of millions of men. We have seen the mass, at the bid- 

 ding of one, no way their superior, except in fancied 

 station or impudent enterprise, driven, in war, to the 

 slaughter, like herds of unresisting cattle ; in peace, 

 expending the labors of their generation, to sustain the 

 glare aud consequence of a few interested rulers. Why 

 this 1 Is it possible that man is placed on the earth for 

 these purposes only 1 Is war his natural element ; a 

 contest with his fellow men his pleasure ? Are fraud, 

 hypocrisy, sensuality, his chief qualifications ? Surely 

 not. The triumphs of vice and crim^e over virtue, the 

 success of falsehood over truth, the advantage of pow- 

 er over justice, are but convulsions of the moral world, 

 fruitful in the noblest moral reformations. Man, the 

 object of all revolution, constantly improves. In defi- 

 ance of his opposition, nature vindicates her laws. 

 Notwithstanding his destruction, all is life ; independ- 

 ent of his sloth, all is progression. 



To prove these truths, go with me, if you please, in- 

 to a detail of some of the physical and intellectual pro- 

 cesses, through which the state of Progression, to which 

 I have adverted, is unfolded. 



1. The first evidence to which I call attention, is the 

 phenomena presented in the structure of the earth. 



When we examine the composition and arrange- 

 ment of the materials formincr the mass of matter on 

 which we live, w^e discover rocks, minerals, and, in a 

 popular sense, earths of various qualities. In some 

 places we see a loose, red, brown, and while soil, crum- 

 bled into powder, and forming the general surface- 

 In others we find horizontal masses of rock spread out 

 in strata or beds, one resting upon the other. Again, 

 we see these strata twisted and raised up from their 



