Address Delivered at the Fair by Rev. H. Eddy, D. D 



CIENTISTS tell us that nothing is in a state of rest — 

 that absolute inertia is not known. Everything is in 

 motion. The worlds are ever moving without an in- 

 stant's pause from the lordliest sun to the smallest 

 meteor that flits like a fire-fly on our horizon — that other, that 

 mysterious something that embraces all worlds in space, is ever 

 projecting infinitesimal waves from sun to sun, from universe to 

 universe, thus instantly connecting us with the most distant orb in 

 space, and as active in the solid rock as in the rarest medium — 

 that light is ever on the wing at the rate of near 200,000 miles in 

 a second, always at work recovering the tree, scissoring the leaf, 

 coloring the flower, building the rainbow, firing the lightnings, 

 hurling forth the tornado, lifting an ocean into the heavens, con- 

 structing the geometry of the snowflake, and painting the land- 

 scapes of the world : work, work, work, that the atmosphere, an 

 invisible ocean 100 miles deep, (perhaps) is ever moving from pole 

 to pole, from zone to zone, fanning the cheek with gentle zephyrs 

 or rocking the earth with the cyclone, — that the waters are mov- 

 ing, ever ascending, ever falling, ever flowing, the "Brook" ever 



singing, 



" Men may come and men may go, 

 But I go on forever." 



Scientists teach us that solid rocks are ever in a quiver and 

 never touch one another. Thus we are in the midst of universal 

 and sleepless activities. Nature spurns inertia in all her realms. 



Man is constituted on the same principle of activity and per- 

 petual work. Man is in perpetual motion. From the first motion 

 of the embryo to the last breath, man is ever in motion. In that 

 mysterious state of sleep — that symbol of death — his heart still 

 beats and his mind still flies on the unruddered wing of fancy 

 over the void wastes, the mind still acting, still working. It is not 

 long since we read of a reporter taking down an entire speech 

 while he was asleep. Coleridge composes a poem while asleep, 





