It is obvious that resumption could be accomplished in this way on a very much smaller reserve of coin than would be necessary if each individual bank had also to resume simultaneously with the Treasury, as would be the case under the present mixed currency system, for the whole of the reserve would be concentrated in the hands of the government, instead of being scattered among the banks all over the country.  The credit of the government would, of course, be much stronger than that of any individual bank, and the demand for gold in exchange for greenbacks would probably be very small in comparison with the amount of coin belonging to the Treasury, even at the beginning of resumption, when the element of novelty in it, not distrust, might induce conversion.  The banks would then have no more occasion for gold than they have now, greenbacks still retaining their legal-tender character unaltered.

Had the country been on a specie basis when this crisis came upon us, the twenty millions of coin held by the New York banks at that time would have been available for their relief, and have formed a part of the circulation; whereas for all practical purposes it was useless to them, and consequently to the people, as money; and in like manner all the heavy importations of gold which have since taken place, and been converted into American coin, have failed to enter into the circulation, as they would have done on the specie standard.  The whole of the forty-four millions of Treasury gold-notes, convertible into coin on demand, held by the banks and the public on the 1st of September would in that event have formed a part of the active currency of the nation, instead of lying as dormant as the whole eighty-seven millions of gold—­part of which they represented—­in the Treasury.

That part of the currency of any country which is in specie is necessarily elastic, because it is the money of the world, embodying the value which it represents, and subject to that ebb and flow, in accordance with the laws of trade, which attends the circulation of gold and silver coin everywhere.  Supply follows demand, and a nation with a specie currency inevitably attracts the precious metals by outbidding other nations in the rate of interest it offers for them.  Why, therefore, should we shut ourselves out from the advantages of this form of communion with the commercial world by postponing the resumption of specie payments a day longer than we are compelled to?

K. CORNWALLIS.

SAINT MARTIN’S TEMPTATION.

  For forty-and-five long years
    I have followed my Master, Christ,
  Through frailty and toils and tears,
    Through passions that still enticed;
  Through station that came unsought,
    To dazzle me, snare, betray;
  Through the baits the Tempter brought
    To lure me out of the way;
  Through the peril and greed of power
    (The bribe that he