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PROCEEDINGS OF 
until they shall have reached the epoch of millennial glory so clearly announced in 
the scriptures of truth. The age in which we live is marked by wonderful ad¬ 
vances in the physical sciences. This is emphatically the age of progress, and 
there is now no stationary period in any branch of physics. The mystic epoch also 
has disappeared, and alchemy has yielded to chemistry, astrology to astronomy, 
and necromancy or magic to the realities of natural philosophy. The only branch 
which seems to go back to the mystic sciences is animal magnetism, in regard to 
which I shall pronounce no judgment. The present age deals with facts ; from 
facts we ascend to theories, and finally to universal laws. We have many books 
on physics; but why might we not have charts, to be suspended as maps in our 
rooms, where in each branch might be noted the facts in their chronological order, 
the theories and final laws, with the names of the great discoverers ? If this would 
be too extensive, as regards all ages and countries, it might be confined to our own, 
and gratify the pride and stimulate the zeal of the nation. 
Among the most valuable results of inductive science, is the strong additional 
evidence obtained in favor of the great and glorious truths of the Christian religion. 
The fabulous zodiac, which carried back the observations of astronomers to a pe¬ 
riod beyond the mosaic account of the creation of man, has disappeared before the 
light of modern astronomy. The myriads of bones of giant animals, which could 
only have lived and found subsistence in a tropical, or at least a temperate climate, 
now scattered in profusion in Northern Siberia, along the verge of the arctic circle, 
attest the effects and reality of a general deluge. The pyramids of Egypt, which 
had remained dumb for thousands of years, have been made to speak ; and so far 
as their hieroglyphics have found a voice, it proclaims many of the facts recorded 
in the sacred history. Whilst the advance of science lias contributed so much to 
our happiness and comfort here, has it no connection with our eternal destiny ? Is 
all our knowledge buried in the grave ? and does the untutored savage start in the 
next world at the same point with Sir Isaac Newton, in the race towards the goal 
of infinite knowledge—that point, towards which, like the asymptotes of the hyper¬ 
bolic curve, we shall forever approximate but never attain ? Does knowledge die 
with the physical frame ; or does it constitute a part of that soul whose phenomena 
after death we can no longer observe, but which, as an essence of the great Cre¬ 
ator, shall be as eternal as his own existence ? 
And now, having detained you too long in this most imperfect sketch of some of 
the improvements and discoveries of our countrymen in physics, let me close by 
declaring, that if the men of science of the Union will come forward, and unite 
with the people in sustaining and advancing the National Institute, they will 
make it worthy of the greatest and freest nation of the world, and contribute 
much towards placing our own beloved country as far above all others on the roll 
of knowledge as it now transcends all its contemporaries and predecessors in a go¬ 
vernment administered by and for the benefit of the whole people. 
