262 NUG^ ETHNOLOGICAL. 



brought him thus far through many transitions and its course is not yet 

 ended. Whither it will hereafter carry him, human imagination cannot 

 reach. "It doth not yet appear what we shall be." This much we 

 know, however, — that the undying hope of the world is no delusion. 

 Ever brightly from the beginning has it beamed upon the altar of nian\s 

 soul, and though the mists of error have often obscured and the wild 

 tempest of unholy passions at times seemed to quench it, it has sprung 

 up again with renewed splendor to kindle and illume the ages. The 

 universal mind of man has seemed, at all times, to place its warmest af- 

 fections on the future. The faith in a deliverance to come has never 

 died, nor even failed on the earth. Centuries of sin and oceans of blood 

 have not sutficed to drown it. Every age has had its Simeons, bowed 

 down and in no-wise able to lift themselves up, but looking out patiently 

 for the expected salvation with the mists of decrepitude falling over 

 their feeble eyes. There was a voice in every breast that attested its 

 coming, and the world has still hoped and waited for it, not perceiving 

 that it then was, and ever is, coming and passing on with the silent 

 march of the undelaying years. And this faith shines on us, as brightly 

 as on the past. Men feel now as intimately as ever that this poor pre- 

 sent cannot last, but must give way to a better and nobler future. There 

 have been tribes of people who had no tradition of a golden age or 

 Eden, but none who had no prophecy of good things to come. The 

 same exalted aspiration which dictated the burning lines of Virgil's Pol- 

 lio and glowed in the rapt strains of Isaiah, quickened their souls and 

 now quickens ours. After all that has been done, we still yearn for a 

 better and happier to come. There lies the real Paradise, and casting 

 the past to the winds, we would press forward to the light of its per- 

 fect day. 



Eden witli its angels bold, 



Love and flowers and coolest sea. 

 Is not ancient story told. 



But a glowing prophecy. 



But deeper even than these great facts of intellect and consequent 

 progress, there lies another and most momentous distinction. As tar as 

 the former is concerned, it may be urged that at least its rudiments are 

 found in animals, and therefore we cannot positively deny the possi- 

 bility of its development in higher forms under given influences. But 

 when we come to the Pure Reason, all connexion is lost. We feel that 

 we arc entering upon a new sphere. The sentiments of the Good, the 

 Beautiful, and the True — these arc things in which no other being 

 (collhcd in garments of flesh at least,) has any part. Tiiey belong only 



