No. 244. J 255 



Industry on a firm foundation, and render the people independent of 

 the pauper labor of Europe. Nothing can ever secure this but the 

 prevalence of a wholesome feeling throughout the whole community. 



I place little confidence in any political parties; they can always 

 beheld in check by a handful of selfish mercenary individuals, who, 

 to serve present ends and future prospects, are quite willing to throw 

 overboard a patriot or a principle. I look to the sound, round-about 

 common sense of the people as all that can coerce a party. Robert 

 Hall wisely remarked, that heresies, political or religious, seldom or 

 never take rise from the masses of the people; they are tenacious of 

 their habits of thinking. 



When we talk of simplicity of manners, we are not to forget the 

 instructive lesson taught us by the history of other nations. Look 

 at Rome ; with the increase of her wealth and the extension of her 

 power we see luxury and vice pervading the body politic, and in- 

 tegrity of manners and purity of morals gradually disappearing. 

 Still she grows in power, and aggrandizes her wealth. She triumphs 

 over Carthage, annexes Greece and Macedon as provinces, brings 

 home Asiatic spoils, and carries her proud eagles into every land ; 

 and, in pride she exclaims, " by my strength and wisdom I have 

 done all this." Yet, after making the whole world tributary to her 

 glory, she sinks under the weight of her corruption. Let us listen 

 to her sepulchral voice as she flits before us in historic retrospect, 

 crying " It is an evil and bitter thing to sin against God." Let us 

 not aim to extend our limits, or strengthen ourselves by rapacity and 

 injustice. I know not of a more fitting occasion than when we meet 

 to advance the useful arts, to utter a warninsf voice ag^ainst the social 

 evils which beset our path. How truly are we as a people made to 

 feel that " Fashion rules the world," and, alas, what a tyrannical 

 and capricious mistress she is! What sacrifices she demands and 

 extorts from her votaries, and how contagious the example she sets. 

 She makes it a vulgar thing for a man to help himself, and a gen- 

 teel thing to lead a useless and vagabond life. She invades domes- 

 tic happiness, disarranges the ordinary routine of every-day life, 

 turns fond parents into fools, and their naturally healthy offspring 

 into invalids, and converts society at large into slaves ; and yet all 

 classes and colours bend at her shrine, and the great strife is, who 

 shall worship the longest and bow the lowest. I call on the opulent 

 to be patriotic; let them become simple and frugal, for unhappily 

 the sad consequences of the growing tide of luxury is to be seen 

 among the less wealthy. They are fascinated by the example of 



