12 INTRODUCTION. 



ant, Noah Webster, Story, Fulton, and Morse ; the 

 last of whom seems to possess the power of dis- 

 tributing and circulating the lightning over the face 

 of the earth, in obedience to his will, with almost 

 the same facility as that with which Omnipotence 

 wields and manages the thunderbolts, in the blue 

 concave of heaven. It may be asserted, without 

 the least exaggeration, that few nations of ancient 

 or modern times have produced so many gifted 

 minds in every department of intellectual power, 

 during so short a period of national existence, as 

 the United States. 



But there is still another high and noble sphere 

 of endeavor, which the best impulses of a great 

 people will eventually comprehend, when the more 

 immediate and pressing necessities of their existence 

 have been satisfied. This sphere requires as elevated 

 a range of mental ability as many of those to which 

 we have just referred ; with an advantage over some 

 of them in the sublimity of sentiment and the dis- 

 interested philanthropy which impel men to becomo 

 heroes in it. This is the department in which the 

 resources of science are appropriated to the accom- 

 plishment of the aims of benevolence and philan- 

 thropy. Such as these are the missionaries of 

 religion and knowledge, who explore the dark 

 places of the earth carrying in their hands the 



