775 



bread will outweigh the jewels of Golconda. One of the old poets 

 depicts, with graphic pen, a pair of philosopher's scales, the happy in- 

 vention of an ancient monk, who as he assures us, resigning to thought 

 his chimerical brain, formed a contrivance for weighing all things 

 according to their genuine worth to the world: 



" Uy skillful experiment, no matter bow, 



He found that ten chariots weighed less than one plow ; 



A firBt-wiitor diamond, with brilliants begirt, 



Less than one good potato, jnst dug from the dirt. 



And a sword with gilt trappings, went up at fall sail, 



Though bilani-ed by only a ten-penny nail. 



Ten lords and ten dandies, ten courtiers, one earl, 



Ten counsellors' wigs, full of powder and curl, ' 



All heaped in one balance, and swinging from thence, 



Weighed less than some atoms of wisdom and sense." 



What a vast revolution would be made in the relations of men, if 

 every character and every commodity that affects human happiness, 

 should be weighed in the philosopher's scales. How the great deeps 

 of modern society would be broken up, if everything animate and in- 

 animate, should rank according to its genuine value. How universally 

 would it verify the declaration that " pride goeth before destruction, and 

 a haughty spirit before a fall." How would hard-handed industry, 

 with its golden products, triumph over the baubles and tinselry 

 with which vanity seta itself off, and how surely would society yield 

 every place of honor to honest worth. It should be a source of gen- 

 erous pride to the farmer that, while many are giving the labor of a 

 lifetime to that which is evanescent and worthless, the results of his 

 own labor has a value quite independent of the rise and fall of stocks, 

 or the fluctuation of the market, 



A vocation, moreover, may be estimated by the associations which it 

 brings. The happiness of life depends, in a high degree, upon the 

 objects, whether animate or inanimate, with which we daily come in 

 contact. The outer world gives shape to the inner. Men's characters 

 are moulded by the peculiar features of the external world that sur- 

 rounds them. The highest intellectual and moral types of mankind 

 are found where earth puts on the habiliments of beauty, and pays, 

 with munificence, the earnings of honest toil. Those regions which 

 present the grandest forms and pay the highest premiums to industry, 



