WHAT SHALL WE DO? 345 



are covered with the greatest abundance of useful and 

 ornamental woods, and filled with an affluence of all 

 the useful and precious metals, and, also, inexhausti- 

 ble stores of building and ornamental stone, coal, and 

 oil. Rivers, streams, lakes, and harbors everywhere 

 abound, giving highways and power upon every hand. 

 The God of nature has dealt bountifully with us, 

 giving, in the greatest abundance, all the elements of 

 health and strength. 



We have a population of more than fifty millions 

 of free men and women, governing and controlling 

 ourselves by our united, or general, wisdom or folly. 

 Our people are more generally educated, more intel- 

 lectually advanced, with a more universal and higher 

 civilization than blesses any other people. Out of 

 our civilization, our general intellectual advancement, 

 has grown a knowledge and use of the forces of na- 

 ture the invention of machinery, the adoption of 

 labor saving processes by which we are enabled, 

 with the expenditure of far less of physical force than 

 in former ages, and great economy in time, to pro- 

 duce, in the greatest abundance, everything necessary 

 to the health and comfort of all. More than this, 

 these new forces have developed, and are continually 

 developing and widening the use of new and valuable 

 productions that could not otherwise have been used. 

 This power marks the highest order of development ; 

 but, like every other great power, when perverted, or 

 turned from its proper use, it becomes an instrument 

 for producing the greatest evils, as is now illustrated. 

 By the blessings of our Creator we are surrounded 

 with everything necessary to prosperity and happi- 



