ty, when that liberty is predicated on its legitimate foundation-virtue. The arrangements of a social compact, are a consolidation of personal liberty, like the consolidation of money in a co-partnership, for the purpose of increasing, not of diminishing strength. This consolidation of personal liberty, raises the mass of individuals from savage barbarism, to national civilization and freedom, imparting and refining rational enjoyment, and prompting mutual improvement and protection.

That each member may add to the strength of the compact, let the following maxims be observed, as the indexes of consistency.

Remember that contentment is the real philosopher's stone. Shun idleness-it is the parent of poverty-the idle man's brain is the devil's work shop. Avoid intemperance-Bacchus has drowned more persons than Neptune. Bear misfortunes with fortitude-prosperity with meekness. Betray no trust, divulge no secret. Confine your tongue within proper limits, or it may confine you within the cells. Command your temper, or it may place you under the command of the police. Curb every licentious passion, throttle every unholy propensity. Remember that brevity is the soul of wit, business the salt of life, punctuality the life of business, and discretion, the safety valve of action. Equity is the bond of social order, truth the basis of all excellence-let them guide you through life. Enter not into party faction and political intrigue-they are the canker worms of our elective franchise, and the bane of legislation. Practise the golden rule-do not be content with the silver one-do as you are done by, and most scrupulously avoid the iron rule, to gain the

end regardless of means. Practise charity, love mercy, deal justly, walk humbly, trust in God, obey his precepts, do good and no evil to your fellow men, and BE

CONSISTENT TO THE LAST.

CONTENTMENT.

'Tis better to be lowly born

And range with humble livers in content,
Than to be perk'd up in a glistening grief,
And wear a golden sorrow.-Shakespeare.

CONTENTMENT is felicity. Few are the real wants of man. Like a majority of his troubles, they are more imaginary than real. Some well persons want to be better, take medicine, and become sick in good earnest -perhaps die under some patented nostrum. Some persons have wealth-they want more-enter into some new business they do not understand, or some wild speculation, and become poor indeed. Many who are surrounded by all the substantial comforts of life, become discontented because some wealthier neighbor sports a carriage, and his lady, a Brussels carpet and mahogany chairs, entertains parties, and makes more show in the world than they. Like the monkey, they attempt to imitate all they see that is deemed fashionable; make a dash at greater contentment; dash out their comfortable store of wealth; and sometimes, determined on quiet at least, close the farce with a tragedy, and dash their brains out with a blue pill. Discontented persons live in open rebellion against their great Benefactor, and virtually claim wisdom, more than infinite. They covet, they wish, and wishes are as prolific as rabbits.

One

imaginary want, like a stool pigeon, brings flocks of others, and the mind becomes so overwhelmed, that it looses sight of all the real comforts in possession. False theories of human happiness are adopted, com mon sense and reason are paralyzed, a perverse temper, like cider in the sun, becomes changed to an acute sour; the imagined opinions of others, that they belong to the lower ten thousand, lash their pride into a foaming fury; old fashioned contentment is banished from the domicil, and they start in full pursuit after an Ignis Fatuus, and are led, rapidly, into the quagmire of poverty and want. They barter competence, domestic felicity, and substantial comforts, for ideal good, and obtain, for their labour, the dregs of wretchedness. Let all remember, that a contented mind is a continual feast; that most of the upper ten thousand are strangers to its enjoyments; that confidence in God and a sweet submission to His will, are the surest sources of happiness, and that Lazarus left his rags for Heaven, and the rich man left his riches, for that place of torment, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

"We want but little here below,
Nor want that little long."

CURRENTS.

IN the Baltic sea, there is an upper and under current, running in opposite directions, a fit emblem of the men and customs of our country, in former times, and of the present day; the under current representing the happy simplicity and virtue of our pilgrim

fathers, and revolutionary patriots; the upper, the inconsistency of many modern men, times, and practices. The man who studies the laws and operations of unerring nature, and drinks freely at her crystal fountain, enjoys a happiness, purer and nobler, than that drawn from many of the highly varnished schools of the present luminous era. In the days of Penn, Franklin, and Rittenhouse; industry, a clear head, a matured judgment, and a good heart; with a good share of what the modern literati are pleased to term, a common education, were the best recommendations and surest passports, to public esteem and promotion. Now, in view of very many, a liberal education forms the legitimate stepping stone to the pulpit, the legislative hall, and the temple of fame. The primary landmarks of common knowledge and common sense, are, in view of many, lost, in the blaze of light, shed upon our country, by the luminaries of newly invented systems of science. The under current of practical intelligence, fit for every day use, is sinking deeper and lower, beneath the foaming torrent of the upper current, formed of fashionable and polite literature. A sermon, or a public speech, to be acceptable to some modern ears, not hearts, must be trimmed, like a Parisian bonnet, with all the ribbons of a brilliant fancy, and flowers of rhetoric; good sense and sound logic being a secondary matter. A few roses, culled from the dead, or foreign living languages, render it still more palatable. The waters of theology have become so deep, and so filled with snags and brush wood, that common fishermen can no longer labor with success. A man is no longer fit for the legislative hall, for the bar, or any of the learned professions, unless he has

mastered the classics and all the sciences, except the science of common business, and common sense, without which, he is a splendid ship without a helm.

I mean no disrespect to high seminaries of learning, or to the literati, but congratulate our country, and them, that we enjoy the shining lights of the classics, and the highest branches of science. I only aim to correct a mistaken idea that has gained credence with many, that, when a man has graduated at college, he is raised above the Heaven-born principle of equality, and is privileged to ride through life on the shoulders of commercial, mechanical, and agricultural men; called, by some high-toned, aristocratic professors, the common herd; but who are the bone and sinew of our country. Primary schools, where a thorough English education can be acquired, are of the first importance, and should never be overwhelmed by the upper current of incorporated colleges.

When the mechanic shop, the counting house, the plough, the distaff, and the kitchen; fall into disrepute, and are submerged by the upper current of fashionable accomplishments, vain show, pomp, and parade; the sun of our country's glory will set in gloom. When the republican simplicity of Greece and Rome receded before high classical literature, imported luxuries, and rules of etiquette-when they ceased to call men from the plough, to the cabinet and the field; when the women exchanged the kitchen for the drawing room; corruption supplanted virtue; the genius of LIBERTY veiled its face, and fled; dissolution followed-ruin closed the scene.

Fashion contributes largely to swell the upper current, now rolling its towering waves over our land.