sson; but they compel all who value the
Union and the peace of the nation, to ask how far they have had to do
with the troubles of nullification and secession, which for thirty years
have been plaguing us, and have now culminated in a terrible rebellion!

* * * * *

A PHILOSOPHIC BANKRUPT.

The great financial storm that swept over our country and Europe, in the
'fall of 1857,' overwhelming so many large and apparently staunch
vessels, did not disdain to capsize and send to the bottom many smaller
craft; my own among the number. She was not as heavily freighted (to
continue for a moment the nautical metaphor) as some that sunk around
her; but as she bore my all, it looked at first pretty much like a
life-and-death business, especially the latter. For a time, all was
horror and confusion; but as the wreck cleared away, I soon discovered
that there would, at any rate, remain to me the consolation that others
would not lose through my misfortunes; that the calamity, if such it
were, would affect no one but myself. My own experience, and my
observation of those around me, has led me, naturally enough, to ponder
a good deal on the subject of reverses in life, and as no page of
genuine experience can be considered wholly valueless, it may do no harm
to record my own. Though many have undergone reverses, few, with the
exception of ministers, ever seem to have written about them, a class of
men who, whatever their other troubles, in these days of bronchitis and
fastidious parishes, have usually been exempt from trials of this
peculiar character.

Bishop Butler, in one of his sermons on Human Nature, alludes to a sect
in philosophy, representing, I suppose, the 'selfish system,' one of
whose ideas is that men are naturally pleased on hearing of the
misfortunes of others. La Rochefoucauld expresses the same sentiment as
his own. Couched in plain language, this appears to be a gloomy and
heartless doctrine; but probably nothing more is meant than a refinement
of the common adage, 'Misery loves company,' and that very good and
benevolent persons, if themselves overtaken by misfortune, can not but
feel some alleviation for their sorrows, in reflecting that others have
trials equally great and that they are but partakers of a common though
bitter lot. If there be really any consolation in reflections of this
kind, history furnishes us many striking examples, and, as far as great
changes in worldly