AND HORTICULTURAL REGISTER. 



9 



PUIiLISHED BY JOSEPH BRECK & CO, NO. 62 NORTH MARKET STREET, (Acicultural 



Warehouse.) 



VOL. XVII.] 



BOSTON, WEDNESDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 13, 1839. 



[NO. 



AGRICULTURAL 



AN ADDRESS, 

 iefore the Essex Agricultural Society, at Topsfield, 

 Septemher 27, 1838, at tlieir .innual Cattle Show- 

 By Leonard Withington. 



tEKTLEMEN, 



The cardinal doctrine of revelation, by which 

 .ith is said to be necessary to salvation, is not so 

 jculiar to Christianity as either divines or infidels 

 ive been disposed to make it. It is a general 

 w of our moral existence, that whatever we pur- 

 )se should be the development of some inward 

 ea, some plan, some conception, which leads to 

 ■osperity or disappointment, according- as it is 

 unded in truth or in error. In a rational being-, 

 ere must always be some thinking before their is 

 :ting. The most superficial and impetuous always 

 rm some plan ; and as the eye directs the mind, 



the mind must always lead our material faculties, 

 jnco man becomes the creature of faith. He 

 ts by faitli because he has the powers of reason. 

 3 foresees, or Uiinks he foresees the direction of 

 e road before he pursues it. True faith is feith 



the truth ; and, as there is truth in all the other 

 rsuits of life as well as religion — blessings to 



foreseen before they are gained, and appreciated 

 fore they are iought — Iience it comes to pass 

 It faitli is the source of prac ice in all the pur- 

 .ts of life ; in war ; in peace ; in arts ; in scien- 

 9 ; in taking a journey, or crossing the ocean ; 

 coloring a picture, or shaping a statue ; in till- 

 r a field, or in raising a flower; — wherever the 

 vttrd idea must go before the outward manifesta- 

 n, tliere man is and must be, the creature of 

 th ; and it is by his faith that he procures liis 

 nporal as well as his eternal salvation. 

 Faith, in all other things as well as relio-ion, 

 y be considered as consisting of two parts: 

 rat, a foresight of the truth, ami, secondly, the 

 NFiDENCE we have in that truth as the fountain 

 our well-being. We sometimes use faith as 

 dressing a naked assent to truth ; and sometimes 



throw the stress and meaning on the ardor, the 

 ■ ifidence, the energy of action, which the trutii, 



I en seen to be important, is found to inspire. 

 |th these ingredients, you are aware, go to make 

 i: notion of theological faith. But it is exactly 

 |wi.th respect to faith in other things. No man 

 |Jr acted with energy, the parent of success, in 

 \f pursuit, who did not first suppose that he saw 



truth inspiring his activity, and did not believe 

 its vast importance to his own welfare, or that 

 •mankind. We must see tlie golden apple on 

 ! highest bough of the tree ; we must believe in 

 i worth and attainability before we shall climb to 

 |.ch it. Take the case of Columbus as an illus- 

 ition. He had formed in his mind the great idea 

 ia Western continent; he had a vivid concep- 



II of the splendor of the discovery, could it once 

 made ; and he added a third ingredient, that he 



'iself was the chosen instrument to make it. 



With this complex idea burning in his mind and 



I heart, he chased his object tlirough the tardy courts 



of princes; through the broken promises of an 



illiberal patronage ; through every discouragement 



that envy and opposition could throw in his way. 



In vain did the tempest arise ; in vain did his little 



miserable ships totter on these a ; in vain did the 



unknown ocean spread out its everlasting breadth 



of waves and skies; in vain did men conspire 



against him ; and even his faithful needle, as if it 



had caught their treachery, wandered from the 



pole ;— the light ivithin ivas still shining ; the 



I bright conception was still strong in his mind. 



Neither his assent to the truth, nor his confidence 



in it, were for a moment lost; and we may say of 



him, as of many a poor sinner in a more important 



case, that his faith made him tvhole. O happv is 



that man, who, in a world of error, has seized some 



invisible truth, some immortal principle, on which 



his mind can rest and roll, like the world on its j 



axis; and find in it a guiding light to safety and 



happiness amidst the prejudices and dissentions of 



mankind. 



We are republicans ; and republicanism is act- 

 ing out some great idea which is the inward object 

 of our Faith. 



