EMULATION is commmon to all our race. Competition pervades every age of life, and every grade of character. From the child who lisps his alphabet, to the grandsire who tells the story of his better days; from the boy whirling his ball, to the hero commanding his army; we find all influenced by a similar spirit of emulation. The object of emulation is excellence. All competitors wish for excellence, whatever may be the object of pursuit; whether gold or glory, amusement or virtue. Per­haps we have never known the man who could wil­lingly see all men excel himself in all things. He might, in many respects, yield the palm of excellence to many; but he would have some favourite com­petition in which he would willingly be equalled by none.

WITH all this ardour for excellence, we com­mence life with no native pre-eminence. Our real character is the production of our own exertion. God has wisely given to man merely essence; he has left the formation of his character to the effort of his own energies. He has said, that unless he mark himself with deeds of splendour, which may give him to shine along the current of duration, even im­mortality [Page 6] itself shall but perpetuate his insignificance, and continue him an undistinguished particle in the great ocean of being.

THUS destitute of superiority, and thus desirous of distinguishing merit, each young mortal awakes from the slumbers of nihility; and, starting off in the career of existence, eagerly enquires how he must run, to obtain the prize of excellence. The art of excelling, therefore, is universally important. It interests every individual of man. It cannot then be improperly chosen for the subject of a few obser­vations before a Society which has no views separate from the common interest of humanity.

EXCELLENCE may be obtained, first, by an estima­tion of our powers; and secondly, by calling up be­fore our minds the motives naturally urging these powers into exertion.

AFTER a perfect review of all the energies of his nature, man must be persuaded that every atchieve­ment which can augment human merit, lies within the reach of human acquisition. The first rule, therefore, in the art of excelling, is to convince our­selves that we can excel.

FOR want of this conviction, many things are frus­trated. All imperfect actions are the offspring of undecided efforts. If any thing be done weakly or partially; if any enterprize be feebly attempted and fail in the execution, it is because he who attempted the performance doubted his skill, his energy, or his success. This doubtfulness generates that timidity which forever unnerves the arm of exertion. On the contrary, all noble deeds have been done by those who greatly believed God had rendered them capable of the atchievement. This generous persuasion of mind gives courage, fortitude, perseverance; and thus diminishes danger, removes difficulty, and sur­mounts obstacles.

[Page 7]THESE truths will be still more illustrated and evinced, if we advert to a few examples. Many a midnight taper has shed its last glimmering ray on the sons of contemplation, who, but for this persuasion, had reposed themselves with the children of thought­less ignorance, or rioted amidst the votaries of dissi­pation.

DEMOSTHENES, from a timid, lisping, hesitating, stammering school-boy, formed himself into an Ora­tor, so perfect—so persuasive—so commanding—that for years he baffled all the intrigues of Macedonian usurpation; pushed back the torrent of popular li­centiousness; and, while all Greece was falling into the iron hands of slavery, he, by the mere charms of his eloquence, allured liberty to hover over his na­tive city, and give at least a momentary lustre to the fading glory of Athens. How did he perform this? He believed he could perform it. This belief gave him resolution, gave him perseverance, gave him success.

SOCRATES, the pride of Pagan morality, by con­stitution was prone to every vice. He was deceit­ful, intemperate, voluptuous, addicted to revenge, a betrayer of men, a blasphemer of the Gods. All these vices were so congenial to his nature, that they were marked in the very features of his face. But, in reality, he was the very reverse of all these. He was sincere, moderate, above the allurements of plea­sure, patient of injuries to a proverb, of a fidelity ne­ver to be corrupted, and influenced by an habitual reverence for the gods, and a devotion to their pro­vidence. How was this? How did Socrates thus oppose the united current of all his propensities, ap­petites and passions? How did he thus change, and in a manner re-create himself? It was because he felt a certain divine conviction of soul, that all this mighty revolution lay within the reach of his power.

