“Your question,” answered Spalding, “is suggestive.  Did you ever think what gigantic strides the world has made within the memory of men now living, and who are yet unwilling to be counted as old?  Look back for only fifty years, and note what a stupendous leap it has taken!  Where then were the iron roads over which the locomotive goes thundering on its mission of civilization? where the telegraph, that mocks at time and annihilates space?  Hark! there is a new sound breaking the stillness of midnight, and startling the mountain echoes from their sleep of ages!  It is the scream of the steam-whistle, the snort of the iron horse, the thunder of his hoofs of steel, rushing forward with the speed of the wind, shaking the ground like an earthquake as he moves.  A new motor has been harnessed into the service of man, and made to fly with his messages swifter than sound?  It is the winged lightning; and as it flashes along the wires stretched from city to city, and across continents, carries with unerring certainty every word committed to its charge.  Ocean steamers have made but a ferriage of seas.  The photographic art has made even the light of the sun a substitute for the pencil of the artist.  Everywhere, in all the departments of science, in every branch of the arts, improvement, progress, has been going on with a sublimity of achievement unknown in any age of the past.  These things are mighty motors which push along civilization, throwing a wonderful energy into the forward impulse of the world.  But remember, that though these results are brought about by the advance in the mechanic arts, yet that advance is based upon a deeper philosophy, a profounder wisdom, than mere perfectability in those arts.  Take the steam-engine—­it is a great contrivance, a wonderful invention; but the greatest of all was the discovery of the principle and operation, the practical phenomena of steam itself.  The telegraphic machine was a great invention; but the great thing was the development of the science of electricity, the discovery of the secret agency which sent forward the thought entrusted to it swifter than light.  The daguerrian instruments, the metallic plates, the prepared paper, were great inventions; but vastly greater was the discovery and development of the phenomena and affinities of light, the mystery of solar influences.

“There is hope for the world in all this mighty progress, for with it will one day come the development of the true nature and theory of government, the true solution of the great theory of the social compact, the proper adjustment of the relations of man to man, a right appreciation of the nature and value of human rights.  It is bringing forward the masses, elevating the millions who work.  It will rouse into activity their innate energies, and bring forth their inward might.  It creates THOUGHT to guide the hands that set all this vast machinery in motion.  It diffuses and strengthens intellectuality, and the pride of