882 WISCONSIN AGRICULTUEE. 



power lies either hidden or already developed in this new social 

 organism and power I All other associations and alliances, will 

 at last be found weak and powerless in its presence. This 

 young, infant, and innocent Hercules, still smiling in his cradle, 

 already performs the work of a giant and a god. What augean 

 states will he not at last cleanse ? What social powers and for- 

 ces will he not at last consolidate and direct ? 



What mean those annual pilgrimages to our World's Fairs 

 and Crystal Palaces, surpassing in numbers the devotees of both 

 Mecca and Mt. Zion — this mighty crusade of all nations, in the 

 rivalry of industrial art ? These are the heraldry of a new king- 

 dom at hand — the new reign of labor and of art on this Ameri- 

 can continent. Before migratory power the wilderness melts 

 like snow-flakes. The continents are paved with iron roads — 

 the ocean burdened with commercial fleets — the earth and the 

 sea give up the treasures that are in them. All antiquated, 

 regal splendors are outrivaled by the magic of its art, and all 

 regal powers and glory trampled down in the fury of its march. 



There are those who look out on this great triumphal proces- 

 sion of the ages, as it moves onward, with its enginery of labor, 

 and its emblazonry of art, from the great owldom of the past — 

 the star-lit rookery of books and myths, and forms and creeds, 

 and croak most sadly over this " material " age, as they call it, 

 and long for the return of the reign of words, of drivelers, and 

 of dogmatisers, when flat worlds and round creeds, starved 

 laborers and potbellied lords and priests filled the whole horizon 

 of human view. Let them croak. With all their book learn- 

 ing, they have not learned to read the signs of the times. 



The high and prominet regard of God for agricultural and in- 

 dustrial labor has been not only manifested from those acts of 

 creation which bound the destinies of the earth and race to these 

 pursuits, but also by every act of His revealed will. Before the 

 fall, God intimated His preference for labor over either wars or 

 words, by giving man a garden to dress and tend, before He gave 

 him either a helmet or a book. Satan came with enticing words^ 

 and the reign of work for a time ceased: the reign of lying 

 words began : the reign of war soon followed, and filled the 