[Page 8]THE discoverer of the new world affords us ano­ther illustrious example. All the avarice, envy, ig­norance and superstition of the fifteenth century, rose up against him. An ocean lay between him and the object of his enterprize. He could stand on the hills of Europe, and view the wave, rising at his foot, and rolling until it washed against the distant hori­zon; but all beyond was uncertainty. It might be a continent of inaccessible rocks; it might be a world of waters, by whirlpools and shallows impassable, and vexed with everlasting storms. What but this un­doubting persuasion of mind, could have given him a superiority to all these obstacles?

IT was the same persuasion which, in the Ameri­can revolution, carried the volunteers of New-Eng­land through the pathless, savage-haunted, winter wil­derness of Maine. It was this which tore the laurel of conquest from the brow of Albian glory, and wrote the names of COLUMBIA and WASHINGTON among the stars. If, indeed, any thing good or great, any thing worthy to be heard by nations, to be told to posterity, and had in perpetual remembrance, has ever been done, it has been done by those alone who nobly believed success was within their power. Let, therefore, him who would excel, first be persuad­ed that he is capable of excellence. Let him believe he can do all things within the reach of human at­chievement; that his mind may progress in improve­ment, until nothing but infinity remains incompre­hensible, nothing but boundless benevolence unprac­tised.

THOUGH we may have surveyed the powers of our nature, and feel the certainty of success, yet we shall never attempt any enterprize, until we are assur­ed the completion of it will in some respect augment our felicity. All our actions are the offspring of motives; and our own felicity is the great motive [Page 9] of all our actions. We have three great sources of felicity with which every other stream of delight ul­timately mingles itself. The first is self-approbation; the next the praise of other beings; and the last the eternal duration of all those acquirements, by which the two others are obtained.

LET us then, as another rule in the art of excel­ling, contemplate these three primary springs of our felicity as the great motives of excellence.

IF the mind be not vitiated, self approbation can be acquired by nothing less than excellence. For if emulation be one of our strongest passions, if the ob­ject of emulation be excellence, if we are convinced that whatever constitutes excellence lies within the reach of our possible acquisition, then it will be im­possible for the mind entirely to approve itself, until it has obtained excellence.

PERHAPS nothing more augments our felicity than self approbation. The approbation of those most dear to us, spreads over the heart the finest touches of delight. The parent in whose bosom we have been nurtured, and the country where we first be­held this pleasant light of heaven, are forever dear to us. It is because their idea, woven into the very texture of our existence, forms a part of ourselves; and we have it not in our power to rend them away from us, and not lacerate the fibres of that heart with which they are thus incorporated. Yet ourselves are more dear; and all the love which we feel for any part of sensitive creation, is but the offspring of that love which we feel for ourselves. God has wisely given each man to consider himself the centre of that moral hemisphere in which he has placed him. Things interest him less and less, as they re­cede from him; until, by distance, they fade into undistinguished indifference, and sink below the far-off horizon. If because our fellow men, our coun­try [Page 10] and our friends are dear to us, we are delighted with their approbation, what must we feel when our bosoms warm with conscious integrity, and expand with the exhilirating smiles of our own souls?

THIS consciousness is not all. A pleasure attends the exercise of those acquirements, which purchase self approbation. When our minds are not vitiated, what perfects our nature we approve; what depraves it we condemn. The man, therefore, who thoroughly approves himself, has acquired every perfection of which his nature is already capable. He is possessed of virtue, knowledge, science, taste, refinement. The serenity of temperance, the firmness of forti­tude, the magnanimity of benevolence, are among the habits of his heart. He has contemplated moral and material nature, until his expanded mind seems a region embosoming the universe; and splendidly ornamented with all the rich garniture of physical and intellectual systems.

THE value of self approbation is enhanced by its independence. It must be to its possessor certain and permanent, because it lies within himself. That vortex of contingency which whirls in its dusty at­mosphere all things else of man, reaches not the still retreat of a self approving heart. Envy, malevo­lence and calumny, have no power over it. They gnash their iron fangs, and raise their nocturnal howls in vain.

