compact, as that is materially dependent upon the wisdom and morality of those it is calculated to govern: man, as a species, is more liable to the impressions of delusion than of truth; and, notwithstanding he is rational, must be guarded and limited in his agency, lest the indulgence of his own inordinate desires, should de detrimental to the happiness of all.

WERE it possible to persuade mankind, what is their chief interest here to know, that to assist the good endeavours, and to sympathize with the weaknesses and necessities of each other, yields an enjoyment far superior to any of a mere selfish nature; there would be little occasion, in a moral view, to threaten the infliction either of temporal or eternal punishment. Indeed it seems almost sufficiently just, if there be any totally destitute of humanity, that such, from their dulness or malignity, are deprived of the most exquisite and exalted felicity.

ON the 30th of April, 1789, he was invested as president of the United States, in Newyork, and his investiture was hailed and accompanied by the unfeigned rapture of his

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fellow citizens. He then entered upon one of the most solemn offices that man can possibly assume to administer a government of novel elements: to organize the high republican departments of state, and give to each its due nerve, ramification, and civic dependencies to make the effect as parallel as possible with popular expectation, yet to ward against any irrational infringement so far, as that the whole might be ultimately practicable and durable: but the national confidence attended his exertions, and that confidence was well reposed, as he began his supreme delegation with principles of virtue. The pleasures of virtue, are, first, the immediate satisfaction we enjoy in contributing to the advantage of others, virtue in this case being its own best reward; not that it bestows because it receives, but that it receives because it is disposed to bestow, as a luminous body is yet more enlightened by the reflection of its own splendour.

To declare that he administered the obligations of his great office with propriety, would be but a feeble acknowledgment: he stepped forward with modest hesitation, in obedience to the public voice, to give or

der, and harmony, and force, to the chaotic and untried principles of a new scheme of rule, and he accomplished all that a human being could; he defined the extent of the common charter of his nation; and, in the hazardous performance of the contract, he laid the foundation of such a pure and liberal system of ethical policy, as no confederation. of people had heretofore known; he knew what portion of liberty perturbed man could bear, and he was solicitous that he should have as much as he was fitted to enjoy.

IN the decline of the same year, in which he had consented to bear the incumbent weight of the young republic, he visited the eastern states, and was saluted by all classes of the inhabitants, with fervor, love, and duty. The congratulations he experienced, were such as monarchs might envy the respect he met was of that unsophisticated nature, in which the soul makes its offering with the body-every municipal and religious community addressed him on his ar rival; and, in his answers to these affectionate memorials of public esteem, he had the wisdom to disseminate such documents, might operate to an obedience of the laws,

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and to uphold morality; knowing, that we can have no practice of goodness, or calmness of mind, but what is connected with moral beauty.

WHEN the presidential term had expired, he indicated a resolution to return once more to the shades of domestic retirement, as the infirmities of age had rendered him less vigorous; he had even pondered upon his farewel address, and was preparing for a final secession from the affairs of state, when his apprehensive countrymen, united to implore him to desist from such an abandonment of office their interposition superceded his own will, and he was inducted in the chief magistracy, a second time, to the manifest satisfaction of all honest men in America!

THE good sense and probity of a people, was never more conspicuous, than in this cautious proceeding; as it is not altogether problematical, but the very existence of the commonwealth depended upon this timely adoption the moral and political world were then trembling with the effect of a convulsion, which threatened, in its progress,

to overthrow the institutes of subordination, and rebarbarize mankind: and the imposing speciousness of the innovation constituted its evil-an extraordinary and vast revolution took place in France, at once delighting, amazing, and affrighting the universe : this was an event of such portentous magnitude and dreadful splendour, as made the members of the old establishments shudder, lest the finger of reform should expose their hideousness, and crumble the feudal fabrics of antiquity into dust; as they had become too rotten to be touched, even by the talisman of virtue. They saw the regal diadem abused, and the monastic authorities totter; the monk and the courtier cashiered, and all the gothic privileges of pride vanish and dissolve in air: the patrician began to doubt his preeminence, and slavery hurled the chain at his oppressor: a new code of slip-shod morals was obtruded upon credulity, and the young calendar of the hour took the vizor from the seasons: the solemnity of the altar was invaded by a civic dance, and the laws of matrimony were obliterated by the voluptuaries of Epicurus: they encumbered a figure with tawdry habiliments that they called reason, and made her violate the