564 SELECTIONS FROM ADDRESSES. 



and watchful of the best interests of his country, take a prom- 

 inent part, either as an elector, or as an elected member of 

 some branch of town, county, state or national government. 

 All these he must do well, and he may and will do them well, 

 if he be well educated. All this he may do, without peril of 

 becoming a brangling demagogue, or a hungry seeker for place 

 and for its profits. I think his acquired tastes as a farmer, will 

 protect him against temptation in this direction. For I cannot 

 conceive, if he be a true farmer, and a devoted lover of a farm- 

 er's life and a farmer's joys, that he would be willing to change 

 the plough and the sweet odor of field and wood, — the varied, 

 cheerful music of nature that fills and blesses the country air, 

 the secure quiet of his home, — his fields of ripening corn, his 

 sheaves of golden wheat, his ruddy apples, the mellow fruits 

 of his orchard, — his rich crops of yellow grain, his mown lands, 

 glittering with sun and dew, — his verdant pastures, and his 

 groves, " God's first temples," 



" His rills, melodious, pure and cool, 

 And meads nith life, and mirth, and beauty crowned;" — Beattie's Mhistrel. 



his majestic oaks, and beautiful elms, — his herds of lowing 

 cattle and his bleating sheep, — his mountains, valleys, hills, — 

 the glories of his early morns, the gorgeous beauty of his set- 

 ting suns, and the radiant shine of his harvest moons, — the 

 fantastic yet brilliant garb of his autumn leaves, — for all the 

 pomp and circumstance, the tinselled dazzle and the cumbrous 

 splendor of fashion and the town, — for a bald chance of a first 

 and last speech beneath the dome of the senate, or for a rude 

 jostle for eminence among a crowd of political brawlers and 

 scramblers for office. 



" Gleaners of the spoils. 



Who breathe around a pestilential breath, 

 Till virtue's self is tainted with the touch." 



Dawes' Athenia of Damasctis. 



And yet he would do wrong, did he not keep up a well- 

 judged participation in political matters ; and it is here, in the 

 United States, here and now, that the just position of you 

 farmers, as a controlling element in the government, is ac- 

 knowledged, and that your influence is felt, is desired, and is 

 welcomed. 



