ame but do not know; which flashes through
the sky, shatters great trees, burns buildings, strikes men dead in the
fields; and we have learned to lead it, all unseen, from our house-tops
to the earth; we tame this mighty, secret, unknown power into serving us
as a a daily messenger; and no man sets the limits now to the servitude
that we shall yet bind it down to.

"Again, my hearers, when our friend was well advanced in life, there
was still no better mode of travel between distant points than the slow,
rumbling stage-coach; many who are here remember well its delays and
discomforts. He saw the first tentative efforts of that mighty factor
steam to transport more swiftly. He saw the first railroad built in the
country; he lived to see the land covered with the iron net-work.

"And what a transition is this! Pause for a moment to consider it.
How much does this imply. With the late improvements in agricultural
machinery, with the cheapening of steel rails, the boundless prairie
farms of the West are now brought into competition with the fields
of Great Britain in supplying the Englishman's table, and seem not
unlikely, within this generation, to break down the aristocratic holding
of land, and so perhaps to undermine aristocracy itself."

So the preacher continued, speaking of different improvements, and
lastly of the invention of daguerreotypes and photographs. He called
the attention of his hearers to this almost miraculous art of indelibly
fixing the expression of a countenance, and drew a lesson as to the
permanent effect of our daily looks and expression on those among whom
we live. He considered at length the vast amount of happiness which had
been caused by bringing pictures of loved ones within the reach of all;
the increase of family affection and general good feeling which must
have resulted from the invention; he suggested a possible change in the
civilization of the older nations through the constant sending home, by
prosperous adopted citizens, of photographs of themselves and of
their homes, and alluded to the effect which this must have had upon
immigration.

Finally he adverted to the fact that the sons of the deceased, who sat
before him, had not yielded to the restless spirit of adventure, but had
found "no place like home."

"But I fear," he said at last, "that the interest of my subject has made
me transgress upon your patience; and with a word or two more I will
close.

"When we remember what