The native American. [volume] (Washington City [i.e. Washington, D.C.]) 1837-1840, 1839-02-09

1 TOO mucn attention, 100 HluCH care, ny loo nahy
servants at home; too many lessons at school; toe
many indulgences in society. They are not lei
sufficiently to exert their own powers, to invent
their own amusements, to make their own way
They are often inefficient and unhappy, they lack
! ingenuity and energy because they are taken GU
of the school of provdence; and placed In Ole
which our own foolish fondness and pride have
| bnt for them Wealth, without law OF entail
to help it, has always lacked the energy even TO
keep its own treasures. They drop from its i'm
heclle hand. What an extraordinary revolution
in domestic life is that, which, in this respect, is
presented to us all over the world! man,
trained in the school of industry and frugality
acquires large estate. His children possibly
keep il. But the third generation almost inevia-
bly, goes down the rolling wheel Of fortune, and
there learns the energy necessary to rise again.
And yet we are, almost all of us, anxious to put
our children, or to ensure that our grandchildren
shall be put, on this road to indulgence, luxury,
vice, degradation, and ruin!
This excessive desire and admiration for wealth
is one Of the worst traits in our modern civiza-
ton. We are, if may say SO, in an unfortunate
dilemma in this matter. Our political civilization
has opened the way for multitudss to wealth, and
created an Unsuitable desire for it; but our mental
civilization has not gone far enough, to make
noting mental culture at home, and works of
philanthropy abroad; lift were multiplying studios
of art, and building up institutions of learning
around US; if it every way raising the intel
lectlal and moral character of the world, there
could scarcely be too much of it. But if the ut
most aim, effort and ambition Of wealth, be to pro-
cure rich furniture, md provide costly entertain
ments, | am inclined to say, that there could
scarcely be too little of it. 1T employs the poor,
DO hear it said! Better that it were divided with
the poor Willing enough am |, that it should be
in few hands, if they will use it nobly-with tenn
perate self-restraint and wise philanthropy. But
OH no other condition, will admit that it is
a good, either for its possessors or for any body
else. do not deny that it may lawfully be, to a
certain extent, the minister of elegances and lux
nries, and the handmade of hospitality and ply
steal enjoyment; but this | say, that just in such
proportion as its tendencies, Invested of all higher
aims and tastes, running that way, are they
running to evil and to peril.
That peril, moreover, does not attach to indivi-
daas and families alone; but it stands, fearful
beacon, in the experience Of cities and empires.
The lessons OF past times, on this subject, are
emphatic and solemn. I undertake to say that
the history of wealth. has always been history
of corruption and downfall. The people never
existed that could stand the trial.
Boundless profusion-alas! for humanity--ls
too little likely to spread for any people, the the
atre of manly energy, rigid self-denial, and lofty
virtue. Where is the bone and sinew and strength
of country? Where do you expect to find its
Hottest talents and virtues? Where its martyrs
to patriotism or religion? Where are the men to
meet the days of peril and disaster! Do you look
for them among the children of and indnl-
gence and luxury?
II ,c
races of men over the earth, we have always
seen opulence and luxury sinking before poverty
and toll and hardy nurture. 1t is the very law
that has presided over the great professions OF
empire. Sidon and Tyre, whose merchants pos.
sessed the wealth of princes; Babylon and Pal
mvra, the seats Of Asatic luxury; Rome, lader
with the spoils of a world, overwhelmed by he
own vices more than by the hosts of her enemies
all these, and many more, are examples OF tn
destructive tendencies Of immense and Immature
accumulation. No lesson in history is so clear
so impressive, as this.
I trust, indeed that our modern, our Christian
cities and Kingdoms are to be saved from sucl,
disastrous issues. l trust that, by the appropria
ton of wealth, less to purposes of private gratif
cation, and more to purposes of Christian philan~
thropv and public spirit, we are TO be saved. But
this is the very point OIL which insist. Me
must become more generous and benevolent, not
more selfish and effeminate, as they becom'
more rich, or the history OF modern wealth will
follow in the sad train of all past examples; an I
the story of American prosperity and of Englis /,
opuence, will be told as moral, in empires be-
yond the Rocky Mountains, or in the newly-dis-
covered continents of the Asiatic Seas!
De,cey's Sermons.
NApoLEoN-I have never met with two MOI
characteristic anecdotes Of Napoleon than til.