THE RULE OF RECTITUDE.

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Lecture Second.

THE STANDARD OF COMMERCIAL RECTITUDE.

PEOPLE who frequent the Philadelphia market, are in the habit of meeting there an important personage, who passes from stall to stall and waggon to waggon, and with a magisterial air, casts certain of the products of the dairy into his scales, which, if they be found wanting, he confiscates to the public treasury. What would be the result, if an official, clothed with the authority of the government, and supernaturally endowed with the requisite penetration and firmness, could go through all the haunts of commerce, equipped with the balances of the sanctuary, the WORD OF GOD, and subject every fabric and every usage of the trading world to this unerring test? Is it possible to conceive of any greater revolution in the wide realm of merchandise, than that which would be involved in adjusting the totality of its customs and its transactions to this, the only righteous, standard? What reformations would there

be in weights and measures and labels, in service and in salaries, in the stereotype dialect of trafficking, in the endless expedients for entrapping the ignorant and misleading the unwary, for injuring rival houses, for depreciating goods in the buying of them and enhancing them in the selling, for creating a factitious credit and oppressing upright insolvents! What activity would there be in extricating trust-funds from illegal and perilous investments! What revisions of invoices! What remodelled instructions to captains and supercargoes! What retractions of custom-house oaths! What an augmentation of duties! What commotion at the stock-exchange! What a gathering up of bank-capital, to restore it to its legitimate channels !

It

This is not to say that truth and honesty have been ostracised out of the domain of commerce. is not to admit that the Roman mythology assigned Mercury his proper place in making him the god of merchants, orators, and thieves. This may have been apposite enough among them; and the merchants of Rome doubtless had their own reasons for observing an annual festival in honour of their patron, on which occasion they offered sacrifices in his temple, and besought him to forgive whatever artful measures, false oaths, or falsehoods, they had used or uttered in the pursuit of gain. But the imaginary

EQUIVOCAL PRACTICES.

41

scene just sketched, carries with it no impeachment of the general integrity of the commercial classes: that, happily, is beyond the reach of suspicion. It recognizes, however, the prevalence, more or less extensive, of practices which are as freely admitted as they are deeply deplored, by upright and intelligent merchants. These practices are not covertly hinted at, or talked of in a whisper. They are among the common-places of the street and the Exchange, too notorious to be denied, and too mischievous not to be felt. That they are not met with a more decisive reprobation, and scourged out of the arena of honourable traffic, as the buyers and sellers were driven out of the temple, is to be ascribed, in some measure, to that lax morality which has so entrenched itself in the business-world as to hamper the freedom even of those who abhor it. And this, in turn, is to be traced to the substitution of false standards of virtue, for the law of God. This law has suffered no abatement in consequence of the coming of Christ. It is as much a rule of duty to us as it was to the generations that lived before the advent. He came, not to destroy, but to fulfil it. And, in his exposition of it, he has not only ratified every jot and tittle of the decalogue, but added a 66 new commandment." "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and

with all thy strength and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself." "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even to them: for this is the law and the prophets." This is the Scripture code. It is no local or temporary enactment. It extends to all times, all countries, all classes, all transactions. It is no chameleon-like scheme, which takes its hue from the interests with which it may happen to come in contact. It knows no variableness, nor shadow of turning. It speaks the same language in the palace as in the cottage, on the banks of the Ganges as on the banks of the Delaware. It is a stranger alike to fear and favour, to pity and resentment. Creation has not wealth enough to bribe it. The most evanescent emotion that flits across the human breast, is not subtle enough to elude it.

The threats of power and

revenge, are shivered upon it, like spears upon a granite rock. The appeals of interest and affection recoil from it, like the waves which break and die at the base of Carmel.

This is the august and immutable standard of morality, which demands the homage of the eager tribes of commerce, of whatever clime, or tongue, or occupation. Impressed with the image and superscription of the only Lord of the conscience, it claims to be installed in every counting-room, and whereso

EXPEDIENCY.

ever men may meet for traffic.

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And if the claim

were as universally conceded as it is urged, that auspicious transformation would pass over the wide domain of Commerce, which was described in the opening of this Lecture. But this code is too pure and too just to suit the masses in any country. And there is a constant disposition to substitute for it some other, which will bend to men's passions and interests.

There are, for example, in every great trading community, individuals whose only rule of conduct is Expediency. Right and wrong are with them mere professional technicalities. Questions of casuistry are as regularly ciphered out as the details of a balancesheet. If a transaction promises to promote their interest, it is right; if not, it is wrong. If a lie will answer a better purpose than the truth, it would be effeminate not to use it. If they can take the advantage of a customer, without being detected, they would be faithless to themselves to let the opportunity slip. I say, "without being detected:" for it must not be supposed that this class of persons have cast off all outward decorum. Far from it. It is one of the elements which enter into their current calculations, how far they can go in this or that direction without being exposed, and whether any proposed measure can be adopted without a sacrifice of their