r
the mastering desire to become rich.

But there is a strange hankering after whatever is of the nature of a
lottery. So the prizes are but splendid, no matter, if they are but
few compared with the blanks. We are given to presuming each on his
own good fortune. "Nothing venture, nothing have," has become a
proverb. So agriculture is treated as if it had no rewards, because
one ventures so little by engaging therein. And one might almost think
that the conscious earth resented the indignity.

Aided by Philosophy, we shall argue on this matter thus: All cannot
live by their wits; the many must produce with the hands; and, the
greater the part who shuffle off the charge, the more heavily it falls
on others. The first law given to man in innocency, was, to keep the
garden and till it; the first after the loss of innocency, "In the
sweat of thy face thou shalt eat bread;"--so a dispensation from such
law, given by Him, who best knows what is good for man, in whatever
state, is not worthy to stand high among life's blessings.

More particularly we are taught in the same school, that the good thus
contemplated must cost something at least on the score of that best of
physical enjoyments--health. If it were duly appreciated, how high
this stands among life's goods, and how much its perfection depends on
freedom to the mind from the anxieties of hazardous speculation, and a
goodly amount of manly labor, of which the varied occupations of
agriculture are the most favorable of all; this consideration would
check the prevalent ambition to make the contrivance of the brain
supply the place of the labor of the hands.

Health is commended to us, not only as among the first of present
goods, but as one, the security of which is placed very much in our own
power; if we will but study and practise the means. It is remarkable,
that, while the healing art is proverbial for its sects and
uncertainties--amid the disputes of homoeopaths and allopaths,
mineralists and herbalists, stimulators and depletors--there is a pretty
general agreement of parties on the laws of hygiene, or the art of
preserving health. We might find here a law, taught by the
constitution of nature, that its Author never intended healing to hold
an important place in the cause of human welfare. He meant it should
be well nigh dispensed with, by the obedience men should pay to laws,
which they may understand.

The full appreciation of these considerations