SELF approbation is a source of pleasure insepara­ble from us. Wherever we may be called by in­clination, or driven by necessity; whether in the retreats of rural solitude, or the noisy tumults of the clamorous city; place us on the winter-beaten plains of Labrador, or the serpent-haunted shores of stormy Huron, or in the rocky bosom of the frowning Al­leghanies, none of these peregrinations will ever remove us from a self approving heart. It smiles [Page 11] with a kind of omnipotent beneficence, will forever strew the vernal glories of paradise before us. Nay, let these bodies become the sport of accident; let the corroding current of time wear them away; let their particles, unlocked from each others' embrace, be driven by whirlwinds round the globe, or sub­tilized to aether, and scattered through immen­sity; still self approbation will be with us while our consciousness or our souls remain, be they ten­ants of no matter what department of duration, whe­ther on this or t'other side the billowy waste of ages.

IF therefore self approbation give sensations so delightful; if it comprehend all the improvements of our nature; if it lie above the reach of contin­gency, and be forever inseparable from us, does it not contain much of that which makes us blessed? If self approbation can be obtained by no mean acquisition; if the soul never smile on itself so long as it has tarnished one deed with a malevolent design, or left one meritorious action unperformed; if nothing but excellence can purchase self approba­tion, then surely as much as each man desires a source of felicity exquisite, comprehensive, independent and durable, so much will he labour for that excellence, by which alone it can be obtained.

THE praise of that Being, to whom we are all amenable, is a subject too solemn for the present occasion, too hallowed for the present speaker. With what, and how many other beings we stand related, is now, perhaps, somewhat doubtful. In speaking, therefore, of the praise of other beings, as a source of happiness, and a motive of excellence, the praise of our fellow men only will be mentioned.

For this praise perhaps all have a fondness: It may with justice be said, that man loves the applause of man. The wise ancients were of this opinion. They regarded a love of glory as the strongest proof [Page 12] of man's divine original; and ever considered those minds the most exalted, which had the strongest passion for praise. Men seem prepared by their na­ture, not only to admire and applaud whatever is magnificent in the atchievements of others, but also to feel a peculiar delight in the merit and fruition of that applause which is the just reward of noble actions. The same men who have readily resign­ed ease, pleasure and tranquility; assumed care, en­dured fatigue, and smiled amidst perilous enter­prizes, have yet trembled at the first approach of in­famy. None are so base, so worthless, so entirely insignificant, so contaminated with crimes or scarred with ignominy, but they still fancy themselves pos­sessed of some shade, some faded tint of excellency. Place them on the lowest grade of human infamy, and even there the cold dank breath of universal neglect cannot entirely extinguish this god-like pas­sion. From that abyss of depression, they lift their eyes towards the sun of glory, and vainly solace themselves with recollection of their blighted ho­nours.

THAT the acquisition of this glory and applause, which men so ardently desire, will greatly augment the felicity of those who obtain them, cannot be doubted. It is no less certain, that this applause can be obtained by excellence alone. In the unvitiated state of public opinion, there seems to be a tacit agreement among mankind, to bestow ex­traordinary praise on nothing but extraordinary merit. This originates from the very constitution of our nature. We never set a high value on easy acquisitions. Rational men seldom arrogate to themselves any merit on account of the possession of accidental honour or emolument. But acquire­ments made by toil, care, vigilance and long perse­verance, are highly prized. Their value seems en­hanced [Page 13] by all the anxiety of pursuit, and all the diffi­culty of acquisition.

THE emergencies of society render this constitu­tion necessary. Some social duties would never be performed, if any thing less than their performance could purchase the same applause and glory. We are sometimes called to defend our country. It is true our country involves objects endeared to us by so many relations, that, without any hope of glory for it, we might be induced to stretch out our arm in its defence. But this is not enough. Men would fight with a caution little less than pusillanimous, if they fought merely on the defensive. More than this must be done in the day of battle. Men must then make aggressions, must fight for acquisition, rush on danger, and be in a manner prodigal of life. When this is done, it is only because no other atchievements purchase so much glory as deeds of valour. It is the expectation of this glory which plucks from the brow of battle all its terrors, softens the field of slaughter into the bed of honour, and renders dying for our country delightful.

