Nor is this all. This, with coming generations, by their industry, by the stimulus of an unquenchable thirst for wealth, will, in all probability, accumulate countless riches--will, if we may speak thus figuratively, erect in our land immense moneyed houses filled with gold and silver, the reward of their desire. But these generations, like all things below, must pass away, and sink into the common tomb of the dead. Then these moneyed houses, though locked and barred, and ironed, will be burst open, and their gold and silver, amassed with miserly care, be made to flow in streams to slake the thirst of a debased posterity. And the result is beyond the power of human imagination. Having the wealth of their ancestors in their hands, and being, as man is, naturally prone to idleness, they will forget the industry of their fathers, and only think how they may live most lavishly, most splendidly. The gratification of the senses, attended {383} by its concomitants, vice and degradation, will be the sole desire of all human aspiration. Society--its beautiful dependences and proportions destroyed--will fall into fragments and return to original anarchy. Mind uncultivated, will shed no illuminations, but, like "expression's last receding ray," will be lost in the universal midnight of heart and intellect. For to this idol of their worship, sensual pleasure, they will bring as daily offerings the lovely and beautiful in the heart, the noble and sublime in the intellect. But amid all their dissipation, like the revellers at Belshazzar's feast, surrounded by the luxuries and glittering splendors of earth, unsuspecting, the thunderbolt of their destruction will come upon them--fearfully, suddenly, to their annihilation. We have now briefly shown the nature of this money-getting desire, and its inadequacy, from its total neglect of all mental cultivation, to promote the general elevation of society. There is another stimulus of American mind which sometimes combines with the desire of wealth--occasionally acts alone. It is an aspirancy for political fame. Bear with us while we attempt very concisely to show its nature and effects. No one who looks abroad upon the present aspect of society can doubt the existence of such a desire. It is the controlling stimulus of our young educated mind. It has its origin in our nature, for man is naturally fond of distinction, fond of wielding the sceptre of governing power. Our institutions in their high and impartial wisdom have said, that all men possess equal rights; and upon this declaration rest the pillars which support the sky-dome of our national temple. But the mind of this age has perverted its original intent, and made it the all-stimulating cause of a thirst for political elevation. The state of society, its love of political excitement, its seeming willingness to reward political effort, likewise awaken and nourish this thirst.