LIFE'S CALLINGS. 313 



It is more difficult than we at first ma}' suppose to estimate the 

 comparative value of our great material interests. They are so 

 intimately interwoven with each other, that we cannot easily 

 determine when one commences and another ends. It has been 

 said that agriculture, manufactures and commerce, are the three 

 great pillars of our national interest. Commerce has done so 

 much to advance civilization, universal brotherhood, and Christian- 

 ity itself, so much to develop the material interests, and to stimu- 

 late the arts and sciences ; it has furnished so fruitful a field for 

 enterprise, aad can point to so many brilliant examples of individ- 

 ual success, that it presents strong claims fur pre-eminence in a 

 a comparative valuation of the great branches of human enterprise, 

 and yet commerce, without manufactures and agriculture, could 

 have no existence. 



Contrasting the condition of some degraded, uncivilized tribe, 

 where the products of human skill are but little in advance of the 

 teachings of instinct in the brute creation, with the inhabitants of 

 more favored lands, where art and industry have been stimulated 

 to meet the demands of a higher civilization, we find so wide and 

 striking it difference — a difference extending to the physical, intel- 

 lectual and moral development of these two branches of the human 

 family, that we might for a moment be led to claim- preeminence 

 for manufactures. But manufactures are largely indebted to the 

 facilities afforded by commerce, and without agriculture, as a 

 foundation on which to build, they dwindle into insignificance or 

 perish altogether. Shall we claim, then, as a natural consequence, 

 the highest place for agriculture ? We can hardly do this when 

 we remember that we cannot have a single agricultural implement 

 without the aid of manufactures, and although literally we might 

 chum for it a separate existence, without the aid of manufactures 

 and commerce it would not be worthy the name. 



There would seem to be no great preeminence or post of honor 

 in these three great primary divisions, which, in an important 

 e, may be claimed as the foundation for civilization and human 

 progress. Each is so far dependent on the others as to preclude 

 the idea of a separate existence for itself. But time and the occa- 

 sion will not admit of s*> wide a range, and I shall confine the 

 further discussion of the subject to the consideration of agriculture 

 as one of lift's callings. A brief reference to the present standing 

 and progiess of* this great interest, will aid us in forming an esti- 

 mate of its comparative merits. 



