to neither, and yet mingling with both, and holding them together as one body politic, like the cement or the solder which the mechanic uses to make different materials cohere and form one indivisible mass.

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"I. Go to, now, ye Rich men, rejoice and be thankful in the abundance of your possessions. Ye have sought out the way to wealth, and God hath given you a prosperous issue. He hath sent home your ships laden with the riches of distant climes; they have been wafted over bottomless gulfs by his auspicious gales; his hand hath kept them on the surface of ruffled oceans; and his lamp, in the northern sky, hath guided them across pathless wastes of waters to their destination. His rains have watered your ground, and your thirsty furrows have drunk in fatness from his clouds and his dews. His creative energies have covered your fields with food for man and beast, and your pastures with beasts of burden and animals for your service. Your garments are not moth-eaten, nor your gold and silver cankered. Thieves have not robbed you of your treasure, nor the fire consumed your substance. Your cents have swelled to dollars, and your dollars have brightened to eagles. Down, down on your knees and worship,not your dollars and eagles, your ships and storehouses, your fields and flocks, but HIM, who them, and permits you to enjoy them; HIM, who hath appointed you his treasurers and almoners, and will call upon you to give a strict account of your stewardship; who will allow you large commissions for that which you employ in his service; and will exact compound interest for all you mis-spend in wantonness

gave

and riotous living. Be thankful, moreover, that ye live in a land where Honor waits on Wealth, and oft-times goes, a pilgrim gray,' to worship at its shrine. Here no despotic prince justifies an assessment on your purse, because it contains what he wants, nor lays claim to your teeth, while he gives you the privilege of redeeming them at the price of thousands of each. Whatever has been given you,- all that you have, is yours, and with it you may purchase distinction, service, honor, praise, gratitude, happiness. Rejoice, then, O rich man, in thy wealth, and let it cheer thy heart and delight thine eyes; but know thou, that unless thou render to the Giver praise and thanksgiving, God will bring thee unto judgement.

But

Wealthy men, that have estates to lose,
Whose conscious thoughts are full of inward guilt,

May shake with horror,

To have their actions sifted, or to appear
Before their Judge.

That man is blest, who stands in awe
Of God, and loves his sacred law;
His seed on earth shall be renowned;
His house, the seat of wealth, shall be
An inexhausted treasury,

And with successive honors crowned.

"II. Ye, Poor, — (or rather ye, who call yourselves poor, for in this goodly land we have no such poor, as starve in other countries,) thank God, and take courage. If he has not given you riches beyond your capacity to calculate, he has given you skilful hands, intelligent heads, innocent hearts, moderate desires, economical habits, health, strength, resolution, perse

verance, and are not these the never-failing auxiliaries to competence, to affluence, to wealth? Have you not the privilege of exercising all these faculties, and of enjoying all that their exercise produces, without the annoyances, which assail the bosom of him, who cannot invest his income so fast as it increases? Bless God, with all your hearts, that your sleep is not disturbed by dreams of desolating tempests, that you may lie down to your rest, without dread of the midnight-robber, that you are not the prey of sharpers, -that the fall of stocks produces no loss of appetite at breakfast, — that the rates of exchange affect not the flavor of your dinner, and that neither sub-treasurers, nor fiscal agents can run away with the money you have earned to purchase a supper. If you are too weak to labor, and if sickness has thrown you into a state of dependence upon the bounty of others for support, still you may thank God, that he has put it into the hearts of men to provide relief for the poor and him who hath no home. Be grateful to Him who hath moved the rich to supply your necessities, to feed you, as thousands of them will, THIS DAY, with comforts and even luxuries, and while, with ordinary words of courtesy, you thank your fellow-mortals, let the incense of a grateful heart rise up for a memorial before that throne, around which all must hereafter be gathered, when the rich and the poor, the small and the great, shall be called to give an account of their deeds.

"III. If the rich and the poor have cause for thanksgiving and praise, how much greater obligation is imposed on you,—ye on whom God hath bestowed

the blessing so ardently desired by the son of Jakeh 'Give me neither poverty nor riches; '— Give me not riches, 'lest I be full and deny thee;'- Give me not poverty, 'lest I steal and take the name of the Lord in vain.' If you have what content and decency require, and covet not superfluous pomp and wealth, let your thankfulness be manifested by the temperate use of the creature comforts,' and the cheerfulness which takes the buffets and rewards of fortune with equal thanks,' and that independence, which never fawns upon wealth, nor truckles to power. Thank God, heartily, that you are not a slave to the demon of the mine, nor a worshiper of the idol of ambition. Above all, thank Him that he has not abandoned you to the trade of the politician, nor, in his wrath given you up to that most despicable of all desires, the hankering for an office. Bless him that you are not the progeny of the horse-leech, whose daughters never cease to cry, Give, Give,' nor of the generation of those, (O how lofty are their eyes!) that never say, 'It is enough!'

Thrice happy he,

To whom the wise indulgency of Heaven,

With sparing hand, but just enough has given.

"And now, let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter;' and it is this: There is no sensible man who, on looking back to the incidents of the past year, the prosperous condition of the industrious classes of our citizens, and the reasonable prospects of a continuance of that prosperity, will deny that we are, as a people, highly blessed, and ought to be happy. The questions connected with our domestic politics, about which there is so much complaining and scolding,

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which are used by one party or another, as the mere weapons with which to carry on a mutual political warfare, are, in truth, when compared with the general progress of improvement and increase of wealth and its advantages, very insignificant matters. The number of people who are directly affected in their property and occupations by the running away of public defaulters, the frauds of the directors of moneyed institutions, and the unsettled state of the rates of exchange, is, after all, but a very little fraction of our twenty millions. Compared with the millions, who pursue the even tenor of their way,' willing to work and contented with the reasonable profits arising from the products of their industry, the brokers who live by selling worthless stocks, and the speculators who get cheated in the purchase, form but a contemptible part of the whole. Those who have traded in the valuable commodity, called Politics, with small capitals, and have not yet been able to procure an office, are perhaps the only class of our citizens, who are really entitled to compassion, and whose right to grumble will not be disputed. We would not undertake to say that a disappointed office-seeker has any cause of thankfulness, for he does not find even commiseration. There is no one to mourn for him, and of course he receives no pity to be grateful for. But such should form no exception to the general invitation to thanksgiving. Let men all unite this day in cheerful thankfulness, in pious gratitude, to the Giver of all Good;

For should our thanks awake the rising sun,

And lengthen as his latest shadows run,

That, though the longest day, would soon, too soon, be done." Nov. 25, 1841.