This is-an age of research, and therein honorably-- distinguished 'from the olden times when mcii loved to speculate more than to observe, and to build castles; in/the-air rather than to form substantial scientific;structures on the solid -basis «of experience. We are, as we ought to be, wiser, than our fathers If we were not, we should stand con-' victed-of copying- the,..'example of the servant who wrapped his talent in a napkin and hid it in the.earth. The hereditary stock of wisdom is not a thing to be locked iip, /arid transferred' as idlp. capital from generation to gen eration., \ It ; '. must be. traded; with a^nd increased,. s so, that pur -./•children,*, when they succeeel tis, may find .the edifice of civilizatioVi /a"story higher 'tliaii' their fathers''foiind//it, the' sphere of know ledge' enlarged" by' fresh* territory won from, the wastes, of, ignorance, /.the* high - way of life adorned with' new bowers of beauty, where the weary traveller may

rest for a ■ momeiit or t\Vo, and bless! Him wliov though. He. assigns us toil' for 'our good, nnd sometimes in his wisdom adds sorrow with it, yet also " giveth His beloved rest," Our civil ization is distinguished by its progres sive character-. Western Europe, with her children in the farther West and in the still more distant South, leads ihe van of human progress, in which our own nation occupies a conspicuous posi tion. God has given us wide dominions in the stationary East, in order that we may induce its children to abandon the. harrow circle in which for so many ages they have been content to tread, to go forward with us, and to "go on tinto perfection " as He intended them. Nor have wo been altogether remiss in the discharge of this duty. There is al ready a great shaking- of the dry bones in " the land of the snn," which fore tells that the living- death which has so long oppressed it is about to pass aAvay.
