8.

THE following observations are taken from an address deliv ered by the late Dr. CHANNING, of Boston, before the Mercantile Library Company of Philadelphia, in May, 1841:

"Commerce is a noble calling. It mediates between distant nations, and makes men's wants, not, as formerly, stimulants to war, but bonds of peace. The universal intellectual activity of which I have spoken is due, in no small degree, to commerce, which spreads the thoughts, inventions, and writings of great men over the earth, and gathers scientific and literary men everywhere into an intellectual republic. So it carries abroad the missionary, the Bible, the cross, and is giving universality to true religion. Gentlemen, allow me to express an earnest desire and hope, that the merchants of this country will carry on their calling with these generous views. Let them not pursue it for themselves alone. Let them rejoice to spread improvements far and wide, and to unite men in more friendly ties. Let them adopt maxims of trade which will establish general confidence. Especially in their intercourse with less cultivated tribes, let them feel themselves bound to be harbingers of civilization. Let their voyages be missions of humanity, useful arts, science and religion. It is a painful thought, that commerce, instead of enlightening and purifying less privileged communities, has too often made the name of Christian hateful to them; has carried to the savage not our useful arts and mild faith, but weapons of war and the intoxicating draught. I call not on God to smite with his lightnings, to overwhelm with his storms, the accursed ship which goes to the ignorant, rude native, freighted with poison and death; which goes to add new ferocity to savage life, new licentiousness to savage sensuality. I have learned not to call down fire from heaven. But, in the name of humanity, of religion, of God, I

implore the merchants of this country not to use the light of a higher civilization to corrupt, to destroy our uncivilized brethren. Brethren they are in those rude huts, in that wild attire. Establish with them an intercourse of usefulness, justice and charity. Before they can understand the name of Christ, let them see his spirit in those by whom it is borne. It has been said, that the commerce of our country is not only corrupting uncivilized countries, but that it wears a deeper, more damning stain; that, in spite of the laws of the land and the protest of nations, it sometimes lends itself to the slave-trade; that, by its capital, and accommodations, and swift sailers, and false papers, and prostituted flag, it takes part in tearing the African from his home and native shore, and in dooming him, first to the horrors of the middle passage, and then to the hopelessness of perpetual bondage. Even on men so fallen, I call down no curse. May they find forgiveness from God through the pains of sincere repentance; but, continuing what they are, can I help shrinking from them as among the most infamous of their race?

"Allow me to say a word to the merchants of our country on another subject. The time is come when they are particularly called to take yet more generous views of their vocation, and to give commerce a universality as yet unknown. I refer to the juster principles which are gaining ground on the subject of free trade, and to the growing disposition of nations to promote it. Free trade! this is the plain duty and plain interest of the human race. To level all barriers to free exchange; to cut up the system of restriction, root and branch; to open every port on earth to every product; this is the office of enlightened humanity. To this, a free nation should especially pledge itself. Freedom of the seas; freedom of harbors; an intercourse of nations, free as the winds; this is not a dream of philanthropists. We are

tending towards it, and let us hasten it. Under a wiser and more Christian civilization, we shall look back on our present restrictions as we do on the swaddling-bands by which, in darker times, the human body was compressed. The growing freedom of trade is another and glorious illustration of the tendency of our age to universality."

9

JACOB BARKER, for some years a practising lawyer in New Orleans, appeared several years since in his own defence and obtained a verdict after a long personal address to the jury, which appears to have made also a vivid impression upon a numerous auditory. In reciting the chequered history of his lifehis unrivalled commercial enterprise" that the canvass of his ships had whitened every sea, and that the star-spangled banner of his country had floated from the mast-heads of his ships in every clime"-his aid in procuring a loan of $500,000 for the government during the last war, &c.,-he said he came to New Orleans poor, and in debt; that he had since made a great deal of money, and spent it in the support of his family and the payment of his debts outstanding in New York; that all these debts were now settled, as was proved; and that he owed nothing in the world at present but one amount (on a note, he believed,) of about $1,000. The Tropic says, "His vindication of his reputation for benevolence and veracity was manly and exceedingly eloquent, and fully sustained by the evidence."

10.

COMMERCIAL pursuits are attractive to the ambitious. They offer the hope of wealth, influence, ease, and a high social standing. Consequently, thousands of young men, who ought to remain in the country, and cultivate the ground, enter the cities

every year, to engage in trade. There is an unnecessary multiplication of those who come between the producer and the consumer, adding nothing to the value of the commodity. It is not too much to say that a quarter of those now engaged in commerce, in our cities, could do the work which all do. Consequently, the consumer is obliged to support three-quarters of them, who are thus leading an unproductive, if not useless life. A large proportion of those in all kinds of commercial business, are sitting idle behind their counters a great part of the day. Where they attend to fifty customers, they might as easily attend to two hundred. But, as they must be supported, it is necessary for them, somehow or other, to get as much profit out of their fifty customers as they would otherwise do out of more. Hence all the tricks of trade, the thousand deceptions practised upon the ignorance of the purchaser, the arts of puffing, the various devices to attract buyers; which, when not absolutely dishonest, are at least unworthy and degrading. Is it in the order of nature that hundreds of young men, in the prime of life and strength, should stand behind the counter, doing woman's work? Poor women, who depend on their labor, are obliged to toil half the night at the needle, for a miserable compensation, because the situations which they ought to fill, in all kinds of retail business, are taken from them by men who should be ploughing the fields.

11

THE skill of a merchant or tradesman is exhibited in the combination of the greatest profit with the least expense; and he will make the most money who calmly looks from the "beginning to the end," rather than to be attracted by any intermediate point, however profitable it may appear.

12

Ir is very possible for a man to act dishonestly every day, says Dimond, the merchant moralist, and yet never to defraud another of a shilling. A merchant who conducts his business partly or wholly with borrowed capital is not honest if he endangers the loss of an amount of property which, if lost, would disable him from paying his debts. He who possesses a thousand dollars of his own, and borrows a thousand of some one else, cannot virtuously speculate so extensively as that; if his prospects should be disappointed, he would lose twelve hundred. The speculation is dishonest, whether it succeeds or not: it is risking other men's property without their consent. Under similar circumstances it is unjust not to insure. Perhaps the majority of unensured traders, if their houses and goods were burnt, would be unable to pay their creditors. The injustice consists, not in the actual loss which may be inflicted (for whether a fire happens or not, the injustice is the same,) but in endangering the infliction of the loss. There are but two ways in which, under such circumstances, the claims of rectitude can be satisfied-one is by not endangering the property, and the other by telling its actual owner that it will be endangered, and leaving him to incur the risk or not as he pleases.

13

THERE are some men, whose failure to succeed in life is a problem to others, as well as themselves. They are industrious, prudent and economical; yet, after a long life of striving, old age finds them still poor. They complain of ill luck. They say fate is always against them. But the fact is, they miscarry because they have mistaken mere activity for energy. Confounding two things essentially different, they have supposed