the suggestions that the warmest gushings of his melted heart "Despise not, shrewd reckoner, the God of a Good man's worship, head. Thou that despisest mystery, yet can'st expound nothing, Wherefore rejectest thou the fact that solveth the enigma of all things? Learn from the consistencies of nature the needful miracle of God head: Yea, let the heathen be thy teacher, who adoreth many Gods, For there is no wide-spread error that hath not truth for its begin ning." Science and Labor. BY REV. JAMES H. FAIR CHILD, Professor of Languages in Oberlin Collegiate Institute. The laboring man is prone to forget how much he owes to the man of science. He wields his implement of labor and does not stop to reflect how many heads and hands have united their energies to produce it. He does not look beyond the artizan who gave the material its present form. He passes the chemist in his laboratory, the astronomer in his observatory, and wonders for what end they live-who is benefitted by their experiments and speculations-while but for the labors of such men, he would himself be involved in the barbarism of primitive ages. The rude back-woodsman who despises learning and the devotees of science, and asks nothing of society but his unerring rifle, owes to the men whom he despises that he has a weapon more formidable than the Indian's arrow and tomahawk of flint. If men had all been like himself, the few comforts which he now enjoys would have been beyond his reach. The world must have been left a wilderness-a vast hunting ground, for such beings to wander over and secure their precarious subsistence. The vast energies of nature would exist in vain. The winds might blow and the waters flow; but all this would bring no good to man, Treasures of untold wealth might lie concealed in the earth; but to unenlightened toil these are as if they were not. The vast resources of the vegetable kingdom would be unexplored; for Ceres in her earthly visits follows in the footsteps of Science. The "unsubstantial air," nature's vast granary, might contain elements to feed nations; but where is the Prometheus who shall deliver to dark-minded mortals the key to its treasures. The trees would grow and the winds would blow and the waters flow and men would starve, but for some restless one who takes the clew from the hand of Nature and threads her labyrinths. His fellow men may forget him or laugh at his idle schemes; but ever and anon he comes forth with substantial bread for plodding mortals. Thus have our comforts come, and thus they will continue to come, if they come at all. The ordinary means by which our living is secured-the common arts of every day lifehave not arisen by chance, nor have they been revealed from above; they are the deductions of science. The man who has retired from busy life and studied nature has given us the advantage which we possess over our barbarian ances tors. The farmer of the western prairie now rejoicing in his abundant harvest and in the prospect of wealth, blesses his stars and his good soil, and we would fain hope lifts a grateful eye to Heaven; but if those who have been his co-laborers should come to his table and share his plenty, he would find among his guests such men as Fulton and Watt and Columbus and Archimedes and Tubal-Cain. Every barrel of flour now floating on our waters to an eastern market derives its existence and its value from such sources. The immediate producer may never have traced the connection nor felt his obligation. He may not know the names of his benefactors, nor even of the sciences which they have developed; while but for these sciences and those men, the spreading prairie would still be traversed by the untamed buffalo, and he himself would be an acorn-eater, an inhabitant of an insignificant island on the west of Europe. The only guaranty we have that we shall maintain our present position in civilization is that we continue to advance in science. To stop is to recede. The primal decree, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread," contains in it a deep significance. The human face represents the combined energy of corporeal and intellectual power, and bread is pledg ed to the joint exertion of these two departments of our nature. Toil and study are the conditions of living. The moment either of these fails, that moment the powers of nature combine to crush the race. The fair fabric of civilization crumbles and primitive wildness resumes its sway. The spontaneous productions of the earth sustained the rude inhabitants of this western continent. A tide of immigration from the East commenced. Science was called in to develope the resources of the country. The wealth of forest and field and flood was brought out and concentrated by pow ers which the hand of Science alone can control; and now millions live in all the comforts of civilized life, on the hunting ground from which a diminutive Indian tribe once gathered a scanty subsistence. That tide of population is still uncheck ed. Let progress in science cease, and the demand will at once transcend the means of supply. With every new-comer we must divide our loaf; and considering the