400 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



Young women of Berkshire, may I presume, with unaffected 

 diffidence, to ask you now, how are you pleased with the rea- 

 sonings and conclusions of the young hero of my address ? I 

 am not exactly authorized by him to put important questions to 

 you. He will insist upon the luxury of doing that himself. 

 But I am well aware, there is one of you here present, I know 

 not which, who had better be making up her mind. You see 

 his situation. You see the aid which he needs. You see the 

 character of his thoughts. You see that his soul is unstained 

 with insincerity, uncorrupted by immorality. He despises the 

 poor vanity of trifling with the affections, or offending the purity 

 of your woman's nature. You may have in your mind's eye 

 the unpretending cottage which shall be built and arranged 

 according to your taste. You may be sure that in the long 

 winter evenings, he will be there with his well-selected library 

 of books ; that it will be his pride and happiness to care for, 

 govern and instruct any little strangers that may make their 

 appearance there. Luxuries will not surround you. Your 

 plain furniture will not often be changed. There will scarcely 

 be diamonds or pearls in your casket, but there will be roses 

 in your hair, and the rose of health upon your cheek. And 

 when man or woman, in the blaze of fashion, or the pride of 

 distinction, shall cross that threshhold, they will find, and feel 

 that they find, their equals and their peers. 



But the thoughts of the young farmer have exhausted the 

 day. His work is done. The shadows of evening are length- 

 ened around him. The weary steers precede him, on his home- 

 ward way. Before he reaches the threshhold of his quiet home, 

 the firmament of night is above him. " The long, long thoughts 

 of youth" may reach from earth to Heaven. 



Reads he now, in the firmament of night, the great lessons 

 of humility and faith. Of humility : in the present population 

 of this earth, he is but one of a thousand millions. The gen- 

 erations of the dead outnumber the generations of the living. 

 And the myriads that are to come, will far exceed in number 

 the past and the present. But what are the stars in their 

 courses ? Worlds, or the suns of other systems of worlds. 

 Past, present, and to come, what is the number of intelligent 

 created beings that animate the universe ? And how insignifi- 

 cant indeed is the individual man. " What is man, that thou 



