myself, my family, the community, and God; for all these have an interest in that hand. Neither has a man the right to throw away his property. He defrauds himself, his family, the community in which he dwells; for all these have an interest in that property. If waste is dishonesty, then every risk, in proportion as it approaches it, is dishonest. To venture, without that foresight which experience gives, is wrong; and if we cannot foresee, then we must not venture.

Scheming speculation demoralizes honesty, and almost necessitates dishonesty. He who puts his own interests to rash ventures, will scarcely do better for others. The Speculator regards the weightiest affair as only a splendid game. Indeed, a Speculator on the exchange, and a Gambler at his table, follow one vocation, only with different instruments. One employs cards or dice, the other property. The one can no more foresee the result of his schemes, than the other what spots will come up on his dice; the calculations of both are only the chances of luck. Both burn with unhealthy excitement; both are avaricious of gains, but careless of what they win; both depend more upon fortune than skill; they have a common distaste for labor; with each, right and wrong are only the accidents of a game; neither would scruple in any hour to set his whole being on the edge of ruin, and going over, to pull down, if possible, a hundred others.

The wreck of such men leaves them with a drunkard’s appetite, and a fiend’s desperation. The revulsion from extravagant hopes, to a certainty of midnight darkness; the sensations of poverty, to him who was in fancy just stepping upon a princely estate; the humiliation of gleaning for cents, where he has been profuse of dollars; the chagrin of seeing old competitors now above him, grinning down upon his poverty a malignant triumph; the pity of pitiful men, and the neglect of such as should have been his friends,—and who were, while the sunshine lay upon his path,—all these things, like so many strong winds, sweep across the soul so that it cannot rest in the cheerless tranquility of honesty, but casts up mire and dirt. How stately the balloon rises and sails over continents, as over petty landscapes! The slightest slit in its frail covering sends it tumbling down, swaying widely, whirling and pitching hither and thither, until it plunges into some dark glen, out of the path of honest men, and too shattered to tempt even a robber. So have we seen a thousand men pitched down; so now, in a thousand places may their wrecks be seen. But still other balloons are framing, and the air is full of victim-venturers.

If our young men are introduced to life with distaste for safe ways, because the sure profits are slow; if the opinion becomes prevalent that all business is great, only as it tends to the uncertain, the extravagant, and the romantic; then we may stay our hand at once, nor waste labor in absurd expostulations of honesty. I had as lief preach humanity to a battle of eagles, as to urge honesty and integrity upon those who have determined to be rich, and to gain it by gambling stakes, and madmen’s ventures.

All the bankruptcies of commerce are harmless compared with a bankruptcy of public morals. Should the Atlantic ocean break over our shores, and roll sheer across to the Pacific, sweeping every vestige of cultivation, and burying our wealth, it would be a mercy, compared to that ocean-deluge of dishonesty and crime, which, sweeping over the whole land, has spared our wealth and taken our virtue. What are cornfields and vineyards, what are stores and manufactures, and what are gold and silver, and all the precious commodities of the earth, among beasts?—and what are men, bereft of conscience and honor, but beasts?

We will forget those things which are behind, and hope a more cheerful future. We turn to you, young men!—All good men, all patriots, turn to watch your advance upon the stage, and to implore you to be worthy of yourselves, and of your revered ancestry. Oh! ye favored of Heaven! with a free land, a noble inheritance of wise laws, and a prodigality of wealth in prospect,—advance to your possessions!—May you settle down, as did Israel of old, a people of God in a promised and protected land;—true to yourselves, true to your country, and true to your God.

Footnote:

[1] Monroe Edwards, a notorious forger.—Ed.