A DIFFERENT constitution would, perhaps, sub­vert society. If applause were bestowed on base­ness, indolence and cowardice; if the wreath of glo­ry were unbound from the brow of the valiant de­fender of his country, and held out to him who shrunk from the point of danger, or betrayed the armies of his nation to their enemies, would not that virtue, "which seeks no interest, no reward but praise," indignant retire from an ungrateful world? Would not vice, thus countenanced, encouraged and applauded, ride through the nations triumphant? Yes, the hero of Mount-Vernon would have sunk into contempt and oblivion, while the traitor of West-Point had not only rescued his name from the [Page 14] gibbet of infamy, but risen glorious amidst the ruins of his country. God hath therefore said to man, bestow praise and applause on those only, who have deserved fame and glory by excellence.

IF then nature has given us such a desire for praise; if this passion be inextinguishable by time or accident; if our feelings, the emergencies of so­ciety, and in a manner the voice of God himself, command us to bestow praise on those only who have earned it by extraordinary merit, what motive can more loudly call up all the energies of our souls, and give us a warmer ardour in pursuit of excel­lence, than a persuasion, that by it alone, we can ob­tain that praise of our fellow men, which the human heart forever so anxiously desires?

THE eternal duration of those acquisitions by which we purchase our own approbation, and the praise of other beings, is another source of felicity, and another motive to excellence. All our mental improvements will be ours forever. The soul's immortality is implied in this consideration. The truth of this doctrine is denied by the new sect of phi­losophers. In an assembly like this, composed of enlightened Americans, we shall not find one of that sect; one who is delighted with the degradation of his nature; who prefers annihilation to existence; who disbelieves doctrines because all men believe them, and because God himself has declared them to be true. If there should be, now listening to the speaker, one such monster of absurdity, to him no argument can be addressed. Pity may be extended to him, though his character must be abhorred. He must have designed or perpetrated iniquity, until he has travelled down all the grades of wickedness; until, by the lash of remorse, he is driven from the dominion of reason; and, to escape the scourgings [Page 15] of his own conscience, he throws himself headlong into the abyss of annihilation.

MEN of rationality can easily perceive that every thing of man evinces his immortality. He desires it; he believes in it; he hopes for it. His toil, his exertion, his ambition, all ultimate on things be­yond the region of time. If man be immortal, all nature is consistent; if not, all we know of God or his creation, is absurdity.

MEN, therefore, starting off in the career of pur­suit, warmed with emulation, and eager for the ac­quisition of excellence, ought to consider this life as the commencement of their existence. It will continue forever; and he who, by superior exer­tion, advances forward of his fellow beings, may retain that advantage through an eternal progres­sion. We shall make no improvement in vain; for when we die in this state of existence, we shall live in another. Those who have most knowledge, ex­cellence and virtue in this world, will have most knowledge, excellence and virtue in that. Those who in this world have toiled for the improvement of their nature; who have refrained from pleasure; endured self denial; earned their own approbation, and purchased applause and glory, shall stand bright­ened by all these excellencies on the shores of eter­nity.

IMMORTALITY gives importance to all our acqui­sitions. Write eternity on the most trivial conse­quences of our most trivial actions, and they expand themselves into a magnitude, whose dimensions can­not be reached by finite conception. The thread, though attenuated down almost to imperceptibility, yet, if it be infinitely extended, will comprehend the material universe.

INDEED, without immortality, nothing would be worth pursuit. If death be the termination of our [Page 16] existence, the grave will destroy all acquisitions, and equalize all characters. The sage and the fool, the philosopher and the child of ignorance, the virtuous and the debauchee, the hero and the coward, the honourable and the infamous, the excellent and the contemptible, will crumble together into one com­mon indiscriminate insignificancy. If this be so, who will toil to improve his nature, or brighten the path of his existence with deeds of splendour? Even glory itself would not be worth pursuit. And in­deed what is the glory attainable by one who lives but three score years? A moment's reflection will discover. Survey the many kingdoms, countries and regions of the earth, together with the millions who inhabit them; look back over the numberless generations of men, whose names are blotted out of time; turn your eye forward to the myriads of their posterity, rising in long succession to follow them down the same dusky road of oblivion; walk abroad into the universe, beholding the multitude of worlds swarming with population, and then turn and inspect this earth, and mark out the spot of which we are tenants, and the number of beings to which we are known, and in this view of "the amazing whole," must not a small part of a small country on this little earth be the scene of our most mighty deeds? And in so short a period, to how few of the countless myriads of intelligences successively tenanting all space, and existing through all duration, can we possibly render ourselves known!

