The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 01, November, 1857: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
General
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 01, November, 1857: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
"Though he be rid of fear,
He is not void of care."
If the noise he makes only add to the general turbulence and confusion, the
show of sympathy will at least go for something.
The same authority, whom we have just quoted, has a piece of advice with
which we intend to set our tub in motion. "Whatsoever," he says, "those
blindfolded, blockheady fools, the astrologers of Louvain, Nuremberg,
Tubingen, and Lyons, may tell you, don't you feed yourselves up with whims
and fancies, nor believe there is any Governor of the whole universe this
year but God the Creator, who by his Word rules and governs all things, in
their nature, propriety, and conditions, and without whose preservation and
governance all things in a moment would be reduced to nothing, as out of
nothing they were by him created." It is a most sound and salutary truth,
not to be forgotten in times of commercial distress, nor even in discussing
financial questions, remote as they may seem to be from the domain of
ethics. God rules in the market, as he does on the mountain; he has
provided eternal laws for society, as he has for the stars or the seas;
and it is just as impossible to escape him or his ways in Wall Street or
State Street as it is anywhere else. We do not wish to suggest any improper
comparisons, but does not the Psalmist assert, "If I make my bed in
_sheol_, behold Thou art there"?
In other words, commerce, the exchange of commodities, banking, and
whatever relates to it, currency, the rise and fall of prices, the rates
of profits, are all subject to laws as universal and unerring as those
which Newton deduces in the "Principia," or Donald McKay applies in the
construction of a clipper ship. As they are manifested by more complicated
phenomena, man may not know them as accurately as he knows the laws of
astronomy or mechanics; but he can no more doubt the existence of the
former than he can the existence of the latter; and he can no more
infringe the one than he can infringe the other with impunity. The poorest
housekeeper is perfectly well aware that certain rules of order are to
be observed in the management of the house, or else you will have either
starvation or the sheriff inside of it in a little time. But what means
that formidable, big-sounding phrase, Political Economy, more than national
housekeeping? Can you manage the immense, overgrown family of Uncle Sam
with less calculation, less regard to justice, prudence, thrift, than you
use in your own little affairs? Can you sail that tremendous vessel,
the Ship of State, without looking well to your chart and compass and
Navigator's Guide?
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