The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1876-03-17
NUMBER 30.

their voices swell; they move wildly.
They take the cataract's sound;
They take the whirlpool's fury and its might;
The mountain shudders as they sweep the
ground;
The valley woods lie prone beneath their
flight;
The clouds before them shoot like eagles past;
The homes of men are rocking in the blast;
They lift the roofs like autumn leaves, and
cast
skyward the whIrling fragments, out of
sight"
Through the influence of the sunbeam
the wonderful trade-wind is born,
which, in a perpetual circle, sweeps
from troic to pole and from pole to
tropic, softening the seventies of these
two regions. Nor is this all. 1t bears
upon its broad wings the oxygen
evolved-likewise through the inf1u-
ence of the sunbeam-from the orange
orchards and magnolia groves; from the
citron and banyan and palm of the trop-
les, exchanging it in the temperate and
polar regions for poisonous carbonic
acid and the nutriment of plants, thus
furnishing man with food for his lungs,
prepared by fragrant-mouthed flowers
thousand miles removed.
There is a messenger rivaling the
light in fieetness, which in silence runs
its course, over unbroken praries and
through forests where broods the silence
of the grave. His flying steps awaken
no sound, no force can wrest his message
from him, no bribe tempt to its be-
trayal. He passes the solitary traveller
on the highway, the lonely laborer in
the field, but loters not to gossip of the
message he bears. Through village and
crowded city he dashes; bearing the
! tidings of an empires fate he speeds,
but in silence. No sigh escapes the
lightning carrier, though charged with
a message of woe; no glad song, though
joy be the burden. When the micro
scope came into mans possession, it
was as though a second Columbus had
appeared, announcing the existence oi
new world, and not of one, merely.
1t reveals in a single drop of water a
globe peopled according to Ehrenberg),
with five hundred millions of living
creatures. different from anything
which man had seen before. 1t shows
every bit of clay and stone, every lea
and flower, a world crowded with its
busy multitudes. Is it not an interest,
ing thought that all around you, or
every object, as it were, which meets
the eye, are millions of creatures, liv'
ing, moving, and working in silence
Volumes might be written on the si
lent in nature. No one can study ma
ture without feeling that in this domain
God achieves his great ends in silence
but there are other departments il
which this is more apparent.
Any single faculty of a single mind
located-no one knows where existing
we know not how, working silently
mysteriously and ceaselessly, is more
wonderful than anything we have con
templated. Consider the Imagination
for instance, having its seat in silence
Noiselessly, and in an instant o
time, it spreads over ocean and sea
and sprinkles them with green islands
and white sails. 1t paints sky anC
landscape. Itrears cities and lays then
in ruins. 1t peoples the earth, waite
and air with beautiful creations. 1
transforms the everyday world into
fairy land of beauty. Who shall mum
, ber or measure the products of thos
: silent but busy wOrk-shops-th human
mind? They have caused the desert t.
blossom as the rose. From them hav
issued cities, homes, and libraries. Ii
them science has been made, and ar
created. This silent worker-the intel
! lect of man-has built the nations wit
their laws. In brief, they have mad
civilization and Christianity. A littl
seed planted in the hearts of few iguoI
J ant fishermen has gone on noiselessly
taking in life, putting forth bud and lea
, sending down its roots, ontstretching it
3 mighty boughs, spreading abroad it
) giant branches, unit! it overshadow
| the land.
Liberty is in some hearts conceived
= perhaps from the carol of bird, as il
, free wing cuts the ether, or from tn
e laugh of the storm. How has the beau
? tiful child in silence grown and strength
ened until to-day "she looketh forth a
the morning, fair as the moon, clear a
s the sun, and terrible as an army wit
r banners" Consider the growth of chal
= acter. At the birth of the infant, ther
= is somewhere in the tender, palpitatin
: form, the germ of character which, q
e years pass, silently swells and grows
s strengthening and sending out root an
s branch, until it stands a matured tret
e Or, to change the figure, there is i
s your nature, which stands as the typ
e of all others, the cornerstone of eharaC
e ter, laid by the hand of God. In silenc
e the work goes on. The materials al
e gathered from every quarter-from Sc
ence and art, from nature and phi
I losophy, from heaven and earth, fror
: God and man. No human bein
e comes within your circle withoU
, contributing something to the CROWN
4 edifice. You hear no sound; your eye
[ omen unOn no scene: Won read no ser