While Xo. 521.
Tarborough, (Edgecombe County, X C.J Friday, September 19, 1834.
Vol. X ..Vj.
'J Vie hi Tarborough Free Press,"
II V KOR(5E HOWARD,
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GEN. IREDELL'S ADDRESS.
Voting Gen I ir men cf the Dialectic
and Philanthropic Societies: i
I appear before you in obedience to the invita-!
lion Willi which you honored me. In accepting'
this invitation, I have given you the strou-vM'
proof of my desire to gratify your wishes and of
my willingness to contribute my portion, howev
er humble, to the entertainment of the day. Un
skilled in literary exercises, an unfrcquent wor
shipper in the temple of the Muses, and unac
customed to the character you have assigned me,
had 1 any vanity to be mortified, I should have
shrunk from a task, the performance of which
has heretofore been illustrated by genius and
taste and eloquence. Having, however, no ob
ject but your good, I shall be amply rewarded
for all personal sacrifice, if any thing 1 can say on
this occasion shall have the effect of animating
one virtuous principle, of giving constancy to
one generous impulse or vigor to one noble reso
lution. I can well imagine, my young friends, the e
motions you feel on this return of the annual Col
legiate Jubilee your joy at having passed hon
orably through another year of preparation for
the great duties of life the bright hopes of the
future which you cherish with all the enthusiasm
of youth. There are other hearts, which palpit
ate on this occasion in sympathy with yours.
Your parents, your instructors, the gu irdians of
this Institution partake of your joy at vour past
success, and cordially join in your hopes of the
future. If their joy is less lively, if their hopes
are less vivid, it is because they are mingled with
a deep anxiety it is because they have travelled I
over the ground you are soon to occupy, and !
have learnt the dangers now hidden from yourj
sight. You look before you upon the great!
road of life, audit presents itself to your eyes.
smooth as the Appian way, disclosing at every 1
step the most beautiful land-capes with everv
thing to invite, allure and refresh you on your
journey. I will not attempt to disturb this de
lightful vision. 1 would not, if I could, throw a
single shade over this bright perspective. It has
been, no doubt wisely ordained, that no gloomy
anticipations should mar the joyous season of
yovith. Indulge, then my young friends, while
yet you may, while uncontarninated by, and un--uspieious-
0f world, indulge in all their fresh
n'iss, ijic gay hopes and cheering aspirations,
"which belung peculiary to your age and which
constitute at once its blessing and its charm.
It i my purpose to direct your attention for
a few moments to one of the most powerful prin
ciples of our nature, one which you now feel in!
active operation, and upon the proper manage
ment of which, depends much of the happiness
and honor and respectability of your future lives.
The desire of distinction, the ambition to excel,
finds a place in every generous bosom. Indeed,
so universally is the principle diffused, that scarce
ly an individual of the human family can be said
to be exempt from its influence. It commences t
with the first expanding faculties of youth, and
continues, growing with the growth until the la
test period of life. The voice of praise is sweet
even to the prattling infant, and it falls, not un
heeded, on ears that have been dulled by age. In
every state of society, from the most barbarous
to the most refined, in all the different depart
ments of mankind, this ambition to excel, mod
ilied in an almost infinite variety as to its objects
and means of accomplishment, is to be found ex
erting its influence with more or less power, and
either for good or for evil. It would be doubting
the wisdom of Providence to suppose that a prin
ciple of such potent energy and such universal
existence had not been implanted in us for great
and useful purpose. It is true that, like all our
passions, it is capable of being perverted and a
bused. While on the one hand it has largely
contributed to the progress of civilization and the
development of the human mind; while it has
given birth to all the wonderful achievements in
ait and discoveries in science; to the splendid
productions in ancient and modern literature,
which delight, instruct and elevate yet, on the
other hand, it has too often been the fruitful
source of crime and misery and bloodshed and
devastation. In one case, it is ambition, pure
ud virtuous, "pursuing noble means" in the
other, ambition unchecked by moral restraint,
originating in selfishness, and reckless of the ob
igations that bind man to man. Which of these
lecommends itself to your esteem and affection,
I will not insult you by inquiring. lint how i
he eminence, which is alone to be coveted, the
distinction founded on merit, how is it to be ob
tained? It does not offer itself spontaneously it
will not "unsought be won," nor is it easy of
requisition: yet there are means by the faithful
application of which, success will seldom fail to
he secured. Permit me briefly to advert to
some which readily present themselves, and
which are adapted to every vocation to which
you may be called. He who seeks a lofty sum
