successful way to impress upon society the importance of discharging their obligations, is to force the truth home upon the individuals composing that society or government. How comparatively small is the number of those who really take an abiding interest or active part in the great and leading enterprises of the day for the advancement of society! It is a lamentable truth, and one to which this Nation should awake, that the great and leading movements in the literary, scientific, and legal departments of society are the emanations of a few great intellects! This will account to some extent for the world's slow progress heretofore. The harvest truly is great; but how few are the laborers! We are aware that the system of the division of labor has been largely written and spoken about during the present century; yet the masses laboring in those various departments have not been directing their efforts strictly to the important end to be gained, but have suffered sinister motives to draw off their attention from the general good to that of mere personal emolument. Should not every citizen of this far-reaching Commonwealth sedulously endeavor to learn his respective sphere of action, and then labor for the general good of society? "Individual sacrifice," says an eminent orator, "is universal strength." What improvement would we behold did every individual use his utmost endeavors to contribute something and lay it upon the common altar! Let us seriously ask ourselves the question to-day, Can there be a nobler altar than that of our country?—for our country's altar is but the altar of our God; and if not, why should we not, on this the seventy-sixth year of our national independence, lay ourselves as sacrifices upon it, and vow to that Being who has so tenderly regarded and taken care of us as a Nation that we will ever be true to its highest interests, and hand it down to coming generations as Heaven's best gift to man! But shall it not be greatly enlarged and beautified before we transmit it to them? Let monumental pile and pillar rise heavenward in memory of our honored dead that will defy the corroding tooth of time. And upon them let our eagle perch when weary, and be the first to greet the king of day as he mounts the eastern sky, and be the last to bid him adieu as he descends to his western home! Yes, "Now rest thee, Eagle, from thy fancy flight, Shout o'er thy country's weal, amid thy starry fires." Let us then break forth in the language of our own Franklin, and exclaim, "Where liberty dwells there is my country!" Not only would we dwell here; but here would we die and be buried, and rest with the martyrs of Freedom, and with them have a resurrection when all human governments shall have ceased to exist. MORAL EFFORT. An Oration at Graduation, 1852. MAN's true sphere is action. He is a triune being made up of physical, intellectual, and moral natures. Such is the relation subsisting between these, that if one lies inactive the others receive a corresponding damage. Consult the history of the past, and tell us what real good the world has derived from the labors of those who have exclusively devoted themselves to wrestling and boxing in the Olympic games and athletic schools in which they acquired for themselves a fame for brute force. Who envies the renown that a Hercules or Milo gained for themselves by their supposed physical powers, while no act of true virtue or benevolence marked their entire lives? What was there in the character of the Macedonian conqueror, or in the most ambitious of the Julian family, or in the exile of St. Helena, except their cultivated minds that challenges for a moment your admiration? And what are cultivated intellects when employed to degrade the noblest powers of man's nature but so many curses to the world? Do the slaughters at Arbela and Issus, or Alexander's disgraceful death at Babylon call forth your moral approval? Do Cæsar's encounters on the plains of Pharsalia and at Munda, or his crossing the Rubicon beyond which he had no right to go, raise him in your estimation as a moral being? Do not the unbridled ambition and inhuman treatment of the Corsican general towards his soldiers disqualify him for a place in your admiration and regards? Posterity will surely measure out to all such men the praises due to such exploits. Let every act of the lives of those conquerors be thrown into one scale of a just balance, and the single act of integrity of Regulus, the Carthaginian captive, placed in the other; it will far outweigh them all! When their names and deeds shall have been forgotten, the name of that Roman consul will be remembered and cherished by the good and truly great of earth. But in point of intellectual excellence, whose character and reputation do you most admire? Are they those of Hobbes, Hume, Voltaire, Paine, and Byron? Or do