The Evansville daily journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ia. [i.e. Ind.]) 1848-1862, 1860-07-09

if man will not work, neither shall he
eat"
God gives no value unto men
Unmatched by need of labor;
And Cost of Worth has ever been
The closest neighbor.
Were every hill precious mine,
Aud golden all the mountains
Were all the rivers fod with wine
By tireless fountains,
Life would be ravished Of its zest,
And shorn of its ambiti IN,
And sink into dreamless rest
OF inauition.
Cup the broad stairs that value rears,
Stand motives beck ming earthward
To summon meA to nObler spheres,
And load them wOrthward.
know that another poet has sung:
THAT just experience tells, in every soil.
That those who think must govern those
that toil;''
but hold, that however much poetry there
may be in this couplet their is wanting the
grand requisite of truth. The poet would
have Us believe that thought and toll, are
Incompatible with each other, when all his
tory is replete with examples of the grand
est thought, associated with the severest
bodily labors. Our own country, is and
must continue to be a nation of laborers,
and yet, the very basis of our institutions
is the grand central idea, that the people,
without reference to their avocations, are
competent to do their own thinking, their
own voting and if need be their own fight
ing. If were member of the House of
Representatives of the Great Republic of
Letters, and it was allowable to spoil the
poetry by improving the sense, I would
move to amend Dr. Goldsmith's lines just
quoted by making them read
Just experience, TO teach Is ever won't
That those who think must govern those who
don't.
1t is the presence of thought, and not the
absence of toll, that enables man to inf1u-
ence his fellow men, and when thought and
toll unite in the same person, toll instead of
decreasing the influence of their possessor,
gives him hold on the popular mind and
heart, which mere intellect never could at
tain.
Let us now, for a few minutes, attend to
the other topic of remark. 1t is the pro-
position that industry is one of the
high duties OF patriotism. Selfis the centre
OF the grand circle of all our domestic,
social and political duties, and the man
who is most true to his highest and best in
terests will be the best husband, the best
father, the best brother, the best friend aud
neighbor, and the best citizen. God has a
place for every man, and designed that
every man should be in his place, and in
dustrousy perform the duties of his posi-
tion, but man, in the exercise of that free
will with which he is endowed, too fire.
cuently illustrates the benevolent designs of
the Almighty. The Commonwealth is but
an aggregation of neighborhoodS or commu-
mites, each community is an aggregation of
families, aud each family is an aggregation
of individuals. Now suppose every mem
ber of every family, in any one neighbor-
hood, should always act up to the measure
of his duty, as a member of that family,
what happy, what glorious community
would not that be And then suppose,
that every community in the State, was
composed of just such families, how much
government would such a State require
Is it not manifest. that such a people
would, to a very great extent, be law unto
themselves and that the business of law
making and expounding would be greatly
circumscribed. Not that even in such a
community there would be no necessity
for the administration of law, for honest men,
intent only upon doing and receiving that
which is Just and right, will differ about
their rights just as they will differ about
what they conceive to be plain propositions
in philosophy, in government, or in reli-
gion-and as long as men are liable to hon.