30 MR. Oliver's address. 



Heaven, neither knowing, nor caring to know, that, although 

 apparently invisible, it is really not so ; that it has all the pro- 

 perties of matter, — inertia, weight, impenetrability, elasticity, 

 and compressibility, — and yet is likewise but the chemical un- 

 ion of two invisible gases, in such mixture, that while one 

 alone would produce death to all that should inhale it, and the 

 other alone would produce excess of life, — the two are so justly 

 and nicely balanced by the wise laws of an all- wise God, as to 

 form an air, at once best fitted to support life, animal and veg- 

 etable, and best fitted for respiration ? Are you willing to be 

 ignorant, that if to certain proportions of the three gases of 

 which 1 speak, — oxgen, hydrogen and nitrogen, — you add car- 

 bon, which is, in its pure state, as furnished by nature, the dia- 

 mond that dazzles from the brow of royalty, and in its ordinary 

 form, the charcoal that dinges and darkens the face of the col- 

 lier, 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 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 wis- 

 dom 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 ele- 

 ments, derived from the decayed compost of the barn-yard, 

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

 of grass and spears of wheat to graw, 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 knowl- 

 edge 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 sili- 

 ca, alumina, lime, magnesia, the oxide of iron, potassa and so- 



