sation. Our tongues are the most consummate prodigals on earth, with this advantage over others—the funds seem inexhaustible, although they may not be of much real value. With nothing are we as careless, as with the use of this little flippant member. We are not only prone to let it run too much at large, but we permit it to become unruly, and intrude upon the rights of others. It was this fact, undoubtedly, that induced Zeno so much to admire silence. But to impose silence, or prevent mischief, is out of the question. We are doomed to suffer from it. We may as soon expect the wind will cease to carry thistle seeds on their feather cars, and plant them a thousand miles from their parent stem. Pythagoras imposed silence on his pupils for days together, but the moment the injunction was taken off, they gabbled more than ever, and much nonsense too. But if we cannot stop, we can improve, by lessening the quantity and bettering the quality of our talk. This is more desirable than silence. This is what was designed by our great Creator-that we should speak, but speak only good and no evil. It was a saying of Zeno, that men have but one tongue and two ears, and should therefore hear much and speak little. If this hint of nature was better observed, it would be of vast benefit to our race. That too much is said, none will deny. We should have less and wiser talk-more and better work, in every department of life, from the domestic circle, up to the presidential chair. I am aware the present large quantity gives employment to lawyers, justices, juries, legislators, paper-makers, and printers; rather a problematical recommendation. Let us endeavor to keep our tongues with all dili gence, remembering, that he who offends not in word, and never indulges in idle talk, is a wise man. Let us devote our tongues to the improvement of mankind— the propagation of truth—the advancement of the glorious cause of our immaculate Redeemer-and in preparing ourselves and our fellow men, for that glorious rest and felicity, prepared for all the true followers of the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of all those who enlist under the banner of the cross, and hold out faithful to the end. Then we may hail with triumphant joy, the "Great day, for which all other days were made, Descended on poor earth-created man !” APPENDIX TO THE PROBE. DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. WHEN, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind, requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. : We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights: that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness: that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed: that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate, that governments, long established, should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present king of Great Britain, is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation, till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature; a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the repository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large, for their exercise; the state remaining, in the mean time, exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands. He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers. He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers, to harass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation : For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us : For protecting them by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states: For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world: For imposing taxes on us without our consent: For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury: For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences: For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighbouring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies: For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering, fundamentally, the forms of our governments: For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection, and waging war against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. |