society has not required more, that more has not been done. Its treatment of journalists has been singularly unhappy. They are what it has made them; they fall short of the lofty dignity of their station, because society has fallen short in its demands. Johnson, in his prologue, says "that those who live to please, must please to live." This has unfortunately been the case with the press. It has been regarded as a mere agent for pleasing society, and therefore it has aspired to no higher function. It has failed to perceive its real nature; it has failed in asserting its claims; it has failed in discharging its duties as an instructer; it has failed in becoming the moral power of tremendous force of which it is capable. But its conductors are not so much to blame for this, as its patrons, as they are called, the public. True, it has been courted by some, and feared by others-courted by the ambitious and feared by the timid: yet, while courted and feared, it has been neglected and despised. Very little discrimination has marked the public judgment of its character. So long as it could be made to administer to prevailing prejudices, so long as it could be turned to the purposes of party, so long as it lent itself to the cause of demagogues, so long and no longer has it met with favor. Discerning, genuine, and hearty approbation for independence, integrity, and talent, it has seldom received. A sort of double and inconsistent conduct has been expected of editors. While they have been solicited to furnish aid to all kinds of partial schemes, they have been blamed for a want of fidelity to principle; while the whole strength of immense parties is brought to bear upon them to secure their aid or crush their opposition, they have been derided for suppleness of purpose and pliancy of doctrine; while every man who has an object to accomplish, besets them with seductions, and promises of reward, they have been scorned for venality and time-serving. A high, unvarying moral test has never been applied to them. When a man of lofty faith and stern virtue has arisen among them, when he has manifested a disposition to discuss questions in the light of great principles, when he has refused to listen to the whispers or move at the beck of cliques and factions, when he has regarded politics as the most important aspect of morals, and sought to acquit himself of the duties of his calling, with a nice regard to truth and conscience, how has he been received by the community? As a worthy, noble, fearless man? As a patriot who deserved well of his country? As a Christian filled with a strong sense of the responsibilities of human existence? Far otherwise. Hostility and contempt often have been his sole rewards. His professed friends have dropped away from him; his enemies have redoub

led and sharpened their abuse; a strong public opinion is aroused against him; and the end of it is, that he is compelled, from the want of support, to relinquish his pursuit, and seek in some other less congenial employment, the means of subsistence and profit. Can we forget the career of the lamented Leggett? There was a man, who, during one of the most excited and interesting periods of our political experience, pursued a line of determined and intrepid honesty. A course of corrupt legislation, openly defended by one party, and connived at by a large portion of the other, had fastened upon the people a system of finance and banking, which was fast destroying their liberties and morals. The firm old soldier-statesman, who was then the President, more sagacious than many of his supporters, more honest than any of his opponents, had given the first blow in a work of revolution. After a long and desperate contest, he succeeded. Yet it was only a partial success. Mr. Leggett, who had stood side by side with him in this most trying position of the fight, saw, even in the moment of victory, that the triumph was not completely achieved. The enemy, who had been overcome by the energies of the General Government, was acting in his strength under the protection of nearly all the individual States. That enemy, he conceived, was to be attacked in his strong-holds there; instant to his convictions of duty, he began a vigorous assault; neither timidity on one hand, nor persecution on the other, could induce him to soften his ponderous blows; day after day, he aroused the public mind with discussions full of strong thought and eloquent invective. "I cannot," said he, "for the sake of a livelihood, trim my sails to suit the varying breeze of popular prejudice." "With old Andrew Marvell," he continued, "I prefer to scrape a bladebone of cold mutton in defence of truth, to faring sumptuously at the cost of principle." And what was the result? Desertion and poverty for the time-to be followed, when he should be cold in his grave, with monumental honors and heartfelt eulogy.

The fault, we repeat, is with the community. Not relishing a good king, they cannot complain if Providence sends them the log or the stork. What they pray for, that they receive. If their praise and money are showered upon those who pander to a depraved taste, they must expect depraved and worthless writers. But if they recognise the claims of a better order of men, such an order will immediately arise. There cannot be a demand, in this branch of political economy, without a supply. Let us then consider what should be the nature of that demand.

1. The community should require that their editors be intellecVOL. X., No. XLIII. — 8

tual men. By this is meant, that they should possess both power of thought and facility of expression. The first is needed because it is incumbent upon them to grapple with great questions; the second, because they are to make those questions plain to minds of every cast. No persons are more frequently called upon than they to give an opinion on important topics. It is, indeed, impossible to fix limits to the range of subjects which they are compelled to investigate and discuss. All that interests men as members of a social and political body, - the measures of parties, the relations of nations, the merits of laws, the pretensions of science, the schemes of projectors, the movements of reformers, the characters of statesmen are, in their turn, themes of newspaper controversy and remark. Politics, international and municipal law, political economy, moral and social science, and the art of reading individual character, must be understood by the editor, and not only understood, but explained. He must have that clear insight into general principles, and that familiarity with details, which will enable him to speak of whatever he undertakes with clearness, originality, and decision. It is not enough that he have a skimming acquaintance with his subject, that he be able to talk glibly of it, or that he can declaim with an infinity of sounding phrases and empty periods. Topics are often sprung upon him with the suddenness of a surprise topics in which the happiness of immense numbers of people are involved. Many look to him for information and guidance. His faculties, fully prepared and rightly disciplined, must be at his command. He must stand ready, with argument, with illustration, with eloquence, to convince the doubting, to awaken the dull, to move the timid and inert, and to instruct and interest the more enlightened. Now, to do this effectually he must have been a patient thinker, a profound scholar, and a practised writer. He must have accomplished his mind by the observation of mankind, by the reading of books, and by habits of quick and felicitous expression. He must, above all, be penetrated by that deep Christian philosophy which estimates all questions in their bearing upon the most exalted and permanent interests of human nature.

