r faiths and liberties,--there the unchecked Alpine rivers yet
run wild in devastation; and the marshes, which a few hundred men could
redeem with a year's labor, still blast their helpless inhabitants into
fevered idiotism. That is so, in the centre of Europe! While, on the near
coast of Africa, once the Garden of the Hesperides, an Arab woman, but a
few sunsets since, ate her child, for famine. And, with all the treasures
of the East at our feet, we, in our own dominion, could not find a few
grains of rice for a people that asked of us no more; but stood by, and
saw five hundred thousand of them perish of hunger.

Then after agriculture, the art of kings, take the next head of human
arts--Weaving; the art of queens, honored of all Heathen women, in the
person of their virgin goddess--honored of all Hebrew women, by the word
of their wisest king--"She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands
hold the distaff; she stretcheth out her hand to the poor. She is not
afraid of the snow for her household, for all her household are clothed
with scarlet. She maketh herself covering of tapestry; her clothing is
silk and purple. She maketh fine linen, and selleth it, and delivereth
girdles to the merchant." What have we done in all these thousands of
years with this bright art of Greek maid and Christian matron? Six
thousand years of weaving, and have we learned to weave? Might not every
naked wall have been purple with tapestry, and every feeble breast fenced
with sweet colors from the cold? What have we done? Our fingers are too
few, it seems, to twist together some poor covering for our bodies. We set
our streams to work for us, and choke the air with fire, to turn our
spinning-wheels--and--_are we yet clothed_? Are not the streets of the
capitals of Europe foul with sale of cast clouts and rotten rags? Is not
the beauty of your sweet children left in wretchedness of disgrace, while,
with better honor, nature clothes the brood of the bird in its nest, and
the suckling of the wolf in her den? And does not every winter's snow robe
what you have not robed, and shroud what you have not shrouded; and every
winter's wind bear up to heaven its wasted souls, to witness against you
hereafter, by the voice of their Christ,--"I was naked, and ye clothed me
not"?

Lastly--take the Art of Building--the strongest--proudest--most
orderly--most enduring of the arts of man; that of which the produce is in
the surest manner accumulative, a