MR. braman's address, 25 



of those centres of congregation, and human contact and com- 

 petition, and those influences which quicken ideas and rouse 

 the energies to action. 



6. A good deal of talent and energy are withdrawn from 

 agricultural employment into other business, which holds out 

 inducement of quicker and larger profit. The difference which 

 exists between agricultural and mercantile occupations, is gener- 

 ally conceded to be this, that while the former holds out pros- 

 pects of steady, safe, but slow and moderate returns, the lat- 

 ter invite by the chances of sudden and splendid fortunes, unit- 

 ed with a very large proportion of entire failures. Now it 

 would be the dictate of true wisdom to prefer generally the 

 safer and less brilliant path to that which proposes a few mag- 

 nificent prizes, and an immense number of blanks. There are, 

 it is true, those who possess such a strong aptitude for mer- 

 cantile life, whose genius for trading speculations is so re- 

 markably developed, and who have such a great confidence in 

 their powers, that their course of life seems to be pointed out 

 by indications too plain to be mistaken ; and the probability of 

 success preponderates manifestly in their favor. But consider- 

 ing the monitory disclosures which have been made on this 

 subject, the larger portion of those who embark in the pur- 

 suits of trade are mere adventurers. They hazard their for- 

 tunes on the most uncertain risks. The experiment which 

 they make is like the purchase of a ticket in the lottery ; it is 

 worse than that even, it is a California speculation. 



A magnificent prize in a lottery, a successful adventure for 

 gold in the mining regions, will awaken the aspiration of thou- 

 sands ; they shut their eyes to the vast number of the disappoint- 

 ed, and are overpowered and seduced by one of the few instances 

 of good fortune. So the comparatively few, who, resorting in 

 early life to the cities for trading purposes, make their way up 

 to the golden summits of ambition, will draw after them a 

 crowd of the young, ardent, and ambitious, who abandon the 

 less perilous and less fascinating toils of rural life, to plunge 

 into mercantile uncertainties in which so many are overwhelm- 

 ed to rise no more. 



The attractions of a city life are motives of powerful opera- 

 4 



