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ADDRESS.

WHAT IS THE CHIEF END OF MAN? What the object of the mighty effort, in which men of all nations, ranks, characters, and capacities, are engaged? For what is it that the Politician practises all the arts and devices, which nature, and education, and ambition, can supply, and, in one respect at least, imitates the example of an apostle, becoming all things to all men? For what does the Merchant wander from his home, turning his back upon all its endearments, shutting his eyes to the sweet smile of beauty, and stopping his ears to the breathings of affection, braving the treachery of the ocean and the perils of untried climates, hazarding property, liberty, and life, his all, and sometimes, alas! more than all his own, to the chances of war, and fire, and piracy, and tempest? For what does the Farmer, with painful solicitude, observe the clouds and the winds, and, with restless apprehension, mark the phenomena that usher in the seed time and harvest, while he exhausts his physical strength and robs his limbs of the rest and relaxation, which are their honest due?

What prize is that, which invigorates the arm of the Mechanic, and stimulates the inventive faculty of the Artizan, while they plod on through winter's cold and summer's heat-now scorching under meridian suns, and now shivering in the damps of midnight darkness-now delving in tunnels under the beds of mighty rivers, and now, with daring foot, threading the circuit of the lofty dome, or scaling the pointed steeple, midway from earth to heaven? What is it, which is to requite the Scholar for the desolation of health, the consumption of vigor, the havoc of intellect, produced by his labors in polishing a period or in solving a problem? And, to close this series of interrogations, to what end does the religious enthusiast shut up his senses against the fascinations of nature and the sympathies of humanity, while he strains his ingenuity and libels reason, making to himself a God after his own likeness, and tormenting all the rest of mankind, who refuse to honor and adore the image he has set up?

This inquiry is deeply interesting, and involves considerations, which must affect the condition of every human being in every stage of existence. The answer must be a general one; and an attempt to apply it to the present character of individuals and associations, and to concerns of every-day occurrence, is all that will be proposed or required on the present occasion. To others, whose peculiar office it is to admonish or instruct from this place, belongs the duty of illustrating and enforcing these considerations with reference to another world and a future life. I

will not intrude upon their consecrated ground, nor trespass on the province of the spiritual teacher. Be it mine to speak of men in their social and temporal capacities; be it his to fit them for intercourse with holier spirits, in a more enduring habitation.

The inquiry proposed is deeply interesting; and, whatever the statesman or the philosopher, the philanthropist or the misanthrope, the man of business or the man of pleasure, may offer in reply, the answer, in a single word, is HAPPINESS. But though the object of our labor is so apparent-though the temple is ever in sight-the avenues, which lead thither, are not so distinctly visible. They are shadowed with clouds, and enveloped in mists; and he, who commences the pilgrimage, though the point where all the avenues centre may be ever present to his eye, little knows what dangers and difficulties beset his path-through what fires and floods he must walk—what giants and demons may assault him and defeat his purposes. Human life is a life of uncertainty and hope, of discouragement and expectation; and he who rejects the conditions, must relinquish his title to the freehold.

By far the greater portion of mankind have found that personal and individual happiness is promoted by association; that the highest state of enjoyment is that, in which there can exist an interchange of sentiment, opinion, and feeling—a comparison and coincidence of taste and inclination-a convention of purposes and means; and this disposition in men to unite with others, having congenial tempers, similar

habits, and common interests, was the origin of society.

Man is a being that loves himself. All his natural desires and propensities have a conservative tendency. Every moment of his existence he is striving-often, perhaps, unconscious of the effort to make that existence more agreeable. It is only to augment his capacity for enjoyment-to increase his power of obtaining individual happiness, and to facilitate the fruition of his desires, that he consents to unite his efforts with those of his fellow-men. These general principles are inherent in his nature, and are interwoven with every fibre of his physical and intellectual composition. They exist from necessity, and must continue to exist as long as man himself shall endure. No truth is more sacred or immutable than the oftrepeated maxim, "Self love and social are the same." To every thinking mind it is a self-evident proposition, though its commonness has subjected it, sometimes, to the sneer of superficial moralists, as an apology for licentiousness and profligacy. Philosophically viewed, it lies at the foundation of the whole moral system. It is, in a modified sense, the essence of the Divinity.

And what is the moral system, but a combination of elementary principles, a coacervation of fundamental truths, embracing the duties, obligations and responsibilities of men, living together in society?— obligations and responsibilities founded in necessity, because the chief good cannot be attained without the employment of the requisite means? The

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