At present, there are four Lodges and one Encampment in this State, the three I have mentioned above, and one in Milledgeville. Before the end of the year, there will likely be three more opened, one in Augusta, one in Darien, and one in Sandersville. The Encampment was opened in this city a few nights since.

The rise and progress of the Order in this State has been astonishing, and in a few years, there will scarcely be a village in our State without a Lodge, for the principles have only to be known to go ahead. AN ODD-FELLOW.

Savannah Rep.

WINDFALLS.

THERE are some medicines and intoxicating draughts which cannot, without extreme danger, be largely used at first. It is only by beginning with small doses, and by gradually increasing them, that the system becomes habituated to their qualities, and in a manner fitted for their reception until at last the original quantity produces no perceptible effect or excitement, and copious drenchings are undergone with apparent impunity. In the same way that drugs of this kind act upon the body, the possession of wealth operates on the mind. When money is amassed by slow degrees, by the regular profits of business, the use of it is learnt during the acquisition; but when it plumps upon a man suddenly, and he who yesterday was a hard-working tradesman, obliged to fare frugally, and to be content with coarse clothing, finds himself to-day the master of a fortune capable of supplying a luxurious table, splendid furniture, and rich attire, he is as it were taken by assault, reduced under subjection to a powerful invader, and frightened from his propriety, so as to be incapable of managing affairs discreetly for the future.

He who has formed a resolution to go cautiously and steadily forward in the pursuit he has chosen, accommodates his desires to the station in which it places him. There is no one, indeed, devoid of ambition; and he, like other men, hope to better himself, and looks forward to enjoyments beyond its present circumstances: but it is by almost imperceptible steps that he advances to attain them. He does not see the full height of the mountain before him, nor pant with eargerness to reach its top; but terraced eminences present themselves successively, and with patient foot he climbs one after another, saving his breath most methodically, although his view does not extend to the next assent. Far from losing his all upon a cast, he would not risk the merest trifle on the chances, and his is the heart that never fluttered responsive to the most flattering perhaps. His last pace is measured with the same steadiness and self-possession that characterized the whole of his progress; and, knowing every inch of ground over which he has passed, he is prepared to recede, if it should be necessary, with no less composure. Such is the character of the prudent man of business-unwearied industry being its strongest feature. All acknowledge him to be clear-headed, and many load him with the imputation of being also cold-hearted; but this is very frequently a mistake: He knows how he has got every penny he possesses, and he never parts with the

smallest sum, without being assured of a good and sufficient cause for the outlay. He is not wanting in the common kindnesses and charities of life; on the contrary, he devotes the whole of his time and talents to the acquisition of means by which he may confer benefits on all who are connected with him-but they are every one sober unostentatious benefits, distributed considerately from a sense of duty, and not from any high-flown notions of generosity. By steady attention to the concerns of trade, he makes himself the stay of many industrious families, who in his service are sure of employment, and equally sure of their wages. He whose hand gives liberally to the poor is blessed; but doubly blessed is he who enables them to live without depending upon casual bounty.

The man who looks to lucky turns in trade, and makes bold ventures, is sometimes as successful as his neighbour who plods on its regular routine; but he seldom employs his advantages so wisely for himself, and so beneficially for others. He is of a sanguine temperament, and has accustomed himself to think that money is only to be made by fortunate hits. Excitement and stir present to him charms that are irresistible; so he takes care to devise and execute a number of schemes, sufficient to keep him constantly upon the tender-hooks of expectation. They often fail; but he is not discouraged. Persuading himself that his plans were the best possible, and conducted in the most judicious manner, he attributes their discomfiture solely to casualties which nobody could have foreseen. "If it had not been that that fellow who bought my last consignment fromwas a villain, I should at this moment have been in possession of a fortune of £30,000," says the disappointed speculator; and he speaks truly: but he overlooks the circumstance that he sold his goods so very advantageously, that it would have been apparent to any one, not blinded by an over-eagerness of gain, that the purchaser had little intention of paying the price. A person with better regulated notions would aim rather to dispose of a great number of commodities, at moderate returns, than of a few at a large profit; but for this sure and liberal system of dealing the daring commercial adventurer entertains a sovereign contempt; a small advantage he does not think worth accepting, and accordingly his transactions are all of a hazardous kind, either issuing in a dead loss or in enormous gains. By this hap-hazard species of traffic, an immense fortune is occasionally accumulated, and may be considered in the light of a windfall to its owner, as much as if it had presented itself in the shape of an unexpected legacy. It comes upon him as unprepared to use it in moderation, and is for the most part as injudiciously squandered. Indeed, in whatever way it comes, the result is nearly the same.

