should join intelligence to his toil, is no longer listened to as a dreant. Science, once the greatest of distinctions, is becoming popular. A lady gives us conversations on chemistry, revealing to the minds of our youth vast laws of the universe, which, fifty years ago, had not dawned on the greatest minds. The school-books of our children contain grand views of the creation. There are parts of our country, in which Lyceums spring up in almost every village, for the purpose of mutual aid in the study of natural science. The characteristic of our age, then, is not the improvement of science, rapid as this is, so much as its extension to all men.

The same characteristic will appear, if we inquire into the use now made of science. Is it simply a matter of speculation? a topic of discourse? an employment of the intellect? In this case, the multitude, with all their means of instruction, would find in it only a hurried gratification. But one of the distinctions of our time is, that science has passed from speculation into life. Indeed it is not pursued enough for its intellectual and contemplative uses. It is sought as a mighty power, by which nature is not only to be opened to thought, but to be subjected to our needs. It is conferring on us that dominion over earth, sea, and air, which was prophesied in the first command given to man by his Maker; and this dominion is now employed, not to exalt a few, but to multiply the comforts and ornaments of life for the multitude of men. Science has become an inexhaustible mechanician; and by her forges, and mills, and steam cars, and printers' presses, is bestowing on millions, not only comforts, but luxuries which were once the distinction of a few.

Not

Another illustration of the tendency of science to expansion and universality may be found in its aims and objects. Science has burst all bounds, and is aiming to comprehend the universe, and thus it multiplies fields of inquiry for all orders of minds. There is no province of nature which it does not invade. Not content with exploring the darkest periods of human history, it goes behind the birth of the human race, and studies the stupendous changes which our globe experienced for hundreds of centuries, to become prepared for man's abode. content with researches into visible nature, it is putting forth all its energies to detect the laws of invisible and imponderable matter. Difficulties only provoke it to new efforts. It would lay open the secrets of the polar ocean, and of untrodden barbarous lands. Above all, it investigates the laws of social progress, of arts, and institutions of government, and political economy, proposing as its great end the alleviation of all human burthens, the weal of all the members of the human race. In truth, nothing is more characteristic of our age, than the vast range of inquiry which is opening more and more to the multitude of men. Thought frees the old bounds to which men used to confine themselves. It holds nothing too sacred for investigation. It calls the past to account; and treats hoary opinions as if they were of yesterday's growth. No reverence drives it back. No great name terrifies it. The foundations of what seems most settled must be explored. Undoubtedly this is a perilous tendency. Men forget the limits of their powers. They question the infinite, the unsearchable, with an audacious self-reliance. They shock pious and revering minds, and rush into an extravagance of doubt, more unphilosophical and

foolish than the weakest credulity. Still, in this dangerous wildness, we see what I am stating, the tendency to expansion in the movements of thought.

I have hitherto spoken of science, and what is true of science is still more true of Literature. Books are now placed within reach of all. Works, once too costly except for the opulent, are now to be found on the labourer's shelf. Genius sends its light into cottages. The great names of literature are become household words among the crowd. Every party, religious or political, scatters its sheets on all the winds. We may lament, and too justly, the small comparative benefit as yet accomplished by this agency; but this ought not to surprise or discourage us. In our present stage of improvement, books of little worth, deficient in taste and judgment, and ministering to men's prejudices and passions, will almost certainly be circulated too freely. Men are never very wise and select in the exercise of a new power. Mistake, error, is the discipline through which we advance. It is an undoubted fact, that silently, books of a higher order are taking place of the worthless. Happily, the instability of the human mind works sometimes for good, as well as evil. Men grow tired at length even of amusements. Works of fiction cease to interest them; and they turn from novels to books, which, having their origin in deep principles of our nature, retain their hold of the human mind for ages. At any rate, we see in the present diffusion of literature, the tendency to universality of which I have spoken.

