while the philosopher makes scientific discoveries in the stone upon his wall, or the flower by his wayside. He stands unmoved and uninstructed by the silent language of nature; while the man of cultivation and refinement, as he sits down on Nature's lap, feels himself at peace with all around him; his passions are calm; his mind is elevated; his heart is melted; and he reposes, as it were, in the bosom of his God. He sees his Maker in the fleeting cloud, and his goodness in every field which it shadows. He sees the trees wax strong around him, and the sun trace his path through the heavens; and when he thinks of the power which created them, it teaches him humility. He muses on the providential care which supports them, and it whispers trust in heaven ; for he knows that he is worth them all. He contemplates the infinity of beings around him, none of whom were created with desires not to be satisfied; and when the fond hope of immortality rises in his mind, he knows that it will be realized.

Thus does knowledge elevate the mind, ennoble the individual and the family, and change the long worn, dusty path of worldly cares into a beautiful prospect, rising into hills and mountains as it recedes from the view; and each successive eminence increasing in splendour, and heightening the enchantment of the scene. This alone should be sufficient to recommend knowledge to every rational being; and to convince him, that he was intended for its attainment, and that knowledge was intended for his exaltation. But its effects do not stop here; they are not confined to individuals and families; they extend to the whole body of society. When we turn over the pages of history, we find that knowledge has always made those countries in which it has been cultivated, happy, respectable, and free; that it has been the cause of all those revolutions which have been permanently useful; and that whenever the state of knowledge has changed, the state of society has changed with it. The assertions of the learned, the conclusions of the philosopher, and even the suggestions of common sense, the ignorant and prejudiced will sometimes doubt; but the experience of the world is incontrovertible.

What in ancient times gave the Greeks and Romans their superiority? Knowledge; for this gave them their arms, and this prevented the misuse of them; this raised the Greeks from the barbarism and ferocity of the ante-Homeric ages, and converted the clubs of the primitive Italian robbers into arms for the conquest of the world. Nothing but the different degrees of civilization and refinement in the two nations, constituted the difference between the polished Romans and the savage Goths. Nothing but the civilization, refinement and skill of the Romans made. them the fit successors of the Greeks, and raised them so high above their neighbours. Without these, their valour and their arms would only have rendered them dangerous and oppressive; and without these, the log hut would have covered to this day the sites of their forum and capitol; and the forest would have waved its branches in useless profusion, where the harvest ripened on the cultivated field of the villager; without these, that very name which has descended unimpaired through centuries to us, and shall descend with undiminished splendour to our children, had long since been buried in the oblivion which envelopes the history of the Goths and Assyrians. But perhaps of the evil effects of ignorance upon a state, Babylon is the most signal example.

Babylon indeed was a magnificent city; and when she fell, the merchant wept over her riches, which were no more; and those who had looked upon her outward splendour heaved a sigh when they saw it had flown. But not a tear was shed over buried virtue; and to this day, none but the barbarian wanders among her ruins; while the sage and the pilgrim are visiting the relics of Athens and of Rome. And what is the cause of this, except that the voice of the poet or the philosopher was never heard beneath her porticoes; that the orator never thundered in her forum; that the spirit of knowledge and freedom dwelt not within her walls?

From that day to the present the state of society has been graduated by that of knowledge, in a manner equally striking. When Rome fell, beneath the gradual encroachments of time

and the incessant efforts of the barbarians, the spark of civilization was hidden, but not extinguished; while the cloud, which was formed from the smoking ruins of this mighty city, cast a gloom over the world" Darkness covered the earth, and gross darkness the people."-The papal dispensation and the feudal system rose up soon after; and the rude manners of barbarism came pouring down like a flood upon benighted Europe. Then arose the gaudy fabric of chivalry. On the ruins of this too, our modern poets and orators have expended their powers, as well as on the pleasures of rural life. They have sung and lamented it in the highest strains of poetry and eloquence, as if its gilded ornaments and fair proportions could conceal its gloomy interior and faithless foundations. But the days of chivalry are gone. The etiquette of honour has given way to principles of true religion; while papal superstition and feudal slavery have yielded to the influence of an enlightened and widely diffused knowledge.

