evil; wealth seeks its preservation by uniting itself to wealth—power strives to extend itself by an alliance with power—in such cases wealth and rank have frequently exercised a predominant influence, and brute force has still oftener enjoyed its short lived triumph; but intellectual power guided by high religious and moral motives, has never failed to establish its just rights and proper sway. The education therefore of the people, the diffusion of knowledge, and the encouragement of literature and science are the only safeguard for a government and social system like ours, exposed as they are to the double hostility of popular menace and the arrogant inroads of exclusive and aristocratic orders; but the most efficacious of all these elements of stability is that of intellectual power, whether it is exhibited in the statesman’s forethought and sagacity—in the philosopher’s powers of combination and judgment—or in the lighter and more elegant accomplishments of the scholar and the poet—the shaft of the stately column is not weakened by the acanthus that curls at its summit, nor is reason less enlightened when embellished by the imagination. The foundation, therefore, of a literature peculiarly free and national, and the encouragement of all the arts of life, should be our first aim; and here, gentlemen of the societies, which have so honorably been dedicated to these noble objects, permit {787} me to animate, if I can, your laudable zeal, and invoke to you the praise and support of proud city—of the whole country. In your hands are deposited sacred and beneficial trusts—on your efforts as citizens and scholars depend much of the future prosperity and glory of Maryland. It is not enough therefore that you are the nominal and passive members of these scientific and literary associations, or the admirers of all that is beautiful in the culture of letters and the promotion of science. You may walk indeed through the gorgeous temple of knowledge and explore its holiest recesses or arcana, or bow before its altars with homage and adoration, but you must _unfold_ its portals and _lift high_ its gates that the people may enter, and become as enlightened as they are free. Above all, in aiding by your exertions in this great work, you should endeavor to found a literature whoso seat is the bosom of God—whose end the elevation of man. Let then the Bible be its chief pillar or corner stone, from whose pure pages and sublime truths, the waters of life may gush forth, and mingling with the full stream of rational and social prosperity, form “——as deep and as brilliant a tide As ever bore freedom aloft on its wave.” THE PICKWICK CLUB. _The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club: Containing a Faithful Record of the Perambulations, Perils, Travels, Adventures, and Sporting Transactions of the Corresponding Members. Edited by “Boz.” Philadelphia: Republished by Carey, Lea and Blanchard._