authenticate the claim of Phiedon, and to establish the origin of the first current money as having occurred nearly nine hundred years before the Christian era, in the island of Ægina. Numa Pompilius caused money to be made of wood and leather-hence the Latin word, Pecunia: afterwards bits of copper, marked according to weight, were stamped with figures. or images. Money, as to its name, is derived from Juno Moneta, the Roman Temple where it was coined 260, B. C. The most ancient Jewish coins represented a pot of manna on one side, and Aaron's blossoming rod on the other; the inscription being in Samaritan. Jewish shekels were 1s. 7d. ; a talent was 3,000 shekels, or £342,3s. 9d. sterling. The Egyptians did not coin till the accession of the Ptolemies, nor the Jews till the age of the Maccabees; the most ancient known coins are the Macedonian, of the date of about 500 years before Christ. Athelstan first established a uniform coin in England, The Egbert silver coins were shillings, thrimsas, pennies, halflings, and feorthlings. Gold coin was introduced by Edward III., in six-shilling pieces, nearly equal in size, but not in weight, to modern sovereigns. Nobles followed at 6s. 8d., and became the lawyers' fee. Edward IV. coined angels, with a figure of Michael and the Dragon. Money had its equivalent in salt in Abyssinia-a small shell called cowery, in Hindostan-dried fish in Iceland—and wampum among the North American Indians.* Nails were *The first money in use in New York, then New Netherlands, and also in New England, was Seawant, Wampum, or Peague, for it was known by all those names. Seawant was the generic name of this Indian money, of which there were two kinds; wompam (commonly called wampum), which signifies, white, and suckanhock, sucki signifying black. Wampum, or wampum-peague, or simply peague, was also understood, although improperly, among the Dutch and English, as expressive of generic denomination, and in that light was used by them in their writings and public documents. Wampum, or white money, was originally made from the stem or stock of the metean-hock, or periwinkle; suckanhock, or black money, was manufactured from the inside of the shell of the quahaug (Venus Mercenaria), commonly called the hard formerly in use in Scotland, as we learn from Smith's Wealth of Nations. The three principal mints in the world are those of London, of the United States, and of Paris. Their total coinage during 1853, according to the London Economist, was as follows, in pounds sterling: Paris, £14,901,702; London, £12,666,008; United States, £11,101,120. The total amount of this in dollars is $193,644,150.* To lack money, it has been remarked, is to lack a passport or admission ticket into the pleasant places of God's earth-to much that is glorious and wonderful in nature, and nearly all that is rare, curious, and enchanting in art. Hood's lines suggest a little moralizing: "Gold! gold! gold! gold! Bright and yellow, hard and cold, Hoarded, bartered, bought and sold; Stolen, borrowed, squandered, doled ; Spurned by the young, but hugged by the old, Gold! gold! gold! gold!" What has not man sacrificed upon the altar of Moloch? his time, his health, his friendships, his reputation, his conscience, clam, a round thick shellfish that buries itself a little way in the sand in salt water The Indians broke off about half an inch of the purple color of the inside, and converted it into beads. These, before the introduction of awls and thread, were bored with sharp stones, and strung upon the sinews of animals, and when interwoven to the breadth of the hand, more or less, were called a belt of seawant, or wampum.-Denton's New York. * Mr. Jacob has estimated the existing gold of the world, previously to 1848 (fourfifths of it existing in manufactured articles) at £650,000,000, Add our new acquisition of £55,000,000, and we have a present world-wealth of gold of £705,000,000. Taking the cubic yard of gold at £2,000,000, which it is in round numbers, all the goldof the world at this estimate might, if melted into ingots, be contained in a cellar twenty-four feet square, and sixteen feet high. All our boasted wealth already obtained from California and Australia would go into an iron safe, nine feet square, and nine feet high. So small is the cube of yellow metal that has set populations on the march, and roused the world to wonder! and even life itself, and all its great issues. Rightly used, money is the procurer of the domestic comforts and luxuries, as well as the necessaries of life, but when inordinately cherished and coveted, it becomes the bane of happiness and peace. In the