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THE BRIEF REMARKER, &c.

CHAPTER I.

Of the Inventions and Improvements of the present age.

THERE are two opposite extremes in sentiment, and both productive of evil in practice: the one, a supercilious contempt of the wisdom of former ages; and the other, a blind veneration for it.

Within the period of the last thirty years, the world has teemed with authors and admiring readers, in whose visionary fancies a new and most sublime order of things was rising out of the chaos of the past, and to be consummated-not through the regenerating influences of christianity, but by the omnipotence of human reason. In their wild conceptions, what had been called the light of antiquity was gross darkness, and its maxims and institutions were to be swept away as vile and cumbrous rubbish. The men of all former ages they regarded as pigmies, rather entitled to scorn than veneration. The world, they imagined, had been all along in swaddling clothes-in the imbecility of puling infancy; that the Age of Reason was now dawning, and men, ere long, would be as gods; that ships and ploughs would be taught to guide themselves, and balloons would supersede the necessity of horses and carriages for travelling. All old things, being the offspring of barbarian ignorance and vile prejudice, were to be done away. end was fortunately to be put to the partition of property, to the unnatural ties of matrimony, to all peculiar affection for one's own children, to all the narrow partialities arising from kindred blood. Every heart was to

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embrace, in its warm affections, nothing less than the whole living world. A system of morals and customs entirely new was to be reared; a system beautiful, magnificent, lofty-reaching to heaven!

These impious fooleries having had their day, have since, with general consent, been scoffed off the stage.

On the other hand, some are ever lecturing about the superior wisdom of antiquity; as if the world were constantly retrograding rather than advancing. Now this, though not so pernicious an error as the other, is, nevertheless, an error of hurtful consequence, inasmuch as it tends to damp and discourage the laudable spirit of enterprize and improvement.

"In ancient times the world was by so many ages younger and less experienced than it is in our own times"-observed the great Chancellor Bacon, who left this stage of mortality nearly two centuries ago. And with the like propriety may the same observation be made now, and retorted. In Chancellor Bacon's times (we have a good right to say) the world was so many ages younger and less experienced than it is in our own times. Neither is there wanting the fullest evidence arising out of the progress of civil society. Deeply astonished must have been that wonderful man, could he have foreseen the immense harvest of improvement already yielded from the seed, of which he was himself, as respects human agency, the principal sower.

The chequered age that we ourselves live in, is, along with all its pernicious follies and heavy iniquities, an age fraught with useful discoveries, with rare inventions, and with grand designs and plans of philanthropy. This terraqueous globe, and the nations and tribes inhabiting it, are much better known now, than at any former period. Through means of new inventions we enjoy very many comforts and conveniences, of which our progenitors of all former times were destitute; while fresh sources of knowledge are opened to us with regard to the customs, manners, and conditions of the various branches of the human family.

I should far exceed my proper limits were I so much as to name even an inconsiderable part of the useful inventions, discoveries, and improvements of the present

age, and of which the United States of America are entitled to claim a full proportional share. Passing over the generality of these, I will mention, and merely mention, six grand particulars, of immense interest to So ciety.

1. The institution of the Humane Society, resulting in the reanimation of very many that were, to all appear; ance, within the precincts of death.

2. Vaccination, which has put, and is putting, a period to the awful, and formerly so vastly extensive ravof the Small Pox.

age.' The Lancasterian System of Education, by means

of which there are now taught in the rudiments of learning, such vast multitudes of children, who, but for the discovery of that system, must have continued utterly illiterate and ignorant.

4. The Abolition of the African Slave Trade-that crying sin-that master abomination of christendomthat foul and loathsome blot upon our own country.

5. The discovery of the marvellous method to give ears as it were to the Deaf, and tongues to the Dumb.

6. The astonishing diffusion of sacred and saving truth, by means of Bible Societies, and the recent translations of that blessed book into so many different languages, together with the apostolical labors of christian missionaries in many of the benighted regions of the earth.

What single age has ever done more, or near so much?

Not to inquire into the proximate causes of these wonderful effects-suffice it to say, "these same effects, in the natural course of things, may themselves become causes producing other grand effects, multiplying and extending far beyond all human foresight." So that there is no small reason to hope that the progress of the next succeeding ages, will, under the auspices of Divine Providence, become more, and still more, extensive and rapid.

As in the progress of individual intellect, every suc ceeding step is facilitated by the preceding ones, so it is with the advance of knowledge in a whole community or country. And what then may not be expected from

the superior means of intellectual improvement now enjoyed, and the zeal so generally manifested to multiply and extend them!

CHAP. II.

Of the peculiar causes of so prevalent a restlessness of Disposition.

WHILE some ruin their circumstances by their indolence, others do it by their restlessness: always busy, but never pursuing any plan of regular industry. No sooner are they settled down in one business, than they change it for another. They are "every thing by turns, and nothing long." Their attentions thus dissipated, turn to no account; and poverty overtakes them whilst they are flying so many different ways to escape it.— Whereas a steady straight-forward course, in almost any single business, might have secured them a competence.

It is neither an imaginary nor a rare character, that I have now been describing: it is to be met with every where in town and country. Thousands are undone by means of this single foible; every thing else in their habits and dispositions giving promise of success.

This restlessness is owing sometimes to natural temper, but most commonly perhaps, to the peculiar circumstances of the country in which we live. In China, a boy must follow the occupation of his father, and stick to that or starve. In India, no one can raise himself above the level of the Cast in which he happens to be born. Nor is the mass of Europeans altogether free from shackles that bind them down to occupations in which their own choice has had no concern. If a man there be bred a cobler, he hardly may aspire to the honour of making shoes. But here, on the other hand, a man may put off his calling almost as easily as his clothes; or he may tack together several callings, and pursue them alternately, or all at once, as best suits his own fancy. Here, the field of individual enterprize is alike open to all. Here, no one is of a family so humble

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