108 Transactions of the 



demand the deification of all those unseen powers, in forms which 

 their own imaginations and passions suggested. Such was the origin 

 of those forms of religious belief which, coming from the East, the 

 birthplace of man, still survive in the creeds of to-day. Nor. does 

 the soul manifest less eagerness in communion with nature now than 

 in earlier times. Soiled with sin, we seek the forests and the moun- 

 tains and are made better by their influence. Cast to the earth by 

 our enemy, mortified by our weakness and mistakes, we but touch 

 the earth and, like Antcus, the earth-born, Ave rebound stronger than 

 before. And if tired at last with contests that never end, with etlbrts 

 that seem fruitless for good, we retire to country homes, where nature 

 delights us with all her sights and sounds, sweet in the odor of new 

 mown hay — the breath of cows fan the broad brows of our oxen 

 that never deceived us. Jocund is the song of birds, pleasant the 

 rustling of leaves, the babble of waters; and if the thought obtrudes 

 that the turf on which we lie is finally to cover us, we are glad to 

 believe that while of the form that is ours there shall not remain one 

 vestige, there shall still survive in grass and tree and llowers, in form 

 of use and of supernal elegance and beauty, all that once was the 

 habitation of an immortal soul. 



This sentimental or esthetic attraction to what we call the universe 

 is intensified by our necessities. There is not a single human want 

 but depends upon the earth and its fruits for its gratification. The 

 poet says of the earth : 



"A kind mother is she, 

 Some l)ounty slie hangs us on every tree, 

 And blesses us iu the sweet air." 



If this be true, it is not less so that she is a stern and inexorable 

 mistress. The lazy, lingering lover never can obtain these favors. 

 Ignorance and indiff'erence are not the " open sesame " which open 

 her rocky doors that conceal and protect the treasury of nature. 

 The cry of the weak excites our compassion, of the ignorant our pity, 

 and of the vile our indignation, but it is to the wise and powerful 

 alone to whom is accorded dominion in earthly aftairs. 



The love of knowledge, which is the true source of power and the 

 consequences of its earliest manifestation, is the basis of a tale so 

 curious tluit we may not uni)rofitably recall it. I accept the history 

 as it is told, Man newly created, with no physical wants but were 

 fully gratified, with no knowledge of arts or civilization, or indeed 

 of anything but the objects of sight about him, liad heaven bestowed 

 one command and one overmastering desire. For the gratification 

 of this desire, not only the first man, but all his generations after 

 him, have been willing to encounter any disaster with the hope of 

 here recovering something of the lost Eden to make the last great 

 sacrifice of life itself. We are taught that the first man left his para- 

 dise filled with terror and despair. Looking to the present condition 

 of human knowledge, and its present masterful control of elemental 

 force, may we be permitted to hope that in his extremity he was not 

 destitute of consolation, and that, sustained by the human love that 

 went by his side, never to know change or diminution, knowing that 

 God had said of him, " lie has become as one of us, to know good 

 and evil." With a hope higher as it arose from his disgrace, he went 

 forward resolved in right of that knowledge to achieve victory over 

 his misfortunes, and at last bending the power of nature to his will 



