"Resolved, That, in common with the whole commercial community of this country, by whom he has been so long known and esteemed, we respectfully tender our sympathy to his mourning relatives and friends, and that these resolutions be communicated to them as a last mark of our respect."

The members of the Mercantile Library Association, at a meeting convened on the occasion, adopted resolutions expressive of their sympathy, and of their high estimation of his character and example.

The public journals of the day were full and warm in their expressions of sympathy and respect to the memory of one who had enjoyed so largely the esteem and affection of all who knew him.

JONATHAN GOODHUE was born at Salem, Massachusetts, on the 21st of June, 1783, and at his decease had attained the age of sixty-five years. His father was the Hon. Benjamin Goodhue, who received the high testimony of the esteem in which he was held by his fellow-citizens by being elected a member of the United States Senate for two successive terms. The subject of this memoir was educated at the grammar school of his native place, and his mind was thus prepared for the more varied acquisition of knowledge which he afterwards derived from extensive reading and intercourse with the world. Among his school-mates and the associates of his early life were many who became distinguished as merchants, or in the learned professions, and some who rose to eminence in public life.

As he had a strong mind, intent upon the acquisition of knowledge, and never yielded to indolence or vicious indulgences, he had the better opportunity for mental improvement, and in this respect few men have more faithfully redeemed their time.

In the year 1798, at the age of fifteen, he entered the counting-room of the Hon. John Norris, of Salem, a merchant of wealth and enterprise, extensively engaged in the trade of Europe and the East Indies. Mr. Norris was a man of great moral worth, distinguished for his piety, benevolence, and strict regard to truth. Such an example is at all times a blessing to the world, and it was not lost in its influence upon his young apprentice. After a few years spent in the counting-room, Mr. Goodhue received a mark of confidence not unusual in those days, in being sent abroad as supercargo in the employment of Mr. Norris.

His first voyage was to Aden, in Arabia, commencing in December, 1803, and terminating in July, 1805, in which he touched at the Cape of Good Hope and the Isle of France. He remained six months at Aden on this occasion, and was much interested in his intercourse with the Mohammedans in that region. His second voyage was to Calcutta, commencing in October, 1805, and terminating in October, 1806. Here again he was much interested in his intercourse with the Banians and natives of India, and he was led, by his observations at this early period of his life, to form a habit of making liberal allowances for the defects and imperfections of those who had been born and brought up under a more obscure light than that which he had enjoyed.

Mr. Goodhue removed to New York in November, 1807. In commencing his commercial career he still enjoyed the patronage of his early friend, Mr. Norris. By the purity of his character, his intelligence, and his faithful devotedness to his interests, he had gained his lasting esteem and confidence. It was also his singular good fortune to enjoy the countenance and patronage of the Hon. William Gray, of Boston, so well known for his wealth and enterprise, and so distinguished in the commercial history of this country.

The late Joseph Peabody, of Salem, who was among the most wealthy and eminent merchants of his day, was also among his patrons. This was an auspicious beginning, and few men in the outset of life have, in the way of patronage, been so highly favored. It was, however, an advantage which he could not have enjoyed if he had not established a character which gave him a title to their confidence and esteem.

He was equally happy, on his arrival at New York, in being recommended to gentlemen of leading influence and respectability, by whom he was taken by the hand and introduced at once to the most select society. Among his warm friends was the late Hon. Oliver Wolcott, then engaged in commercial pursuits, and the late Archibald Gracie. General Matthew Clarkson was also among his early and most valued friends, and Mr. Goodhue afterwards became connected with his family by the marriage of his daughter. He always cherished a grateful sense of the kindness of his early patrons, and always spoke of them with respect and affection until the close of his life. He was never elated by the many flattering attentions which he received on his first introduction to his new place of residence, and no man has ever deported himself with more modesty in a career in which there has been so much which might have fostered vanity in a mind differently constituted.

The long embargo, and subsequent war with England, checked for a while the full success of Mr. Goodhue's mercantile career. He hailed the return of peace with great delight, and on the receipt of the intelligence dispatched an express to Boston, with instructions to proclaim aloud the glad tidings in every town on the route. The Bostonians received the messenger with joy, and did not allow him to return without a reward. This act was characteristic of Mr. Goodhue. It might have occurred to other minds to have availed of this occasion for the purpose of private speculation; but he was absorbed by the one thought of the paramount importance of this great event as a public blessing.

After the peace of 1814, the relations of Mr. Goodhue's mercantile firm became, by degrees, more widely extended through all the commercial parts of Europe, the East Indies, Mexico, and South America. In the course of his long commercial life he became extensively acquainted with the numerous foreigners who visited America, many of whom enjoyed his hospitality; and the warm expressions of regard which have been received from them since his death was announced, are among the most precious memorials of his family and friends.

Mr. Goodhue's commercial life extended through an interval of time fraught with momentous events, affecting deeply the position and circumstances of commercial men. The long embargo; the war with England which followed it; the various changes in the Bank of the United States, and final overthrow of that institution; the various alterations of the tariff, and the successive contractions and expansions of the currency consequent upon these events, occasioning heavy disappointments and losses to all the community, followed in quick succession. It was no small felicity to have survived these changes, and to have maintained throughout a high credit and unsullied reputation.

