remarkable men of his day, a man who could amass vast wealth for himself, and "put many men beside himself on the road to competence"; the founder of the "American Fur Company," and yet "ambitious to become a civilizer, as well as a pioneer in both trade and in geographical discovery"; in whose "hands peltries became, surely though indirectly, civilizing agents in far distant parts of the world, as well as sources of vast immediate wealth, and also of expanding reproductiveness to American commerce"; and who could number among his "beloved friends" such a man as Washington Irving, founded the great Astor library, in the city of New York. Rev. Francis Wayland, D.D., President of Brown University, a leading man in the Baptist denomination, and one of the first educators of hist time, founded the free town library of Wayland, Massachusetts. The munificence of Joshua Bates, of London, himself once a poor boy in Boston, but who, amidst all the honors and the prosperity conferred upon him at the great commercial centre of the world, "did not forget the period when he was a poor apprentice boy in Boston," founded the magnificent library that is now the pride of his native city. George Peabody, whose memory two nations conspired to honor at his death, and of whom Rufus Choate, in his address at the dedication of the Peabody Institute, said: "I honor and love him, not merely that his energy, sense, and integrity have raised him from a poor boy waiting in that shop yonder to be a guest, as Curran gracefully expressed it, at the table of princes; to spread a table for the entertainment of princes, not merely because the brilliant professional career which has given him a position so commauding in the mercantile and social circles of the commercial capital of the world, has left him as completely American - the heart as wholly untravelled as when he first stepped on the shore of England to seek his fortune, sighing to think that the ocean rolled between him and home; jealous of honor; wakeful to our interests; helping his country not. by swagger and vulgarity, but by recommending her credit; vindicating her title to be trusted on the exchange of nations; squandering himself in hospitalities to her citizens; a man of deeds, not of words,-not for these, merely, I love and honor him, but because his nature is affectionate and unsophisticated still; because his memory comes over so lovingly to this sweet Argos, to the schoolroom of his childhood, to the old shop and kind master, and the graves of his father and mother; and because he has had the sagacity and the character to indulge these unextinguished affections in a gift not of vanity and ostentation, but of supreme and durable utility," he founded the noble institution that bears his name, in Peabody, Massachusetts. The Hon. J. Wiley Edmands, one of the leading and successful business men of Boston, and a man whom his fellow-citizens always love to honor, founded the free library in Newton, Massachusetts. -- And equally indebted are the people of England to private munificence for the establishment of their free libraries. Sir John Potter, a benevolent merchant prince of Manchester, England, founded the great free library of that city. William Brown, a merchant and a statesman, a man of such commanding position and influence that he was able, when the relations of our government to that of Great Britain, during the administration of Franklin Pierce, became very critical, to step forward and act the part of a mediator between the two great countries; a man of whom Hawthorne wrote at the time: "Mr. Brown grasps England with his right hand and America with his left"; this man founded the great free library of Liverpool, and it is already written on the page of history that this was one of the crowning acts of his noble life. In the same manner many other wealthy and benevolent men have become honorably associated with free public libraries. The number of these historic names has rapidly increased of late years. May their number enlarge still more rapidly in the years to come. Such men will not be forgotten in the communities that are blessed by their benefactions. The founding of such an institution is one of those deeds that live in the grateful appreciation of many successive generations; live too, not only to be admired by men, but to instruct and ennoble them, fitting them to act a greater and better part in the history of their times. It is well to read. history, but it is nobler to make history. The benefactions of these thoughtful and benevolent men will make history. Not for any brief period of time, but for ages, we trust, they will aid in moulding the character of individuals, in ordering public events, and in shaping the history of towns, cities, and nations. All honor, then to these men whose large and wise benevolence has already secured to so many communities this invaluable institution. And all hail to those who shall come after them, taking up the same work in other cities and towns. Every person who founds, or who, by any word, influence, or gift, aids in founding, a free public library will not have lived in vain. He will have done something for which he will deserve well of mankind. ARTICLE II. JUSTICE-WHAT IS IT? BY REV. LEONARD WITHINGTON, D.D., NEWBURYPORT. SOME of our most obvious ideas are obvious only to a superficial attention. They grow obscure when we begin to think. They open a door into a dark temple; but every one to whom the door is open does not explore the recess. When an opponent denies the truism, though at first he may seem very absurd, yet his denial excites inquiry, and new difficulties only lead to new solutions. Suppose a column of some old temple should be found in the sands of Palmyra, and some one should deny that it was a column, but say it was brought there by foreign aid, and, on digging, should find that it rested on a stone pedestal, and that pediment on charcoal, and the charcoal on shells; every step of our investigation would go to remove our first impression, and to show that the column was placed there by art, and was a relic of a now desolated edifice. So some common words challenge investigation, and every step in the progress serves to modify our views and lead us to a longer examination and a profounder principle. No word is more common in our discourses than "Justice"; and no word opens a sharper investigation, or leads to a longer train of thought. Such a remarkable word calls for examination: First, we shall consider what justice is; and, secondly, consider its importance to a local polity, limited in extent and duration, and then to a whole universe of immortal beings. I. What is Justice? It is a growing idea. It resembles that fish in Hindu. story, one of the incarnations of Vishnu; first seen in a basin, then in a tub, then in a cistern, then in a lake, and last in the vast ocean; and, in whatever receptacle thrown, instantly filling them all. Justice is as essential to the moral world as space is to the material; as we survey it more, we better comprehend its vast extent. It passes through successive gradations. It begins with children in their family experience, and accompanies them in their sports and games. Most children have experienced this in the discipline of the family; however kind or just their parents may have been, it is impossible for them always to proportion their blame or punishment or their rewards exactly to the disposition of their child. Hence most children can remember occasions when they received more censure than they expected, and rewards which they felt they did not deserve; all signifying that they had formed an idea and expected the execution of strict justice. So in the sports and plays of boys you will frequently hear, as you pass along the streets, sharp disputes; and, in nine cases out of ten, the substance of these disputes will be about puerile justice: "you ought to have done so and so; you were unfair; I wont play unless," etc. When we pass to manhood justice begins in regulating property, in making a bargain, in fixing the rate of taxing. Our first idea of it is paying a debt; signing a promissory note; paying a workman; keeping a promise; or in removing or not removing an ancient landmark. But we soon find that justice extends to invisible things, to mental qualities; to all the injuries and blessings which affect the heart. We read in scripture that "Hanun took David's servants, and shaved off the one half of their beards, and cut off their garments in the middle, even to their buttocks, and sent them away" (2 Sam. x. 4). Here is no robbery, no very great loss of property, yet a bitter injury, an act of injustice, leading to a fierce war and an extensive destruction. |