addreffed by the Apostle primarily to a particular description of men; but it is a precept equally adapted to all men engaged in profitable labour. Let the man of business neither neglect the inducement to labour which it fuggefts to him; nor the application which it enjoins of a liberal portion of the fruits which that labour produces. It is a laudable and wife method for a trader, and for every man who follows a lucrative profeffion, to establish in his mind a principle of allotting annually a fettled proportion of his profits to charitable purposes; that is to fay, after affigning a fixed → and moderate fum for his neceffary expences, and a moderate additional fum, as the family for which he is to provide and other circumstances may require, for accumulation, to devote a large proportion of the remaining excess of profit to unoftentatious charity. The fum for accumulation might also be lightly taxed. The fund thus being raised, there would be no difficulty in applying it.

A strict and active principle of probity will alfo teach the trader to be fcrupulously observant even of his verbal engagements in all pecuniary

1

pecuniary and mercantile transactions; and carefully to guard against exciting expectations of any kind, which there is not a fair prospect of his being able to fatisfy. It will render him faithful and attentive in the concerns of other men committed to his care, or depending on his conduct. It will deter him from embarking in adventurous enterprises of traffic, in which the risk is not compenfated by a reasonable profpect of extraordinary advantages. And even if there should be fufficient grounds to expect returns unusually profitable, it will restrain him from involving too large a fhare of his capital in the undertaking. He will remember that the fairest hopes may be blafted; and will think of the calamities of thofe who might be ruined by his misfortunes. He will also fix in his mind this very ferious confideration: that imprudence and confequent distress have betrayed numbers into dishonesty and deceit, who once felt confident in their own. integrity.

To secure himself as far as may be poffible both from the risk and from the fufpicion of practising duplicity, he will be anxious to lay

per

open, in fuch a measure as prudence will mit, the principles on which he acts in his profeffion. He will derive heartfelt fatisfaction from reflecting that he has fairly acquainted his employers with the rules which he has prescribed for his own conduct; and that he has thus in fome degree contributed to preclude himself from all deviation from them by having rendered it more difficult, and more fhameful. Nor will he forget that it is wifer manfully to communicate at once, what may hereafter be made public even against his confent. His own bankruptcy, the failure of others with whom he has concerns, unforefeen lawsuits, diffolutions of partnerships, unfettled accounts tranfacted with executors, and other unexpected events, may disclose his proceedings to the world. These confiderations, while, in the place of better motives, they may deter the fraudulent trader from perfifting in his craftiness, may also justly incite the man of integrity to shun every unneceffary concealment; leaft he should be fufpected of being unwilling to draw afide the veil, from a confcioufnefs that fomething difgraceful would be found behind it.

In various other inftances the fame attention to upright and ingenuous dealing will display itself. He will not give undue preference to particular customers; he will not impofe on the ignorant, nor furprise the unwary, nor take advantage of the neceffitous. He will not affert certain fpecific terms to be the lowest on which he can tranfact business, or conclude a bargain, at the time when he means, if preffed clofely, to accept lower; nor afk higher than he intends to take, for the purpose of making a merit of giving way. He will be folicitous to name at the firft his lowest price; and not to expose himself by making large abatements, or by fluctuating backwards and forwards between conceffion and resistance, to the charge of being on the watch for opportunities of exaction. The great trader not unfrequently declaims against the shopkeeper, with whom he deals for the little articles of domestic consumption, if the latter afks a higher price, and then takes a lower; while he is doing the fame thing on the largest scale in his own mercantile transactions,

An

An upright trader will not be led by the fuggeftions of felf-intereft, or by an improper deference to the opinion or compliance with the importunities of others, to apply to the legiflature for privileges and encouragements, or to oppofe taxes and restrictions affecting the article in which he deals, either fingly or in conjunction with his brother traders; until he is convinced on ferious and impartial confideration that there is nothing in the proceed ing which is unreasonable, and adverfe to the public good. He will not lay a partial or imperfect statement of the cafe before his reprefentative in private, or before the Houses of Parliament at their bar. He will not feek to enfnare them into acquiefcence by falfe pretences and exaggerated accounts; nor profefs to be petitioning merely for one object, while he is fecretly pursuing another which he dares

not avow.

The fubject of credit, being extremely important, and affecting all claffes of traders, requires fome general obfervations in this place. It will naturally be purfued through most of its ramifications in the fubfequent

heads