I contrived and finished a scheme on 
 paper for showing the places and motions of the sun and 
 moon in the ecliptic in each day of the year, perpetually ; 
 and consequently all the days of the full moon. I then 
 made a small and neat orrery, of which all the wheels were 
 of ivory. I have made six orreries since that time, and 
 there are not any two of them in which the wheel work is 
 alike, for I could never bear to copy one thing of that kind 
 from another, because I still saw there was great room for 
 improvement. 
 
 In the year 1747, I published a Dissertation upon the 
 Harvest Moon, with a description of a new orrery, in which 
 there are only four wheels ; but having never had a gram- 
 matical education, nor time to study the rules of just com-
 
 328 EMPLOYMENT OF LEISURE HOURS. 
 
 position, I acknowledge I was afraid, I was ashamed to 
 put it to the press, and for the same cause I ought to have 
 the same fears still. But having the pleasure to find that 
 this my first work was not ill received, I was emboldened 
 to go on in publishing my Astronomy, Mechanical Lectures, 
 Tables and Tracts relative to several arts and sciences, 
 Young Gentleman's and Ladies' Astronomy, a small Trea- 
 tise on Electricity, and my Select Mechanical Exercises. 
 
 In the year 1748, I ventured to read lectures on the 
 eclipse of the sun that fell on the 14th of July ; afterward 
 I began to read astronomical lectures on an orrery which 
 I made. I next began to make an apparatus for lectures 
 on mechanics, and gradually increased the apparatus for 
 other parts of philosophy. I then entirely left off draw- 
 ing pictures, and employed myself in the much pleasanter 
 business of reading lectures on mechanics, hydrostatics, 
 hydraulics, pneumatics, electricity, and astronomy, in all 
 which my encouragement was greater than I expected. 
 
 Ferguson's moral character was unexceptionable. He 
 was characterized by none of those peculiarities of tem- 
 per, or eccentricities of conduct, which we too frequently 
 have occasion to lament in men of genius. His uncom- 
 mon simplicity of manners, united with affability and mild- 
 ness, rendered him a pleasing companion, and few men 
 have ever existed who more completely owed to their own 
 unaided labours, and to the diligent employment of leisure 
 hours, the elevation from the most humble circumstances 
 to an honourable and distinguished position. Ferguson 
 was truly the architect of his own fortunes, and his ex- 
 ample proves how entirely success in life may be the fruit 
 of our own unaided exertions, even in what seem to be
 
 EMPLOYMENT OF LEISURE HOURS. 329 
 
 the most adverse circumstances. Ferguson, however, 
 added to all his other virtues, those which spring from the 
 highest Christian motives. Throughout his eventful life, 
 the religious principles which had been firmly fixed in 
 youth, continued the basis of his morality, and cheered 
 him with bright hopes of happiness beyond the grave. 
 
 His useful and honourable career was closed by death 
 in 1766, when he was in the sixty-sixth year of his age. 
 
 It is a true saying that example is better than precept, 
 and the remarkable instances here referred to, will guide 
 the young reader better than a thousand advices, in indi- 
 cating the road to success by the diligent occupation of 
 leisure hours. One of the most striking differences be- 
 tween the civilized man and the barbarian, is their compara- 
 tive estimate of the value of time. The hours and days 
 devoted by the New Zealand savage to covering his paddle 
 or club with ornamental carvings, are often more than 
 sufficed for all the calculations by which Newton esta- 
 blished the great law of universal motion, or by which 
 Leverrier and Adams have recently brought the remote 
 planet Neptune to our knowledge. To the diligent man 
 time is knowledge, wealth, and power, and to every man 
 there is an hour, when, if he have failed to appreciate its 
 value sooner, he discovers how momentous is that treasure 
 which he has been squandering for a life-time. Sir Wal- 
 ter Scott has vividly enforced this idea in the following 
 beautiful and well-known personation of Time : 
 
 Why sitt'st them by that ruined hall, 
 
 Thon aged carle so stern and grey? 
 Dost tliou Its former pride recall, 
 
 Or ponder how It passed away ?
 
