motive of friendly visitors, we may state that among Mr. Astor's
class-mates in Columbia College was a young man who became a preacher.
The students separated--the one to handle millions, and to touch the
springs of the money-market, and become the colossus of wealth; the
other to his flock, as a poor domestic missionary, whose history was
indeed a 'shady side.' The latter struggled on through thick and thin,
and never in all his privations thought of sending a begging-letter to
his old class-mate. But being once upon a time in New-York, he yielded
to the inclination to make him a visit. Mr. Astor received him
courteously, and the two conversed on the scenes of their early days. As
the pastor arose to depart, an idea struck the capitalist's heart, which
we mention to his credit. '_Can I do any thing for you_?' he inquired.
He had, in fact, misconceived the object of the visit, and supposed that
under the guise of a friendly call, lurked an inclination to beg, which
fear of refusal had suppressed. The poor clergyman at once perceived the
drift of the question. Nothing could have been farther from his mind,
and blushing at the thought, he acknowledged the suggestion with an
expression of gratitude, and retired.

Perhaps a view of the unrest of the human heart appears most terrible
when contrasted with the almost fabulous heaps of surrounding wealth,
and one is thus led to the conclusion arrived at by Goldsmith:

'Vain, very vain, my weary search to find
That bliss which only centres in the mind;
With secret course which no loud streams annoy,
Glides the smooth current of domestic joy;
Still to ourselves in every place consigned,
Our own felicity we make or find.'

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 4: _Undercurrents_ is not a romance, and although its author
calls it a 'Romance of business,' it is a life-like presentation of the
deep things of trade, a series of dramatic scenes, holding the mirror up
to a terrible reality. The characters are no fictions; they exist, they
labor, they suffer daily, and will continue to do so, go long as the
present system obtains, Mr. Kimball boldly lays bare the secret disease,
like a demonstrator of anatomy. He is the only author who has succeeded
in this department of literature, and here he shows himself a master.]

[Footnote 5: Since writing the above, we have heard of that masterpiece
of munificence, the gift of fifty thousand dollars to the Theological
Seminary of Princeton by t