A Modern Moses. 89 



basic lining, that is, one free from silica. This has at 

 last been accomplished, and now the basic process is 

 destined to revolutionize the manufacture of steel, for 

 out of the poorest ores, and even out of puddle cinder, 

 steel or iron much purer than any now made for rails 

 or bridges can be obtained, and the two young chemists, 

 patentees of the Thomas-Gilchrist process, take their 

 rank in the domain of metallurgy with Cort, Nelson, 

 Bessemer and Siemens. These young men have done ] 

 more for England's greatness than all her kings and 

 queens and aristocracy put together. 



It was this pale Gladstonian-looking youth we had 

 with us for the day and for our Sunday evening dinner 

 at Windsor. He wears no title — he is too sound a 

 Radical, and too sensible a man to change the name 

 his honored father gave him — but nevertheless we felt 

 we had one of the great men of our generation as our 

 guest. If it be true, as it is, that he who causes two 

 blades of grass to grow where but one grew before is a 

 benefactor to the race, what is the magician who takes 

 from the bowels of the earth a ton of dross, and trans- 

 forms it into steel before our eyes — strikes with his 

 enchanted wand a hundred mines of worthless stone 

 and turns it into gold, as the prophet struck the dry 

 rock and called water forth ? The age of real miracles 

 is not over, you see, it has only begun, and Thomas 

 is our modern Moses ; his miracle seems as much 

 greater than that of his prototype as the nineteenth 



