the song of the angels, "peace on earth, good will, to man." That sweet strain of the heavenly minstrels floats over the nations which announced the advent of the Prince of Peace, our Savior and our Lord, but whose social position among men was that of the carpenter's son.

Gentlemen, custom and the proprieties of the occasion, place some one of your number in the post which I now occupy. Your Government has seen fit to select one of the youngest of your Association for the high honor. Under such circumstances, the themes of the speaker should be aspirations rather than experiences. Advice should come from those whose years give the weight of authority, whose interest in the subject is confirmed by long continued labor in its behalf, and whose social position and rank would confer honor upon the Association. Destitute of these requisites, not having arrived at that age when "discretion waits upon the judgment," pressed into the service by kindness, and a promise to be exonerated from the charge of presumption, the best thoughts, which the anticipation of the occasion has suggested, shall be laid before you, with the hope that you will pardon their weakness, in consideration of the motives that prompted them.

The world in which we live is a vast magazine, full of capabilities and powers, the development of which constitutes man's discipline and perfection;—in infancy, the most helpless of the creatures of the earth, yet he is destined to be its master and lord. According to the degree of growth to be attained, so is the period of time for its fulfilment. The mushroom springs up in a night, it takes years for the acorn to become the sturdy oak. The brute attains the full expansion of his powers in a few months, his progeny neither advance, nor improve.

To man's development is assigned the race, and generations are required for its accomplishment. The earth, with its hidden forces, and man, with his unrevealed powers, move onward in the course of centuries, gradually unfolding themselves, until the one shall become a paradise fitted for the other's highest enjoyment and happiness. The whole universe is latent with gifts; science discovers them, the mechanic embodies them in forms of beauty and convenience, and applies them to the well-being of the race. The history of the useful arts, is the history of civilized man; no nation of refinement could exist without them; their beginning was contemporary with the discovery of metals. The first worker in them, was the first mechanic. Iron, the most valuable in its uses, and the most universally diffused throughout the earth, was probably the first discovered.

The sacred record informs us, that the seventh regular descendant from our first parents, Tubal Cain, was "the instructer of every artificer of brass and iron." They were regarded with such esteem by the civilized nations of antiquity, that their mythology ascribed their introduction to the gods. One nation affirmed that there came down from Heaven, a plough, a yoke, an axe, and a goblet; and similar traditions prevailed among the most polished of the ancients. Saturn gave them to the aborigines of Italy. Virgil, in giving a description of their condition, says,

"Nor laws they knew, nor manners, nor the care
Of laboring oxen, nor the shining share,
Nor arts of gain, nor what they gained to spare;
Their exercise the chase; the running flood
Supplied their thirst; the trees supplied their food.
Then Saturn came, who fled the power of Jove,
Robbed of his realms, and banished from above,
The men dispersed on hills, to towns he brought,
And laws ordained, and civil customs taught."

As the primitive employment of man was the cultivation of the earth, his inventive powers must first have been called into action in fabricating rude instruments to aid him in his work. The farmer's, we consider the most original, as it is the most important of man's stated avocations, yet how scanty would be the harvest, if art did not furnish him the implements of his industry!

When man's physical wants are supplied, then he becomes conscious of those higher elements of his nature, to which he must minister to secure his greatest degree of happiness. As these become developed, he rises in the scale of being, and civilization is the result. Civilization adds nothing to his original powers; it brings them into full play, and fills up their measure. The boast of our age is its civilization, but it is the product of generations of growth. The experience of six thousand years are embodied in our present social forms. Our mental ideas, as well as our physical comforts, the whole past has been preparing.

It might be of interest, to trace, step by step, the history of invention, and the necessary results which followed in its train; but it is inexpedient, as it has been a favorite subject upon former occasions, and is, in itself, so expansive in its range, as to exclude other topics, equally pertinent to the time and place.

The mighty elements of nature seemed to have been made for instruments in man's hands to conduce to his happiness and welfare. He discovers their properties, and then puts them in harness, and tasks them day and night.

Water, apparently the least substantial form of matter, which we cannot even grasp with our fingers, when he

applies it to use, becomes one of the great engines of power in the universe. He says to the stream descending on its way to old ocean, "work your passage; " and he places a wheel in its course, and it labors for him with the strength of a thousand men. When he connects it with its opposite element, fire, it generates a new force, working wonders. Under its influence, we fly with the speed and precision of an arrow from one extremity of the continent to the other, and space, and time, seem to be under our control. The heaving ocean, apparently a barrier between the old world and the new, becomes the very highway and path of the nations. It bears upon his bosom his heaviest burdens, and he says to the winds sweeping over its surface, waft me on my course; or, in spite of the wind or the storm, he heats a little water, and his mandate is obeyed.

The lightning he attaches to the post office department, and the sun he engages as a portrait painter. That rotary motion, which is the great element of power of the universe, which holds the solar system in its course, he applies in all manner of forms; it is the principle of the wheel, in all its modifications, and is introduced in the last card press, and the latest invented washing machine. Apt was the answer of Bolton, the partner of Watt, in his interview with George III, who asked him what he sold; "Sire," said he, "what all kings are fond of, power." The power of mind over matter, the power of intelligence over brute force, animate and inanimate, alike own man for their master.

The change in the condition of the world, through the application of some new agent, is often marked and peculiar. Great inventions are often followed by great

events. Before the discovery of the magnetic needle, the mariner timidly crept along his course, hugging his native shores; but when the compass was given to him, he sailed away,-away, over the trackless waters, until a new continent burst upon his sight. America was discovered, and countless blessings are vouchsafed to millions of God's creatures. Printing snatched the treasures of knowledge from antiquated manuscripts, gave an opportunity for noble souls, with free thoughts, to awaken the conscience of stupid and careless men, and the Reformation burst out, and the hot lava of truth poured over the nations that sat in darkness, and religious liberty, and freedom of opinion, took the place of the wicked superstitions and horrid incantations of a corrupt church.-The steam engine, doing the work of man, increasing the speed of locomotion, rendering the world more compact, and bringing the nations that were apart near together, must result in a moral millennium. The first fruits of electro-magnetism applied to the arts, is the conveyance of ideas. May not this be a prophecy of the spiritual bearing of those secrets, and their use, which nature, in these latter days, is to unfold?

The mind is bewildered and lost in the contemplation. of those discoveries and their wonderful results, which, in the progress of man, are to be achieved. A new heaven and a new earth appear to be opening. Man seems to have been engaged only in gathering pebbles upon the shore, while the great ocean of truth lay before him.

The great merit of the age in which we live, and its superiority over the ancient world, is the fact, that, through the diffusion of knowledge, the science of the philosopher and the skill of the mechanic are combined.