430 [Assembly 



empire, and the isolated inhabitants of Siam and Japan, shall see 

 and acknow]e<Ige, and bless the light which is so soon to dis- 

 mantle them from the concentrated darkness of six thousand 

 years. A new era has dawned upon the world ; a new light has 

 illuminated the whole earth. The evidence is before and around 

 you, in this room. American enterprise has developed the re- 

 sources, and improved the condition of every spot on earth, 

 touched by its magic wand. Like the philosopher's stone, it turns 

 eyery thing it touches into gold. 



" nihil tetigiiquod i»n ora*Tit." 



The rapidity of the change is no less astonishing than its benefi- 

 cence of effect. Look around you ! Why, the grizzly bear, and 

 the very coyote before your eyes, whose growl five years ago, 

 was the nightly music of the chapparal that then covered the 

 spot where we stand, are now exhibited here as curiosities, on 

 the* same spot, in the hall of science and the arts. On the site of 

 our Phcenix city, a few adobe huts have, in three years, been suc- 

 ceeded by a commercial mart, the pride of the western coast for 

 nearly eight thousand miles. The inactivity of the sombre Span- 

 iard, the indolence of the native Californian, have vanished with 

 the retiring footsteps of the forest hunter, in his retreating trsck : 

 the Golden Gate has flung open her portals to the commerce of 

 the world, and the dazzling blaze of our onward course, sacred 

 as the fire which Prometheus drew from Heaven, is attracting the 



inhabitants of every clime, with a new and irresistible impulse, 

 to 



" The I&nd of the free and the home of the br«Te." 



And such has been the giant career of America-— clear, full, 

 and bounding onward and upward, to that lofty pinnacle of moral 

 grandeur, indicative of the prosperity and happiness of her citi- 

 zens, and the greatness and glory of her institutions. 



And what has produced this change in the condition of the 

 "world and the destiny of man ? — this onward march to universal 

 freedom in government, and in the arts and sciences, to improve- 

 ment and perfection ? It is the same American spirit which has 

 fired the heart and nerved the arm of a single individual to make 

 in the last few months, the creditable and splendid c^llrction 

 that adorns this hall. It is the same American enterprise and 

 perseverance which ha? enabled the recipient of tne testimonial 