The same tendency will appear, if we consider the kind of literature which is obtaining the widest favour. The works of genius of our age breathe a spirit of universal sympathy. The great poet of our times, Wordsworth, one of the few who are to live, has gone to common life, to the feelings of our universal nature, to the obscure and neglected portions of society, for beautiful and touching themes. Nor ought it to be said, that he has shed over these the charms of his genius; as if in themselves they had nothing grand or lovely. Genius is not a creator, in the sense of fancying or feigning what does not exist. Its distinction is, to discern more of truth than common minds. It sees, under disguises and humble forms, everlasting beauty. This it is the prerogative of Wordsworth to discern and reveal in the ordinary walks of life, in the common human heart. He has revealed the loveliness of the primitive feelings, of the universal affections of the human soul. The grand truth which pervades his poetry is, that the beautiful is not confined to the rare, the new, the distant, to scenery and modes of life open only to the few; but that it is poured forth profusely on the common earth and sky; that it gleams from the loneliest flower, that it lights up the humblest sphere, that the sweetest affections lodge in lowly hearts, that there is sacredness, dignity, and loveliness in lives which few eyes rest on, that even in the absence of all intellectual culture, the domestic relations can quietly nourish that disinterestedness which is the element of all greatness, and without which intellectual power is a splendid deformity. Wordsworth is the poet of humanity; he teaches reverence for our universal nature; he breaks down the factitious barriers between human hearts.

The same is true, in an inferior degree, of Scott, whose tastes however were more aristocratic. Scott had a childish love of rank. titles, show,

his race.

pageants, and in general looked with keener eye on the outward life than into the soul. Still he had a human heart and sympathised with With few exceptions, he was just to all his human brethren. A reconciling spirit breathes through his writings. He seizes on the interesting and beautiful features in all conditions of life; gives us bursts of tender and noble feelings even from ruder natures; and continually knits some new tie between the reader and the vast varieties of human nature which start up under his teeming pen. He delighted, indeed, in Highland chiefs, in border thieves and murderers, in fierce men and fierce encounters. But he had an eye to catch the stream of sweet affections, as it wound its way through humble life. What light has Jeanie Deans shed on the path of the obscure! He was too wanting in the religious sentiment, to comprehend the solemn bearing, the stern grandeur of the Puritans. But we must not charge with narrowness, a writer, who embodied in a Jewish maiden his highest conceptions of

female nobleness.

Another writer, illustrating the liberalising, all-harmonising tendency of our times, is Dickens, whose genius had sought and found subjects of thrilling interest in the passions, sufferings, virtues of the mass of the people. He shows, that life in its rudest forms may wear a tragic grandeur; that amidst follies and sensual excesses, provoking laughter or scorn, the moral feelings do not wholly die; and that the haunts of the blackest crimes are sometimes lighted up by the presence and influence of the noblest souls. He has indeed greatly erred, in turning so often the degradation of humanity into matter of sport; but the tendency of his dark pictures is to awaken sympathy with our race, to change the unfeeling indifference which has prevailed towards the depressed multitude, into sorrowful and indignant sensibility to their wrongs and woes.

The remarks now made on literature, might be extended to the Fine Arts. In these we see, too, the tendency to universality. It is said, that the spirit of the great artists has died out; but the taste for their works is spreading. By the improvements of engraving, and the invention of casts, the genius of the great masters is going abroad. Their conceptions are no longer pent up in galleries open to but few, but meet us in our homes, and are the household pleasures of millions. Works, designed for the halls and eyes of emperors, popes, and nobles, find their way, in no poor representations, into humble dwellings, and sometimes give a consciousness of kindred powers to the child of poverty. The art of drawing, which lies at the foundation of most of the fine arts, and is the best education of the eye for nature, is becoming a branch of common education, and in some countries is taught in schools to which all classes are admitted.

This

I am reminded, by this remark, of the most striking feature of our times, and showing its tendeney to universality, and that is, the unparalleled and constantly accelerated diffusion of education. greatest of arts, as yet little understood, is making sure progress, because its principles are more and more sought in the common nature of man; and the great truth is spreading, that every man has a right to its aid. Accordingly, education is becoming the work of nations. Even in the despotic governments of Europe, schools are open for every child without distinction; and not only the elements of reading and writing, but music

and drawing are taught, and a foundation is laid for future progress in history, geography, and physical science. The greatest minds are at work on popular education. The revenues of states are applied most liberally, not to the universities for the few, but to the common schools. Undoubtedly, much remains to be done; especially, a new rank in society is to be given to the teacher; but even in this respect a revolution has commenced, and we are beginning to look on the guides of the young as the chief benefactors of mankind.