mit, must direct his flight with a wing that never
tires and an eye that never slumbers. Mental
industry is the peculiar characteristic of civilized
society. The savage but labors for a scanty dai
ly subsistence, and the rest of his life is spent in
bodily exercise, in the sports of the chase, in fe
rocious battle, or in slothful indolence. When
the light of civilization first illumines the mind,
man wakens as it were to a new existence, lie
becomes conscious of the powers of intellect and
proud of the superiority they confer. As he cul
tivates them, he perceives his views constantly
extending and his faculties becoming more and
more invigorated. He looks abroad through the
intellectual and physical world, and is every day
discovering some new secret of nature which
chaims and instructs him. One discovery but
makes him the more eager for another. He finds
nothing too subtle to elude his grasp, nothing too
swift to escape his pursuit, nothing too strong to
resist his power. There seems, indeed, to be
scarcely any limit to the extent of intellectual
improv ement than that which is imposed by the
frail and perishing tenure by which it has pleas
ed Providence that we shall hold our corporeal
tenement. Hut remember, my young friends,
that our minds can only become thus vast and
comprehensive by constant exercise and by unre
mitting labor in adding to their stores. Exer
cise i not more necessary to preserve health in
the bodily system than it is to give vigor to the
intellectual. It is an immutable law of our na
ture that enervation is the necessary and inevita
ble effect of sloth and indolence. The mind not
only requires, like the body, its fit exercise; it
also demands its appropriate food. You must
supply it with facts. You must furnish it daily
with new accessions of knowledge. The art of
printing, that greatest of all arts, has enabled you
to seize and appropriate to your own use the
fruits of the experience, the observation and re
flection of others for thousands of years. Not to
avail yourselves of these would be, in some mea
sure, to relapse into barbarism. It would be as
gross a folly, as if a mariner were to undertake
to traverse extensive and dangerous seas without
the aid of charts, w hich the enter prize ami ob
servation of others had provided. Hut the ac
quisition of knowledge is not alone sufficient. It
must be accompanied by reflection. The mind
must be so disciplined as to bu able to dispose of
the facts it receives in j n per order otherwise
they will form a huge, misshapen and useless
mass. To crowd the mind with knowledge,
when its reasoning faculties are suffered to slum
ber.is like oppressing the stomach with foodwhen
it has lost its powers of digestion. While, there
lore, you avail yourselves of the reflections and
inlormation of others and of your own observa
tions, exercise your understanding in separating
tr uth trom error and in drawing such conclusions
as will best enable you "to act well your part in
life" the great purpose of all knowledge.
There is a common mistake among the young,
and perhaps more particularly among those of
collegiate institutions, that while industrious ap
plication is necessary for ordinary capacities, gen
ius requires no exertion. It is an error, which
has proved fatal to many a youth of the fairest
promise. He assured, it is an error which you
cannot reject with too much promptness and re
ject forever. You read the productions of the
master spirits of the ages in which they lived,
upon which the stamp of genius of the highest
order has been imposed by the concurring voice
of all mankind. Think you that these immortal
works sprung from the brain of their authors,
without effort and in full proportion, like the fa
bled Pallas from the brain of Jupiter? No, my
young friends; if we could summon before us
these illustrious dead, they would tell us of their
long course of preparations; that their minds had
been disciplined from early life, that they had
diligently collected knowledge from every ac
cessible source; that they had reflected long and
deeply; that they iabored for years in improving
their understanding, cultivating their taste, and
purifying and exalting their imagination. All
biography proves that by such means, and such
only, can solid and permanent literary distinc
tion be obtained.
Hut you must not only be industrious; you
must persevere in your industry. Let every
point you reach be only the place for a new de
parture. Let every acquisition you make be the
foundation for another and yet another. Take
example in one respect from the miser, and heap
treasure on treasure. Like him, you will feel no
satiety from the accumuIalion,,and unlike him,
the happiness you will derive from vour riches.
will be founded on the noblest, instead of the
basest principles of our nature. Let no difficul
ties dishearten or deter you rather let them an
imate your zeal. Perseverance can level moun
tains and elevate rallies. Aim at the highest de
gree of perfection, and you may safely act upon
the conviction thai what has been accomplished
by others may be attained by you. Indeed,
since no limits to the human intellect have yet
been defined, why may you not surpass those,
who have preceded you!
