ther high officials. To be in the public service is eagerly coveted;
such employment attracts the finest minds, and is most munificently
rewarded. It is so in this country. We are accustomed to confer upon
official characters honors which we would refuse to a Shakspeare or
a Newton. Yet it is well known, that, while the comprehension and
elucidation of the great laws which govern society are a labor which
will task the strength of the strongest, in ordinary times affairs
may be, and generally are, quite acceptably administered by men of
no marked intellectual superiority. It is not necessary to say that
the sentiment must be wrong which leads us to such strange errors,
--which obliterates the broadest distinctions, and persuades us to
give to feebleness and vice rewards which should be given to genius
and virtue alone.

For the wisest purposes, the Creator has planted within us an
instinctive disposition to revere the illustrious of our kind. To
win that admiration is the most powerful incentive to action,--it is
the ardent desire of passionate natures. The sweet incense of
popular applause is more delicious than wine to the senses of man.
Deservedly obtained, it heals every wound, and soothes all pain; nay,
the mere hope of it will steel him against every danger, and sustain
him amidst disease, penury, neglect, and oppression. To bestow this
reverence is a pleasure hardly less exquisite. While we commune with
the intellects and contemplate the virtues of the great, some portion
of their exceeding light descends upon us, their aspiring spirits
enter our breasts and raise us to higher levels. But to yield our
homage to those who do not deserve it is to pervert a pure and noble
instinct. We cannot worship the degraded, except by sinking to lower
depths of degradation.

When one considers that the admitted functions of government have
been almost without limit, this mistaken sentiment is not to be
wondered at. Why should not they who are able to provide for every
want of the body or soul be revered as Superior beings? Governments
have established creeds, and set bounds to science; they have been
the censors of literature, and held men in slavery; they have told
the citizen how many meals to eat, how many prayers to say, how to
wear his beard, and in what manner to educate his children; there is
no action so trivial, no concern so important, nor any sentiment so
secret, that the governing power has not interfered with and