106 ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS. 
now, and all will be so with succeeding generations. The diffi- 
culty with them is the self-sufficiency and _ scepticism they 
engender, and to restrain their assertion within the bounds of 
propriety. Science and religion ought to dwell in perfect har- 
mony.. True science can do no more than accommodate each to 
each by the operation of the laws of eternal truth. This is being 
done gradually but surely. If some of the most celebrated 
searchers into nature of our own day could wake up a century 
hence, they would without doubt be as much astonished at the 
stride of knowledge meanwhile, and the consequent disturbance 
of previous belief, as those would be who have lived a century 
before our era, could they now start into living consciousness of 
the past and present, 
It may excite a smile that I should imagine so curious an 
event ; but we may still consider it certain, that a comparison of 
notes would realize to all their minds the practical truth enun- 
ciated by one of the wisest among them, as true as when it was 
uttered, as to all that has been done, to wit: that we are only as 
children picking up pebbles from the shore, while the great ocean 
of truth lies unexplored before us. 
But it is time that I should come nigher home. In Nova Scotia, 
within ten days’ distance by steam of the mother country, and 
adjoining the great republic—where we have unsurpassed facil- 
ities for acquiring a knowledge of and utilizing the latest scien- 
tifie progress and discoveries, —it might be supposed that we 
would be practically acquainted with and profit by them, and 
with everything recognized as improvement. The nevessity, 
however, is conceded but slowly, and we have not much to boast 
of in this respect. Our scientific pursuits are nearly all limited 
to a college curriculum,—-to a course of chemistry, electricity, 
botany, and cognate sciences. This is doubtless an excellent 
preparation, but as yet, so far as we know, no further fruits have 
been produced. It is a college education — nothing more. There 
may be various reasons for this. Nova Scotia, though early set- 
tled, has never been very well known in the w orld, especially 
in the world of science. Capital and enterprise have not been 
largely employed to call her material resources (not to mention 
those which are inert) into active operation. She has looked to 
other means of wealth which were more readily procurable, but 
which, whatever they may have been, are not now steadily 
profitable. She is, in fact, so far as science is concerned, nueh 
behind the age. The urgency is, however, being rapidly foreed 
upon her, that resources but partially used, or not used at all, 
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