OXFORD SOCIETY. 99 



with expansive feelings of good will and benevolence, and feel 

 that you are not alone in the world, but members of one great 

 brotherhood. In this way you will honor your calling as farm- 

 ers, and sustain the character of noble men. 



Progress, tpie farmer's Watchword. The mind of man is 

 expanding in every direction. The human pulse beats quicker 

 than ever before. Every department of lunnan industry is full 

 of life. Never did the miner delve so far into the bowels of 

 the earth for its treasures as at the present day. The myste- 

 rious depths of the ocean have been sounded, and its bottom 

 mapped off as the land. The hardy sailor penetrates the frozen 

 seas of the north, and gives battle to the monsters of the deep, 

 whose bodies furnish us with light by which night is turned into 

 day. The winds have been tracked in their apparently fickle 

 course, so as to shorten the voyage of the mariner. The light- 

 ning has been seized upon to convey with lightning speed mes- 

 . sages of joy and sorrow, war and peace, from one portion of 

 the world to another. With the microscope he has arrived 

 almost to the elements themselves. With the telescope he 

 penetrates further than ever into the regions of space, names 

 and numbers the stars, and discovers new worlds to add to the 

 company of our own. But I must tell you that science has 

 accomplished these things. Shall the farmer alone, of all occu- 

 pations, fail to advance in a knowledge of his calling. Be sure,, 

 that, unless he keeps pace with all the expansion of the human, 

 mind, he will sink down to the degradation which every where 

 marks the condition of the ignorant peasantry of other lands. 



The astronomer, with his instrument composed of the same 

 material which the farmer employs in the cultivation of his soil, 

 directs his sight, and his mind,- and his imagination from star 

 to star along the luminous way to the very walls of heaven,, 

 until imagination itself is lost in infinitude. Perchance his eye 

 meets for the first time with the light of some star, which,, 

 since the creation, has been shooting along its penciled rays to. 

 add to the infinity of worlds already within scope of his aston- 

 ished vision. Grandeur and sublimity are words too faint to 

 express his emotions. But the astronomer is limited to a com- 

 paratively few subjects, and these beyond his reacL With his 