affair of marriage, how much of disaster has it superinduced-how much of infelicity entailed upon the domestic relations. Instead of surrendering to Cupid, how many have been led captive by cupidity, vainly dreaming of hearts'-ease when they have shown their preference to marry gold. But money cannot purchase love, or virtue, or happiness. A philosopher has said, "though a man without money is poor, a man with nothing but money is still poorer." Fuller wisely insists that it is much better to have your gold in the hand than in the heart. A man's character is often indicated by his mode of using money. A vain man's motto is, 'win gold and wear it'—a generous man's, 'win gold and share it'-a miser's, 'win gold and spare it'a profligate's, 'win gold and spend it'—a broker's, 'win gold and lend it'—a fool's, 'win gold and end it’— a gambler's, 'win gold and lose it'a wise man's, 'win gold and use it.' Of all the evil propensities to which human nature is subject, there is no one so general, so insinuating, so corruptive, and so obstinate, as the love of money. It begins to operate early, and it continues to the end of life. One of the first lessons which children learn, and one which old men never forget, is the value of money. The covetous seek and guard it for its own sake, and the prodigal himself must first be avaricious, before he can be profuse. This, of all our passions, is best able to fortify itself by reason, and is the last to yield to the force of reason. Philosophy combats, satire exposes, religion condemns it in vain: it yields neither to argument, nor ridicule, nor conscience.* *Hunter's Biography. "I riches read, And deeme them roote of all disquietnesse⚫ Strife and debate, bloodshed and bitternesse, That noble hart in great dishonour doth despize." This love of money, which Holy Scripture tells us is "the root of all evil,” Jeremy Taylor describes as a vertiginous pool, sucking all into its vortex, to destroy it. That this love of gold is the master passion of the age, few will question. It is 'the age of gold;" the auriferous sands of the Pacific for the western hemisphere, and those of Australia for the eastern, are incessantly pouring out their treasures to feed the insatiate cravings of avarice. The liturgy on Change" seems to readMan's chief end is to make money, and to enjoy it while he can. The votaries of Mammon, however, do not enjoy their possessions-they have no leisure, in their ceaseless, toilsome efforts, to augment their fortunes. A contemporary observes, with great justice: Many a man there is, clothed in respectability, and proud of his honor, whose central idea of life is interest and easethe conception that other men are merely tools to be used as will best serve him; that God has endowed him with sinew and brain merely to scramble and to get; and so, in the midst of this grand universe, which is a perpetual circulation of benefit, he lives like a sponge on a rock, to absorb, and bloat, and die. Thousands in the great city are living so, who never look out of the narrow circle of self-interest; whose decalogue is their arithmetic; whose Bible is their ledger; who have so contracted, and hardened, and stamped their natures, that in * Spenser. any spiritual estimate they would only pass as so many bags of dollars." It is indispensable, in some cases, that men should have money, for without it they would be worth nothing. This, however, offers no apology for the universal scramble after money. Is this money-mania the highest development of our vaunted civilization ?—the summum bonum of human existence? the Ultima Thule of human effort? "The plague of gold strikes far and near. And deep and strong it enters; The purple cymar which we wear, Makes madder than the centaurs; Our thoughts grow blank, our words grow strange, We cheer the pale gold-diggers, Each soul is worth so much on 'Change, And marked, like sheep, with figures." "Men work for it, fight for it, beg for it, steal for it, starve for it, lie for it, live for it, and die for it. And all the while, from the cradle to the grave, Nature and God are ever thundering in our ears the solemn question- What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?' This madness for money is the strongest and the lowest of the passions; it is the insatiate Moloch of the human heart, before whose remorseless altar all the finer attributes of humanity are sacrificed. It makes merchandise of all that is sacred in human affections; and even traffics in the awful solemnities of the eternal world." "Gone, the spirit-quickening leaven, Dead and cold, Its pulses flutter; Weak and old, Its parched lips mutter, |