270 I Assembly 



right and duty shall lead him — to give him patience iu effort, cool- 

 ness in judgment, skill in discernment, and determination in execu- 

 tion — the elements of indubitable and certain success: and whether 

 the wilderness blossom like the rose under his skill in agriculture, 

 or the works of his hands seem almost to live, and speak, and act, 

 in the beauty of his mechanical invention, Christianity honors his 

 effort, and commands men to honor and protect the claims which it 

 originates. It prepares a state of public mind, which smiles en- 

 couragingly upon his attainments and productions, and which con- 

 fesses the honor that the whole community justly feels in having in 

 its bosom, and cherishing as its own, individuals who have so distin- 

 guished themselves and their race. I cannot walk through the in- 

 numerable varieties of skill, and testimonies of talent and thought 

 which the present exhibition contains, without asking with delighted 

 triumph, what people but a christian people have ever exhibited 

 powers like these? or where, but on the soil on which Christianity 

 secures to man the peaceful possession of the work of his own hands, 

 and the honorable acknowledgment from others of his rights and 

 powers in the productions of his skill, have such demonstrations of 

 what there is in man, and of what man may accomplish, ever been 

 seen? Far, then, do I feel from stepping aside from my own pecu- 

 liar line of duty, in co-operating, in my poor way, to encourage 

 such efforts, or from supposing that I am not about my Master's bu- 

 siness, in rejoicing over all the dignity that human industry can at- 

 tain, in the rightful exercise of its skill, and the comforts and ad- 

 vantages with which it can clothe the condition of man. 



Mr. President, — To you and to your honorable associates is given 

 this eminent privilege, thus to exalt the mind and condition of your 

 fellow men; by the creative power of a wholesome stimulus, to bring 

 out their secret energies, and to make them see and feel for how 

 much higher purpose the free sons of America were designed, than 

 either to wear the livery of a despot, or to brutalize their nature in 

 causeless blood. You preach the dominion of peace, and every im- 

 plement and invention which you set up around you seems to answer 

 you in strains of gratitude for your fostering care, and to hold the 

 olive branch of encouragement still to others, while it declares, that 

 better is he that thus ruleth and exalteth his own spirit, than he that 

 taketh a city. The influence of such an exhibition is eminently ele- 

 vating and pure. And you are carrying out, in a very important 

 degree, the collateral benefits and purposes of Christianity among 

 men, while you stimulate to these contrivances for human happiness, 

 and set up the arts which are indigenous only in the peace which 