NAY, were the fame of our actions to be carried to the remotest corner of the earth; were posterity to gaze on the splendour of our glory, and even our buried forefathers to pause amidst their iron slum­bers, and listen to the renown of their sons; yet, how short and how very worthless is that reputation, to which we must become insensible at the close of [Page 17] this life! If, therefore, the soul does not live for an everlasting fruition of its acquisitions, nothing can be more important to man, than the few transitory objects that come in contact with his senses. "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die," might justly be his wisest rule of life.

BUT when we measure our existence by the line of eternity; when we know our present actions will give a colour to the whole current of our being; that each virtue, which in this life blossoms in our souls, shall exhale immortal fragrance, and blush with beauty forever renovating; that each of our no­ble deeds, brightened by the conflagration of mate­rial nature, shall with us rise resplendent from the wide ruins of mortality; we shall feel ourselves warmed, and elevated, and energized with desires which can be satisfied with nothing less than im­mortal excellence.

GENTLEMEN OF THE FEDERAL ADELPHI,

THOUGH we shroud ourselves in mystery, and conceal the arcana of our Society from the world by unviolated silence, yet improvement was the design of our institution. As men, and as philosophers, hu­man actions are the most interesting subjects of our research. The philosophy of them is not more subtle and curious, than useful and important. A sketch of this philosophy has just been attempted. If the principles adduced exist in our nature, they give birth to a train of consequences which ought exceed­ingly to influence our conduct.

If a conviction that we can excel be the first step towards excellence, then, as friends to human im­provement, we ought to exalt human nature. We may not depress even a child, in its own estimation; [Page 18] and he who does it, may remember that he quenches an immortal ardour, "and crushes in the birth a pow­er etherial."

I KNOW there is a gloomy-minded philosophy con­stantly employed in decrying human nature; "the last and best of all God's works" on earth. Men who have been long lectured by the professors of this philosophy, have at length doubted their ability to perform even the common vocations of life; and become degraded in their own estimation, until they were prepared for the most benighted ignor­ance, and the most passive slavery. Let their doctrine once he universally credited, and we shall all adopt the maxims of Indostan philosophy. We shall say, to sit still is better than to walk; to sleep than to wake; and to die is best of all. Perhaps there are few me­thods by which we could more advance human im­provement, than by reasoning or ridiculing from the catalogue of human opinion, this gloomy, heart-sink­ing, foul debasing doctrine.

IF self approbation be a motive of action, then our moral taste should be carefully formed on the prin­ciples of rectitude. Though in the healthy state of the mind, when all its senses are correct and delicate, it approves of excellence only; yet our mental, like our corporeal senses, may be greatly vitiated. I know not but our moral sense may be so vitiated, that we may approve ourselves for actions which we now condemn as vicious. If from infancy, falshood and treachery have been recommended to us, may we not finally feel ourselves more excellent in the prac­tice of these vices, than in the practice of the most perfect sincerity and faithfulness? If from the birth of reason to its maturity, we have been taught, by the precepts and examples of all around us, to con­temn science, its institutions, disciples and inculca­tors, [Page 19] shall we not look on the preachers of philoso­phy, and knowledge, and morals, and religion, as the pilferers and pests of society? Shall we not say to evil, "be thou our good;" ignorance, be thou our excellency? So far, therefore, as self approbation is a motive of excellence, we shall aim to excel in what we most approve. If this be what is good and wise, we shall aim to excel in goodness and wisdom; if it be what is wicked and foolish, we shall aim to excel in wickedness and folly.

How important, then, is a correct and delicate moral taste; a taste approbating ourselves for no ac­tion which does not produce felicity!