"What an unfortunate wretch I am!" exclaims he who finds himself the holder of an unsuccessful lottery-ticket, "to pitch upon No. 999, when, if I had taken the one above it, I should have got the £20,000 prize."Now, mark the bad logic of the man: he calls himself unfortunate in not selecting No. 1000, as if he were certain it would have turned out a prize if he had held it. But so willing is he to interpret chances in his own favour, that a doubt on this exceedingly problematical point never enters his head; and he considers himself to have been so very close upon gaining a large sum, that he is sure of it the next time he makes the trial.— Well, perhaps he does succeed the next time, or the next, or the time after; and how does this vast influx of wealth find and affect him?-it finds him very much in need of it, and very eager to wallow in it, and,

ten to one, he is soon in a worse condition than ever. This suddenly acquired wealth does not seem to have the same blessing with it that generally accompanies the gains of patient industry, or of an honest ingenuity, exerted from day to day. Sudden wealth may be compared to a tornado, which produces nothing but havoc and desolation; the slow earnings of industry to the silent dews by whose influence the face of nature is beautified, and vegetation invigorated and refreshed.

The above arguments bear with full force upon the life of the gambler, who is simply a person given up to delusive hopes of acquiring wealth without working for it. In general, we find moral writers and dramatists, in their endeavours to check this vice, go no farther than to show the horrible results which are apt to spring from its indulgence. It might be advantageous also to explain the rational principles upon which gambling is a worse means of endeavouring to obtain money than an industrious course of life. To assume a language which will be intelligible to those who are addicted to it, it is attended with a worse chance of ending in the desired result. If twenty persons are engaged in one street, each in his own honest business, it is certain that some profit will be made amongst them, so that most of them, at least, will be able to exist without coming upon their capital. But if twenty persons be engaged as industriously in gambling, it is certain that no profit will be made amongst them-on the contrary, money will be lost in paying for the rooms, and for the materials of the sport. Supposing the twenty persons were kept by themselves, and that they began with a considerable stock of money amongst them, they would by and bye find themselves reduced to pennilessness, by reason of this constant drain upon their resources. Now, if money cannot be made by any community of gamblers among themselves, what hope is there, except in that vanity and self-love which speaks delusively to every bosom, that an individual will enrich himself? Evidently none whatever. Thus gambling, in every case where it does not suppose a simpleton to be pillaged, is proved a mere fallacy; while, in cases where that is supposed, it is the meanest, because the safest of robberies. In no point of view can there be any advantage in this course of life-for if wealth be lost, it produces all the usual evils of that contingency; if it be gained, it never thrives, and is apt to be again quickly lost, either by play, or by irregular and expensive living. Upon the whole, while some must be greater losers than others, there is no general chance in favour of the gambler, as there is in favour of the honest and industrious man-he is almost certain of being, in the long-run, worse than when he began. He may be compared, indeed, to a merchant who exposes his capital to an almost absolute certainty of being impaired, by assuming a line of speculations in which the chance of loss is invariably and palpably greater than the chance of gain. The only individual who can thrive by this unhappy vice is the person who keeps the gaming-house: the players, as a whole, must be losers.

Of all classes of society, the young are the most apt to give themselves up to a practice of longing for windfalls. The male human being, from six to sixteen, is constantly dreaming of pots of money found in the earth, or of large fortunes made in foreign adventure, after the manner of Whittington with his cat. From sixteen to four and twenty, he dreams of handsome fortunes made by the simple and rather agreeable process of taking a handsome woman to wife; and he is constantly on the outlook for such a chance of placing himself, as it is called, upon his feet. Others dream of legacies from rich and hitherto unheard-of uncles, who will be

