Minnesota weekly times. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1854-1859, 1857-02-14
Progress Of the Age.

Inc Norwalk lCOnn.) Oazette, euteO anu pup
lished by our old school mate, A. HOMER BYING-
TON, ESQ.,, comes to us with smiling face and as
cheerful in spirits as were two thoughtless school
boys away back in the memory of the past. AL
though ife's busy cares have changed both
of us, still the old fire of friendship burns glow
ingly to-day as it did when we lotered by the
brook-side or listened to the melody of the birds
that made the grand old woods vocal with their
songs. Our friend has had some experience in
the battle of life, but his spirit is buoyant
as fifteen years ago and his pen more eloquent
Read his beautiful discourse on the progress Of
the age:-
ssWe are annually progressing in the develop
ment of a higher Civilizations civilization de-
handing new sacrifice, greater exertions, nobler
purposes, and purer and more extended philan-
throphy. Time was, when a mans sphere of &C.
ton, influence and duty was limited to the radius
of his own family circle, or at most that Of his
own immediate neighborhood, but now, today,
Man has grown cosmopolitan! The developments
of the arts and sciences have literally jerked our
century a thousand years ahead. We live without
cant, in a very fast age! thousand voices till
der the universally of man, and one common
brotherhood. The pulpit, the forum, the press
have been fred with this resistless energy-this
unwonted zeal and the man of TO-DAY should
thank God and take courage. Away with your
sckly sentimentalism that whines for the past.
Weak indeed must his faith be who cannot dis
Germ in these signs of the times-faint though
III ho r;o oil IF hot mi.
lenial period promised our stricken world. Man
of the past was as dead mummy compared with
this living, breathing resistless ETHEREAL essence of
Deity, of to-day. View him in his workshop, his
marts of trade, his haunts of commerce; contem-
plate his progress in intellectual development
and an enlarged philanthropy and higher civili-
cation. See him with his magnetic fingers feeling
hill top and valley his lace work of iron nerves
whereon the lightnings skip and leap and become
the vocal oracles of its servant man !-Conrem.
plate the utterance that thrills along these mag
netic Lutte strings engrossing the thoughts of him
of the pine forest of our northern frontier, while
he where blooms the magnolia and orange flower
hangs listner upon the same magic vibrations
nay morcS 1edpiHS euc pouuuS VI ocoaus theSc
lightning flashes shall not irradiate the jewelled
brow of the Sc Island Queen " but darling across
to sunny France its clickings shall mngle with
the lulabys that watt to rosy slumber the Impe-
rial Heir. View him in his realm of inn
plements-mid his myriad spindles and flying
shuttles mid the ring of the anvil and the roar
of the forge; all uniting in tumultuous chorus to
the FESTIVE genius of man. See those great levi
athans of the deep that 60 painting and steaming
out to sea, flashing the ocean into fury in their
impotence to annihilate time and space! Then
his Iron horse, with sinews of seething STEEL
trils of flaming fire and arteries of molten.ore-
laundering through the land, shaking the noun
tans with his tread and causing the hills to quake
with his voice! Contemplate his symbols of
thought-the blackened type, the spotless sheet,
the lightning Press belching forth from its col
lapsing jaws tho steaming sheet and printed page,
and these in turn caught up before the press
damps have passed to air, and scattered to the
four quarters of the globe! Then let us turn and
ask what lessons do these problems teach US? Do
not these fraternal bands of iron which clasp
Nations together in indissolube bonds, teach les
sons of duty, of Charity, of action, and of
s'Good will to men ?''" f.e