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the neatness of his chirography, or his manuscript, has been in vain, any more than the farmer feels when he has turned a handsome furrow, and his field, as a mere specimen of ploughing, is beautiful, that it has been in vain; for it is one of the characteristics of a good farmer to lay his furrows thus ; and, though all that beauty shall soon disappear, the great object has been gained, in the waving golden harvest that follows. So the preacher may feel, that though his manuscripts may go no farther than his own pulpit, and then be forgotten or burned, still his care is not in vain. The ample result is not to be seen in the elegantly bound volume, but in the happy fruits of piety that shall spring up on the field that he cultivates; a golden harvest more rich than any over which the zephyr waves.

But, while this is true, it is still true that the age and the circumstances demand that there should be a higher literature than there is in sermons. As literary compositions, they should be of the highest possible order; they should be such as will not merely not offend, but as will attract those of delicate and refined taste; they should be such as will not make the theology that is preached repellant to cultivated minds, but such as will commend it; they should be such as will be in every way worthy the minds that have received the highest education which our country can furnish, and such as shall become those who, by by their stations, must contribute more than any other class of men to form the public manners and As none of the truths which God designs to teach in his works are rendered powerless and neutral by the exquisite beauty spread over the face of creation, the simple and pure charms in which they are conveyed to us in the stream, the flower, the vale, the landscape, so none of the truths of revelation will be rendered less powerful and efficient, by being conveyed in a dress that shall correspond with the methods. in which God addresses us in his beautiful works. The world, as God has made it, is full of beauty. He speaks to men amidst the exquisite charms of the works of nature, and surrounds himself with every hue of light and love when he

taste.

approaches us in his works. The expanding flower, the rainbow, the variegated lights that lie at evening on the clouds of the western sky, or the gay lights that play in the north, the dewdrops of the morning, the fountain, the lake, the ocean, the waterfall, the flower-covered prairie, and the waving forest; these are the things through which God speaks to men in his works. So, with all that is attractive, and beautiful, and simple, and pure, and chaste in thought and language, should it be our aim that He should speak to men, when He conveys the noble truths of redemption to the world by our instrumentality; and so should the pulpit be seen to be the appropriate place for conveying the richest and noblest truths that have dawned on this part of the universe-the system of theology which He has commissioned us to preach.

ARTICLE II.

POLITICAL RECTITUDE.

By Rev. CHARLES WHITE, D. D., President of Wabash College, Indiana.

By political rectitude is meant the rectitude of a people in their political relations-in their character as a society, or as a government, the organ and representative of a society. Political rectitude is a state and national interest of great magnitude. Strict probity and honour in state and national policy, plant a broad, grand basis for every noble institution, and furnish the elements of life and power to all industry, enterprise, and useful advancement.

In discussing this subject, the modes and forms in which political rectitude is violated, first demand a consideration.

There is one great and general wrong committed in filling the offices of the country with incompetent and unworthy This is done by the people in their sovereign character, and also by the government.

men.

No mere man, since the fall, ever held power without being in much danger of abusing it, when interest or fear did not restrain him. It is the clearest dictate of an impartial judgment, therefore, that those alone who are defended against venality by personal integrity and honour, should be trusted with places of authority. But too little regard, however, is paid to this principle of propriety and safety. As a general fact, the moral worth of a candidate for office is the last quality inquired for; and the absence of that worth, the last circumstance which will prevent his election. If the true, unostentatious, pure-minded man, should, for his competency. and his merit, be carried into office over the corrupt and clamorous partisan, it would attract general observation, as an exception and a marvel. The offices in the gift of the government are bestowed with equal recklessness in respect to character. The most vile and abandoned of the community are often the successful applicants for place. "The spoils to the victors" has been, if not the motto, at least the practice of every political party in the country for the last forty years. The motto means, the offices to the members of the triumphant party, with or without qualifications. As splendid prizes on broad sheets, for hungry lottery gamblers, or as the riches and sensual pleasures of a splendid city, promised to an army thirsting for rapine and plunder, so emoluments and honours are hung out and offered, at the opening of the political campaign, to whet appetite and to impel to more desperate struggles.