dying some of these days in India, fifty years after they had been given up by their relations for lost. All are more or less taken up by the idea of ready-made fortunes, which are to save them the trouble of making one for themselves; and, in this gasping and grasping hope of becoming suddenly enriched, they spend perhaps the time and energies which ought to be directed to better objects. We would warn our young readers against giving themselves up to these vain phantasies. The proportion of those who have been so fortunate, as it is called, as to fall in possession of windfalls, is so very small, as compared with those who do not, that it ought never to be taken into account in our calculations as to the means of providing ourselves with a subsistence. If we would just reflect for a moment upon what the most of us are at our outset in life--bare, unlicked creatures, with merit all to be proved, if it really exists at all, but most probably it does not exist-merely individuals in the great herd of the beardless, none of whom seem any different from the rest-we would never flatter ourselves that there was any chance of fortune singling us out as her own peculiar favourites, or our gaining any thing whatsoever, till we had somehow asserted our right to it. It is nothing but an overweening self-love, and a blindness to the degree of estimation in which, while as yet untried, we are likely to be held by the rest of mankind that leads us into this error; and he, for certain, has the best chance of quickly investing himself with the good things of Fortune, who is soonest cured of so fatal and bewildering a delusion.

ODD-FELLOWSHIP.

AMONGST the various agencies that are at work, aiming at the amelioration of the condition of our race, there is none deserving of more attention than the institution of Odd-Fellowship. It claims our attention, because it is founded upon truth, and the spirit of all its doctrine is that which if carried into effect cannot fail to bless mankind; and amongst all organizations of human origin, there is none so admirably adapted to bring into recognition the great truth of human Brotherhood, and to carry into practice the divine commandment which teaches us to "do unto others as we would have others do unto us." It is an institution whose foundation is benevolence and charity, and while it urges upon its subjects a due observance of religious forms, and the maintenance of a spirit of reverence and devotion, still it calls with a louder voice for performance of acts such as the world is too seldom blessed with, and which would cause the soul of the relieved sufferer to arise in gratitude for assistance rendered in the hour of need. The widow in her bereavement-the orphan in its loneliness-are objects over which its sheltering wings are extended;the Brother, whom misfortune has reduced to destitution and want, receives from its treasury that which will procure the means of relief, and in the hour of sickness the kind watchings and care of a beloved fraternity. We know of nothing more lovely, more beautiful, or more in accordance with the religion of the Saviour than this, and we cannot find it in our heart to say else than bid them onward, always doing as their principles require, and to preserve their ranks free from those whose unworthiness shall prove a barrier to its progress and usefulness.-Symbol.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

The Independent Odd-Fellow.-We have received the January No. of this Periodical. Its general contents are interesting-we have however exception to offer to the subjoined extract from the leading Editorial arti

cle.

"We had hoped that we should this year live in peace with the Covenant. For its Editors we have the highest regard; they are good fellow3, singly and collectively; but whenever they mount the chair editorial they seem to be entirely bewitched, and lose sight, in their efforts to sustain their charge of that justice to others, which on all other occasions they cheerfully mete out. They well know that one of the most practical and talented members of the Grand Lodge of the United States at its last session, (the lamented Hinman, of Connecticut,) was most decidedly opposed to all schemes for an official magazine, and the resolutions of the Grand Lodge of Connecticut clearly expressed the views of that intelligent body. The Grand Lodge of Virginia has never countenanced the scheme, and a large number of our most intelligent members, North and South, are opposed to it. Nevertheless, after expressing our disapprobation, we were determined to try and help it on as far as we could-to throw no obstacles in the way, provided it attended to its own business, and let others alone. Ever since its establishment it has been attempting to undermine individual effort; and we have now determined if it is ever again the case we shall, in detail, first give our reasons why we are opposed to it, and then lay be. fore the Order all that we know of its affairs, and the means by which it was continued. We are tired of these repeated attempts to supplant other periodicals—we will not submit to it—and it now remains for the Official to say whether we shall have peace or war."

We beg to premise what we have to say in reference to the above with a single remark in relation to other matters contained in the Editorial from which this extract has been taken. Its personal assault upon our respected assistant Editor, Bro. P. G. M. Case of Charleston we leave to himself. We are informed in the paragraph quoted "that we well knew that one of the most practical and talented members of the Grand Lodge at its last session, (the lamented Hinman of Connecticut) was most decidedly opposed to all schemes for the Official Magazine"-conceding this statement to be true, although the Senior Editor of the Covenant received from the lips of that distinguished brother the assurance, that finding his opinions