We have alluded to the ready flowing sympathy and fellow feeling which marked Mr. Goodhue's character. It was especially manifested towards those in dependent situations and in the more humble walks of life. No laboring man, however low his condition, could be engaged in his service without perceiving that he had a considerate regard for his feelings and for his rights.

No domestic ever lived in his family without being impressed by his condescension and kindness. This feeling made him reluctant to part with those who had faithfully served him, and few men have ever made so few changes in those who have held subordinate situations under them. The cartman who, on his first arrival in New York, took his baggage to his lodgings, was employed by him until old age obliged him to retire from active life. A principal book-keeper, well worthy of his confidence and esteem, remained with him for fifteen years, and then withdrew merely because he wished to change his mode of life. A confidential counting-room porter, after being in his service for twenty-five years, still holds his place in the house of Goodhue & Co. These incidents, not important in themselves, are worthy of record as characteristic of the man, and they furnish an example of a trait of character not generally sufficiently cultivated. The busy, prosperous community are too apt to overlook the feelings and rights of those who are dependent upon them; and are too insensible to the beneficial influence which, by a proper sympathy and care, they can exert over them.

The incidents of private life, even in the case of one who occupies a prominent and important place in society, do not afford much matter of general interest. We shall therefore, in the remainder of this article, pass to a brief sketch of the character of Mr. Goodhue.

He was a man of clear, and strong, and inquisitive mind, well informed by extensive reading and a large intercourse with men of intelligence. In politics he was a Federalist of the old school, steady and unwavering through all the momentous changes of the times in which he lived. He was always the warm advocate of free trade-ever ready to give his influence to measures which could promote it. He felt a deep and lively interest in the progress of improvement, and looked forward with cheerful, ardent hopes to the gradual melioration of the human family in their condition; but he dreaded revolution as fraught with violence and often ending in defeat. His hopes rested on the gradual and effective influence of a more general diffusion of knowledge and civilization.

In religion he was the invariable and unyielding advocate of the rights of conscience, entirely opposed to oppression and domination under whatever name they might be called. He had a strong affection for the pure and upright, of whatever religious sect they might be; an uncompromising abhorrence of hypocrisy and false pretension, in whatever garb they might show themselves. Few men had a more sacred regard for truth-a deeper sense of accountability. No man had a more profound reverence for the Great Supreme. The records which he has left show that he had calmly contemplated the approach of death long before it took him from the world. The call was sudden, but it did not take him by surprise. His character is so truly and ably portrayed in the discourse of the Rev. Mr. Bellows, delivered on the occasion of his death, that we close this article with a few extracts from it.

In a community like ours, there is especial danger that the Christian standard will decline, and with it the confidence of the public in the reality of Christian faith and virtue. We live confessedly in the midst of great temptations and seductions. There is nothing, perhaps, concerning which men doubt each other more than in regard to their power to withstand the temptation of money. That "every man has his price," is a received maxim of terrible import, whose practical disproof concerns the interests, and even the credibility of the gospel, more than tongue can tell. It is to this "trial by gold," that we are called in this commer

cial metropolis: a trial more to be dreaded than the old trial by fire. Amid the competitions and collisions of mercantile enterprise, pressed by the necessity and the difficulty of speedily succeeding, in order to maintain the expensive position here assumed; surrounded by examples of crowds, whose confessed and only object is accumulation; supported in lax practices by the maxims of the careless; tempted now by the glittering prizes of rapid success, and then by the imminent perils of sudden failure; excited by the triumphant speculations of the adventurous, and dazzled by the social splendors of the prosperous; conversant all the day long, for at least six days in the week, with the plans and projects, the conversation and spirit of money-making, what wonder is it, that riches come to stand for the principal thing, and that the laws and spirit of Christian virtue are so often found to be withes of straw in the fires of worldly ambition and business enterprise?

What we particularly need, then, is the example of men who are thrown into the hottest part of this furnace, and yet come out unscathed! Men who enter into the arena of business, seek its rewards, wrestle with its competitors, experience its temptations, taste its disappointments and its successes, its anxieties, and its gratifications; pass through its crises of panic, and of bubble-prosperity, and yet through all, uphold a character and reputation for unspotted honor and integrity, for equanimity and moderation, and for qualities of mind and heart, to which worldly success is manifestly and completely subordinated. The world may well be suspicious of an untried virtue; of the worth of an integrity which sustains itself in seclusion, and never measures its strength with the temptations of life; of a professional goodness, which is hedged about by the restrictions of public opinion; of a talking piety, that mistakes the glow of beautiful and exalted sentiments for the earnestness and vigor of moral principle; of the graces which merely reflect the circumstances that surround them; as, for instance, the humility of the low in station, the amiableness of those whose natural temperament is equable, the self-control of the unimpassioned, or moderation of desires in those who are without opportunity or hope of advancement. What we need to confirm our faith in virtue, to reprove and stimulate our consciences, is to see the triumph of tempted integrity, the victory of a spirit that feels the force of the passions and desires that agitate our own hearts, and yet controls them; that is subjected to our own trying circumstances, and turns them to the account of goodness.

