AS AN EMPLOYMENT. 33 



beneficent designs of the Creator — than that assigned to 

 our first parents — the cultivation of the soil. It has, to 

 be sure, Hke all other avocations, its cares and its toils — 

 its thorns ; — yet its cares and its toils often turn out to be 

 substantial blessings ; and, unlike most other avocations, 

 it has more of the roses than the thorns of life. " Agricul- 

 ture," wrote Socrates, ''is an employment most worthy 

 the application of man, the most ancient, and the most 

 suitable to his nature ; it is the common nurse of all per- 

 sons, in every age and condition of life ; it is the source 

 of health, strength, plenty, and riches, and of a thousand 

 sober dehghts and honest pleasures. It is the mistress 

 and school of sobriety, temperance, justice, religion, and, 

 in short, of all the virtues, civil and military." 



§ 4. Jls a Means of enabling us to fulfil the Temporal 

 Duties of Life. 



These duties consist, first, in providing honestly for 

 ourselves and families ; secondly, in helping our neigh- 

 bor ; and, thirdly, in prom^oting the good of society at 

 large. It is the due performance of these duties that 

 gives worth and dignity to the human character, — that 

 makes the good man, — that renders him useful and re- 

 spected, — and that constitutes the temporal elements of 

 human happiness. Every virtue has its reward, and every 

 vice a punishment, in one form or another, even here, 

 to say nothing of a hereafter. The indolent man, who 

 provides not for himself and his own, but lives upon the 

 labor of others, becomes a dependant upon the sympa- 

 thies or charities of the world, and is a stranger to the 

 high and manly feelings that flow from conscious inde- 

 pendence. He who cares not for the welfare of his 

 neighbor, or seeks not to promote it, is a stranger to the 

 best feelings of humanity — he is a misanthrope in practice, 

 if not in heart. And he who feels not his obligations to 

 society, for the protection and security it affords him, in 

 the enjoyment of hfe, liberty, and property — and who 

 does not use a portion of his means and his influence, 

 from a high sense of duty, to promote the common weal 

 — to maintain order, law, and a tone of moral health in 



