tions as would have had a tendency to give a national character to the people of the United States. They should have instituted a grand national system of education, and breathed the spirit of virtuous republicanism into the rising generation. They should have instituted schools,gymnasia, games, festivals. They should have made it their primary concern to raise citizens for the only republic on earth. They should have considered the youth of both sexes as belonging to the nation, and have taken care that the offspring of the indigent should not be brutalized by drudgery, nor that of the opulent ruined by indulgence. They should have distinguished excellenee by honorary rewards and desirable privileges, and have rendered indolence, avarice, and selfishness, contemptible. Indeed, any institution, which would have created nationality, would have been attended with an infinity of advantages.

But nothing of this nature was attempted: they legislated concerning exports and imports, offices and salaries. They thought nothing worth their attention but the acquisition and protection of property-the ways and means of getting rich, and the sweets of luxurious enjoyment. No plan of education has been formed: no grand national work has been undertaken; no glorious enterprise has been achieved; nothing daring and magnanimous has been attempted, which might give the citizens a high opinion of their country, of their government, of themselves; nothing has been thought of which might divert the attention of the citizens from their avaricious pursuits; nothing has been imagined which might share the respect which is now paid solely to riches; no-the image of no new God has been set up, which might divide, with Mammon, the adorations of the good people of the United States! What will be the fate of a commonwealth governed by such grovelling sordid statesmen,such intriguing low politicians? It will become a nation of mercantile adventurers,brokers, shopkeepers, pedlers, usurers, and unprincipled speculators. A mercenary spirit will pervade every part of the community: it will influence the actions of the governing and the governed, of the opulent and the indigent, of the wise and the foolish. Sunk in luxurious indolence or

groaning under the weight of oppression, cowardly, weak, divided, effeminate, base, the nation will become a prey to the first daring usurper or ambitious invader. Frank. We wander from the subject, Piomingo. Plato taught his disciples in the shades of the academy; Epicures inquired after the sovereign good in the delicious recesses of a garden; Zeno instructed his followers in a portico; Aristotle was the father of the walkers; and thou I suppose, meanest to institue a sect of sleeping philosophers, and give lessons, in thy bed, on indolence of body and tranquility of mind. Thou wilt place the summum bonum in a torpor of the faculties. Wilt thou rise voluntarily? or shall I exert a little salutary force, and compel thee to obey my commands? If existence be desirable, why should we cast away the blessing? A man might as well be dead as continually asleep."

Piomingo. (stretching and yawning) Mere existence is by no means desirable: therefore, when I see no prospect of pleasure, I grow weary of life, and resorted to that species of temporary death which is vulgarly called sleep. Dead! (yawning) I should like very much to be dead.

Frank. Die then: there is nothing to prevent thee. I will, as a friend, endeavor to facilitate thy escape from this troublesome world: I will furnish thee with a knife, a rope, or a poisoned chalice: I will accompany thee to the brink of a precipice, or to the banks of a stream. Leap boldly: and terrestrial affairs will disturb thee no longer.

Piomingo. Thou art very obliging: but, at present I feel no inclination to trouble thee with commands of that extraordinary nature. For death we may "devoutly wish;" but dying, I apprehend, must be rather disagreeable.However, to convince thee of my respect for thy advice, I hasten to extricate myself from the embraces of sloth.

Frank. Thou dost well. Sloth is a most pernicious mistress: she smiles, soothes, seduces, and caresses; but, finally, destroys every one who yields to her blandishments. Though thou wert Samson, thou wilt lose thy strength if thou layest thy head in the lap of this Delilah! Though thou wert Ulysses, thou wilt sink to a

state of brutality if thou yield to the solicitations of this Circe! Though thou wert Hercules, thou wilt become contemptible if thou become the slave of this Omphale!

Piomingo. Thou speakest well: but did I not feel an inclination for breakfast, I fancy I should be able to resist the most potent of thy arguments, and withstand thy most ardent solicitations.

Frank. I have heard that savages smoke and sleep away their time, and cannot be roused from their state of stupefaction, save by the calls of hunger or a desire of revenge.

Piomingo. Thou hast not been correctly informed. Friendship, glory, love of country, afford motives sufficiently powerful to call forth their ardor, and produce the most heroic exertions.

Frank. Wilt thou go to church?

Piomingo. I think not. To what church wouldest thou take me?

Frank. Thou art so old that I have small hopes of being so blessed as to witness thy conversion: were it not that I am discouraged by this consideration, I should insist upon thy attending some of the calvinistic, reformed, doubly refined, and evangelical churches, where thou mighest hear the gospel preached in its purity, and be carefully instructed in the doctrines of grace.

Piomingo. What are the doctrines of grace?

Frank. We are commanded not to "cast pearls before swine." Wert thou only in a state of grace and honored with a pair of "newinvented patent" spiritual eyes, thou wouldest be able to discover the beauty of these sublime, man-depressing, and God-exalting doctrines. Ah! it is a very comfortable thing to be in a state of grace! In that case, my dear Piomingo, thou shouldest not need to be under any apprehensions of being eternally damned: thou mightest venture slyly to indulge those corruptions of thy nature which might not be purged away by the process of regeneration; but thou wouldest have to be careful not to bring reproach upon the godly by thy irregular proceedings. There was David, for instance, the royal nightingale: he made a few

false steps in his progress through life; but, being one of the elect, his soul was as safe as a guinea in the iron chest of a miser: the Lord never fails to pardon the transgressions of his children.

Piomingo. Thou bringest to my recollection a man greater than David-the fighting, praying, canting, hypocritical, enthusiastic, daring, cruel, magnanimous, Cromwell; who murdered his master, and committed a few barbarities in Ireland and Scotland. He inquired, towards the end of his life, if it were certain, that the saints could not fall away and be finally lost. Being answered, that nothing was more certain, he exclaimed with exultation, "Then I am safe: for I know that I was in a state of grace!"-I am afraid that these doctrines are unfavorable to the practice of virtue.

Frank. Virtue! Evangelical christians never mention virtue, unless in the way of reproach: it is a heathenish kind of a thing-filthy rags-yea, d*** in the sight of the Lord. Any one who hopes to acquire favor with God by promoting the good of his fellow creatures is regarded by them with the utmost contempt and abhorrence, and stigmatized with the odious epithets of legalist and moralist. They feel abundance of love and veneration for that being who from all eternity judiciously selected them as the objects of his beneficence; but they look down with ineffable contempt on a reprobate world -"vessels, of wrath fitted to destruction!" They have a great antipathy against nature and every thing natural, and are continually striving to have it brought into subjection: indeed they have been so far successful as to have brought themselves to think with pleasure of the eternal damnation of a vast majority of mankind. They have constructed a hell, a dreadful hell, in which they hope to see unbelievers eternally punished: Yea, they flatter themselves with the idea that they, the saints, shall be placed on thrones, and will have the sublime happiness of pronouncing the irreversible doom, of neverending torments, upon impenitent millions: among whom they expect to see reprobate fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, wives and children!