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light and heat which he then enjoys the identical light
and heat which came from the sun ages ago, and which
with provident care and hands benignant have been
bottled away in the shape of a mineral and stored in
the bowels of the earth for man's use, thence to be
taken at his convenience, and liberated at will for his
manifold purposes.

Here in the schools which are soon to be opened,
within the walls of the noble institution which we are
preparing to establish in this wood, and the corner-stone
of which has just been laid, the masters of this newly
ordained science will teach our sons to regard some of
the commonest things as the most important agents in
the physical economy of our planet. They are also
mighty ministers of the Creator. Take this water (hold-
ing up a glass full,) and ask the student of physical
geography to explain a portion only of its multitudinous
offices in helping to make this earth fit for man's habita-
tion. He may recognize in it a drop of the very same
which watered the garden of Eden when Adam was
there. Escaping thence through the veins of the earth
into the rivers, it reached the sea; passing along its
channels of circulation, it was conveyed far away by its
currents to those springs in the ocean which feed the
wind with vapors for rains among these mountains.
Taking up the heat in those southern climes where other-
wise it would become excessive, it bottles it away in its
own little vesicles. These are invisible, but rendering
that heat latent and inocuous, they pass the sightless
couriers of the air through their appointed channels,
and arrive here in the upper sky. This mountain draws
the heat from them; they are formed into clouds, and
condensed into rains, which coming to the earth make
it "soft with showers," causing the trees of the field to
clap their hands, the valleys to shout, and the moun-
tains to sing. Thus the earth is made to yield her in-
crease, and the heart of man is glad.

Nor does the office of this cup of water in the physical
economy end here: it has brought heat from the sea in
the southern hemisphere to be set free here for the reg-
ulation of our climates; it has ministered to the green
plants and given meat and drink to man and beast. It

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has now to cater among the rocks for the insects of the
sea. Eating away your mountains, it fills up the val-
leys, and then loaded with lime and salts of various min-
erals, it goes singing and dancing, and leaping back to
the sea, owning man by the way as a task master; turn-
ing mills, driving machinery, transporting merchandise
for him; and finally reaching the ocean, it there joins
the currents to be conveyed to its appointed place,
which it never fails to reach in due time with food in
due quantities for the inhabitants of the deep, and with
materials of the right kind to be elaborated in the work-
shops of the sea into pearls, corals, and islands--all for
man's use.

Thus the right-minded student of this science is
brought to recongize in the dew drop the materials of
which He who "walketh upon the wings of the wind"
maketh his chariot. He also discovers in the rain drop
a clue by which the Christian philospher may be con-
ducted into the very chambers from which the hills are
watered.

I have been blamed by men of science, both in this
country and in England, for quoting the Bible in confir-
mation of the doctrines of physical geography. The
Bible, they say, was not written for scientific purposes,
and is therefore of no authority in matters of science. I
beg pardon: the Bible is authority for everything it
touches. What would you think of the historian who
should refuse to consult the historical records of the Bi-
ble because the Bible was not written for the purposes
of history? The Bible is true; and science is true. The
agents concerned in the physical economy of our planet
are ministers of His who made both it and the Bible.
The records which He has chosen to make through the
agency of these ministers of His upon the crust of the
earth are as true as the records which by the hands of
His prophets and servants He has been pleased to make
in the Book of Life. They are both true; and when
your man of science with vain and hasty conceit an-
nounces the discovery of disagreement between them,
rely upon it the fault is not with the Witness or His
records, but with the "worm" who essays to interpret
evidence which he does not understand.

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