to their destination, about which time this story leaked out, and which would have been before told, but for the fear that private credit would have been shaken in quarters where injury might come unnecessarily. The only precaution Peter Snug acted on, and which he took occasion to hint to his sons, when inquiry was made of him, was: Do n't trust So-and-so, till after you have had a taste of my Antwerp wall-fruit, by which time we shall all know the result of speculations that may have taken place, based on the siege of Antwerp, and the blockade of the Scheldt!'

A LAY SERMO N.

ON THE LOVE OF MONEY, Ppoetry, reliGION, POPULAR OBJECTIONS TO THEATRES, ETC.

'Take on you to reform

Some certain edicts and some strait decrees,

That lie too heavy on the commonwealth :
Cry out on these abuses.'

SHAKSPEARE.

HISTORY Confirms the truth, that where man abides in multitudes, luxury and dissipation, vice and crime, will abound. New-York is said to be a very dangerous place in which to bring up young men. In this respect it is not much unlike other populous cities. It is true that the influence of evil companions, the temptations at every turn, and the snares in every path, often prove too alluring to be resisted by inexperienced youth. Fathers who tremble for the fate of their sons, should look to their own government; to the example which they show; to the lessons they inculcate, and to the amusements they permit, around the domestic hearth. The surest guaranty for the industrious and virtuous life of a son, lies in the conduct of the father. Teach young men the value of female society, and instil into their minds a love of the fine arts: than these, nothing will more surely refine the feelings, exalt the mind, and subdue the heart from the gross impulses of its nature.

We are a young people: there are few large fortunes among us; and the wealth of a family too often vanishes with the generation that amassed it. Happily we have no law of entail; happily, in many respects, while in some it may be a cause of regret; but let that pass, since the genius of our institutions forbids all kinds of aristocracy. We must all make our own fortunes. Consequently, the characteristic of New-York is too deep a devotion to profitable pursuits, to be pleased with the fanciful. The false maxim that Time is Money,' has turned many minds from the beautiful ideal to the sordid real. The love of mammon overshoots all that is lovely in nature, sound in philosophy, and sacred in religion. If we go to a wedding, the merchant, in the hour of mirth, talks of a new failure, and laments a pecuniary loss; if to a funeral, in the hour of grief, he predicts exultingly a rise in the stocks; if to the church, in the hour of prayer, his anxiety is, not for the salvation of his soul, but for the arrival of the steam-packet from Europe. The thirst for gain overwhelms every faculty of the mind. It would really seem that the sole aim and object of life is money making. Money, in this democratic land, is unjustly considered the only stamp of respectability. The merchant, or in other words, the money-maker, assumes that he is the head of society, the leader of fashion. With a strange contradiction of purpose, he will toil all day to make an hundred dollars, and in the evening spend a thousand, to outrun his neighbor in the wasteful race of fashion. Extravagance in living seems to be considered necessary, to keep up appearances. This is rather a specious than a solid argument to prove our respectability.

While the middle-aged and the old are thus engrossed, what lessons can they possibly teach the young, that will tame the wild aspi

rations of their hearts? The allotted business task may occupy the day, but the chase of pleasure will rule the night. If they have not a love of knowledge, if they have no resources for intellectual pleasures, their spare hours will either hang heavily, or they will be wasted in unworthy amusements, that step by step lead to dissipation, and lastly to vice or crime.

Encourage, then, in the young, we say again, a love of literature and the arts. He who has a taste for these, is happy; he has within himself a never-failing source of innocent and profitable amusement. We must all have excitement of some kind; the young, with warm blood and wild fancies, must have an outlet for the exuberance of feeling and passion; if it be not in mirthful recreations, it will be in vicious indulgencies. Poetry, painting, and music, exalt and purify the heart; and the approving smile of virtuous woman lifts us, in unalloyed content, above the tinsel of fashion, the glare of dissipation, and the romance of crime. It is not necessary, nay, it can never be, that we should all be poets, painters, and musicians; if we are well studied in these beautiful arts, and feel delighted in the pursuit, it is enough. If we can point out their peculiar excellencies, and duly appreciate the power of the artist, it is a merit, second only to that of execution.

How often do we hear it said, 'I have no time for these things.' The answer is untrue. You have plenty of time, but no system in using it it is misapplied and misspent. You sleep too much, you loiter, and dose, and dissipate, too much; you do not husband the odd minutes; and these, summed up, make a large part of your day. It is astonishing how much a man might accomplish, if he would employ the spare minutes of a week to some useful and profitable end. Not one, not having tried, would believe it. Will you, idle reader, try? Take up a book, if you please, and try it, only for a day, and you will amuse even yourself. Beside, the husbandry of time strengthens the mind, induces habits of thinking and reasoning. It teaches to analyze, compare, comprehend. Thereby a young man, especially, is better fitted to pursue his business avocations with honor and descretion.

Unfortunately, we have few readers of poetry; and unpoetical people aver, for man is prone to allege an unsound or insufficient reason for his want of taste, that no good verses are written now-a-days, and they cannot tolerate middling-good poetry. This is not a valid excuse, unless they will add, good poetry never was written. To entitle them to express any opinion on the subject, they should prove that they have read deeply, else their judgment is not worth a rush. In fact, though they may declare that this is a free country, and every man has a right to speak, we tell them they have no right to an opinion at all. He who is not competent to judge, or has not the means of judging, should never decide.

