568 SELECTIONS FROM ADDRESSES. 



ordinary form, the charcoal that dinges and darkens the face 

 of the collier, you have, by such addition and combination, a 

 product, of which are made your trees and plants, your shrubs 

 and bushes, your grasses and grains, your fruits and your 

 flowers ? 



Ah I I very much fear, that you too often mow down the 

 grass of your fields for the food of your beasts, — you too often 

 thrust the sickle into your yellow harvests of wheat, and gath- 

 er it into your rich granaries; you heap up the fallen leaves 

 and decayed wood of your forests for manure, — you hew down 

 the mighty oaks, that adorn your fields, and prostrate the tall 

 pine, the monarch of your groves, without thinking what 

 wisdom of God is displayed in the union of the few and 

 simple elements, which, in chemical combination, make them 

 what they are ; and how by the use and power of those very 

 elements, derived from the decayed compost of the barnyard, 

 you yourself, though ignorant of the process, are making blades 

 of grass and spires of wheat to grow, and leaves and trees to 

 come again and to be renewed upon the face of the earth. 

 There is both profit and a profitable pride in knowing all 

 these things. Sir Walter Scott prided himself more on his 

 knowledge and skill in the composition of manures, than on all 

 the wonderful creations of his genius as a novelist. 



Your soils consist of other chemical elements, such as silica, 

 alumina, lime, magnesia, the oxide of iron, potassa and soda, 

 and these came from the disintegration and comminution of 

 the primitive rocks which constitute so much of the mass of 

 the earth. The seeds that you commit to these soils, the bare 

 grain — " it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain," — 

 feel the mysterious working of God's power upon them, 

 waking them into life, and directing them in search of aliment 

 appropriate to their growth. But these seeds must be cast 

 into soils proper for their reception, their nutriment and their 

 growth. If you cast them carelessly by the way-side, the fowls 

 of the air devour them, — if you cast them upon stony places, 

 where there is no deepness of earth, the scorching sun dries 

 up their sudden growth, and they wither away, — if you cast 

 them among thorns, the thorns spring up and choke them. 

 But if you cast them upon good ground, they bring forth then: 

 thurty, their sixty, yea, even their hundred fold. So teacheth 