 330 EMPLOYMENT OF LEISfttE HOURS. 
 
 " Know'st then not me I" the deep voice cried, 
 
 " So long enjoyed, so oft misused 
 Alternate, in thy fickle pride, 
 
 Desired, neglected, and accused 7 
 
 " Before my breath, like blazing flax, 
 
 Man and his marvels pass away ; 
 And changing empires wane and wax, 
 
 Are founded, flourish, and decay. 
 
 " Redeem mine hours the space is brief- 
 While in my glass the sand-grains shiver, 
 
 And measureless thy joy or grief, 
 When Time and thon shalt part for ever I' 
 
 While, however, we urge upon the young reader the 
 value of time, and the immense achievements which are 
 hi his power by the judicious employment of leisure hours, 
 we may also add the encouraging assurance that nothing 
 so readily grows into a habit as the diligence which seeks 
 to turn every moment to account. By such means the 
 languages, which open up to their possessor the whole 
 literature of Europe, may be acquired, and while these will 
 add greatly to the means of improvement and pleasure, 
 they also add to the positive wealth of a man. There are 
 hundreds of situations in which the knowledge of the 
 modern continental languages will be found to be indis- 
 pensable qualifications to situations of trust and of great 
 emolument, so that the youth who thus profitably occupies 
 his leisure hours in mastering one or more foreign lan- 
 guages, may also find that he has added more directly to his 
 means of success than if he had become heir to a consider- 
 able sum of money. 
 
 No wise man will despise the incalculable privilege of a
 
 EMPLOYMENT OF LEISURE HOURS. 331 
 
 thorough education, acquired in schools and colleges, in 
 those early years when the mind is docile and pliant, 
 drinking in knowledge as the flower takes up the dews of 
 heaven and the vivifying elements of the earth. Many a 
 man of genius has had to deplore the want of youthful 
 advantages. Knowledge is power, and there is much 
 knowledge, which, if not acquired in early life, will never 
 after be mastered. But let it also be remembered that 
 self-education is the most effective of all kinds of educa- 
 tion, and indeed without self-education all other know- 
 ledge is nearly worthless. All who arrive at eminence in 
 any department of literature, science, or arts, owe it more 
 or less to self-culture. There is, moreover, a vigour and 
 self-reliance which a self-educated man acquires that is 
 attainable by no other means. This does indeed some- 
 times degenerate into vanity and self-conceit, but when it 
 does so it is always a proof of weakness, and most gene- 
 rally also an evidence of shallow and superficial attain- 
 ments ; for the more a man knows, the more clearly he 
 discovers how vast is the amount of knowledge beyond his 
 reach, and how petty are all his acquirements compared 
 with the sum of knowledge requisite to comprehend all 
 the revelations of divine power, wisdom, and goodness, on 
 this world of ours, which, compared even with that portion 
 of the universe visible to our naked eye, is less than a drop 
 when contrasted with the ocean. 
 
 All truly great men have been modest, all truly wise men 
 must be so, and while that knowledge, which we urge every 
 young man to master, by the diligent employment of his 
 leisure time, will give him the needful self-confidence by 
 which success is attained, he may rest assured that if his
 
 332 EMPLOYMENT OF LEISURE HOURS. 
 
 knowledge produces self-conceit instead of self-depend- 
 ence, that he has yet failed to acquire the amount of know- 
 ledge which is of use. Without a just and modest self- 
 reliance a man is a mere weather-cock, liable to be blown 
 about by the opinion of every one he chances to meet, but 
 the best and only safe cure for such weakness, is the 
 knowledge which supersedes both vanity and unreasoning 
 obstinancy, and gives a man firmness because his reason 
 is satisfied that tho course he has adopted is a wise and 
 judicious one. 
 
 Such, then, are the varied means by which success may 
 be achieved. Yet, while diligently aiming at it, he surely 
 is not a wise man who, permitting its rewards to engross 
 all his thoughts, forgets that this life is a mere passing 
 stage ; that it is not a final but a probationary state, on 
 the just employment of which all the momentous concerns 
 of that life to come, which is an eternal one, depend ; 
 and what will it profit him, though he should gain the 
 whole world, and lose his own soul I 
 
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