correspondent to take "country paper" or depreciated bank-notes? They require a book-keeper, and one offers whose qualifications are of the highest grade; but his family are in distress, and they know he will sooner take a meagre compensation than miss the place why should they tender him the usual salary?—These hints will suffice to identify the class of dealers I have in view, and who are cited here for a single object. I would have you note the low, sordid, pitiful conception which these men must have of a mercantile life. They may, if you will, be rich men, successful men, men who have a potential influence in bank-parlours, and who are treated with great outward respect on 'Change. But if your profession were made up of such men, it would concentrate within itself more meanness than could now be sifted out of all the other trades and callings put together.

Commerce, as it lies before the mind of a true merchant-like him described in the opening of this Lecture, and like others we could all name, if required-has no affinity with these base principles, They see in it a system of interchanges founded on the organic structure of the globe, and mercifully designed by the Author of our being, to subserve the most salutary ends in our physical and moral training. Not, indeed, that they discard the ideas of profit and accumulation, or disparage prudence and

energy in the buying and selling of goods, and in every other department of business; or deem it amiable and exemplary to let themselves be imposed upon by unprincipled rivals or adventurers. There are very few such transcendentalists in the walks of traffic. But they are men who believe in the homely maxim, "LIVE, AND LET LIVE." Instead of grasping at every thing within their reach, on the mercenary principle that "to the victor belong the spoils of the vanquished," they would not that there should. be any "vanquished," but that all should receive a fair remuneration for their skill, their risks, their enterprise, or whatever they may have brought into the teeming arena of traffic. They welcome the propitious venture which fills their own lap with ingots; but they also rejoice in the prosperity which reaches their neighbours, and spreads over the whole community the ensigns of thrift and happiness. Aiming, as they are, to make a fortune, they are far from dwarfing a commercial life into this as its only or its highest function. They see it also in its nobler aspects, as looking to the well-being of individuals, the improvement of States, and the diffusion of Christianity. It supplies, in their view, one of the best of all schools for the culture of integrity, candour, moderation, decision, generosity, and other elevated qualities. These qualities are not the growth of a day. Luther

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specified temptation as one of the three things requisite to make a minister. It is equally indispensable to make a merchant; and a business-life involves a perpetual trial of one's principles. It furnishes incessant openings for the suggestions of avarice, falsehood, extortion, and jealousy. It daily invites to indolence or to rashness. And no man can, year after year, repel the Protean-like enticements to wrong-doing, which lurk along the avenues of trade and make their way into every counting-room and insinuate themselves into every business-transaction, without becoming both a wiser and a better man. His virtue will grow apace. His probity will strike its roots deeper and deeper into the foundations of his character. And he will be garnering up strength to resist future assaults of a similar kind.

The very errors and reverses of commerce conduce to the same end. One of the proper fruits of indiscretion and disaster, is, to make men prudent. A little experience of the fluctuations of mercantile affairs, may teach an impetuous temper the value of that wholesome maxim, "Hasten slowly." A careful observation of the causes which have produced the downfall of others, may prompt to a cautious and moderate policy. The disappointments to which even the most sagacious are liable, are adapted to impress the mind with a becoming sense of God's universal

Providence and our absolute dependence upon Him for success in every undertaking. In fine, even the ordinary events of a commercial life are fraught with moral lessons, no less instructive than those our Saviour has taught us to gather from the fowls of the air and the lilies of the field.

Looking at the subject in another of its aspects, whatever promotes the physical or the moral wellbeing of individuals, is a substantial benefit to society: so that the salutary discipline just described, to which so many characters are constantly subjected, is enlarging the moral wealth of a country, as really as the processes of trade are contributing to its material resources. If commerce multiplies our wants, it augments both our capacity and our opportunity for useful labour. It encourages industry, stimulates skill, rewards enterprise, diffuses knowledge, and developes those capabilities of exertion which slumber in the bosom of every community.

There is a still higher view than this that which affiliates a commercial life with the welfare of Christianity. This connection may be seen in that process of self-discipline, already adverted to, which is going forward in the shop of many an humble tradesman. In the tedious toil with which he enlarges his scanty stock of goods, in the vigilance with which he watches for opportunities of traffic, in the firmness with which

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he repels the suggestions of fraud and covetousness, in the patience with which he submits to his privations, in the alternate hopes and fears, the mingled cheerfulness and anxiety, which fill up his days and too often his watchful nights, there is a gradual maturing of his character in integrity, self-command, contentment, and trust in Providence. And when we consider upon what masses of population, distributed among the various grades of mercantile life, this training is brought to bear, it can excite no surprise that we find numerous examples of a perennial and robust Christianity along the thoroughfares of trade.

On a broader scale, commerce proves itself the friend and ally of true religion, by supplying means and opening channels for its diffusion. To this result, indeed, it unconsciously contributes, even while contemplating only pecuniary gains. This was once beautifully expressed by a late illustrious advocate and statesman, who was justly esteemed as one of the chief ornaments of our city, and whose death has been felt as a national bereavement :*"The ship which, in quest of profitable traffic, seeks out the abode of barbarian ignorance, covered with the thick darkness of inhuman superstition, is like the first ray

* The Hon. John Sergeant.