I trust, my young friends, you will not be
star tled by this recommendation of constant dili
gence. You will form a most erroneous notion,
it you suppose that you are thus exhorted to a
life of pain, of gloom or of irksome toil. Labor
et ipse vohtptits. You will find that occupation
is one of the secrets of happiness. You will find
in the pursuit of knowledge that what the elo
quent Psalmist has said of religious wisdom is
true to no small extent of the wisdom of this
world "all her ways are ways of pleasantness
and all her path? are peace."
Let me urge upon you, as another means of
obtaining distinction, the practice of all the mor
al virtues. I speak of these, now, only as con
nected with my subject, and not as enjoined up
on you by the highest of all obligations, the com
mand of your Creator. It is true there have
been instances in which individuals have gained
a niche in the Temple of Fame, whose charac
ters have been sullied by vice and sometimes
stained by crime. Hut with how much more
lustre would they have shone if virtue had been
associated with their talent?? The admiration
they receive is not an unmixed admiration.
While their intellectual attainments invite us to
wards them, we ate repulsed with horror by
their moral depravity. Who has not felt the
keenest mortification in reading the effusions of
the; most powerful bard of modern days, who
wrote with a pen of fire, that such brilliant gen
ius should have been obscured by vice and too
often prostituted to the most unhallowed pur
poses! How much more lofty would have been
his pedestal if he had suffered it to be based on
virtue! Such instances, though they do occur,
are exceptions to a general law of nature. In
dulgence of vicious propensities, carelessness of
moral obligation, have an inevitable tendency,
not only to destroy the moral sense but to ener
vate the intellectual faculties. Hesides the waste
of time they often occasion, they produce pain,
discontent, fretfulness, remorse, indisposition to
serious occupation or serious thought. The mind
gradually loses its tension and sinks in an equal
degree with the moral principle. The practice
of virtue, on the other hand, gives self-satisfaction,
peace, serenity and contentment; the mind
is suffered in quietness to pursue the even tenor
of its way. and the course of honor and distinc
tion is left unobstructed.
Firmness and decision of character are indis
pensable to your- success. The weak, vaccilating
individual, who is every thing by starts and no
thing long; who yields to every sally of caprice
and impulse of feeling, who is the good-natured
victim of every artful or imprudent associate,
must never hope to rise beyond mediocrity.
Let your resolutions be wisely formed and stead
ily executed. When your conscience and your
understanding point to the object of your pur
suit, suffer not yourselves to be diverted to the
right or to the left by the importunities or the'
gibes or sneers of others. Recollect too, that
the "fort Her in re" is not incompatible with the
"suavilt r in mvdo." Urbanity will adorn, with
out impairing, your firmness.
Honourable in all your thoughts and purposes,
you should have nothing to conceal, and there
fore candour and openness should mark your
whole conduct and character. From the man
of dissimulation, the man of art, the suspicious
man, we shrink with innate dread and dislike.
Candouralone inspires confidence and commands
respect.
It may he useful to urge upon all, who wish tc
excel, the necessity of relying upon their own
exertions! If you possess the adventitious aide
of wealth or influential friends, they may be used
to second but not to supersede your efforts; and
fortunate indeed w ill you be, if you do not find
them clogs to your advancement. If you are
destitute of what are usually considered worldly
advantages, be not discouraged cheer your
selves with the reflection that under our happy
political institutions,, there is no royal road to
honour and distinction, and that some of the
mot illustrious individuals of this and other ages
have risen from the humblest to the highest sta
tions, unaided by power or patronage or wealth, f
In the desultory remarks I have been address
ing to you, I have not spoken ol the influence of
the Christian religion in promoting your success,
even in this life. It is a theme which belongs
more appropriately to holier lips that mine to
lips that have been touched with sacred fire.
Yet I may he pardoned for assuring you, that,
while nothing can throw a highter lustre round
your character than the genuine principles and
unostentatious practice of piety, so nothing can
impart such high and ennobling motives to ex
ertion, and nothing can bring such imposing pow
er to sustain and strengthen you in every virtu
ous resolution.