This knowledge, though as yet far from having arrived at years of maturity, is nevertheless, with its infant hands, bestowing blessings upon the present age, which were unknown at the highest pitch of ancient glory. It is this, which is accelerating the majestic march of freedom, as she takes her flight over the Atlantic, and stalks across the eastern continent, undermining the despotisms of Europe as she goes. It is this, to which we must look for the cause of all the enterprize of the present day; and ungrateful must he be, who will not bless the cause, when he witnesses the effects; when he sees the ocean whitening with the sails of commerce, the farthest sea explored by the hardy navigator, and the footsteps of civilization imprinted in the most distant lands.

One of the most animating signs of the times is a general attention to education among all orders of society; and this is so strong, and so universal, that the monarchs of Europe have thought fit to yield to it a tacit consent, and some of them openly to encourage it. By these means, though two millions of bayonets may keep the greatest part of the present generation in subjection, the

time is not far distant, when what yet remains of that old Gothic castle, the government of mere brutal force, shall be rent from its foundations; and the bayonet shall give way before the flag of peace. The rising generation will follow the path which their fathers pointed out to them; they will "pluck the diamonds from the tyrant's crown;" they will dare, openly and effectually, always and every where, to assert the rights of humanity.

But why should we look forward to futurity for these effects? They have already been produced in one quarter of the world, in our own America. Here there have been no lingering, timeconsecrated traces of darkness and slavery to impede the growth of the tree of knowledge; and it has, therefore, in its youth, before the indigenous weeds have been wholly rooted from the soil, produced the fruits of peace, happiness, and freedom. Not freedom which is such, only when compared with slavery; but which is as superior to the most enlightened freedom of ancient times, as the firm, disinterested, christian patriotism of our Washington, to the fiery, extravagant ambition of the Grecian Alcibiades.

Greece, indeed, possessed some of the greatest advantages for the attainment and preservation of independence, in her climate, her soil, and the natural genius of her inhabitants; but all these were counteracted by a want of that, in which all true and lasting liberty has its foundation, a want of knowledge. At the early period when she flourished, the lamp of experience had not been lighted to guide her wanderings; the sun of righteousness had not arizen to purify her morals; but a small portion of the world being known to her, she could not enjoy the advantages of an intercourse with its various parts. Thus, notwithstanding her speculations in philosophy, and her learning in the arts and sciences, she was essentially ignorant; and consequently corrupt in her civil institutions. Her government was a democracy without freedom, a tyranny without the name. Though her greatest talents were devoted to the acquisition of independence, and her most precious blood was shed for its accomplishment, all they were able to effect was a tumultuous assembly of one fourth

of the citizens, instead of a just representation of public opinion; and the fiery speeches of factious, sometimes eloquent and patriotic orators, instead of the mature deliberations of the senate. These were the causes which produced the downfall of Greece; and neither the patriotic valour of Leonidas, nor the wise legislation of Solon could prevent it. The darkness of her æra, which rendered her social intercourse impure and her government imperfect, made her longer political existence impossible; while the bright effusions of her genius, and the high degree of perfection to which she attained in the arts and sciences, have made her memory immortal.

Now what constitutes the difference between them and us, is, principally our superior knowledge on two points, government and religion. The first of these, our political knowledge, has caused the wonderful perfection of our civil institutions. It has built up our federal union on the basis of just representation; and has thereby united in our government the freedom of the Grecian democracy, with the maturity of the Roman senate; the stability of Britain without its venality, and the independence of the German states, without their weakening divisions. The second of these, our religious knowledge, has, by means of the christian revelation, given men the greatest inducements to industry, sobriety, and virtue, and thereby qualified us above all the ancients, for the support of popular government. And the citizens of the United States have not neglected these advantages; they have fought well the battles of freedom; and when the noise of war was over, they have rested, free from the rancor of civil discord, and the ambition of foreign conquest, under the shadow of a free government.