If, as some allege, we have no good modern poetry, which at once I flatly deny, have we not the poets of other ages, whose works delight all who have an eye for the beautiful, an ear for the melodious, a heart for the tender? All who can appreciate external nature, or comprehend the workings of the human heart? Have we not Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare, Milton, and, living in his good old age, Wordsworth? In our own country, have we not Bryant and Sprague,

even down to Emmons and Marsh, and many a one of them an honor and an ornament to the land?

Many young men, who have hearts full of enthusiasm for poetry, painting, and music, are compelled to curb their feelings, in consequence of the position in which they are placed; for, were their aspirations known, the verdict is sealed: Guilty of nonsense; never will be a man of business; a visionary, nay, a fool.' They might very possibly be discharged from the occupations by which they earn their daily bread.

We live in a strange age, when a love of the beautiful and ideal is so misnamed. Yet if one riots in the mazes of fashion, we call him a gentleman; if in the rounds of dissipation, a gay man; if he wallows in the sinks of iniquity, a wild fellow. We scarcely call an extravagance or a vice by its proper name. We mince matters too much, and give to all sorts of unworthy or criminal conduct, too light an epithet. Does not this mincing disposition show the character of the age? If people will slur over, in gentle terms, that which is vicious and wicked, need we wonder that they contemn the fine arts, which ennoble and refine, elevate and exalt? Suppose a young man, a merchant or a clerk, no matter which, devoted the time not necessarily required by business, to the pursuits of literature? A certain class would call him worthy, industrious, studious. But in Wall-street, among those whose god is gold, if they heard it said he is worthy,' ten to one they would ask, 'How much is he worth?' Industrious? How much does it produce?' Studious? Ay, in nonsense, that will never bring him a cent.' Every thing is calculated by the standard of money; every thing is valued by what it will bring in the market.

We are in hopes, however, that this sordid feeling is slowly passing away. We perceive a slight indication of a more healthy tone in the community. There is already some taste and talent among the mercantile circles, although the possessor, unless he be rich, hides it, save from a chosen few. There are some merchants, who, instead of selling their souls to mammon, neglecting the education of their children, and all domestic affairs, improve their fancy, and cultivate their minds. They do not imagine that every idle hour spent, in the sordid acceptation of the term, is so much money lost; for time, with them, is not computed by dollars and cents. Time is NOT money.

The Mercantile and the Mechanics' Libraries are working much good honor to their founders! - and the new generation of merchants, for they will spring from the members of these praiseworthy institutions, will in time instil a finer, purer, nobler feeling among their class. The various literary, musical, and philosophical societies, and the numerous lecturers, are all imparting a thirst for knowledge, and opening the door to wisdom. We hope to see the day when ignorance will be a synonyme with vice, and when excellence in the arts will be an ornament to the character of a merchant. We might name several gentlemen among ourselves, engaged daily in the pursuit of business, who are an honor to the land. We might also refer to older times, and other countries, for illustrious examples of excellence in literature among merchants.

There is not a more certain antidote to dissipation and vice, than a

love for the fine arts. And those who say that they unfit the mind for business, assert what they cannot prove; what we most unequivocally deny. It is popular, and it is certainly most laudable, to be religious, if actuated by sincerity and faith. A large portion of the community devote much time, as well as money, to their Christian duties. Does this unfit their minds for business? Some carry their notions to such an extreme, that they will not employ a clerk, or even take a boarder, unless he is pious; and some hold out an inducement, when in search of employment, that they belong to a religious family. Barbers, to get custom on week days, shut their shops on Sundays. Does piety unfit the mind for trade? No one will venture so boldly as to say it does.

The mild and meek precepts of the religion of Jesus are taught in the sublimest of poetry. The prophets, inspired by God, wrote in the most poetic language man ever read. A parable in the Bible is what the poets call an episode. The Most High surely approved of poetry, else he would not have taught the world in the loftiest verse. His wisdom is delivered in language the most figurative, and illustrated by knowledge still the most occult. It is a remark often made, that from the pure fountain of Holy Writ the poets have drawn their sweetest inspiration. It is asserted, that until Wiclif published his version of the New Testament, the first in the English tongue, poetry was almost unknown in England; and when the James's Bible, that which we daily consult, appeared, a class of poets arose, the noblest, the purest, the sublimest, that England ever saw; poets, whose brilliant outpourings the world has never since equalled.

As another preventive to dissipation and vice, I would recommend young men to visit the theatre; not to see French dancers and Italian buffoons; not to hear mock heroic melo-dramas, and vulgar farces, which, after the Restoration, the vitiated taste of Charles introduced from France; but to see comedy and tragedy, the productions of the great poets of the Elizabethan age, and those who have since emulated them. I may be told that the stage is immoral, indecent, obscene. Grant it, if you please. Who made it so? The people. It is in the people to restore the theatre to its primitive purity and decorum. Managers, to make money, must cater for the public taste; just as merchants change the style and pattern of their merchandise, to suit the fashion of their customers, or to attract by novelty. If full boxes applauded the productions of the purest comic and tragic muse, and if empty benches stared at fustian melo-dramas, and silly farces, managers would soon discover where their interest lay, and reform it altogether. If objections be made to some gross expressions and incidents in the plays of the old dramatists, we answer, the fault was not theirs ; it was that of the age in which they lived. We may easily prune them, if necessary, though by doing so, we emasculate their noble lines. In olden days, they were plainer of speech than we are, but not less virtuous in heart. In fact, we have just reversed things; they talked, we sin. Why should the innocent be offended with mere expressions? It is knowledge that raises objections.

Again, a portion of the theatre is appropriated to a class of people whom we shall not name, and another is used to sell intoxicating