oCCUPATION-HONOR IN LIFE.
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There is not more foolish notion affoat in the


world than the one that it is occupation that gives
the character to man. One occupation as the


means of 'getting living" as the phrase goes is
precisely as high and creditab1e as another, pro-
vided that it is honorable; and in accordance with
the laws of God and man. The man who holds
the plough, hammers the iron, or drives his peg
to supply his family with the necessaries of life


is not whit below the one who measures tape be-
hind the counter, mystifes law at the BAR or pre-
sides over the councils of the nation. There is a
vulgar and pernicious feeling abroad in the COM
munity on this subject. Fathers must educate
their sons for one of what is the 'earned profes-
sions" Daughters must marry lawyer, doc
tor, a clergyman or merchant. Horror! the
good lady would as soon think of marrying her
daughter to Winnebago, as to homely, indus
-trious and honest mechanic Why, the family
would be dishonored! No, no!


The business of a carpenter, blacksmith or
farmer, is not so respectable as that of shaving
notes. drawing solidty from the desk, peddling
rotten wood pills, selling snuff or tobacco. And
yet the duties of all the learned professions, as
well as those of merchants, are performed for the
same reason that a shoemaker wakes his thread
and the farmer plants his potatoes, viz: to obtain
living. Still, the miserable upsart fools, who are
almost universally low-bred themselves-people
who have begun life in dtch-endearor to cs-


ablsh in society artificial distinctions, which they
hope will elevate them above the common mass
from which they were taken, and to give them
an importance which innate honesty could not
command Labor is labor; honest labor is hon.
est labor. Honesty and honorable labor are the
same, whether performed by the king or the beg
garland it is just as honorable in the one as the
other 1t is true that all men, by habit and taste
are notpermitted to pursue the same vocations-
and there are natural divisions distinctions as
the word is commonly used-created by harmony
and taste. This is as it should be-and fits US for
the discharge of all the peculiar duties that de-
volve upon us as members of society But to
say, because man performs any given duty, how
ever humble, though necessary, degrades or rem
ders him less meritorious than his neighbor, who
performs another duty, yet not more faithfulIy-is
to say still adhere to the monarchiaI principles
of the old world