Religion and wedded love are nearly connected; and when one is plucked up by the root, the other droops and withers. Those who disbelieve in God, sneer at marriage. In whatever country infidelity rears its hateful head, it leaves a blight and mildew on every bud and blossom of domestic affection. And what a miserable thing is man, standing amid the dead forms of all his best hopes and purest joys, destroyed by his own suicidal hand! There is one point of view, in which the prevalence of worldly ambition may affect our national character most powerfully. If women estimate merit entirely by wealth, men will obtain money, even at the risk of their souls: Hence, dishonorable competition, and fraudulent cunning, and the vile scramble for office, by which true freedom has already become well nigh suffocated. Popular institutions, above all others, afford ample scope for disinterested virtue ; but we must remember that they likewise open the widest field for busy, intriguing selfishness; the amount of evil is always in exact proportion to the degree of good which we pervert. The actions and motives of each individual do, more or less, affect the character and destinies of his country. If, for the sake of temporary indulgence, we yield to what we know is wrong, we are not only closing the avenues by which heaven communicates with our own souls, but we are hastening those mighty results, on which depend the fate of governments. Men may smile at these auguries but just as surely as effects follow causes, the preponderance of selfish policy will destroy the republic; for in this manner, ever since the beginning of time, has glory passed away from the nations. Neither the strength nor the subtilty of man can prevail against the jus tice of God. Our mothers were help-mates indeed; and so are many of their daughters; but it is well to be on our guard, lest the household virtues become neglected and obsolete. I shall be asked, with a smile, what I hope to do to alter the current of public feeling, and change the hue of national character? Truly, I expect to do but little. My efforts remind me of a story often repeated by a valued friend: "When I was a small boy," says he, "I often plunged my little hoe into a rushing and tumbling brook, on the borders of my father's farm, — thinking, in the childish simplicity of my heart, that I could stop the course of its impetuous waters." Gentle reader, I have put my little garden-hoe into a mighty stream - and perchance the current will sweep it to oblivion. BOSTON, JAN. 1833. |