New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1842-11-16
Mercantile library Lectures.

| hean snd3an1v summoned TO take the place VI
| D n,v. who is confined at home by
sickness. FOf course, all the Associations "fli'h
b,,e hoo, exnecting to hear Mr.. Dana this week
mus. make other arrangements
Mr.. Bellows's subject was the Mercantile Char
..,er and the aecessity Of Moral Integrity to Aer-
camille success. The perniclous yet common error
that Merchan, who would be successful cannot
| be perfectly honest, was coa5ated with perse-
verine earnestness and force. He insisted that
stern integrity must be the basis of all enduring
success; and that, while instances have doubtless
occurred in which knaye has fraudulently obtained
or fool stumbled into fortune, yet the rule must
generally hold good that capacity, perseverance,
economy forecast, WISDOM and above all integrity,
are not only essential to genuine and permanent
success, but that, with large exceptions of course
those who possess these qualities do not and hardly
can fail and that failure is an evidence of ncaPa
CITY or vital defect OF character rather than OF ia
tality or misfortune. Ofthose who succeed in bu-
siness he maintained that nne-tenihs have distin-
gushed themselves by fitness and worth, while
nearly all of those who fail should attribute their
defeat TO their owa improvideRce, acknowledgement,
extravaganza, heedlessness incapacity, or any
thing else but misfortune.
We thong hit this portion of Mr.. b. g discourse
less profound and just than his teachings usually
are. In the first place, it deferred too much or
seemed 10 defer, the popular estimate OF what
constitutes success, apparently acqulescing IN the
common error that he who has acquired iortane,
and little else has been more successful than his
school-rnate who has obtained the barest compe-
tence. but with il that elevation of SOUL that true
appreciation of the means and ends of life, which
lead him no longer to covet or need a fortune but
to derive his happiness from the All which God
has given to man rather than the little which ne
could make specially his own. In the next
place, his argument assumed that Commerce as 1t
is is Just what it should be-that there are no
vices inherent in its existing constitution and pur-
suit. But let us suppose that onehalt OF men
should embark in Commerce, and conduct their
business prudently, must not most of them
inevitably fail from the excess of competition in
that pursuit? Again: suppose mankind should
speedily find means of dispensing with two.thirds
Of the commercial functions now Tequired-that
producers of various articles should interchange
their products directly with each other without
sending them through the cireaitous channels and
costly navigation of Commerce, would not many
merchants fail of acquiring, from the mere cessa-
ton of business-the diversion of Traffic from
those channels beside which they await 1t, into those
more direct and simple which Production had dis
covered or created Reyulsons in Currency and
Business, too-brt why need we speak OF these
Every observing man must admit that the great
ocean of Commerce abounds in shoals and rocks
not distinctly pointed out on any chart-we know
they are somewhere but while the most wary
yoyager looks keenly for them in one quarter they
are upon him from another We think, therefore,
that Mr. B. failed to consider clearly all the dan
gers to which commercial enterprise Is exposed,
all the vices inherent in Commerce as it now ex-
lists, and cast the opprobrium of failure on many
who with less integrity and greater pliablllty
might have attained what is usually termed sue
cess.
Mr. Bellows argued nobly for strict integrity IN
all business concerns, showing that he who lived
above his means who INDUCED in unjustiiiabie pa
radc and ostentaton, who incurred debts which
he could not safely calculate to pay when
due, who made representations of his own cir
cums,ances or of the qua lily of his commodities,
which the stric,est truth would not warrant was
in truth knave, and could neither pretend to IN
tcgrty nor hope for prosperity. On these points
he was most cogent, and searching, and his admo-
ni,ions cannot fail to exert salutary influence.
!, tbn tinr,
that a bad man cannot be a wise man, and that ne
who fances libertine good business man, bad
husband and father an upright citizen and relia'
Die friend, or a scofer at religion exemplary in
morals, labors under fatal Authorization. lnteS-
rity and Goodness are the obvious dictates OF I'M
derstanding and reason, without which no man can
hope for eminence.
The Lecture closed with a vivid portrayal oil
the enormity aud hagrancy of the offences against
The safety and happiness of society known as De-
falcation, Forgery, False Entries, &c. &c, which
of late have become so fearfully prevalent. Mr.
B. showed that one of these gigantic robbers who,
by deliberate violation of the confidence and trust
sacredly reposed in him, by falsfyng his accounts
or forging the name of another, has despoied the
| public or rendered destitute the widow and or
| phan, is infinitely more criminal than the common
thief, the outlaw, or even the wrctched being who
in a moment of passion, imbues his hands in
brother. blood. No measure of intamy can be
100 great for these cod-booded depredators on the
property and wel-being Of whole community,
whose crimes tend to loosen the bonds of Society
and destroy faith in Man. 1t is high time that
Public Opinion regarded their offences with a