Natural History unfolds, for practical purposes, the properties and uses of beasts, insects, and birds.

Botany takes man by the hand, and leads him out into the green fields, to teach him the uses of plants and roots and flowers.

Chemistry stands behind her retorts and crucibles, and discourses of earths and alkalies and gases, teaching man how to compound medicines, prepare food, improve soils, burnish metals, manufacture glass, disinfect impure habitations, and bleach and dye garments.

And what shall we say of Mechanics? Calling to her aid a few of the simple principles of nature and art, and pressing them into her service, she has given the world the mariner's compass, the safety-lamp, the diving-bell, the air-pump, the microscope, the spinning-jenny, the lightning-rod, the magnetic needle, the electric telegraph. Such are her rich gifts to man.

And what shall we say of the practical application of science in the wonders of Steam? Oh, this is the lever by which we are moving the world. It has armed the feeble hand of man with a power to which no limits can be assigned, completed the dominion of mind over matter, and is causing old things to pass away and all things to become new. Men have dug down mountains and crossed oceans by steam. The Birmingham fire-king has visited the fabulous East, and the genius of the Cape has been alarmed at the thunders of his voice. The shuttle drops from the fingers of the weaver, and falls into iron fingers that can move it faster. The horse is stripped of its harness, and finds a fleet firehorse yoked in its stead. The sailor has folded his sails, to bid a strong, unwearied servant to bear him on vapory wings over the waters. "The Allegheny has bowed down his back like a camel to receive the load of commerce; and the waters have gone over him, and the

navies of boats ride in triumph over his high places." Nature, through all her works, has surrendered. The victory of mind is achieved. Even distance has been annihilated, and, panic-struck, has vanished from St. Anthony to New Orleans; and the panic is spreading, and distance, in all directions, is fleeing away. If such are the achievements of Science in her infancy, what will she not achieve when arrived at manhood? when other Newtons, and Arkwrights, and Fultons, and Morses shall arise, with minds still more brilliantly illuminated with the lights of science, and the splendid achievements of the present age shall be far surpassed by the future miracles of mechanic power.

4. We should be doing violence to our own feelings, and injustice to our subject, were we to omit to point out another prominent characteristic of physical science. It is the fact that it is confirmatory of revelation. It is becoming the direct auxiliary of Christianity. And every new fact and development is only adding to that great cloud of witnesses which attest the divinity of our holy religion. Once it was not so. Once science was viewed with suspicion. Once it was discountenanced because of its supposed contrariety to the principles of the Gospel. The inventor of the art of printing was thought to be in league with the devil. Galileo was cast into the dungeons of the Inquisition, for teaching that the sun is stationary and the earth moves around it. Columbus was opposed in his theory of the globular shape of the world, and of a western passage to the Indies, by its alleged inconsistency with revelation. But a short time has elapsed since geology was looked upon as subversive of the whole Mosaic narrative. But now how changed the whole aspect of the scientific world. Our men of wisdom are becoming men of God. Every science and every system is now bringing its offering, to

lay them at the foot of the cross. Science and Revelation walk hand in hand, the one as the queen, the other as the queen-daughter by her side. And the missionary of salvation, as he goes far hence to enlighten the teeming millions of the East, has only to teach the first principles of physical science, and many of the systems of heathenism begin to crumble, and their idols totter to the ground. Glorious aspect of the sign of the times. The revelations of nature are in harmony with the revelations of Scripture. And future Lockes, placing it above all philosophy; and Bacons, above all learning; and Newtons, above all science; and Miltons, above all song-each bearing his precious gift-shall come, like Eastern magi, with their gold, their frankincense and myrrh, and lay them in lowly worship at the feet of the Prince of Peace.

I call upon the devotee of science to contemplate this noble and sublime aspect of revealed religion. It is the great fixed point around which all things else revolve, while itself remains unchanged. It is the emblem of Him who gave it, the all-embracing medium, in which every other thing moves, increases, or lessens, is born and destroyed. It is the last refuge of thought, the binding link between the visible and invisible. It is the solution of all anomalies, the determination of all problems in outward nature and in the inward soul. It is the fixing and steadifying element of every system, the grand object of every meditation. It appears to us even as the olive, that emblem of peace and duration, as described by Sophocles; a plant not set by human hands, but of spontaneous and necessary growth, in the great order of creative wisdom; fearful to its enemies, and so firmly grounded that none, in ancient or modern times, have been able to uproot it. Yea, it is a monument, standing in the solitude of the desert, upon which

18 inscribed the history of men and nations, which for ages rose and flourished, and then burst like bubbles at its base. It is a rock in the ocean of time, which has braved the fury of a thousand storms. It has withstood the plots of politicians, the revolutions of empires, the gloom of the dark ages, the sophistry of infidels, the fires of martyrdom, and the rage of devils.

In concluding this imperfect sketch of the present aspect and practical tendencies of the physical sciences, we shall detain the audience with only one reflection. This subject teaches the transcendent importance of fostering schools and colleges. The discoveries of the past must be carefully transmitted to the future. And what shall be the medium? Let the great Lord Bacon answer. "Our duty towards learning," says he, "is conversant about three objects-the places of learning, the books of learning, and the persons of the learned. For as water, whether it be of the dew of heaven, or the springs of the earth, doth scatter and lose itself in the ground, except it be collected into some receptacle, where it may, by union, comfort and sustain itself; and for that cause the industry of man hath made and framed spring-heads, conduits, cisterns, and pools, which men have accustomed likewise to beautify and adorn; so this excellent liquor of knowledge, whether it descends from divine inspiration or springs from human sense, would soon perish and vanish to oblivion, if it were not preserved in books, traditions, conferences, and places appointed; as universities, colleges, and schools, for the receipt and comforting of the same." Let all, then, who are engaged in founding institutions of learning, be encouraged by the fact that they are forming springheads and pools to collect and preserve "this excellent liquor of knowledge." Not all the luster of a noble birth, not all the influence of wealth or fame, not all

the pomp of titles, not all the splendor of power, not all the joys of carnal pleasure, not all the charms of beauty, can impart such dignity to the soul, or so assimilate man to the angels, as this. This will grow, while all else decays. This will cling to us, while all else forsakes. This will survive, while the grandest works of genius and of art will expire amid the universal wreck of matter and of worlds. Colleges will outlive empires.