We read in the bible that the Israelites -were 

 commanded, if they made-En altar to God they 

 ihould not make it of hewn stone — if they lifted up 

 a tool upon it, it ivas polluted ; tliey were not to go 

 up with steps upon it. What is this altar, but the 

 central idea of the national system made visible .' 

 a material form, always to remind them of the re- 

 ligious simplicity, which they were ever to have in 

 view. Every nation may be said, in some sense, 

 to have such an alter erected ; an altar, which thev 

 are always to contemplate and before which they 

 should constantly kneel when they ask their choi- 

 cest blessings from Heaven. Had a national altar 

 stood in Greece, so far from being composed of 

 unhewn stone, the wonderful art of the statuary 

 would have been especially lavish upon upon it ; it 

 would have been an emblem of tliat supreme de- 

 votion to beauty, for which that people were dis- 

 tinguished, and which was at once their glory and 

 their ruin. Had it been in Rome, it might have 

 been of unhewn stone, indeed, but the helmet and 

 tlie shield would have hung around it; the trium- 

 phal arch might have led the suppliant to its base; 

 the trumpet might hnve sounded, whilst its smoke 

 was ascending, and even the blood of human vic- 

 tims might have tinged its horns. We too have 

 our altar, erected with the same simplicity ; that 

 IS, our whole sysrem la the unfolding of a predom- 

 inant idea, the inheritance from the jiast, which we 

 are to contemplate and carry to perfection. Our 

 success depends on the purity with which we pre- 

 serve the altar, and the ardor with which we wor- 

 ship before it. Though the altar be plain, and 



even homely, we must see in it gn earthly a 



celestial beauty ; and tread the turf around it with 

 sacred feelings of reverence and love. Wo must 

 believe, when -n-e offer our simplest, republican sa- 1 



crifices, the smoke of our native incense will not be 

 rejected by God. 



Yes — to be a good republican it needs faith ; it 

 is necessary for the prelusive experiment. It is 

 well known, fur ages past, tlie masses of men have 

 been rising. Ever since the establishment of cor- 

 porations and boroughs in the middle ages, in every 

 political convulsion, the result has been to increase 

 the influence of the many and diminish the oppres- 

 sion of the few. Our Government is one of the 

 last efl^orts of these long operating causes ; it was 

 established, not for a few families, not for a titled 

 aristocracy, nor for a king, but for him that drives 

 the chisel and him that holds the spade ; and it 

 supposes the possibility of that dubious and much- 

 doubtod attainment in human natnre, — that he, -n-ho 

 earns his bread by the sweat of his broM-, may yet 

 be a thinking being ; choose his own religion and 

 make his own. laws, as well as obey them. His- 

 tory perhaps lias very little to produce this faith of 

 I which we hav»'been speaking. Our brightest vis- 

 ions must be >'orrowed from the future. Our hopes 

 are founded on what man may be ; not on what be 

 has been. We read, it is true of ancient republics ; 

 but they resemble us only in a generic name. 

 There never was a republic that went for man ; 

 or was founded on the rights of man. They all 

 formed a conventional idea of the citizen ; and 

 never went for that inheritor of will and reason, 

 that responsib'e being, who derives his immortal 

 gift from, and is accountable chiefly to God. Why 

 should we be forever talking of Athens and Rome ; 

 of Athens with its 20,000 citizens and 400,000 

 slaves ; of Rome, not only with its slaves, but with 

 its myriad of idle citizens, fed from the public 

 treasury ;* and where we are told, even before the 

 age of Cicero, there were not more than 2000 cit- 

 izens who had what might be called an estate.f 

 Were these republics founded on the rights of 

 man .= Were their partial experiments, when fully 

 unfolded, calculated to produce much confidence in 

 our own.'' 



The soul must animate the body ; the plan must 

 go before the execution ; the theory must guide 

 the action ; and confidence in what is possible and 

 true must inspirit the perseverance that leads to 

 success. We often hear it lamented that so many 

 evils should mar the beauty of our rising morn. 

 Ah, these clouds! these fogs; these curtains of 

 darkness over the rising sun ! The mob ; the 

 radical ; the pupular delusion ; the- impracticable 

 plan and the still more absurd execution ; the 

 libel ; the inflammatory press ; the sage that will 

 not 'vrite and the fool that will ; the midnight cau- 



* The number of slaves at Athens is somewhat un- 

 certain, as it is attested to, not by cotemporary but later 

 authors ; at Rome they never dared to enumerale them ; 

 in both places the right of sufirage was partial; and at 

 Rome, when least partial, led to ruin. 



t See Cicero De Officiis, Book II. Sec. 21. It was the 

 speeeh of a very moderate tribune in the age of Gracchus, 

 non esse in civkatedvo millia liominum, ijui remhabtrerU. 

 It might have been an electioneering speech. 