I thought that I had finished my illustrations on this point; but there has suddenly occurred to me another sign of the tendency to universal intellectual action in this country, a sign which we are prone to smile at, but which is yet worthy of notice. I refer to the commonness among us of public speaking. If we may trust our newspapers, we are a nation of orators. Every meeting overflows with eloquence. Men of all conditions find a tongue for public debate. Undoubtedly, there is more sound than sense in our endless speeches before all kinds of assemblies and societies. But no man, I think, can attend our public meetings, without being struck with the force and propriety of expression, in multitudes whose condition has confined them to a very imperfect culture. This exercise of the intellect, which has almost become a national characteristic, is not to be undervalued. Speech is not merely the dress, as it is often called, but the very body of thought. It is to the intellect what the muscles are to the principle of physical life. The mind acts and strengthens itself through words. It is a chaos till defined, organised by language. The attempt to give clear, precise utterance to thought, is one of the most effectual processes of mental discipline. It is, therefore, no doubtful sign of the growing intelligence of a people, when the power of expression is cultivated extensively for the purpose of acting on multitudes. We have here one invaluable influence of popular institutions. They present at the same moment to a whole people great subjects of thought, and bring multitudes to the earnest discussion of them. Here are, indeed, moral dangers; but still strong incitements to general intellectual action. It is in such stirring schools, after all, that the mind of a people is chiefly formed. Events of deep general interest quicken us more than formal teaching; and by these the civilized world is to be more and more trained to thought.

Thus, we see in the intellectual movements of our times, the tendency to expansion, to universality; and this must continue. It is not an accident, or an inexplicable result, or a violence on nature; it is founded in eternal truth. Every mind was made for growth, for knowledge; and its nature is sinned against, when it is doomed to ignorance. The divine gift of intelligence was bestowed for higher uses than bodily labour, than to make hewers of wood, drawers of water, ploughmen, or servants. Every being, so gifted, is intended to acquaint himself with God and his works, and to perform wisely and disinterestedly the duties of life. Accordingly, when we see the multitude of men beginning to thirst for knowledge, for intellectual action, for something more than an animal life, we see the great design of nature about to be accomplished; and society, having received this impulse, will never rest, till it shall have taken such a form, as will place within every man's reach the means of intellectual culture. This is the revolution to which we

are tending; and without this, all outward political changes would be but children's play, leaving the great work of society yet to be done.

I have now viewed the age in its Intellectual aspects. If we look next at its Religious movements, we shall see in these the same tendency to universality. It is more and more understood, that religious truth is every man's property and right; that it is committed to no order or individual, to no priest, minister, student or sage, to be given or kept back at will; but that every man may, and should seek it for himself; that every man is to see with his own mind as well as with his own eyes; and that God's illuminating spirit is alike promised to every honest and humble seeker after truth. This recognition of every man's right of judgment, appears in the teachings of all denominations of Christians. In all, the tone of authority is giving place to that of reason and persuasion. Men of all ranks are more and more addressed, as those who must weigh and settle for themselves the grandest truths of religion.

The same tendency to universality, is seen in the generous toleration which marks our times, in comparison with the past. Men, in general, cannot now endure to think that their own narrow church holds all the goodness on the earth. Religion is less and less regarded as a name, a form, a creed, a church, and more and more as the spirit of Christ which works under all forms and all sects. True, much intolerance remains ; its separating walls are not fallen; but with a few exceptions, they no longer reach to the clouds. Many of them have crumbled away, till the men whom they sever, can shake hands, and exchange words of fellowship, and recognise in one another's faces the features of brethren.

At the present day, the grand truth of religion is more and more brought out; I mean the truth, that God is the Universal Father, that every soul is infinitely precious to him, that he has no favourites, no partial attachments, no respect of persons, that he desires alike the virtue and everlasting good of all. In the city of Penn, I cannot but remember the testimony to this truth, borne by George Fox and his followers, who planted themselves on the grand principle, that God's illuminating spirit is shed on every soul, not only within the bounds of Christendom, but through the whole earth. This universal impartial love of God is manifested to us more and more by science, which reveals to us vast all-pervading laws of nature, administered with no favouritism and designed for the good of all. I know, that this principle is not universally received. Men have always been inclined to frame a local, partial, national, or sectarian God, to shut up the Infinite One in some petty enclosure; but at this moment, larger views of God are so far extended, that they illustrate the spirit of the age.

If we next consider by Whom religion is taught, we shall see the same tendency to diffusion and universality. Religious teaching is passing into all hands. It has ceased to be a monopoly. For example, what an immense amount of instruction is communicated in Sundayschools! These are spreading over the Christian world, and through these the door of teaching is open to crowds, to almost all indeed who would bear a part in spreading religion. In like manner, associations of vast extent are springing up in our cities for the teaching of the poor. By these means, Woman especially is becoming an evangelist. is not only a priestess in her own home, instilling with sweet loving voice the first truths of religion into the opening mind; but she goes

She