equal magnificence, and which shall outlast our "cloud-capped towers," our "gorgeous palaces," our "solemn temples," and even "the great globe itself." While we construct our Appian Ways, our aqueducts, and our cloaca maxima, tunnel our mountains, and connect distant continents, islands, and oceans, by the great highways of steam and electricity, shall we not also rear those greater monuments which can never know decay? Shall America be civilized upon the Assyrian and Egyptian, or upon the Jewish and Athenian types? Over the sepulchres of buried nations, whose energies were wasted in rearing piles of shapeless architecture, and in building other massive works whose meaning has not yet been deciphered, which speak no language of reason or of feeling, but serve merely to excite curiosity and afford material for vague speculation, shall the follies, the wickedness, the perversion, and the prostitution of talent, which have sealed their doom, be repeated, or shall we, true to the spirit, and the genius of a Christian literature and a divine philosophy, and obedient to the voice of all history, impart to this new phase of civilization a more enduring life, a conservative and self-sustaining power, "immortal as the intellectual principles from which they derive their origin, and over which they exercise their control?" This enduring life can be imparted to no material forms. It will not be manifested in our railroads, nor in our steamships; not in our commerce nor in our manufactories, nor in any of the means of amassing wealth which we are so much inclined to regard

as the glory of the age. These, duly controlled and rightly directed, it is true, may prove to be the handmaids and ministers to this higher life; but it is no less true that they may serve only to enervate and destroy it. The verses flung apparently to the idle winds by a wandering bard three thousand years ago, have come down to us as fresh and as life-giving almost, as when they first trembled on the breezes of the fair Ægean sea, and woke to life the sweet Ionian minstrelsy. The temple of the Ephesian Diana, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, and the Colossus of Rhodes, have left a name it is true, among the Seven Wonders of the World; but their magnificence has crumbled into dust as inexpressive as that from which they sprung. The letters of the Phoenician Cadmus, embalmed by the lessons of wisdom which they teach, and the sentiments of virtue which they infold, have descended to us, a bright transparency, persuading, encouraging and consoling. But the Phœnician commerce, unrivalled in enterprise and skill, has left no memorial worthy of the energies and talents which it engrossed. The poetry of David is as valuable to us now, and a thousand fold more extended in its sway, than when it was first addressed to the Hebrew tribes,- than when

"The

"It told the triumphs of their King,

And wafted glory to their God,
And made their gladdened valleys ring,

The cedars bow, the mountains nod."

songs which cheered the solitude of the desert caves of Engedi, or resounded from the voice of the

Hebrew people, as they wound along the glens, or the hill-sides of Judea, have been repeated for ages in almost every part of the habitable world — in the remotest islands of the ocean, among the forests of America, or the sands of Africa. How many human hearts have they softened, purified, exalted? -of how many wretched beings have they been the secret consolation? - on how many communities have they drawn down the blessings of Divine Providence, by bringing the affections in unison. with their deep devotional fervor." The lyre of David was indeed, "mightier than his throne;" but the temple reared by the wealth which he had amassed, whose spoils enriched the palaces of Asiatic kings is gone, and the chosen tribes that filled its ample courts with glad hosannas are wandering

"witheringly

In other lands to die;

And where their fathers' ashes be,

Their own may never lie;

Their temple hath not left a stone,

And mockery sits on Salem's throne!"

These considerations, gentlemen, are not mere sentimentalism. They are the teachings of all history in regard to the really permanent and imperishable elements of a nation's power. And they force themselves upon our attention, the more from the fact that we are inclined unduly to magnify the means of acquiring material wealth which the various departments of applied science are placing at our disposal. All honor to the triumphs of true

science!

All honor to the men who have revealed to us the mysteries, the harmonies, and the sublimities of nature, to the Newtons, and the Cuviers, to the Watts, the Fultons, and the Whitneys. But we dishonor the philosophy which they have subjected to our control, when we view it merely in its material relations. In devolving upon natural agents a large part of the toil which, in other ages, has been performed by men, they seem to say to us, "Be free from these distracting cares, and listen to the counsels of heavenly wisdom;" yea more, they do but present to us in a practical form the precept of the great Teacher of the race, " Take no thought for your life, for what ye shall eat, or for what ye shall drink; but seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." Let us not forget that these dis'coveries of science may not only perish, but that they may even prove self-destructive. By ministering unduly to the sensual wants, they may unman the soul and destroy the body. In the Catacombs of Egypt are found the remains of arts which have been enumerated among the discoveries of modern science. But those arts have perished, and have left us only the soulless bodies of generations which have not yet quite perfected their union with their native dust. From all the old abodes of civilization there comes a warning with resistless power to the thoughtful mind. It took a distinct and articulate form in the mouth of the Jewish prophet. "The nation and kingdom that will not

serve THEE shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted."

In the eternal principles of beauty, truth, and righteousness, alone shall we find the seeds of permanent and undecaying empire. It is our duty to sow these seeds in a fertile soil. We are not only the inheritors of all that genius and talent have amassed in the various forms of classical literature, but the almoners of it to the rising generation. It is ours to transmit the garnered wisdom of Philosophy, the purest inspirations of Poetry, and the most stirring strains of Eloquence, to generations that must fulfil a higher destiny than has yet fallen to the lot of humanity. Let us take thorough, liberal, and comprehensive views of the field before us and of our relations to it. Let us cherish in our own minds the purest classical heroism, imbibe the classical spirit from whatever source it may speak to uswhether in the solemn and authoritative voice of the Hebrew seer, in the clear, mellifluous tones of the Greek poet, or in the statelier language of the Athenian orator; whether in the harmonious numbers of Virgil, or in the teeming and fervid periods of Cicero. If it choose to speak English let us not esteem the language unworthy the spirit which it breathes, but rather love and cherish it the more. Permit me to say to you what Prof. Blackie, who fills the Greek chair in the University of Edinburgh has just said to the Scotch school-masters:

"Beware of imitating the narrow, meagre, and pedantic classical prudery of those who cannot admire the ancients without despising the moderns,