The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1869-10-02 00:00:00

THIS IS MOT A MATERIAL AGE.

it is commonly assumed—much too commonly—that tl is
age is a material age, and that a material age lean unrellgtous
age. I have been pained lately to see tins assumption re-
peated In certain influential quarters for which I have a
high respect, and desire to have a higher. I sin afraid that
by dint of constantly being reiterate I, and reiterated without
protest this assumption—which I take leave altogether to
deny—may be accepted by the more unthinking part of the
public as unquestionably true; just as caricaturists
and painters professed making a portrait of some public
man, which was not in the least like him to begin
with, have gone on repeating and repeating it until
the public Caine to believe that it must be exactly
like him, simply because it was like itself and really
have at last, in the fulness of time, grown almost
disposed to resent upon him their tardy discovery
daughter)—really to resent upon him their late discovery—
that he was net like It. (Renee el laughter.) I content
standing here in this responsible situ it on, that I do not
understand this much-med and mooch-abused phrase—
the " material age." I cannot comprehend—if anybody
can I vet), much doubt—its logical signification. For
instance, has electricity become the more material in the
mind of any eaue or moderately !mane man (laughter),
woman, or child, because if the discovery that in the good
providence of God It could be made available for the service
and use of man to an iumiessurably greater extent than for
hia destruction? Do I make a more material journey to the
bedside of my dying parent or my dying child when I travel
there at the rate of sixty miles an hour than when I travel
thither at the rate of six Rather, In the swiftest case, does
not my agonized heart become over-fraught with gratitude
to that supreme Beneficence from is hom alone could have
proceeded the wonderful means of shortening my SI, pense ?
What is the materiality of the cable or the wir compared
with the materiality of the spark! What is the materiality
of certa n chynlical substances that we can weigh of
measure, imprison or release, compared with the tine
materiality of their appointed affinities and repulaions pre-
sented to them, from the instant of their creation to the
day of judgment 1 When did this so-called material age
begin With the use uf clothing (laughter); with the dis-
covery of the compass ; with the invention of the art
of printing? Surely, it has been a long time about ;
and which is the more material object, the farthieg
, tallow candle that will not give 1110 light, or that
name of gas which will I (Applause.) No, ladles and
gentlemen, do not let us be diecouraged or deceived by
any fine, vapid, empty words The tree material age is
the stupid Clinicse age, ill which no new or grand revelation
at nature is graded, hecause they are ignorantly and in-
solently repelled. Instead of being diligently and humbly
sought. The difference hetwern the ancient fiction of the
mad braggart def) tug the lightning and the modern lie-
tried picture of Franklin drawing it towards his kite in order
that he night the more profoundly study that which was set
before him to be studied or it would not have been there)
happily expresses to my mind the distinction between the
much-maligned material sages— material in one seine, I.
. .
milD-
pose, but t "
Empia-

but in another very immaterial sages—of the Colestiel
ampire ashool; and considering whether it is likely or un-
likely, natural or unnatural, reasonable or unre,onable, that
I, a being orpable of thounht, and finding in} si If urroundsd
by such ciscovered wouders on every basal, I should some-
times ask myself the question—l should put to myself she
shun consideration—can these things be among those
ijajligi which might have been disclosed by divine lips nigh
r 6 2,000 years ago, but that the people of that time could
not bear them? And whether this be so or no, if I am so
stuni-tinded on every hand, is not n.y moral responsibility
tremendously imreaseil thereby, and with It my intelligence
and submission as a child of Adam and of the diut, before
that ohining Source which equally of all that Is granted and
all that Is withheld holds In Ills mighty hands the uliap-
preachable mysteries of life and death. (Applause.)