The safety lamp of Davy will forever stand forth a bright monument of this era; the fate of the miner is shut up in that little cage of wire gauze; the lives of hundreds, and the happiness of thousands, are due to this philanthropic invention. The lifeboat too, that cannot sink-that has saved many from a watery grave, should surely not pass unnoticed. I might here speak of the computation of the chances of mortality and the foundation of policies of assurance. These enable us from distress and death to draw comfort and support for the living, and that upon no gambling or other unrighteous principle. I might speak of the invention of bleaching by chlorine,—an art which gives to the fabrics of Europe their widespread celebrity. I might speak of the manufacture of sugar from linen rags, or shreds of paper, or enlarge on the impossibility of famine ever occurring, since a mode has been found of converting common sawdust into wholesome, nutritious bread. To these and many other such inventions and discoveries I have already called your attention in this course of lectures: I hasten, therefore, to a conclusion. Permit me to offer you a few words of advice by way of closing these remarks. All our measures of time and space are fitted for our own condition, and bear with them the frail marks of humanity. Created to inherit a beautiful world, but only the tenants of a few days, we are prone to look upon all things as mortal as ourselves. The rising and setting of the sun, the blooming and fading of flowers, these are things that daily remind us of the shortness of our own time; nor do we ever cast aside the impression they make - and we persuade ourselves that a day must very soon come that shall see all this order and harmony of the world finished. There is, too, a mournful pleasure in these contemplations—a pleasure that we all feel in thinking that everything around us must perish like ourselves. We try to forget that this vast machine, whose wheels have been working thousands of years, shows no marks of disarrangement. We have existed for some six thousand years; but because that appears to us long, has decrepitude come upon the world? In that time the double star y, Leonis, has only performed five of its revolutions, and y, Virginis, little more than nine. Is it a supposition at all warranted by what we see of the perfect structure of the universe, to conclude that its parts cannot hang together till some of them have performed half a dozen revolutions? The universe is not so crazy a machine. Remember, then, we are only the possessors of the present moment. We owe a great duty to the future: let us perform it. "Who that surveys the speck of earth we press, Thomas Moore. "Lalla Rookh.» Gifted as we are with hands to effect our wishes, and the means of transporting ourselves superior to a great many of the brutes, those hands and all those appliances have not made us what we are; they have not taught us to grasp the heavens, and enumerate distances that defy imagination; they have not given. us the power of prophecy, nor have they granted us that omnipresence which the mind of the astronomer almost possesses. We may be creatures of passion and pain, like our inferiors; nay, even like them, the very mode and manner of our existence may be the result of simple and uniform laws: but yet there is a something in us that guides us in passion; a something that takes the sting from sorrow, and bids us pursue the great end of existence here and hereafter — happiness. And on a calm evening, when we look into the blue vault above us, there is a quiet sensation that comes upon us all. The stars that roll on eternally in the sky-the infinity of space before us-the speck on which we stand, an island in the abyss-the mere atom that we are: and yet we claim kindred with all that is great and vast, and know that we have a communion and fellowship with them, and are a part of the gigantic scheme. Nor will the stillness of death end the part that we have to perform — all around us is in motion and change; and beyond us, in worlds whose existence the telescope alone reveals, where we might look for silence and repose, the first evidence we have of existence is the proof of life. Star revolving around star in new and unusual modes-systems, with double, triple, and many suns, that beam with party-colored rays; all these things prepare us to know that death is not an utter destruction. The voice of nature tells us that the mind is not a result of any system of corporeal organization,-in its own state every creature is as highly and as perfectly organized as we, and the sensory organs of many are even more developed than ours, -the informing principle that is in us is a thing distinct — not a mere secretion of medullary matter-not the product of a conflict of voltaic currents, it is a something that knows its own existence, that shudders at the word annihilation, and proudly claims kindred with infinitude and eternity. Whatever may be our lot in life, and what the true purpose of our existence, an inevitable fate attends us-a fate which bears with it all the marks of eventuating as a result of a law of nature; and these are laws, which unlike those framed by human legislators, it is impossible for us to break. Though we may be powerful, and possessed of a reason capable of making us acquainted with the universe, there is not one of these regulations which we can infringe. "Thou shalt not change or destroy it," is written on every material atom-"Thou shalt be born and die," these are decrees against which we would struggle in vain. Over the destinies of our own race they have given us a power; and though we are suffered to be spectators of the existence of other worlds, they restrain us to our own. These eternal decrees show us the limits of our condition; nor should we repine. Do not the sunshine and the storm, and spring, and summer, and autumn, and winter, come as they did a thousand years ago? Do not the same stars shine afar in the night, and the same suns ripen the fruits of the earth? "There is something in the calm regularity of these laws that persuades us to commit ourselves unreservedly to their operation." I have thus endeavored to trace the road by which we have become possessed of the only human knowledge which is really valuable; it is an imperfect sketch. Of the material constitution of the world, what do we know? We are infants in science; yet how wide is the difference between the student of nature and the ignorant man. Can he believe that the particles of the bodies around us are so small that the distance between those which are nearest is infinitely great compared with their own size? We may, perhaps, make him learn that a gnat, when flying, beats the air with its wing a hundred times in a second; but what will he say when we tell him that a wave of red light trembles four hundred eighty-two millions of millions of times in a second, or a wave of violet light seven hundred seven millions of millions of times in a second. Yet these are things of which he may satisfy himself; and surely to cultivate these pursuits will tend to make him not only a wiser, but a better man. Finally, therefore, let me urge the pursuit of these objects upon you; there is no mystery around them-but then there is no royal road to them. From the experience of a few short years I can recommend them to you as a pleasure in prosperity a comfort in affliction. You owe to the future a debt-prepare to pay it. Cultivate the intellect heaven has lent you, remembering it is also the property of posterity. Knowledge offers you wealth and power. Choose then whether you will accept them. Complete. From the text published in the Southern Literary Messenger for November, 1837. IV-93 HENRY DRUMMOND (1851-1897) HE "Conflict between Religion and Science," which was much discussed after the appearance of Darwin's "Origin of Spe cies," ceased to be considered a topic of engrossing interest after the appearance of Professor Henry Drummond's "Natural Law in the Spiritual World." Being an advanced Darwinian and at the same time a Christian evangelist of the school of Dwight L. Moody, Professor Drummond calmly assumed the impossibility of such a conflict having a real existence; and though it cannot be said that he demonstrated or attempted to demonstrate anything, his great learning and the calmness of his well-assured convictions had a decided effect. He was born at Stirling, Scotland, in 1851, and his scientific work was done chiefly while professor of Natural History and Science in the Free Church College, Glasgow. His religious addresses have had an extraordinary popular circulation both in England and America. One of them, "The Greatest Thing in the World," has been described as the "Oration on the Crown" of the modern pulpit. THE NATURAL LAW IN THE SPIRITUAL WORLD HE Spiritual World as it stands is full of perplexity. One can escape doubt only by escaping thought. With regard to many important articles of religion, perhaps the best and the worse course at present open to a doubter is simply credulity. Who is to answer for this state of things? It comes as a necessary tax for improvement on the age in which we live. The old ground of faith, Authority, is given up; the new, Science, has not yet taken its place. Men did not require to see truth before; they only needed to believe it. Truth, therefore, had not been put by Theology in a seeing form-which, however, was its original form. But now they ask to see it. And when it is shown them, they start back in despair. We shall not say what they see. But we shall say what they might see. If the Natural Laws were run through the Spiritual World, they might see the great |