ost patient forbearance on the part of our rulers and statesmen.
And most assuredly the times will themselves produce the men most fitted
for the care of such interests and the decision of such questions.
Though there is need of the firm hand, the utmost watchfulness, and the
strongest exertion on the part of every citizen as well as statesman, it
is not to be feared that the result will in the end be disastrous to our
progress. For the genius of the American people was never yet at fault.
We have handled similar questions before; we are handling a more
important one now, and our capabilities and our power of development are
such that we need not fear but that we shall be enabled to cope with the
exigencies of the future. That genius which has built up a powerful
nation here in the wilderness, which has developed to such a degree the
resources of the laud and the capacities of the people, which has
conceived and executed in so short a time such a social and moral
revolution, has in it too much of the godlike to suffer the work to fall
through from any incapacity to deal with the legitimate consequences of
its action. The power to inaugurate and carry through the work
necessarily implies the capacity to establish and render permanent its
results, to guide the ship when the storm is past. It will find the ways
and means; the times themselves will develop new truths, which will make
the task less difficult than it seems to us of to-day. Such is the
feeling of the people; and this same noble faith and confidence in our
own capacities, this turning a deaf ear to all the possibilities of
failure, and looking with a never-failing trust, a soul-felt faith, to
the triumph of our cause and of our civilization, is our greatest
strength, while it is, at the same time, a conclusive evidence that we
are on the high road of true progress, that our civilization is not a
thing of yesterday, to-day, or to-morrow, but of the eternal ages.

APHORISM.--NO. X.

'It is a frequent result of poverty to make men rich--a common curse of
wealth to make them poor.' Poverty, making us feel our dependence upon
God, almost compels us to an acquaintance with Him--this leads us to
accept Him as the one Infinite Benefactor; and so gives us wealth that
can never fail: but riches, by encouraging our natural love of
independence, is too apt to keep us away from our Heavenly Father, and
thus plunge us into such poverty as admits of no actual relief.