Illinois is, at present, a by-word of reproach among the nations, for the careless, prodigal course, by which, in early youth, she has endangered her honor.  But you cannot look about you there, without seeing that there are resources abundant to retrieve, and soon to retrieve, far greater errors, if they are only directed with wisdom.

[Illustration:  ROLLING PRAIRIE OF ILLINOIS]

Might the simple maxim, that honesty is the best policy be laid to heart!  Might a sense of the true aims of life elevate the tone of politics and trade, till public and private honor become identical!  Might the western man in that crowded and exciting life which develops his faculties so fully for to-day, not forget that better part which could not be taken from him!  Might the western woman take that interest and acquire that light for the education of the children, for which she alone has leisure!

This is indeed the great problem of the place and time.  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.

But his aims were altogether generous.  Freedom, the liberty of law, not license; not indolence, work for himself and children, and all men, but under genial and poetic influences;—­these were his aims.  How different from those of the new settlers in general!  And into his mind so long ago shone steadily the two thoughts, now so prevalent in thinking and aspiring minds, of “Resist not evil,” and “Every man his own priest, and the heart the only true church.”