nations. We shall find sage and weighty observations concerning trade and commerce; industry and manufactures; agriculture and production; wealth and luxury; science and art. As a general thing, these are considered the fountain-heads, whence have arisen the mighty streams of national greatness in the different ages of the world.
There can be no doubt whatever that commerce has a vast deal to do with increasing the might and power of nations: and so has agriculture; and so manufactures; and so likewise science, in its various departments.
But then the question arises, what leads to commerce? to agriculture? to manufactures? to wealth? to art? I am speaking now, understand, not of the mere supply of natural wants, by fitful activity, as in the savage state—I refer to Society, if you please, in the early buddings of civilization. What leads, I ask, to these developments of organized society? Why, the enterprise of men! But what is the main spring of human enterprise? Thought. But then, again, what is the generative principle of the mind's active power and activity? The idea of God!
Let me present a few facts, which I think will neither be doubted nor denied. Look around you among the nations, and notice for a moment their characteristics. There is England, and Holland, and Prussia, the United States, and France, and Belgium. They are the greatest nations on the face of the earth. In their religious ideas they entertain the true and pure idea that God is a Spirit. But the time has been when their ancestors were barbarians; without
