constancy; and it is truly wonderful to think what a rough handling a nation will come through, and with what hardihood she will endure it;-to think how famine and pestilence, and foreign war, and internal commotion, will successively lay hold of her; and how she will escape from their grasp, and in a few short years will be nearly what she was before she was subjected to it. And as the operations of political economy resemble the operations of nature in their constancy, we think they also resemble them in the cause of this constancy; and we shall try to illustrate this by an example or two.

Thus, in every country there should be a certain relation between the produce and the population; and it is interesting to observe how the constancy of this relation is maintained, through all the changes to which a nation is exposed.

Let us suppose, for example, that by improvements in tilling the ground, in the rotations of the crops,&c. that the agricultural produce is increased, and thus the constancy of the relation between the produce and the population is for a time destroyed. There is in this instance a superabundance of produce, or what is the same thing, there is a deficiency of population. Now let us see how the original relation between them is again restored. The agricultural produce being increased, more corn is brought to market, and the demand, in the first instance at least, remains the same: the consequence is, corn is cheapened. The cheapening of corn again puts more of the inhabitants in a condition to support a family; marriages take place earlier, and the population is increased; and thus is the deficiency made up, and the proper relation

between the produce and the population again restored.

But it must be evident to every one, that were the population thus to go on increasing indefinitely, the proper relation would soon be more than restored, the ratio would become reversed, and instead of a superabundance of produce, there would soon be a redundancy of population. But here, too, may we behold the beautiful effect of that arrangement, by which the remedy for the evil is involved in the evil itself. As the population has now increased, the demand has also increased: but in this latter instance the supply has remained the same; the natural consequence of which is, that the price of corn rises. It is now of course more difficult to support a family;-marriages are discouraged, and thus does the very increase of population, as soon as it comes to that point where its farther increase would be detrimental, actually bring a check upon itself.

Again, from various causes we sometimes see an old manufacture abolished. And here there would seem to be a great and immediate evil; a vast number of operatives are thrown out of employment. And yet, if we consider the subject attentively, we shall find that here, too, as well as in the example already adduced, the evil, if let alone, will remedy itself. And wherever we thus see an old manufacture abolished, may we with confidence predict that the wealth which supported that manufacture, will either give rise to a new one, or will so divide itself among those that yet remain, as to give a new impulse to each. And thus will the evil be remedied, and that class of the community which have been thrust from their old occupation, will either find employment in a

new manufacture, or will be parceled out among the manufactures that yet remain. There is still as much food for them in the country as before, and all that they will suffer will merely be the temporary inconvenience attending a change of employment.

Were one of the mouths of the Nile to be stopped up, that river would not discharge less water into the ocean than it did before. The water which used to flow through that channel, would at first, it is true, flow backwards; but it would not continue to do so, nor would it even remain stationary; it would seek another direction, and it would either overflow the banks, and hollow out a new channel for itself, or it would divide itself and flow to the sea, through the channels that yet remained. And here, by the way, would we advert to that political delusion which would magnify the importance of any one branch of manufacture or commerce. The waters of the ocean would not be diminished by one drop, because they had ceased to receive the tribute of that stream. So long as the same body of water continued to flow on from the fountain head, so long would the monarch of waters know no diminution in his resources. And it were well if our statesmen, as well as our operatives, could perceive that the manufacture does not produce either the taxes in the one case, or the wages in the other; that it is merely the channel through which they flow. And that so long as the national ability remains the same, neither the revenues of the state, nor the wages of the operatives will suffer one iota of diminution by the decay of any one branch of commerce or manufacture. We do not say that in such an event there would be no loss

at all; but we do affirm that ultimately the loss would not be sustained by the government, nor by those employed in the manufacture, but by the public at large.

To return to our illustration. That particular branch of the Nile might have added much to the beauty of the scenery on its banks, and might have ministered in a high degree to the enjoyment, and even to the comfort of those who dwelt along them; and the stopping up of its channel would be felt by them to be a very serious inconvenience. And thus, too, the particular branch of manufacture might have furnished an article which contributed very much to the enjoyment or the comfort of the public. And in so far its decay might be felt as a very calamitous event. But still our remark holds true, that ultimately the operatives will not suffer; that ultimately the state will not suffer; that in this respect the evil will remedy itself; that if the stream of public wealth flow not through that channel, it will seek out another, and that if there be a temporary stagnation till the new outlet be formed, it will be compensated by the more than usual rapidity of the current, when it has cleared away the obstructions.

We hope the two examples we have adduced may have been sufficient to illustrate that constitution of things, by which an evil is made to remedy itself; and to show how the operation of this principle serves to regulate the vast machinery of a nation; and to give a constancy and a steadiness to all its movements. And we would now ask to what should the discovery of this lead us?

We might have concluded a priore that that God whose goodness is over all his works, while he regulated all the changes of nature, and main

tained an unvarying constancy in all her operations, would not leave to chance, or to the guidance of mere human wisdom, the regulation of those principles on which depends the temporal happiness of his rational creatures. And when in the workings of these principles we discover that same constancy which distinguishes the operations of nature, and the same means employed to preserve that constancy; and when we perceive, farther, that all this may go on independent of our knowledge, and most certainly does go on independent of our direction;-should it not go very much to strengthen the conclusion. Let us acknowledge then, that there is here the working of a mightier agency than man; and let us ascribe that constant hardihood with which a nation survives all the changes that pass over her, to the care and the wisdom of that same Mighty Being, "who causeth the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth: who maketh lightnings for the rain; and who bringeth the wind out of his treasuries."

The concluding paragraph is a beautiful instance of the prevailing disposition of the writer's mind, and of the happy ease with which he could connect every speculation and exercise with his leading and darling subject. His mind traced the hand of the benevolent Creator in all his operations, whether of nature or of providence. He beheld and adored his wisdom, both in the uncontrollable and efficient. laws of the universe, and in the frame and constitution of society. What affected his own mind, he was desirous should affect the minds of others; and "out of the fulness of his heart, his