If the next
generation be well prepared for their work, ambitious of good and
skilful to achieve it, the children of the present settlers may be
leaven enough for the mass constantly increasing by emigration. And how
much is this needed where those rude foreigners can so little understand
the best interests of the land they seek for bread and shelter. It would
be a happiness to aid in this good work, and interweave the white and
golden threads into the fate of Illinois. It would be a work worthy the
devotion of any mind.
In the little that I saw, was a large proportion of intelligence,
activity, and kind feeling; but, if there was much serious laying to
heart of the true purposes of life, it did not appear in the tone of
conversation.
Having before me the Illinois guide-book, I find there mentioned, as a
"visionary," one of the men I should think of as able to be a truly
valuable settler in a new and great country--Morris Birkbeck, of
England. Since my return, I have read his journey to, and letters from,
Illinois. I see nothing promised there that will not surely belong to
the man who knows how to seek for it.
Mr. Birkbeck was an enlightened philanthropist, the rather that he did
not wish to sacrifice himself to his fellow men, but to benefit them
with all he had, and was, and wished. He thought all the creatures of a
divine love ought to be happy and ought to be good, and that his own
soul and his own life were not less precious than those of others;
indeed, that to keep these healthy, was his only means of a healthy
influence.
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