468 HIGHWAYS AND HORSES. 



at the end of a succession of jointed rods, but of a 

 small urchin probably stolen from his parents, and 

 made to risk life and limb in ascendinfy chimneys and 

 ridding them of the soot which had accumulated 

 therein. As for electricity, and its application to tele- 

 graphy, such a thing was unknown ; but one might so 

 multiply instances of general improvement that it would 

 require an enormous volume to record every one of 

 them. As for progress on wheels, wheels of some kind 

 are always rotating and bearing onwards the inhabitants 

 of this earth ; and the great wheel of time, which is the 

 only wheel that, to our knowledge, has ever solved the 

 question of perpetual motion, as it journeys onward, 

 naturally finds that a great improvement is observable 

 in this world during its progression. Improvement and 

 progress are words identical with civilisation. The 

 fruits of the earth that were presented to mankind — 

 notably to our first parents — were of such a multifarious 

 nature that, even up to the present time, we are in- 

 capable of comprehending their full extent. Earth, 

 and all thereon and therein, was one big puzzle, which 

 it was man's vocation to piece together ; the Deity 

 created a being, not only with thews and sinews like 

 the beasts of the field, but in His own image, and with 

 a brain capable of enabling him to piece together this 

 puzzle, by unravelling the mysteries of nature, and pro- 

 curino-, both from the surface of the earth and from 

 what lay beneath it, all those things which, in course of 

 time, would contribute to a perfect comprehension 

 of its resources, so that eventually no portion of the 

 earth within the reach of mankind would be left unex- 

 plored, and nothing upon or within it would remain 

 unutilised. This gradual piecing together of this big 

 puzzle constitutes the progress of civilisation. Un- 



