RELATION TO COMMERCIAL ENTERPRISE. 323 



or living, claims its invention. Although there is nothing God-like in its 

 name, it is as much dissociated from a human inventor as those universal 

 instruments of art, which the ancients held to be of divine origin. And 

 the cause of this simply is, that it embodies the productions of so many 

 countries, and the skill of so many men, and the thoughts of so many 

 centuries, that no individual of any nation or epoch can call it 

 his. 



The same remark applies to the electric telegraph. It belongs to no 

 single man or nation. Volta the Italian, Oersted the Dane, Steinhill 

 the German, Ampere the Frenchman, Faraday and Wheatstone of 

 England, Bain and William Thomson of Scotland, Morse of the United 

 States, are but a few among the many between whom the merit of 

 establishing the telegraph must be, though unequally, divided. 



The inability, as all history shows, of any single nation to be suffi- 

 cient for itself, and the teaching of the nations by each other, which each 

 successive age sees carried further and further, furnish the sure and broad 

 foundation of the mighty civilizing power of commercial enterprise. The 

 vast ends which God has had in view in dividing the globe amongst races 

 so different as those which, since the secular historic period, have occu- 

 pied its surface, are to us but dimly apparent. Yet we seem able to read 

 a purpose of slowly opening up the world more and more as the centuries 

 flow on. Not to the Egyptian, the Assyrian, the Indian, the Hebrew, 

 the Greek, or the Roman, but to men of our own day and generation, 

 has the Ruler of All given the keys with which our Watts and Stephen- 

 sons and Faradays have unlocked the barrier-gates of the world, and 

 made over its surface one continuous highway. Surely, without cant or 

 pretence, I may affirm that this is the sign of the times for you. If we 

 refuse to interpret Chinese and other placards bearing the ambiguous 

 statement, " No passage this way," and suffer only the announcement, 

 "No admittance but on business," let us see, when admitted on that plea, 

 that our business is a noble one. Once, like the raven from the Ark, 

 we found in the days of war no rest in all the world for the sdes of our 

 feet ; now, like Noah's dove, we may pluck the olive leaves of peace 

 wherever we will. To civilize the world through commerce, and stretch 

 forth the hands of brethren to all the nations of the globe, is a mighty 

 work, which God has largely given to our nation to effect, and he has 

 laid the duty specially and honourably on those represented by 

 you. 



But why do I trouble you with my words 1 Was there not a parable 

 spoken more than 1800 years ago, in answer to him who asked, " Who 

 is my neighbour ? " Did not the lawyer, the physician — even the clergy- 

 man — pass by him that had fallen among thieves, and leave the Samaritan 

 merchant to interrupt his business journey, and help the unfortunate? Is 

 it not curious to come across so minute a piece of ancient business- 

 detail ; the pouring of oil and wine into the wounds ; the payment in 



