24 THE BUILDING UP OF THE 



Tightness and honor in all their transactions. It is thus 

 that they grow strong through conflict. Instead of being 

 degraded, they are ennobled by the struggle, elevated in the 

 good opinion of their friends ; and like the tree, they derive 

 a permanent advantage from the storm, and look all the 

 better when it has passed. 



We have in every tree an illustration of the maxim, " In 

 union there is strength." A few leaves by their united 

 labors formed a shoot ; and this, by repetition of itself, has 

 produced a great tree. Just as the first shoot was built up 

 by the leaves put forth by the growth of the first season, so 

 the entire tree has been constructed by the labors of those 

 successive generations of leaves with which it was annually 

 adorned. It is true that the roots, by the food which they 

 have taken up from the soil, have contributed their part to 

 the general structure ; but the stem and branches have been 

 formed from sap which was first rendered nutritious in 

 leaves. These humble yet perishable forms have been the 

 architects of this noble and enduring structure. 



So it is with man. Individually feeble, he becomes power- 

 ful by entering into combination with his fellows. Who has 

 measured the magnitude of the earth, the planets, and the 

 sun, and calculated the distance of the stars, by taking the 

 diameter of the earth's orbit as a base line ? Who has made 

 to disappear alike the gloomy forest and the poisonous 

 swamp, and produced on their site a landscape smiling with 

 health and fertility ? Who has girdled the earth with rail- 

 roads, drawn down the lightnings from heaven, examined 

 their nature, and given them their appointed channels, 

 uniting the two continents with each other in telegraphic 

 communication ? Whose thoughts now traverse the ocean 

 with the rapidity of the lightning's flash? It is MAN in 

 combination who has done these things. The present state 

 of perfection to which art and science have been carried is 

 the necessary result of the labors of our fathers who have 

 preceded us. The steam-engine and electric telegraph are 

 not the product of the present, but of all ages. They are 

 the work of countless human generations ; of beings frail 