It is no uncommon thing to hear men, as it were, fortifying their own moral resolution by assailing the ordinary objects of human desire; denying the desirableness of fortune; charging the necessary principles on which business is conducted with intrinsic immorality, and attributing to wealth itself all the evils which come from the passionate "love of money." When these words proceed from the mouths of the unsuccessful, or from those withdrawn from the walks of trade, they indicate a very suspicious kind of past experience, and a very doubtful sort of unworldliness. The truth is, the business of this world must be carried on, and there must be commercial centers, where wealth, with all its responsibilities, perils and advantages, will be concentrated. Merchants, in the largest use of that word, are a necessary and most important class-a fixed, indispensable, and permanent class—in the divisions of society. There is no prospect whatsoever that the pressure of care, the competitions of trade, the increase of wealth, or the growth of private fortunes, will diminish in a place like this. Just here, this work which you are doing is to be done-will remain to be done! and you and your successors will be subjected to whatsoever dangers and disadvantages to the moral nature belong to it. It by no means follows because a post is dangerous that it is to be deserted, or that it is wrong to occupy it! It by no means is true that things are unimportant or to be dispensed with, because they are morally perilous. Commerce is dangerous precisely because of the magnitude of the interests involved in it. Money is "perilous stuff," just because it is the representative of all other physical and of much intellectual and moral value. This community of business interests and business men is a dangerous and difficult place to dwell in, because those exclusively occupied in dealing with that, which most nearly and

universally touches the present wellfare and immediate necessities of millions, feel the passions and wants of the nation pressing back upon them, and shaking with convulsive energy the nerves which they themselves are. You feel here, in the commercial heart of this country, the heat and passion of the whole body. You fulfill an indispensable function. It is a dangerous one. The fireman who feeds the furnace of the steam-engine is exposed to certain death if the boiler burst; but he is the last man that can be withdrawn from his post. Let it be understood that the merchant occupies a post of peril; that he handles the most dangerous substance; that he is, of all men, most exposed to the evils of worldliness; that his principles are destined to fearful trial; that he is to live in constant excitement, with anxiety, hope, fear, adventure, risk, as his stormy element; that mercantile misfortune has its imminent moral perils and commercial success, equal and peculiar dangers! Let the merchant understand that he places himself, for the sake of certain valuable and not unworthy considerations, in a position in which he is to expect little tranquility of mind; small control of his own time, and little direct opportunity for cultivating tastes and pursuits usually regarded as protective to the moral nature. Let him understand that he is, more than any other man, to deal directly with what is, by general consent, the most seductive, exciting, and treacherous commodity in the world; that which most tempts integrity, moves the baser passions, absorbs the faculties, chills the humane affections, and dulls the spiritual senses; that which was the object of our Master's most emphatic warning. But let him, at the same time, recognize the Christian lawfulness and providential importance of his calling, and appreciate the force of the truth that the possible moral advantages of a position are proportioned to its moral perils, so that no man's opportunities of forming and exemplifying the Christian character in some of its most commanding attributes, are so great as those of the merchant. In no man is superiority to worldliness so much honored; no man's integrity is so widely known or so much venerated! Honor, uprightness, brotherly kindness, purity and singleness of purpose, moderation and essential superiority to worldly maxims and ambitions-these qualities, if they exist in the merchant at all, exist in him in spite of daily trials and temptations. If any man's principles require to be sound to the core, it is his. They do not exist by the forbearance or felicity of circumstances. They are not passive graces. They need to be positive, active, aggressive qualities; opposing to the perils and assaults of his circumstances a rugged and stern resistance. As such they are recognized and honored; and no man occupies a more commanding moral position, displays a more useful character, or wins a more sineere and compulsory reverence, than the Christian Merchant! And what does the community need so much, what can it so ill spare, as the example of such men?

Why then is it, that with an almost unequaled demonstration of sorrow and bereavement, this community gathers about his grave, and testifies, in the sincerest and heartiest forms, its reverence and love? Whence this burst of admiration, respect, and affection, coming simultaneously from every portion of the public; uttered through the resolutions of commercial bodies; speaking from the lips of the press; and, above all, falling in tones of tenderness from private tongues in all classes of society? It is as if every one had lost a friend, a guide, an example; one whom he is surprised to find has been equally the object of respect and affection to ten thousand others! No concert of action, no mutual understanding, has marked this expression of public feeling! We hardly knew that we had a man among us in whom such regards united; and no one beforehand could have predicted the impression his death would make upon the community. He filled so quiet, so unobtrusive, and so steady a place among us, that our thoughts were never directly or abruptly fixed upon him. We felt, we knew, his worth and his influence; but we did not make it the frequent theme of our remark, nor weigh it against that of others; and therefore, I repeat, we are almost taken by surprise, when forced, by general testimony, to acknowledge that no man could be taken from this community amid such general regrets, possessing such universal confidence, or filling a larger place in its affections and respect.