This is a fair exemplification of the spirit and the principle by which a large proportion of four hundred thousand offices are filled in this country. That the claims and qualifications of the high-minded, the intelligent, the uncorrupt, should be disregarded, and the incompetent and wicked set up to bear rule, is a dereliction of political rectitude, for which the land ought to be clothed in sackcloth and ashes.

State and national legislation often shows a great destitution of magnanimity and justice. There is first a narrow, sectional principle, governing public measures. The legislator, instead of regarding himself as he is, a representative of the

THIRD SERIES, VOL. II. NO. IV.

39.

whole broad national domain, instead of guarding, with a large and impartial patriotism, the grand aggregate interests of his entire country, comes all the way down to look exclusively upon the claims of a little spot where resides his own personal constituency. He votes and advocates, not according to universal justice and utility, but according to lines of latitude and longitude. In respect to one-half the questions which come up for legislation, we correctly predict beforehand, at our firesides, how any one of the people's representatives will vote, simply by ascertaining where lies his farm, his merchandise, his clients, his patients, his personal interests, his dear political friends. We need, in order to be informed what course legislation will take in matters touching the great principles of equity and justice, not Montesquieu, Vattel and Blackstone, but the last published partisan print.

Too many of our politicians seem to limit their vision to immediate, as well as personal and sectional advantages. For the sake of a trifling good at hand, great, growing, permanent interests are unhesitatingly sacrificed. "They are the little hucksters, who cannot resist the temptation of a present sixpence, who reinvest every week, and derive their petty profits every night, instead of being the large-minded operators, who send their cargoes to the other side of the world, and wait years until the return of a fleet for their profits."

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There is also a mode of carrying measures by a bargain and exchange of votes, which evinces an abandonment of the principles of equity and true patriotism. Different sections of the State have each their objects to accomplish. Now says a friend of one of these measures, "Vote for my bill and I will vote for yours." Agreed! What are the reasons and considerations for your project?" "It will relieve and enrich an important portion of the community, by opening a thoroughfare for the surplus produce. It will increase the revenues of the State, by increasing the tolls on one hundred miles of railroad with which it is connected." "Good, very good! My improvement has advantages no less. It is a canal; it will afford water privileges, invite capitalists, erect

I

manufactories; it will carry out produce, and bring in merchandise, population, wealth." "Enough! very well argued, go for it." In this method many wise and good measures may be carried, but the objection is, they are not carried on principle; the evil is, sentiments of justice and of right are abandoned and outraged. It would be more admissible to buy men to do right, if we did not, in doing so, sell ourselves to do wrong, or at least sell ourselves to do another's bidding without inquiry. It would be more admissible to buy men to do right, if it did not appeal to them directly to act from interest and not from righteousness, and thereby turn legislation into a shameless system of unprincipled selfishness.

There is, on the part of some public men, a sacrifice of conscience and of personal opinion to a servile obedience to a constituency. This is a manifest dishonour to the principles of rectitude. The candidate, previous to his being up for public favour, was a man, an independent man; he thought for himself, he acted for himself; the moment the canvass commences he is transformed strangely; his opinions now are the opinions of his political supporters; his will is their will; his whole being is shaped on their model. Had he remained a private citizen, he would have remained a man; now he is an automaton of artificial springs and joints, and moves just as the blessed people pull the wires. O shame! Creature of the Eternal mind, immortal intelligence, susceptible, gifted, powerful, thou wast not made for such pliancy! Why become a bubble to float whither the wind is setting on, or to break and melt undistinguished into the common air? Why be one of the figures of a puppet-show, when you might be a human being, independent, self-developing, self-instructing, self-acting? A legislature, made up of men who give their votes and make their patriotic protestations, not according to any established principles of righteousness and duty, but according to dictations received from home, should have its sittings in a grand magnetic telegraph office, and each man be furnished with a wire bringing up opinions from his constituents on every question proposed.

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