cite the testimony of experience the experience of poets, orators, writers, and thinkers of every name and grade, and of almost every age and clime. But why dwell on a point so evident?

Again, the country favors not only mental and moral culture, but is eminently adapted to the development of the physical constitution. Every one knows, that city life, for the most part, is a thing altogether artificial. It cramps the feet with tight shoes, it compresses the waist with tight dresses; it invites and fosters colds, coughs, and consumptions, through the agency of thin stockings, light clothing, late hours, and many other similar requirements of fashion, which time would fail me to specify.

Nor is this all. The resident of the city not always enjoys the fresh products of the country, though he be ever so willing to pay for them. He must often be content with stale butter, stale milk, stale everything; while the happy farmer partakes of all these things in their freshness and purity. May we not, sir, in view of these and other kindred advantages connected with a residence in the country, may we not ask your decision in our favor?

FOURTH, SPEAKER.

Mr. President,—From the observations of the gentleman who has just taken his seat, one might, without an appeal to facts, naturally infer, that all good is confined to the country, and all evil centered in the city. In the life of a citizen, he finds a sort of Siberian destitution; so that whether he walks, or talks, or studies, or eats,

or drinks, or exercises, he is equally the victim of tyrannical custom.

Well, sir, to this doleful catalogue of imaginary ills, which must surely be regarded as the offspring of a distempered fancy, I can only append that old, familiar caption of certain newspaper paragraphs,—“ Important, if true.'

Why, sir, who ever heard, till this hour, that study was a thing to be done to the best advantage only "out in the country?" There only, it seems, we can get clear of noise and nuisance enough to enable us to think; as if people of studious habits, living in the city, were obliged by some unrelenting fatality to choose for a study just that spot in a town, where most "do congregate" carts, wagons, stages, and wheel-barrows, and where the din and clatter of commercial transactions are the most unceasing, and the most annoying; or, if all parts of a city, and at all times of the day, were equally and hopelessly given up to clamor, uproar, and confusion.

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Talk about opportunities for study? Where can they be better, where can they be as good as in the city? Here are capital schools, capital teachers, capital apparatus, capital libraries, capital courses of lectures, capital chances for literary conversation; in fact, capital chances for every thing that can enlarge, store, train, and liberalize the mind.

If we adopt the oft-reiterated sentiment, that

"The proper study of mankind is man.”

and, for the prosecution of this study, seek the society of shade, and stream, and forest, and valley, where

men are found few in numbers, and free from the excitements and conflicts, the competitions and vicissitudes that force out motive, and so determine the character of actions, we shall soon discover that our means of improvement, are sadly deficient. The city, sir, whatever our first impressions might suggest, is, without doubt, the best school for the study of the human heart; so that, if, indeed, "the proper study of mankind is man," the proper place for that study is the crowded city. "Glorious, indeed," says Longfellow, "is the world of God around us, but more glorious the world of God within us!" That "world of God within us," sir, which is destined to survive "the world of God around us," and which, for that reason, is the more deserving of our careful regard, is there best explored, where men, in masses, meet, jostle, rival and mutually stimulate one another.

But the gentleman dreads the vicious associations of the city. If that argument had any strength, it ought to drive him quite out of the world; for vicious people are, by no means, peculiar to cities. It ought, at least, to render him a hermit,-to force him into the most absolute asceticism; for nothing can be more obvious than, that vicious people are not the peculiar heritage and burden of cities.

Evil thrives, with more or less vigor and virulence, everywhere. We can not run entirely away from it, though we need not, and should not run heedlessly or designedly into it. Our positive duty is to oppose it, whether in ourselves or in others. "Resist the devil," says the apostle James, "and he will flee from you."

Surely, Sir, this Scriptural instruction differs toto cœlo from that which counsels us not to resist, but to run.

The truth is, Mr. President, there is often a positive advantage in being near to the wicked and the degraded, provided we have the heart to seek to do them good. Christ himself affords, by his practice in this regard, as in all others, the best possible example. He was found among the wicked, the outcast, the wretched: saying in answer to the question, "Why eateth your master with publicans and sinners?" "They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick." By following this divine example, sir, we may derive the highest benefit to ourselves, while we are seeking to alleviate the woes of others.

The spirit of true Christianity is no anchoretic spirit. It goes out among men, because evil is among men, and seeks, like its blessed Founder, "to save that which is lost." That wicked men, in numbers, dwell in cities, is therefore no argument to induce good men to flee to the country. It is rather a reason to make them court that trial of virtue, by which they may become at once the teachers and the taught in the ways and the works of God.

FIFTH SPEAKER.

Mr. President,-If I wished to give a distinct notion of the difference in signification, between the words ingenious and ingenuous, I think I might safely say, that, in this discussion, thus far the arguments for the country have been ingenuous, while the answers to them have been ingenious.

The country, says the first speaker, in substance, abounds in scenes and objects fitted to awaken admiration, and turn the thoughts of men toward their Creator. It differs from the city, in being the natural, instead of the artificial dwelling-place of man, and is, therefore, better adapted to the development of his mental and moral character.

Now, this is a plain and ingenuous statement of truth; powerful, indeed, but only powerful, because it is true. But how is it answered? "Oh," says the next speaker, "that's all fancy! Men soon become indifferent to the impressions of external grandeur. These things may be fitted to excite sublime sentiments and holy affections, but they seldom do; for men are apt to pass them by unheeded."

Then the whole argument is dismissed with a fine flourish of words about people walking among the Alps, as they would among common hills, and riding on the waves of the ocean as thoughtlessly as they would on the gently ruffled surface of a tranquil lake. In all this, the real point, on which the argument was obviously meant to turn, viz.: the comparative influence of city and country scenes and objects on man's moral nature, is quite overlooked. Now, sir, this may be considered ingenious, but it is far from being ingenuous.

Again; it was argued that the quiet and seclusion of rural life, afforded better opportunities for study and reflection than can be realized in the city; where there must be much of bustle and uproar, the necessary concomitants of trade and commerce. In reply to this, we are rather tauntingly told, that people in the city, who are inclined to study, do not, for that pur