Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1875-09-11

ana wheat, indian corn ana TOBACCO,
with fruits in all the seasons. As our
venerable historian has said Tenn
essee, before the white man took pos
session, was great park abandoned by
the nomadic tribes as place of hab-
itation because it furnished the great
hunting grounds of thecontinent. The
buffalo, the elk the deer-game of
every kind-were left to occupy it;
and here they found growing, in wild
luxuriance, every variety of food
necessary to their subsistence"
Not only have we this wealth of
climate and soil, but, as if nature had
intended this to become the happy
abode of intelligent end civilized man,
it has stored, up for us in the hills and
mountains all the minerals necessary
to the highest development of art and
civilization. We have marbles of
every hue and of every quality-cop-
per, lead and zinc, coal and iron-all
scattered with prodigal profusion, and
as if designed to encourage man to
seek for and use them, they are easy
of access to degree known in no
other quarter of the globe. Almost
within sight of the place where we
stand, are mountains of iron surpas-
sing what is to be found in England
made rich BY her vast deposits-or in
Sweden, or the tanned mountains
Missouri. In convenient reach are
vast stores of coal laid up for use
in geological ages past, by the force of
the same genial sun that now invites
you to put forth all your energies to
utilize its efforts in your service.
Nowhere in the world is to be found
such abundance and variety of
mineral deposits; nowhere does
bounteous nature so invitingly per-
suade man to tax his energies and
procure for himself all the blessings of
wealth.
; And let not the moralist say that
wealth is to be despised! That man
is so exalted being as to be superior
to its degrading influences. 1t is not
degrading, nor to be despised. 1t
ministers to our pleasures, increases
our comforts, multiplies our resources,
commands for US political influence
and that consideration so gratifying to
Just pride and laudable ambition. 1t
provides for usthe leisure that gives
opportunity for the cultivation of
the affections, the development of the
intellectual faculties and the enlarge
ment of the boundaries of knowledge.
The state that is rich is powerful; its
voice will be heard, its councils will be
needed.
How shall we, as a people, acquire
this wealth, and thus secure to our
selves and those who shall come after
us the blessings that follow in its
train and the ability, without daily
sacrifices of all the comforts of civil
lied life, to bear the great burthens
of the debt that weighs so heavily
upon Us?
There is no royal way by which We
can attain to wealth. Our genial
climate, our fertile soils, our great de-
posts of iron and coal, will not of
themselves become active workers and
lay wealth as tribute at our feet. In
| the providence of God, and according
to his decree made the memorable law
of our being, there is but one way by
which it may be acquired, and that is
by labor and by the exercise of the
virtues of frugality and economy.
In that way, and by that alone, have
other people become rich.
To labor, hard, unwearying, ever
active and constant-we are indebted
for all that makes life pleasant for
our cultivated lands and smiling fields
and happy homes. We are indebted
to it for the art that embellishes civil
lied life, the science that subdues ma
ture to our wills, and for the philosophy
which throws its radiance upon the dark
shadows of this existence.
No brilliancy of intellect nor splen-
dor of genius can supply the place of
work. The great men, the successful
men of the world, those who have
borne down all opposition and moved
steadily forward to the consummation
of great enterprises those who have
builded cities, have established empires
or founded dynasties those who have
distinguished themselves by useful in
ventiOns, have made great discoveries
in science and philosophy, or whose
names have become immortal by their
great actions, without exception, have
been great workers.
May not, on this occasion, illus
trate my full meaning by referring to
one who spent the early days of his
life and the maturer years of his man
hood in your midst whose struggles
and disappointments and great success
es are familiar to you all. To him
who, poor tailor-boy, cast upon the
world without friend, illiterate to
the degree that when he entered upon
mans estate he could not write his
name; spent the time wrested from
the necessity of underwriting labor,
not in idleness, but in painful effor t
to gain some little of that knowledge
denied to him by adverse fortune but
freely bestowed upon Others reared
under happier auspices. His life was
a life of toll, but this toll brought tC
him, and to his, great rewards.
, From poverty he reached to wealth
+ and comfort: from ignorance he
climbed to the nights of knowledge
! from obscurity he lifted himself to the
greatest of earthly positions; and now
!, he has gone down to the grave, honorec
r by forty millions Of his countrymen.
: What an example to the young mel
!. who may listen to me to-day! How
, encouraging the lesson to all of every
age With such possibilities, in this
alone, of all the Governments or
earth, we should be taught to prize
e more highly our free democratic