you not rather take a loftier flight, and suffer your mind to dwell upon the greatness of such men as Paul, Luther, Zwingli, Wesley, Howard, and Wilberforce? Moral effort was the distinguishing characteristic in their lives, and their intellectual powers were carried forward to the highest state of development and activity. there is a moral sublimity connected with their acts that excites in us the deepest emotions of moral approval, and even forces the most abandoned in their more considerate moments to admire and reverence. But Nothing but moral effort can dispel the more than Egyptian darkness that lingers around the minds of the bestialized heathen, and exterminate from this fair abode of man the tyranny and slavery under which so many of the nations of the earth are at present laboring and groaning. The Macedonian cry that is wafted to our shores 2711151 at nearly every breeze will surely not be disregarded by the lover of his race. A missionary ship freighted with Bibles and God's messengers shall be sent to them upon the next favoring gale. And where are we to find the men who are willing to sacrifice the endearments of home, of friends, and the sweets of civilization to go to heathen lands to elevate the degraded and proclaim to them the glad news of the world's great Deliverer? Not among atheists and infidels; not among the irreligious part of community; not among political aspirants and demagogues, whose philanthropy is circumscribed to the narrow bounds of self-aggrandizement and self-preferment; nor yet among those whose allabsorbing concern is to acquire the honors of this world and to amass its wealth. Where, then, are we to look for them? Hark! a cry comes from the Christian Church, "Here am I; send me!" Again I hear that cry, and still again with simultaneous voice more than a thousand repeat the thrilling sentence, "Here am I; send me." Thank Heaven, there is no mean number who are willing to forego the charms of wealth, of ease and worldly honors, for the sake of their unfortunate brethren of other lands and tongues! The spirit of a Martyn and a Cox still lives in many a noble breast, and vibrates to the call of human misery. Not satisfied with the sacrifices of wealth, of home, of liberty, and cherished institutions, they are willing to spend years of confinement and intellectual exertion to qualify themselves for the arduous undertaking! Such is not the course pursued by men who are desirous of gaining the applause of the populace, or who strive for personal ease and emolument. On the day of final retribution, whose position would you most envy-if we may be allowed to use this termthe missionary's or the zealless, half-hearted philanthropist whose benevolence and moral effort have been circumscribed too much by earthly interests and considerations? If there are degrees of happiness and glory in that home of the blest and good, certainly the missionary may lay claim to the highest seat of honor and bliss in that City of Jasper and Pearl, whose streets are paved with burnished gold! Let me when Gabriel's shrill clarion shall summon the slumbering millions from the four winds come up with the company of missionaries from the islands of the Main, or from Asia, or from the Pacific Coast. This will be enough glory and honor for one poor mortal! Let the ambitious and lovers of this world's fame drink in the flatteries and fulsome adulations of men till they sicken; but grant me the peace and joy of a life spent in doing good and Heaven's smiles, and I ask no more. HONOLULU CORRESPONDENCE, 1857. A TRIP TO HAWAII. SINCE our last date it has been our privilege to visit the island of Hawaii. This is the most southeasterly of the group. In size and interest it outstrips all the rest. It is the lion of these islands, and we may say of the world, in one sense. It has some of the highest mountains, one of the finest valleys, and the largest volcano in the world. But more of these again. We left the harbor of Honolulu May 28th, on the schooner Lihililo, in company with Revs. Coan and Lyman, Shipman of Kau, Mr. and Mrs. Bingham, missionaries, who are soon to go to Mikronesia, and a few other of our townsmen. A pleasant company this, abating the hundred natives, more or less, strewed all over the deck with their calabashes of poi, dogs, etc. Though we had the most commodious and comfortable of all the poi clippers, of which we boast quite a number, still this interisland travel is by no means agreeable. Our comfortable vessel and pleasant company were not sufficient security against seasickness. Neptune drew more than one reluctant Europe and New York from us. The variety in this inter-island travel is fresh breezes, quite like gales; heavy chopped seas, interrupted with protracted calms, that are no kind of relief to seasickness. The second day out we made the harbor of Kawaihae. |