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world or a new plant, there must be brought into vigorous ac- 

 tion the highest powers of intellect and the most zealous deter- 

 mination of purpose. There is nothing valuable to man, or 

 honorable to nations not an addition has been made to the 

 fund of intelligence not a step taken in the progress of civil- 

 ization, which has not been the result of intense thought and 

 infinite research. It is one of the conditions of our existence 

 the fiat of Omnipotence that to attain excellence in even the 

 humblest vocation, there must be untiring industry, sanguine 

 hopes, and great labor. What, indeed, were we but for that 

 unquenchable thirst of knowledge which no acquisitions can 

 abate that restless demand for action, which is but increased 

 by fruition, and that aspiring reach of imagination, which find- 

 ing no terrestrial bounds, ranges from the farthest constellation 

 in the zodiac to the realms beyond the skies to an existence 

 as illimitable as eternity, and an elevation transcendant as the 

 archangels. Were we not thus created, and so endowed with 

 an intuitive credence in the immortality of the soul, the human 

 race must have remained in a state of the most abject ignorance 

 and degraded barbarism. It is the inspiration of divinity itself 

 which animates and urges us on, in the interminable career of 

 intellectual attainments and moral grandeur. 



What is the biography of those mighty men who have illu- 

 mined the past and the present, and thrown forward into the 

 obscurity of the future the effulgence of their glory ? Is it not 

 the record of genius struggling with misfortune, and battling with 

 prejudice and ignorance, to evolve some momentous fact, estab- 

 lish some fundamental principle in morals, proclaim some inval- 

 uable discovery in science, or perfect some brilliant exper- 

 iment in art ? The very temerity of their enterprise, the 

 cold indifference of anticipated patronage, the desponding thral- 

 dom of penury, and that unwearied perseverance which knows 

 not despair, are the alternate subjects of our praise and commis- 

 eration. Our admiration is constantly excited by that boldness 

 of mind and that fearlessness of heart, which are neither smitten 

 down by the iron mace of arbitrary power, the withering influ- 

 ence of fanatical persecution, or the discouragements of unre- 

 quited merit ; that, " unaided, unfriended and alone," they rose 