MAY we not justly doubt that creed, which char­acterizes actions entirely by their motives; which teaches means may be sanctified by their end? This jesuitical casuistry has been modernized in the poli­tical laboratories of Europe. From thence it comes forth an all purifying essence. It gives its possessor to wade through seas of horrors with garments un­contaminated; or bleaches his scarlet abominations white as the robes of innocence. Let us stand afar from its dreadful influence.

IF the praise of our fellow men be a motive of action, then it is important that the public taste be correct. Though the world will be just, though a thousand erroneous opinions will fade away, and no­thing but uncontaminated truth finally appear; yet public taste may be at times as much vitiated as that of individuals. Like a river, it is formed from many streams; and like that, from all these streams it may be rendered impure. Individual wickedness viti­ates public taste. Voltaire, and his cotemporary tribe of philosophists, by constantly, silently and art­fully infusing into the minds of the French people their pernicious principles, finally corrupted the [Page 20] whole mass of public opinion, and entirely vitiated the taste of the nation. How far this will extend, or how long it will endure, are questions too nice for human calculation. It may spread round half the globe; it may be a century before the public mind can be restored to rationality. During this peri­od, and among these nations, science and virtue must be retrogressive; because public patronage will sanctify and encourage private wickedness. For, if we perform actions because men praise them, then, if virtue and science be praised, we shall be virtuous and scientific; but, if vice and ignorance be praised, we shall be vicious and ignorant. National taste de­pends on national instruction. Vicious writers, vi­cious preachers, and vicious teachers of children, will form a nation to relish and applaud vice. What must be the taste of a people where schools are schools of atheism, pulpits the pulpits of immorali­ty, and the press groans with licensed blasphemies? The system of national instruction, therefore, claims the primary attention of the patriotic philosopher. If, my brothers, we have any influence, hither let us direct it. A good deed here, is not a solitary, unre­lated benefaction; it extends itself to millions, and passes down through a succession of generations. He who snatches a poisonous dreg from a fountain whose streams water a kingdom, saves a nation from the deleterious ruin.

IF the durability of acquisition give its greatest va­lue; if a belief in the soul's immortality be the strongest incitement to great and good actions; if this alone involves the idea of accountability, of re­wards and punishments, of hopes and fears, whose ob­jects are unbounded and eternal; if the destruction of this demolish the last barrier against vice, the last asylum of virtue, with what indignation ought [Page 21] we to regard the modern moral revolutionists, who explode this doctrine? The soul's mortality is the first article of their creed. They wished to pre­pare men for deeds of enormity. This could not be done while they felt themselves morally account­able. They have, therefore, laboured to convince their votaries that the close of life is the termination of existence. What have been the consequences? Behold them in only one dreadful aggregation of facts. From this cause have originated most of the extravagances, vices, crimes and atrocities of the French revolution. Here have been hatched, and nur­tured, and sledged for slight, all their full grown ini­quities; sacrilege, blasphemy and parricidal assas­sination, throw themselves out from this foul nest of newly generated abominations, hover over Europe like flights of demons, and darken and contaminate the moral hemisphere of the world.

WHILE, therefore, we view the extent of nature and the difficulty of excelling; while we give vigour to our energies and animate our perseverance with the hope of self approbation, the prospect of applause, and the certain immortality of all our mental acquire­ments, let us exalt our conceptions of human nature, correct our taste for moral beauty, purify the public mind into approbation of none but elevated actions, and repel from credibility whatever might lessen a belief in our eternal existence and future retribution. As mere searchers after truth, we ought to do this; as friends of ourselves, of our nation, of humanity, we ought to do it. Deception and fanciful theory have assumed the robes of truth and philosophy. An all-transforming spirit of innovation has stalked forth among the nations. He lays hold of the massy basis of all philosophy, and is even now labouring to over­throw all civil, moral and religious institutions. Let [Page 22] us not fall whelmed beneath their ruins; let us rise up against this dreadful demon, and triumphantly defend whatever wisdom has devised, or experience improved, or time consecrated by long hallowed and unviolated veneration.