But the fruits, say the advocates of this money-seeking desire, are industry and wealth. We grant wealth as its result, and that it is not an effect of enchantment; but as there must be much labor, chiselling and hammering, before the edifice can rise in beauty and magnificence, so in its acquisition there must be inflexible industry. But is it that kind of industry which unfolds and invigorates the mind, thereby producing social elevation and refinement? History informs us how some of the mighty cities of the east, by industry, rose to opulence, but laments over their low state of society, and as a consequence, their fall, like Lucifer from the halls of heaven, never to rise again. This industry, so beloved, so enticing in the view of the many, is directed to one end--individual gain. Considered in reference to the well-being of communities as a whole, it is a gilded fatality. It explores the deep centres of the earth, and brings forth its long buried riches; covers every river, sea, and lake with commerce; ransacks all nature, animate and inanimate. But what is all this, without a fully developed mind to direct, to manage, to enjoy? What would it avail us, though industry should roof our houses with diamonds, if there was not within a virtuous feeling, an elevation of thought? Does this money-loving industry purify and ennoble the social relations--show their nature and point out how they should be observed?--or, does it lift the mind to the contemplation of the ineffable glories and majesties of the eternal King of worlds? We have said we grant wealth as the result of this desire, but it is not general wealth. All may strive, all may labor with intense anxiety and assiduity, but all will not gain the mountain's summit; a great majority must ever be at its base. Speculation, which is the mean of immense fortunes, bankrupts more than it enriches. The follies of mankind, their diversity of thought and feeling, their ignorance, their mistaken notions of pride, render it impossible for all to be alike successful. The result is obvious. The few, the mighty few, are the wealthy. Now, wealth in the present state of things is power; for the sicklied conception of the age has thrown around it all that is great or glorious. And it is a well founded principle that power, whatever its nature, will govern. Who can picture that state of society, governed by aristocratic wealth, untempered by the virtues of the heart and intellect? Further; it is not only by the sacrifice of its mind that this age will acquire its wealth, but by the sacrifice of that of posterity. One generation stamps a character upon another. Whatever this age thinks and does, will more or less characterize the thoughts and actions of the succeeding.