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HOW PATERNAL WEALTH SHOULD BE EMPLOYED.

The mischievous, and truly American notion, that, to enjoy a respectable position, every man must traffic, or preach, or practise, or hold an office, brings to beggary and infamy many who might have lived, under a juster estimate of things, usefully and happily; and cuts us off from a needful, as well as ornamental portion of society. The necessity of laboring for sustenance is, indeed, the great safeguard of the world, the ballast, without which the wild passions of men would bring communities to speedy wreck. But man will not labor without a motive; and successful accumulation, on the part of the parent, deprives the son of this impulse. Instead, then, of vainly contending against laws as insurmountable as those of physics, and attempting to drive their children into lucrative industry, why do not men, who have made themselves opulent, open their eyes, at once, to the glaring fact, that the cause -the cause itself--which braced their own nerves to the struggle for fortune, does not exist for their offspring? The father has taken from his son his motive-a motive confessedly important. to happiness and virtue, in the present state of things. He is bound, therefore, by every consideration of prudence and humanity, neither to attempt to drag him forward without a cheering, animating principle of action-nor recklessly to abandon him to his own guidance-nor to poison him with the love of lucre for itself; but, under new circumstances, with new prospects, at a totally different starting-place from his own, to supply other motivesdrawn from our sensibility to reputation, from our natural desire to know, from an enlarged view of our capacities and enjoyments, and a more high and liberal estimate of our relations to society. Fearful, indeed, is the responsibility of leaving youth, without mental resources, to the temptations of splendid idleness! Men who have not considered this subject, while the objects of their affection yet surround their table, drop no seeds of generous sentiments, animate them with no discourse on the beauty of disinterestedness, the paramount value of the mind, and the dignity of that renown which is the echo of illustrious actions. Absorbed in one pursuit, their morning precept, their mid-day example, and their evening moral, too often conspire to teach a single maxim, and that in direct contradiction of the inculcation, so often and so variously repeated: "It is better to get wisdom than gold." Right views, a careful choice of agents, and the delegation, betimes, of strict authority, would insure the object. Only let the parent feel, and the son be early taught, that, with the command of money and leisure, to enter on manhood without having mastered every attainable accomplishment, is more disgraceful than threadbare garments, and we might have the happiness to see in the

inheritors of paternal wealth, less frequently, idle, ignorant prodigals and heart-breakers, and more frequently, high-minded, highlyeducated young men, embellishing, if not called to public trusts, a private station.

WILLIAM JAY, 1789-1858.

WILLIAM JAY, the son of that wise statesman and able jurist, John Jay, the first Chief-Justice of the United States, was born in the city of New York, June 16, 1789. In 1807, he graduated at Yale College, and studied law in Albany, but, through infirm health, never practised his profession, and took up his residence at the paternal mansion, in Bedford, Westchester County, New York, which he afterwards inherited. In 1812, he was married to Augusta McVickar, daughter of John McVickar, Esq., of New York,-a lady in whose character were blended all the Christian virtues. She died in April, 1857.

Soon after his marriage, Mr. Jay was appointed First Judge of the county of Westchester, and he was continued upon the bench by successive Governors, of opposite politics, through the varied changes of party, till 1843. His first appearance as a writer was in his advocacy of the claims of the American Bible Society, which led him into a controversy with Bishop Hobart, and which excited great attention at the time from the ability with which it was conducted. He was always a warm advocate of Sunday-schools, of temperance, and of peace, and he was for many years the President of the American Peace Society, for which he wrote several addresses. In 1833, he published, in two volumes, octavo, The Life and Writings of John Jay.

But his distinctive life-work was what he did in behalf of the Anti-Slavery cause. His first publication upon this subject was in 1834, entitled An Inquiry into the Character and Tendency of the American Colonization and American Anti-Slavery Societies. This was followed by A View of the Action of the Federal Government in Behalf of Slavery. Since that time, his writings upon the subject have been constant and numerous, as occasions and subjects arose upon which he deemed it his duty to let his views be known. The chief of the pamphlets thus written were published in 1853, in a large duodecimo of 670 pages, entitled Miscellaneous Writings on Slavery. All his publications on this subject are uniformly characterized by the candor of a philosopher, the accuracy of a statesman, the courtesy of a gentleman, and the charity of a Christian. The extent of his information and the correctness of his assertions, in all historical subjects, were alike remarkable. None of his statements in his carefully-written History of the Mexican War have ever been refuted,-a history that will remain an enduring monument to his truthfulness and faithfulness in historic research, to his unbending integrity, and to his pure and elevated Christian principles.

Judge Jay died at his residence in Bedford, Westchester County, New York, on the 14th of October, 1858, leaving an example worthy of all imitation. In the discharge of his judicial duties for thirty years, he showed himself the wise and upright as well as learned judge; while in his private life he was a model of personal excellence,-an exemplification of the true Christian character.

PATRIOTISM.

