will be, that he is a cold man; that without being a miser, he is still a selfish man, who has no generous impulses; and that to ask a favour of him is too disagreeable a service to be undertaken, except under a stringent necessity. This is not a type of character peculiar to mercantile life. Men of this description are to be found in the learned professions and among civilians. Great men they may be, erudite scholars, eloquent, judicious, influential, and quite accessible where they are consulted officially; but in their ordinary bearing, wrapped in a cloak of dignified selfishness, which makes you feel that their proper place would be in the Armory of the Tower of London, or with some other collection of mailed heroes of the Middle Ages.

The true merchant is cast in a very different mould. His bosom is the home no less of genuine sensibility than of inflexible justice. He understands that his relations to his fellow-men are not all summed up in buying and selling with them. He remembers that life has other and higher ends than the mere exchanges of commerce and the profits which accrue from them. He esteems it as his privilege to do good according as God may have given him the ability. He will be found among the supporters of those noble religious institutions which constitute the brightest ornaments

of our age, and are doing more for the amelioration of the race than all other agencies combined. But his benevolence will not begin and end in the sanctuary. It will be his pleasure to help forward every prudent scheme, which promises to contribute to the general welfare. He will be ready to assist with his advice, and as far as circumstances may warrant it, with his means, firms of tried character which need succour. He will have his eye upon young men of real merit, and at the proper time put them in the way of doing something for themselves. If a vacancy is about to occur in a bank or an insurance office, he will have some unfortunate, but deserving and competent, man to nominate for the place. If he sees the affairs of some remote firm going to ruin through the dissipation or dishonesty of their agent in his own city, he will in a delicate way cause a hint of it to be given them. If a widowed mother invokes his aid in behalf of her sons, he will do what he can to obtain situations for them. In a word, a merchant of this sort will make it the guiding principle of his life, to endeavour to do unto others as he would have others do to him; he will cultivate no less in his business, than in his social intercourse and his religious duties, the spirit of Christian candour and Christian kindness; and the whole texture of his life will go to illustrate the benefits which would accrue to Com

merce, if the BIBLE could once be fairly established in all her COUNTING-HOUSES.

Let it not be inferred from these remarks that the merchant who draws his ethics from the Scriptures, and carries the benevolent spirit of Christianity into his business, must expose himself to imposition, or, in any event, will be likely to forego frequent advantages of which he might fairly avail himself in prosecuting his plans. There is nothing in the Bible to discountenance that "vigilance" which the writer we have quoted, specifies as one of the essential mercantile virtues. Its whole tenor, on the contrary, goes to make men earnest, watchful, and sagacious, in their secular callings. It were, indeed, an ill omen for Christianity, if a faithful adherence to its precepts should reduce men to a state of amiable imbecility, and make them, according to the Italian proverb, "so good that they would be good for nothing." Religious principle is of somewhat sterner stuff than this. A Christian merchant is even under special obligation not to be remiss in any appropriate means for promoting his business. He will shrink from no honourable competition. He will put forth all his powers in deciding how he may best apply his resources. He will be as resolute as his neighbours in getting up new fabrics, in cheapening the cost of production, in seeking out fresh markets, in calculating the contingencies which

may affect prices at future periods or in distant ports, and turning these to some useful account, in guarding against accidents and losses, in meeting the convenience of his customers, and, generally, in devising measures which, without involving unwarrantable risks, may enlarge his business and his profits. He will resist to the utmost, the schemes and tricks of unprincipled traders, who may essay to make capital out of his good nature. He will show himself as resolute in bringing knaves and sharpers to justice, as he is lenient to those whose only crime consists in their having been unfortunate. Nor will his moral courage exhaust itself in meting out a righteous retribution to piratical adventurers from the interior. If there are firms in his own line of business, however wealthy and prosperous, which set at defiance the common maxims of integrity and the established courtesies of commerce, which circulate slanders against their neighbours, inveigle away their customers, and do other things which no honourable merchant would do, he will, on all fitting occasions, manifest his abhorrence of their conduct. He will unite with his brethren in suspending all professional intercourse with such firms, and treating them as marauders, who have no legitimate place within the domain of commerce. It is the opprobrium of the mercantile class that there should be men of this description among them. If

FRAUDULENT ESTABLISHMENTS.

93

new men rise up along the street, who simply excel them in enterprise and skill, who beat them in energy and tact, and through these means outstrip them in business, they cannot complain. But there can be few things more trying to a mercantile body than to have an establishment planted among them which thrives at their expense, on principles that ought never to be found outside of a Penitentiary. The craft with which these concerns are managed, is a great aggravation of the evil. Like other freebooters, they sail under false colours. They bear all the outward emblems of respectability and integrity. Here is the warehouse, stocked from basement to attic with seasonable goods. The principals and clerks are as bland and polite as possible. There are porters and draymen and packers and piles of boxes and the usual paraphernalia of a driving business. But the honeyed words which are spoken there in the ears of the country merchant, who has just been enticed from the firm he has always traded with, are words of falsehood. The sly insinuations he hears about "other houses" are calumnies. The alleged superior facilities for making purchases, enjoyed by his new friends, are a sheer fabrication. The extremely liberal terms on which they are willing to sell to "a gentleman of his standing," are a decoy for the time being, or, if anything more, will be found