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dening, sculpture, painting, the working in gold and silver, and 
the fine arts generally, (including even the curious working of 
gorgeous apparel and of ornaments,) as well as the more ordinary 
employments in the building of houses, agriculture, manufactures, 
and all the commoner works of necessity for man's comfort and 
even for his protection against the elements, — how many thousands 
or millions of individuals in every city and state would be left 
without honest labour and the means of subsistence ? Some utili- 
tarians are always thoughtlessly exclaiming, when they see some 
grand temple or church, or some ornamental monument erected 
in loving memory of departed worth and goodness, What a waste 
is here ! Why not rather build a hospital ? The answer to this 
may be brief. Were no such works undertaken to give various 
classes of men an elevating and honest employment, we should 
doubtless require to be constantly building hospitals ! But after 
a time we should be unable to do that ; for to neglect the culture 
of the peaceful arts of civilization, would be to take a retrograde 
step towards savagery, and would speedily extend among us both 
the idleness, and poverty, with all their concomitant evils, of which 
we have only too much experience already. 
56. This sketch would be incomplete, even as an outline, were I 
not to notice another great fact in man's history. The Reformation 
is also a fact, as much as is Civilization, or even as Christianity 
itself. We know what its fruits have hitherto been in the history 
of the world. It revived literature, gave a new birth to science 
and mechanical invention ; and it has given to this country a glorious 
pre-eminence among the nations, for nobleness, generosity, free- 
dom, and the general purity of social life. If we are not without 
our errors, we at least acknowledge them, and do not attempt to 
brazen them out with a lie. We mourn our lapses, our short- 
comings, our unnecessary divisions, and we gladly recognize a 
growing “unity of spirit" and of charity among Protestant 
Christians. Let us go on then in this good work. ; ever again and 
again reforming ourselves, according to the purest primitive forms. 
Let us neither depart from the faith, nor dare to heap upon it 
human corruptions. For we may be assured of this, that the 
advancement of true Christianity is identical with that of Civili- 
zation, — of Civilization, both Moral and Material. 
The Chairman. — I am sure we have listened with great interest to Mr. 
Red die’s exceedingly able paper, and I have no doubt that the discussion 
upon it will be very instructive and serviceable to us all. 
Rev. J. H. Titcomb. — I rise with diffidence, the more so because some 
years ago I had the honour of reading a paper before the Institute, “ On the 
Antiquity of Civilization,” and the discussion that followed was most inte- 
