11 



at least, which may be suggestions, leading to future meditation 

 and reflection. 



First, then, in a practical and utilitarian point of view merely, 

 this rural Ufa educates and instructs us all, and repeats its lessons 

 daily and hourly, from the cradle to the grave. There are higher 

 ends in life, most certainly, than its merely utilitarian and practi- 

 cal necessities. There are higher objects of kno\Yledge than 

 what we call common sense. There are nobler pursuits than mak- 

 ing money or owning houses and lands. But the daily lessons of 

 utility, the practical duties and obligations of life, are necessary. 

 You know very well that the ripe juices, the enriching sweetness 

 of corn and grain, would all be worthless and in vain, if it were 

 not for the hard and tasteless flint, the silex which forms the sup- 

 porting stalk and stem of the waving grain and the golden corn. 

 Even so is it with life : there are laws which we must obey, and 

 hard and distasteful lessons which Ave must learn — supporting and 

 sustaining lessons of prudence, of utility, and of practical duty. 



Reflecting upon these subjects, I cannot but believe, that fore- 

 most among the daily lessons of life in the country, is nature's 

 harsh, but kindly democracy, not the democracy of parties, but 

 that lofty and genuine republican democracy, which is higher than 

 politics or parties — the democracy which teaches us the dignity of 

 labor — the true self-respect and independence that we gain, when 

 for the first time we realize the great truth which nature teaches, 

 that the only real life of a true man is devoted to patient, 

 thoughtful labor. Let us not shrink away from this first aspect of 

 rural life as if from a harsh teacher, for this law is the lesson of a 

 mother's love, and with it Ave hear from the same voices — of the 

 dignity of labor, of the happiness Avhich labor alone can give. 



If we listen more earnestly, if Ave look higher, Ave learn, too, 

 that labor is the only true nobility, that Avork truly is ivorship. 

 This is not the lesson of every day life and experience only, but it 

 leads to loftier ends also. Remember the brilliant example of that 

 great man Avho has told us, in the story of his " Schools and 

 Schoolmasters," the influences of nature and this rural life upon 

 his own culture. Hugh Miller, the Avonderful stone mason of 

 Cromarty, learned and practised these lessons Avell, and he ham- 

 mered aAvay, year after year, at the Avild quarries of the Old 

 Red Sandstone, until they surrendered up the secrets Avhich had 



