884 WISCONSIN AGRICULTURE. 



own hands and the sweat of its own brow — an age filling conti- 

 nents with its achievements and embelishments of industrial 

 arts, providing bibles, sabbath-schools and common-schools for 

 the masses and the millions; gathering in the wayward and the 

 outcast; performing its ministratioDS of charity and healing upon 

 the poor, the deaf, the dumb, and even the insane ; — how such 

 an age is in danger of becoming too material, and sensual, and 

 gross for earthly uses, because its pot-bellied hierarchies, and 

 high-heeled orthodoxies, and slip-shod scholiasts and sciolists 

 are melting down into the ranks of practical working Christian- 

 ity, and plain common -sense, leaving little work and poor pay 

 for mere star-gazers and creed- mongers of all sorts — how such 

 an age, I say, is in danger of becoming too material and gross, 

 I am at a loss to divine. I am more of the opinion that, as 

 under the new reign of labor, the industry of man reclaims the 

 whole face of the earth, and confirms it in physical beauty and 

 plenty, to the primeval paradise from which he fell, he himself 

 will more nearly approximate the innocence and virtue of his 

 pristine state, and become better fitted for the paradise and 

 blessing of his Father and his god above. Let, then, the reign 

 of labor be consummated on earth. Let its temples, its towers, 

 and its bulwarks rise to the skies. Let the fruits of its toil hang 

 from every tree, and its golden harvests wave over every field. 

 Let its busy enginery clatter along every mountain stream — its 

 steeds of fire and messengers of flame course every land and 

 every ocean wave ; and when this new reign of works has done 

 its most and its best, and our whole duty to God and to man is 

 done and well done, here on earth, we shall have leisure, per- 

 haps, for another reign of mere words quietly to discuss over 

 again the abstractions of metaphysics and of monks, and to over- 

 haul the catacombs and mummies of the past, and readmire a 

 world abjured by man and disowned of God. Till then our 

 work is on hand, — it is the present age ; it is for this we have 

 to work, to dare, and to do. 



Fellow Citizens, — For the advancement of this new reign of 

 works you owe a duty to society and yourselves. You are not 

 simply farmers and mechanics, you are also fathers and soverigns, 



