10 MR. perry's address. 



mind is destructive of all enjoyment, for it produces a disrelish 

 for what they now possess, and keeps them from all efficient 

 effort to make a better provision for the future. Those under 

 its paralizing influence will neither erect their buildings, place 

 their fences, plant their orchards, cultivate their farms, embellish 

 their gardens, or manage any of their principal business, as they 

 would were it not for an undefined jperadveniw-e that at some 

 time they shall find it for their advantage to sell, and in such 

 case be constrained to sacrifice much of the expense they had 

 been at for improvement. All is done just to answer present 

 exigences, and in the end, as might be expected, the man has 

 neither the profit or comfort which he might easily have secured, 

 had he, as he ought, never allowed himself in this unsettled state 

 of mind, nor made arrangements to sell till he had determined 

 to do it, nor thought of moving till the openings of providence 

 made it his duty so to do. After intemperance, and the expen- 

 sive demands of fashion, there is no one cause which in my ap- 

 prehension casts such a withering influence over the prosperity 

 of society, as this feeling. All classes in the community are in- 

 jured by its unhealthful influence. It extends to those who do 

 not give it a resting place in their own bosoms. Parents who 

 have no intention to change their own residence, are less anxious 

 to improve their possessions because of the uncertainty whether 

 their children will retain the inheritance and occupy the farms 

 which are handed down to them. Children, when laboring with 

 their parents, plan with less comprehension, and work with less 

 courage, for in their hearts at least, they say ' of what advantage 

 will our exertions to improve the place be, should father sell, as 

 we often hear him intimate that it is probable he may.' It dis- 

 courages noble effort, enterprise and improvement. 



I could direct you to houses which have already ceased to 

 shelter those who still live in them — and to farms with some of 

 the best land untouched, or with fields which once yielded in rich 

 abundance the glories of the year, now grown over with weeds, 

 and with fences broken down — the legitimate consequence of a 

 wandering, unsettled mind. And though some of the proprietors of 

 these may be leaning on their staves for very age, they are just 



