Thibodaux minerva. [volume] (Thibodaux, La.) 18??-1858, 1856-05-10
Telegraph System of the Universe.
By JOHN 5. BILL1U, OF LAFoURcHE.

Telegraph System of the Universe.
By JOHN $. BILLIU, OF LAFouRCHE.
Delivered at the Exhibition of the Lafayette
Society" Of Centenary College, Jackson, La.
The ancient poets loved to roam the fields of
nanimate nature, and infuse life as it were, into
objects that lay strewed around in wild confusion.
They went hand in hand with nature and with ma
lures God. Every brook babbled forth a tale of
love, every zephyr THAT sighed through the trees
was messenger from some fairy court to tell that
far in the vast OF nature were hidden springs
of science in whose waters he might lave his
mighty intellect, and upon whose bosom he might
cause ripple that would lash the shores of eternity.
The bowling of the storm it swept mady DER the
ocean, the terrible CULVER of the earthquake, the
sulphurous be!ch of the volcano, all, all told him
that there were powers both mechanical and chem
ica locked up in the mighty store-house that re-
CURED but a master hand to turn the pOnderous
key and use them to the veal or woe of mankind.
The genius of the inspired Homer has evoked such
streams of poetic fire from natures bosom as will
ship the world in tremor of delight till the wreck
of matter and the crush of worlds announces the
downfall of the mighty fabric of creation. Hor-
ace, too, has struck the Tyre, and its intonations
borne on the passing breeze on the swift winged
mighty song that shall forever echo along the bat
Elements of heaven. Shall such names as these
ever perishs No. So deeply engraved are they
upon the broad arch of the universe that the cor
rosive touch of time or the conflict of raging ele
ments can never erase them. Some may fancy
that the dark wave of oblivion passes over their
deeds and they are botted out forever But sci
ence, welding the mysterious pen, has written in
letters of living light that creation is vast sound
ing gallery vast picture gallery. A universal
telegraph.
1t is an immense library, on whose pages are in
delibly registered all that man has ever done or
woman whispered. 1t is a huge journal of world
whose leaves the celestials use forever turning to
read therein the wickedness of man. No cry Of
agony uttered by the oppressed, no wall Of sorrow
wrung from the widows heart, no false and fatter-
ing word of the deceivers shall ever be lost, but
leaping along this wonderous telegraph it shall tell
to those upon the very confines of creation the
deeds of man whose blackness will cause them to
wonder that the mighty avenger has so long Sum-
bered-every wave shall tell of the dying gurge
of the sailor, and how the fierce monster of the
deep played about his quivering form. Every sand
that floats the great scholar can tell of the
caravansarvs wreck, and of the hot breath of the
desert it swept wildly over them leaving no trace
behind but whitened heap of ruins. If every
atom is thus a witness of every act that has been
played upon the stage of life since creation down,
what an unwritten history is thus preserved all
around u.s. If the blue ether through whose broad
expanse the meteor shoots is great panorama of
human actions if our most secret thoughts are so
interviewer with the texture of the universe that
they shall constitute part Of its web and woof
forever, what an influence, stronger than the chain
that binds the captives arm, is thus thrown around
the human race to wean them back into the paths
Of ~, 1f nx>Ii
with the Deity when the angels first heard the
music Of the spheres, what being inhabiting the
vast empyrean that has not wept tears of agony
on the dreadful curse that withers and blasts our
beautiful earth? If the mighty Operator around
whose head the livid lightning's play, and upon
whose FURNISHED throne beams of light are forever
streaming, can touch the spring, and bid creation
halt, should not such power excite our deepest
admiration and reverence and cause wave of ad-
ulation to roll forever at his feet To this end then
let the whole energies of man be directed. Let
science, the beautiful handmade of nature be held
up as beacon light to nations cropping beneath
the heavy pail of ignorance and superstition that
hangs over them like the wrath Of an offended
God let her trump be sounded over Afrca's sunny
plains, let it echo along the hills and dales of Pal
estine, until dying away amidst the Siberian wilds
it shall awake the nations from their long sleep of
ages and tell them of the day when Newton's law
shall be broken, and millions of worlds dash from
their orbits to sure destruction, they shall see the
universe hung around with faithful pictures of their
enormities which they had supposed forever lost in
the night of time. 1t is startling thought that
feeblest volition may extend beyond the range
of intellectual life and their consequences meet US
in distant ages and far down the track of eternity
This great thought should serve as powerful rein
to check the wild passions that sometimes rend
md fha Man have said hot
is no chimera, that this is no fancy sketch; men
upon whose heads the storms of contempt have |
spent their fury; men who have their names in
scribed high upon the Ainty steep of fame; men |
OF genius; men of worth; great men, whose like |
the world shall again. Then, if it is true
that man has but to speak, and distant planets lend
a listening ear; if he has but to stamp and our
earth is shaken to the CENTER ifhe has but to wink
and nature feels shock of the angry passions !
rack him, and his features distorted and fendsh,
are stamped upon the great canvass of eternity to
what an immense circle of influence does man
become the centers 1t is as if the universe were
an immense 'picture gallery, in part Of which
the entire history of this world and Of each indi-
vidual was sketched by countless artists with I'M
erring skill.
1t is as if each one of us had our feet upon the |
point where ten thousand telegraphic wires meet
from every part of creation, and we were able to
send abroad an influence along the wires SO as to
reach every created being in heaven and in earth.
1t is as if we had more than gorgon power of
changing every object around US into forms, beau
tiful or hdeous, and sending that process through
time and through eternity. 1t is as if We were
linked to every being by golden chain, and
every pulsation Of our heart and the movement
Of mind modified, the pulsations Of every other
heart and the movement Of every other mind,
position that man occupies
and the part he acts, and vet it is not a dream,
sut the deliberate conclusion of true science.
This is the ocean from which all truth origin.
ally sprung To trace out the shores of this shore
less sea, to measure its measnreless extent, and
to fathom its fathomless depths, will be the noble
md joyous work of eternal ages
FRENCH AGGREssIoN.-The French, initiate
ing the example of their English allies, are be-
coming inoculated with a strong commercial
spirit; and as an accessory, with lust for ter
ritorial conquest. Mr.. Soule in his speech on
Monday evening at the St. Louis Hotel, allud-
ID to the designs France has on Madagascar.
This seems to be something more than mere
for it is stated on good authority
hat the French are about seizing on the rich
Stand of Madagascar, under trnmped up plea
# some eight Frenchmen being sold into slave
v, but with the true plea, as expressed in the