2. The community should require of their editors that they be firm and independent men. Force of will is no less necessary to them than greatness of thought. Few men have more temptations to fall into an expedient and vacillating course. Regarded by many, and often regarding themselves, as the mere hacks of party, or mere instruments of gratification to prevailing passions, they are not expected to exhibit a lofty or fervent zeal in

the prosecution of a great cause. Like advocates paid by a client to carry a particular point, they are supposed to have fulfilled their obligations when they have made the worse appear the better side. In many instances, if they have succeeded in embarrassing the adversary, if they have covered an opponent with the filth of abuse, if they have given a plausible aspect to a falsehood, if they have assisted a party in imposing upon credulous or ignorant people, if they have been faithful to the interests of their employers, they are clapped upon the head as serviceable fellows, and rewarded with a double allowance of governmental or mercantile patronage. The notion that the press has a worthier destiny, seems hardly to cross their minds. That it should become a fountain of truth and moral influence; that an editor should take his stand upon some high and good principle, which he should assert boldly, in the face of all opposition; that he should strive to carry it out with the earnestness of a missionary, with the self-denial of a martyr, despising as well the bribes of those who would seduce him, as the threats of those who would terrify him, acknowledging no allegiance to any power but justice, impressed with the awful sanctity of his vocation, and willing to face danger and death in the discharge of its duties, is an intrepidity which, we fear, to most of the managers of public journals, has seemed more like the wild dream of an enthusiast, than the practicable object of a sober, thinking man. Yet it is an end that has been, and may be attained. It is an end for which a solemn responsibility is laid upon them to strive. No less than this should society require them to be; nothing less than this can render them worthy of the trust which is committed to their administration. Emancipating themselves from the aurea catena which binds them, they must act with the valor of freemen; breaking away from the jesses which confine them basely and slavishly to earth, they must learn to soar in the pure, clear region of free and energetic thought.

3. Journalists, again, must be required to imbue themselves with a just and Christian spirit. Nothing is more lamentable in their history, than the unkind feelings and low aims which characterize their intercourse and efforts. We do not speak only of those flagrant violations of propriety common to the most degraded portions of the press. We speak of the puerility, the violence, and the want of justice, which even the most respectable journals occasionally exhibit; we speak of their proneness to distort and to exaggerate, their recklessness of fair-dealing, their want of candor, and their base subservience to particular classes. Indeed, so frequent have been their offences, that their dishonesty has

almost passed into a proverb. "I only," said Jefferson, "believe the advertisements of a newspaper;" to which another distinguished man has added, "and he ought not to have believed them." In this, no doubt, they magnified the deficiencies of the press, yet there was much ground for their remarks. 'He lies like a newspaper,' would not be a far-fetched comparison. The instances of their departure from truthful fidelity are not so rare as to render it slanderous to accuse them of positive falsehood. We are aware that it is urged in extenuation, that much of their short-coming is to be ascribed to the circumstances of haste and confusion under which daily editors write; we know it is alleged that in other pursuits, those of the law and merchandry for instance, the average honesty of those who follow them is not greater than that of journalists: but, with every wish to deal justly, we must say that a large amount of moral aberration remains against them which admits of no palliation or excuse. What, shall we be told, because a man writes in haste, that he must therefore write falsely?. that because lawyers and merchants fall below the standard of virtue, therefore editors should be allowed to do the same, -editors, whose influence is so much more extensive, whose duties are so much more important? It is a shallow defence. Better that they relinquish their profession for ever, than sacrifice to it their integrity. Better that they drop the pen, and take up the axe or the hammer, than that they should wield the former only to sap and extinguish public morals! No! a more exalted morality should be required at their hands. When a man assumes a public station, to direct the opinions and form the characters of his contemporaries, when he voluntarily places himself in the attitude of a leader of the general mind, he should be compelled, by the force of public sentiment, to cherish habits of the strictest accuracy and honor. We demand of the preacher of the pulpit, that he should not degrade his office by inconsistencies of conduct; can we demand less of the preacher of the press? Should a Channing, or a Hawkes, or a Dewey, or a Hughes, act in a manner derogatory to their sacred calling, would society forgive them? If a magistrate on the bench pollute the ermine of justice, do we admit any apology for his venality or corruption? Should a Taney, or a Story, or a Baldwin, or the meanest functionary of a county court, accept bribes from the parties to a suit, or be intimidated by popular clamor, swayed in his decisions by personal feeling, how could he avert degradation and disgrace? Could any circumstance of his position be pleaded in palliation of his crime? Why, then, should we excuse similar defections in those who occupy similar places, and whose truth, consistency,