incurring of some loss. This is the last lesson learned by individuals; and nations need to be taught it still more. The famous anecdote of Aristides, illustrates the point at which I aim. When he refused to burn the fleet of an enemy, though highly advantageous to the public because it was NOT RIGHT, he taught a lesson to all succeeding statesmen, more noble, more profitable too, than all the systems of political economy ever written. How great the mind into which such conceptions could enter! How noble the people who could support him! But it is no very criminal libel to say that Gov. McDuffie is not Aristides, and South Carolina is not Athens.

Indeed we are fast going down the hill which degrades human nature to the lowest competitions. Already politics has become a game of skill to secure a cunning interest. This is now avowed; and hypocrisy drops her mask because there is not reverence enough for virtue to induce her to wear it. The transition has been awful and rapid. We are a young people, with all the vices of a hoary empire on our heads.

THE PURITAN.

No. 57.

Still they were wise, whatever way they went.

Dryden.

It seems to be generally agreed, that our republic is in a perilous condition-commotions are heard of from every quarter. The supremacy of the laws is set aside; the statutes of justice and mercy are veiled, while the sovereign people signify their supreme will; and a short cut to rectitude, (or at least to vengeance,) seems now to be chosen by those who are impatient of the law's delay. A mob in a great city is a matter of course; and, even in Bundleborough itself, we have some thoughts of attempting one to pull down Mr. Needle's sign, whom we suspect of being a secret abolitionist. We have hardly materials enough for a genuine riot, but if we can turn out all the paupers from our work house; all the boys from our two animal schools, (as they were called in town

meeting,) and all the scolds and termagants, we may make a pretty respectable mob, and be in the fashion, which is the glory of all towns.

The reason of this general agitation over our country, is a matter of some curiosity. What is it that has thus let loose the spirit of discord and disturbance, to break our own repose, and make us a reproach in the sight of other nations? Has the devil broke his chain? or has the angel, foretold in Revelation, to whom was given the key of the bottomless pit, come down and opened that horrid chasm, so that there arises a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace? Some cause has produced this fermented state of things, open or latent; a cause which, if sagacity could discover, wisdom might be employed to remove it.

We are told by physicians that there are some diseases of the body, for the origin of which we must look into the mind. They are caused by grief, or care, or depression; so that in these cases we must seek a moral medicine for a mortifying mischief. In the diseases of nations, a similar remark is sometimes true. For their outward faults, you must look into their ideal world. You must inquire into the state of religion and philosophy among them. You must inquire into the processes of education in schools and colleges. There the steam is generated, which moves the engine. There is a public soul; and its habits

and opinions will govern the body politic in all its material developments.

Now, if we look into the ideal of our own age and country, we shall find that its characteristic is, that no principle is fixed, no foundation is laid; a universal skepticism has seized the public mind as to every human interest, and not a corner-stone is laid in politics, religion, morals, or education. We are, to be sure, on the verge of a glorious millennium ; the day of light and felicity is soon to dawn upon us; but this day is future, and all the light and splendor of it, only serves to throw darkness on the present hour. Our hopes are in discovery; we have nothing in possession. The description which Dr. Johnson has given of the age of Hudibras, is too faithful a picture of our own time. "It is scarcely possible," says he, "in the regularity and composure of the present, to imagine the tumult of absurdity and clamor of contradiction, which perplexed doctrine, disordered practice, and disturbed both public and private quiet, in that age when subordination was broken, and awe was hissed away; when any unsettled innovator, who could hatch a half-formed notion, produced it to the public; when every man might become a preacher, and almost every preacher could collect a congregation."

These must be considered as the tendencies of republicanism, and they can only be overcome by some opposite tendencies of a moral and voluntary kind.

I was a few days since conversing with a lawyer, and expressing my astonishment, considering the nature of our courts, that any culprit was ever brought to execution. I observed to him that crimes were always secret, and there must be evidence technically sufficient; then the justice must commit him; the grand jury must find a bill; the attorney general was intrusted with a vast deal of discretionary power; the traverse jury must be unanimous in their verdict; one man with a scruple in his mind may defeat their decision; then comes the motion for arrest of judgment, or for a new trial; the judge must pronounce sentence, and finally the executive power may grant a pardon.

So many were the tripping stones in the way to justice, in the plainest cases. The lawyer replied it would be so, were it not that the very difficulty in the theory was counteracted by a moral spirit in the practice. Nay, the consciousness of this difficulty almost produced this reacting spirit. In like manner it seems to me, our only salvation from certain tendencies in republicanism, must come from a consciousness of them, and an antagonist spirit produced by that knowledge.

Republicanism has a tendency to rash innovation, and must be counteracted by a moral bearing the other way. It wants a stable philosophy, and a fixed and binding religion. Party spirit has existed ever since man has existed in the social state; and I have often thought it might be reduced, like the questions in