1857.] The Moral Influences of Agriculture. 27 



* That was nobly done ! There is the ring of the genuine coin ! 

 I am proud of him !' 



Tears came into Lizzy's eyes as she heard her father speak so 

 warmly and approvingly of her lover. 



'Next year,' added Mr. Green, 'we must take a lesson from Ed- 

 ward, and improve our system of holiday presents. How many hun- 

 dreds and thousands of dollars are wasted in useless souvenirs and 

 petty trifles, that might do a lasting good, if the stream of kind 

 feelings were turned into a better channel.' 



Art. VII.— THE MORAL INFLUENCES OF AGRICULTURE. 



When we reflect upon the vast number of our people who are, and 

 must be, employed in agricultural pursuits, especially in the West^ 

 we can not be indifi"erent to the moral tendencies of the employment. 

 If they are bad, it must be next to impossible to prevent the rapid 

 degeneracy of the whole people; for all the other professions com- 

 bined can not resist the influence of an immoral yeomanry. If they 

 are good, we have very much to hope from them in respect to the 

 future character of our beloved country. We think there can be no 

 reasonable doubt that the last view of the subject is the true one ; 

 that all the appropriate influences of the farmer's life are eminently 

 favorable to habits of virtue, and even of piety. 



1. Agriculture is the first and most natural state of man — that to 

 which, in his primitive state, he was first called, both by his own 

 wants and by the special appointment of his Maker. Adam was 

 placed in the garden ' to dress it and to keep it.' Now it is not for 

 a moment to be supposed that God would have given to man in a 

 state of innocence, an employment which should have the least ten- 

 dency to lead him away from the path of rectitude. It is the only 

 vocation to which God originally called his creature man ; it must 

 then be safe and wholesome in all its tendencies. The presumptions, 

 then, are all in favor of our position. 



2. Labor is indispensable to sound morality. 'By the sweat of 

 thy brow shalt thou eat bread,' is not to be regarded primarily as a 

 sentence of displeasure because of sin, but as an appointment of nee- 



