566 SELECTIONS FROM ADDRESSES. 



shall feel the benign influence of such culture, and be the better 

 for it. Nay, more, all social relations shall be the better for it. 

 Your town, and state, and your country, shall feel its whole- 

 some influence, and all men shall rise up to honor and to bless 

 you. In fact, I do not exactly see what right any man has to 

 neglect the spirit of culture. His own self requires, and has a 

 right to require, that he give diligent heed to it. His own 

 family, that other part of himself, requires it of him. Society 

 and the country require it of him. God requires it of him, for 

 that great and good Book, that you and I, and all of us, 



Do not read 

 Half so much as we need ; 



preaches to us from every page of its inspiration, that we neg- 

 lect not "the getting of wisdom and understanding," — that we 

 "abound more and more, in knowledge and in judgment." 

 All nature cries out upon you and upon me, and upon all of 

 us, to study the mysteries that dart upon our view, from every 

 shimmering star that twinkles in the sky, — from the firm shine 

 of every planet, that walks its stately course round the great 

 central sun, — from the blazing comet, that, with flaming train, 



■ Doubles wide 



Heaven's mighty cape ; and then revisits earth, 



From travel of a thousand years;" — Young's Night Thoughts. 



from the pale moon, that with soft beams and milder light, 

 steals from her dimly lighted chambers of the east, and walks 

 her way through the long, silent night, — from the great sun 

 himself, 



" As on the wings 



Of glory, up the East he springs, 



Angel of light, who from the time. 



That Heaven began its march sublime, 



Hath first of all the starry choir. 



Trod in his Maker's steps of fire ;" — Moore's Lalla Rookk. 



from the broad earth, upon which you tread, whose every 

 mountain and valley, every hill-top and plain, every forest 

 and prairie, every clod and every smallest dust, every ocean 

 and sea, and lake and river, and gurgling brook, and drop of 

 water, is teeming with the great mystery of life, developed or 

 yet to be developed. Will you walk upon its glorious surface, 

 as men who see nothing, yea blind as the worms and moles 



