ADDRESS 



XV 



all these considerations, we are justified in expecting, 

 if the world lasts, and mankind advances, a more rapid 

 increase in the world's population than has ever taken 

 place in the past. Will the earth be able to feed so 

 many new mouths ? or is " the good time coming " 

 darkened by the serious drawback of a prospective and 

 permanent famine ? We can hardly be much trouble'd 

 by this apprehension. An all-wise Providence never 

 lacks the means of adapting one part of its merciful 

 arrangements to another ; and if it be decreed that a 

 happy period of health, longevity, and populousness 

 shall dawn upon this suffering world, the food needful 

 to support that population will not be wanting. Some 

 pious political economist has said, in view of such a 

 period of dense population, that should the exigency 

 require it, no doubt God would bring another empty 

 world alongside, to take off the surplus population of 

 this, just as easily as the conductor takes on another 

 car, when the train is too full. There may be little like- 

 lihood of any such relief; but, yet, it does seem that 

 some relief will by and by be needed. For while the 

 productiveness of the earth may no doubt be vastly 

 increased, there seems to be reason for anticipating a 

 still greater and more rapid increase in the productive- 

 ness of the human species. Let us look again more 

 carefully at the probabilities on both sides. The lands 

 that are now worse than wasted, — devoted to the culti- 

 vation of that which injures man, physically and morally, 

 shortens human life, and entail's incalculable misery 

 upon families, and untold burdens upon society, may be 

 reclaimed to their legitimate use; the uncultivated 

 wastes may be improved ; the parched land may, by 