Counterfeits imply an original. There is such a virtue as patriotism, acknowledged and inculcated by both natural and revealed religion; and it is but a development of that benevolence which springs from moral goodness. To do good unto all men as we have opportunity, is an injunction invested with divine authority. Generally, our ability to do good is confined to our families, neighbors, and countrymen; and the natural promptings of our hearts lead us to select these, in preference to more distant objects, for the subjects of our kind offices. Our benevolence, when directed to our countrymen at large, constitutes PATRIOTISM; and its exercise is as much controlled by the laws of morality as when confined to our neighbors or our families. A voice from heaven has forbidden us "to do evil that good may come." The sentiment, "Our country, right or wrong," is as profligate and impious as would be the sentiment, "Our church, or our party, right or wrong." If it be rebellion against God to violate his laws for the benefit of one individual, however dear to us, not less sinful must it be to commit a similar act for the benefit of any number of individuals. If we may not, in kindness to the highwayman, assist him in robbing and murdering the traveller, what divine law permits us to aid any number of our own countrymen in robbing and murdering other people? He who engages in a defensive war, with a full conviction of its necessity and justice, may be impelled by patriotism, by a benevolent desire to save the lives, and property, and rights of his countrymen. But, if he believes the war to be one of invasion and conquest, and utterly unjust, by taking part in it he assumes its guilt, and becomes responsible for its crimes.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

The American people have by acclamation adjudged John Quincy Adams a PATRIOT,- -a judgment from which not one politician of any name has dared to appeal. This judgment sets. aside, condemns, and repudiates almost every test of patriotism prescribed by the demagogues of the day. It has now been decided, by a tribunal which these men admit to be infallible, that a man may be a patriot, nay, an "illustrious patriot," according to the official gazette, who openly repudiates the sentiment, "Our country, right or wrong;" who, on a question of international law,

In some verses written by Mr. Adams shortly before his death, and entitled "Congress, Slavery, and an Unjust War," are these lines:

"And say not thou. My country, right or wrong,'
Nor shed thy blood for an unhallow'd cause."

sides with a foreign government against his own; who gives "aid and comfort" to the enemy by denouncing as unjust the war waged against him, and by striving to withhold supplies from the army sent to fight him; who mourns over the degeneracy of his country and doubts whether she is to be numbered "among the first liberators or the last oppressors of the race of immortal man ;" who, notwithstanding all "the compromises of the Constitution," denounces human bondage as a crime against God, and proposes so to change the Constitution as to effect the immediate abolition of hereditary slavery throughout the American Confederacy, and, pouring contempt upon the lying Democracy of the day, claims for the black man the same rights of suffrage that are accorded to his white fellow-citizen.

Such is the character of a PATRIOT, as established by the latest decision of the American public. Surely there must have been some potent principle of action which impelled him to pursue a path so divergent from those usually selected by political aspirants,

one, to all appearance, leading him far from popular applause, and yet in the end conducting him to the very pinnacle of fame. There was such a principle, and it is shadowed forth in the moral with which Mr. McDowell "adorned his tale." "His life," said the Virginia eulogist, "has been a continuous and beautiful illustration of the great truth that, while the fear of man is the consummation of all folly, the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom." Unhappy it is for our country, that the reverse of this truth forms the maxim by which so many of our public men apparently govern their conduct. But what was the secret of the great strength of this moral Samson? Since his death, certain letters to his son have been given to the press, and in these we find an answer to the inquiry. It appears that, while at the court of St. Petersburg, in 1811, he commenced a series of letters to his absent child, on the study of the Bible," the divine revelation," as he called it. In these he remarks, "I have myself, for many years, made it a practice to read through the Bible once every year. I have always endeavored to read it with the same spirit and temper of mind which I now recommend to you; that is, with the intention and desire that it may contribute to my advancement in wisdom and virtue. My custom is, to read four or five chapters every morning, immediately after rising from my bed. It employs about half an hour of my time, and seems to me the most suitable manner of beginning the day." The following advice to his son seems both indicative of his own future course, and prophetic of its glorious termination :-" Never give way to

1 From the Eulogy pronounced in the House of Representatives, by Hon. William McDowell, of Virginia.

the pushes of impudence, wrong-headedness, or intractability, which would lead or draw you aside from the dictates of your own conscience and your own sense of right. Till you die, let not your integrity depart from you. Build your house upon the rock, and then let the rains descend, and the flood come, and the winds blow, and beat upon that house, it shall not fall. So promises your blessed Lord and Master." In a most wonderful manner was this promise fulfilled in his own case, even in the present world. But there is a day approaching when the secrets of all hearts shall be laid open, and when every man shall come to judgment. Then will those who have in this life pursued expediency in preference to duty, learn, when too late, that "the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God."

THE HIGHER LAW.1

Human government is indispensable to the happiness and progress of human society. Hence God, in his wisdom and benevolence, wills its existence; and in this sense, and this alone, the powers that be are ordained by him. But civil government cannot exist if each individual may, at his pleasure, forcibly resist its injunctions. Therefore, Christians are required to submit to the powers that be, whether a Nero or a slave-catching Congress. But obedience to the civil ruler often necessarily involves rebellion to God. Hence we are warned by Christ and his apostles, and by the example of saints in all ages, in such cases, not to obey, but to submit and suffer. We are to hold fast our allegiance to Jehovah, but at the same time not to take up arms to defend ourselves against the penalties imposed by the magistrate for our disobedience. Thus the divine sovereignty and the authority of human government are both maintained. Revolution is not the abolition of human government, but a change in its form, and its lawfulness depends on circumstances. What was the "den" in which John Bunyan had his glorious vision of the " Pilgrim's Progress"? A prison to which he was confined for years for refusing obedience to human laws. And what excuse did this holy man make for conduct now denounced as wicked and rebellious? "I cannot obey, but I can suffer." The Quakers have from the first refused to obey the law requiring them to bear arms; yet have they never been vilified by our politicians and "cotton clergymen" as rebels against the powers that be, nor sneered at for their acknowledgment of a "higher" than human law. The

1 From "A Letter to the Hon. Samuel A. Elliot, Representative in Congress from the City of Boston, in Reply to his Apology for Voting for the Fugitive Slave Bill."

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