Spirit Of Jefferson

WHAT EVERYBODY IS AFTER.

What a curious, strange sort of world this is.
Did you ever think of it reader? Just look around you a little--not with your common, every-day business eyes but with sober, thoughtful, analyzing eyes--for every man, unless he is sadly deformed, has such eyes, though he may seldom think of using them. Sit down if you have not a note to pay, or a political office for, in which cases we suppose it will be expedient for you to be moving--wipe the perspiration from your brow, let the crowd rush on without you, and think five minutes what they are all about, and yourself among the rest. What is it that makes men get up early, scheme and dash about all day, calculate chances, talk smooth, smile when they would like to stab. stab when they think it will not be known, sail under false colors, pull down hills, dive into mountains, meet each other with anxious looks, and hasty or cold salutations and go to bed jaded out to travel the same roads, perform the same actions, and transact the same business again in their dreams. What is it that keeps the crowd always moving, meeting and mingling in confused and opposite currents, hot, feverish, dissatisfied? What is it that induces men to spend the bright days of their youth. the strength of their manhood, and-alas that it should be so- the weak days of old age in weary toil and incessant actions.

Money-money!-that's it reader. The greater part of the world's machinery is put in motion for the purpose of getting money-small round pieces of gold and silver that shine, and make a pretty noise when dropped on a counter. and feel rather comfortable than otherwise in a man's pocket-when he can get them. Yes, money is the thing that keeps the world awake, and sets it a-roving and keeps it a-moving from January to December, as if it had St. Anthony's Dance, Making, getting, spending and calculating money, are the worthy objects which employ God's glorious creation—the civilized part of it we mean, of course; for savages--nothing can show true blindness more strongly-don't think much of money and they are we suppose a stupid set of mortals.

Money stretches the kitchen maid's patience, and her master's conscience, and puts a keen edge on the farmer's axe; makes the joiner's hammer click; puts an edge on the tailor's shears, and a long tail upon his bill. Money makes the merchant stand behind his counter, and submit to the eternal meanness of higgling customers; cut off a sample for an old woman-who, perhaps, has a patch-work quilt half finished and wants it to lengthen out, and unroll a dozen pieces for a young one; saying all the while pleasant things to her; who no more thinks of buying, than she does of dying. Money builds factories, and fills them with machinery, and laborers: digs canals --it dug one from Northampton to New Haven a few years ago, and there it is yet, so much of it as is not filled up with the bones of intestate kittens and dogs who have jumped the fence of mortality; stretches railroads from State to State; bridges the Atlantic and stretches whale ships from Arctic to Antarctic seas. It makes boys very much like quails, who run from the nest before they are free from the shell-jump from the busy pursuits of childhood, into a hard, busy, chaffering life. It makes men walk, and run, and dream, and drive hard bargains, and die before their time.

Is not this the case reader? Most certainly it is. Every man has some plan for making money, and for making it out of his neighbor. Thus the circles in which they propose to move, cross each other, their plans interfere, and this occasions the jarring, and confusion, and discord, and heat which we every where see around us. Money is the mainspring of the world, and keeps all its wheels in motion. It is the principal object of pursuit, notwithstanding men call themselves rational beings The ' Almighty Dollar' is every where worshipped: Altars are erected to it in every high place and low place, under every green tree and dry tree. Meek, modest virtue, is jostled from the world's highway, and is obliged to wander in the fields, or less crowded paths of life.-- Very little is thought of cultivating the social sympathies. The intellect is only regarded as the agent in money getting schemes, and is educated and sharpened principally for that business; while the heart, always interfering if free, is boxed up in steel, and not suffered to speak a word.

Such the world is, and pity 'tis, 'tis true.