constant in flux from abroad and the rapid increase at home, we can see. that our rations would soon be sufficiently limited to meet the notions of the most strenuous advocate for simplicity in diet and equipage. If there could be a limit to this retrogression, the idea might be tolerable; but when we had reached a point of destitution, compared with which the famine of Egypt would be plenty, our miserable pittance must be again divided. But it is replied, population cannot increase under such a pressure of want. Let it be so. Then we are under the necessity of making advance in science or of enduring such a pressure of want as shall put a limit to the multiplication of the race. But let the population become stationary and what will be the result? Are we still secure in the possession of the good we already enjoy? The necessity for scientific investigation still rests upon us. New difficulties meet the laborer as years pass away, and new researches of science must meet those difficulties. This is a manifest arrangement of Providence to maintain the original decree. The prairie farmer turns over the sod that has lain undisturbed for ages, and by toil comparatively unenlightened, gathers for a succession of years an abundant harvest. His crop becomes less and less exuberant, until at length some element of the soil, the slow produce of centuries, has become exhausted. What that element is, or from what source he can obtain a re-supply, he knows little more than the brute that draws his plough. Science lends her aid, and again the golden harvest waves be fore him. But a diminutive insect, introduced into Long Isl and in some straw brought over by the Hessian soldiers, moving westward with. "the march of empire," has reached his secluded farm, and the promised crop falls ungathered. The astonished husbandman sees the result, but knows not the cause. It seems to him a "visitation of Providence." Entomologist passes that way and points out the evil and the remedy. Later in the season he puts his seed into the ground and watches the result. The little depredator does not appear. The harvest approaches. Bright prospects are before him. He is just ready to thrust in the sickle, when lo! the golden stalk reddens, the kernel shrinks, and the hope of the laborer is frustrated. Science must again visit him, or his labor is in vain. He plants his orchards, and begins to gather the luscious fruits. A few years transpire and the weevil and the miller invade his domain and mar his prospect. An epidemic seizes the potato-a modern production—a gift of Science to the human race. Science must afford the remedy, or The + this invaluable root is lost. Thus has it ever been, thus will it ever be. One difficulty after another meets the race, and destruction must follow unless head and hand, Labor and Science combine their forces. By such stimulants is activity of mind and body insured. These evils are not let loose upon us at once, else the struggle required would be too great. Science and labor would sink together. Though usually regarded as parts of the generic curse, they are really angels' visits to a stupid world. By these and similar necessities the doom is fixed upon us. To provide for the increase of population and to meet the succession of difficulties in the constitution of nature, Science must traverse our wide country-must dig into every mountain and fathom every river-must analyze every soil and test the properties of every plant-must ascertain the causes of every wind and the origin of every cloud. The more subtle elements of nature must be laid hold of and studied, until their properties are familiar as those of water. Thus and thus only can we retain the comforts of life which we already possess. But men were not made to be satisfied with an unchanging condition. A better state is the hope and aim of every son and daughter of the race. This hope refers not merely to a future state, but seeks its realization in the present life. Let it once be understood that the blessings of life are a fixed quantity, or at least that there is a limit to their extension, and that the only possible change is to diminish or to distribute differently, and one great motive to exertion is destroyed. The world loses half its charm and half its substantial good. It is no longer a world adapted to our wants. Though that state were far removed from physical want, though it secured all the comfort possible in the present arrangements of society, yet it would be intolerable. The actual ills connected with it would be augmented a thousand fold by the conviction that they were permanent and inevitable. There is thenthere can be no limit to progress in this respect. There has been already a great advance in the arts which minister to our physical necessities since the days of the fig-leaf girdles; and there is no reason to suppose that there will not be as great improvement in the six thousand years to come, if the world shall stand so long. When such improvement ceases we are on a down hill course, and the succeeding age must be an age of barbarism. Thus, in civilized society, what are called the necessaries |