Hut one topic more, and I will hasten to con
cludea topic which I could not omit, from its
intrinsic importance, and because it would be do
ing injustice to your gallantry and my own. in
an assembly where the smiles ol beauty are beam
ing all around us. It is the influence of female,
society in the improvement of our minds and
formation of your character. Woman has been
ordained to perform a most important part m the
moral government of the world. The mether
forms the first rudiments of the infant mind, and
instils into the infant bosom the first principles
of virtuous action. The sister refines a:ul soft
ens the harsher manners and more turbulent
feelings of the brother. The passion for a viriu
ous mistress purifies the sentiments and elevates
the thoughts of the lover; w hile she binds him
in the chains of despotism only to lead him in
the paths of honour. The wife brings to the aid
of her husband a tender sympathy that robs sor
row of its sting; a fortitude that never quails be
neath calamity or distress; a prudence ever vigi
lant, and an instinctive sagacity that never lal
ters. Such was the influence of woman, even iu
the days when her sole titles to admiration and
respect were her personal charms and virtues of
her heart. Happily in our time, education,
without diminishing these claims, has added oth
ers of the highest character. The cultivation of
her intellect has left man little to boast of his as
sumed superiority. Where can you meet united
such refined intelligence; such delicacy of taste;
such purity of thought; such utter loathsomeness
ot vice in every shape; such fortitude in every
situation in which we are called upon to hear and
to sutler, as in woman? Can you fail to be im
proved by an association which offers to you
such examples, clothed in the most captivating
form? Not only will you feel the influence on
your mental powers, but your sentiments will be
treed from all their grossness. In youth there
can scarcely be found a more efficient corrective
of vicious propensities than the society of virtu
ous and enlighted woman. And may I be per
mitted to turn for a moment to our fair auditors,
and remind them that the influence 1 have truly
ascribed to them was not intended to gratify their1
vanity or swell their pride? May I be permitted
to entreat them, by all their loveliness, by all the
endearing ties that bind them so closely to out
hearts, not to forget their destiny, not to neglect
the high capacities with which they are endowed
but to be our bright exemplars, and to cheer on
our youth to all which honourable ambition can
attain and all to which it ought to aspire.
My young friends. I have thus adverted to
some of the means by which you may acquire
an eminence which no man should blush to pos
sess. Yet you may ask why should you seek it?
I should not consult the brevity, which in my o
pinion, is a valuable quality in an address of this
sort, if I were to enter at large upon this branch
of the subject. Let my answer, then, be com
prised in a short and imperfect summary. In
the first place, it is a law of your Creator im
planted in your bosom. You cannot, and you
ought not, if you could, totally extinguish the
ambition to excel.
ciOseiy bricked underneath, with all other neces
sary out houses, amongst which is an excellent
KITCHEN, 28 by 18, built of brick, with two
chimnies. There is attached to this building an
excellent well of pure water within 20 steps of
the door, and a never failing spring within 150
yards of the house. As to health I believe this
is one of the most healthy settlements in this
county.
In addition to the improvements already rtaS
med, there is attached to this plantation,
Jl never-failing MILL,
On Swift Creek, within of a mile of the dwell
ing house, with 3 pair of runners, bolting cloths,
cotton Gin, all in good order and nearly new,
with an excellent constant custom.
As 1 presume no person will purchase without
viewing the premises, I deem it unnecessary to
mention all the advantages attending this desire
able situation. It will be sold in a body, or may
be divided so as to suit purchasers. Persons
living in a sickly country would do well to pur
chase this place.
I ALSO OFFER FOR SALE,
That valuable Tract of LAXJ),
Lying on Peachtree Creek, U miles from NastV
ville, (Nash county.) This Tract contains
504 ACRBS,
o i "
pectations which I early apprized you, could not
be realized. I came here with no vain hope of
making an exhibition of oratorical talent. I
came solely to repeat to you useful precepts,
which have long received the sanction of the w ise
and good, and to add my strong and sincere at
testation of their truth, from an experience foun
ded on some years devoted to the study of human
nature, and to an active intercourse with my fel
low man in all his various relations. Suffer me
to conclude in the language of an iuspired writer.