44 TRANSACTIONS. 



showy and talkative. Read state papers and public de- 

 bates. Avoid that wasteful economy which shortens the 

 post-office bill, to lengthen the lawyer's. In these times, 

 an agricultural people may know public men, and the 

 true bearings of public events, as well as the busy throngs 

 that trample pavements. There is no genuine reform 

 that is not on the farmer's side, and he is bound to be a 

 reformer of the constructive kind. Respect for law is in- 

 stilled into him by the benignant regularity of seed-time 

 and harvest. Reserve your destructive enginery for 

 the weeds and caterpillars. He is exhorted to temper- 

 ance by all the intimacy of his habits with nature. 

 Commerce is his common carrier, and asks his protec- 

 tion. Manufactures and metropolis are his market ; the 

 jealousy that would cripple them wrongs himself And 

 all his life, the free winds and open sky over his head 

 nurse in him that vigorous loyalty to republican liberty, 

 that sympathy for the struggles of freedom everywhere, 

 and that intense and rooted abhorrence of all slavery and 

 despotism, which are the birthright of his blood, the in- 

 stinct of his calling, and the inspiration of his soul. 



III. By this public spirit, by disinterested patriotism, 

 and a faithful conscience towards human welfare, the farm- 

 er will already have begun to feel holier ties attracting 

 him to citizenship in the kingdom of heaven. It is by 

 divine right that the church spire overtops all the struc- 

 tures that men's hands build, and hallows the landscape 

 with its aspiration. Handling God's workmanship every 

 hour, and treading his solemn temple-floor at every step, 

 an unbelieving farmer is in some manner guilty of per- 

 petual sacrilege. If any man's daily task puts him close 

 to the eternal secrets of the universe, and into communion 

 with the awful hiding-places of Almighty power, it is his. 

 If any man is instructed in a creed that is at once devout 

 and charitable, a piety at once reverential Christ-ward and 

 generous man-ward, it is he. The deeper shame to all his 

 manly sense, if he is not touched with the religiousness of 

 his august surroundings, and if he does not blend worship 

 with his work. Nature may not reverse her order, nor 



