when we needed it, and not before.

Think of this, I beseech you; for it is true, and wonderful, and a
thing of which I may say, 'Come, and I will reason with you of the
righteous acts of the Lord.'

Men say, 'As long as England is ahead of the world in coal and iron
she may defy the world.' I do not believe it; for if she became a
wicked nation all the coal and iron in the universe would not keep
her from being ruined.

But even if it were true, which it is not, that the strength of
Britain lies in coal and iron, and not in British hearts, what right
have we to boast of coal and iron?

Did our forefathers know of them when they came into this land? Did
they come after coal and iron?

Not they. They came here to settle as small yeomen; to till
miserable little patches of corn, of which we should be now ashamed,
and to feed cattle on the moors, and swine in the forests--and that
was all they looked to. Then they found that there was iron,
principally down south, in Sussex and Surrey; and they worked it,
clumsily enough, with charcoal; and for more than twelve hundred
years they were here in England, with no notion of the boundless
wealth in iron and coal lying together in the same rocks which God
had provided for them; or if they did guess at it, they could not
use it, because they could not work deep mines, being unable to pump
out the water; for God had not opened their eyes and shown them how
to do it.

But just when it was wanted, God did show them. About the middle of
the last century the iron in the Weald was all but worked out; the
charcoal wood was getting scarcer and scarcer, and there was every
chance that England, instead of being ahead of all nations in iron,
would have fallen behind other nations; and then where should we
have been now?

But, just about one hundred years ago, it pleased God to open the
eyes of certain men, and they invented steam-engines. Then they
could pump the mines, then they could discover and use the vast
riches of our coal-mines. Then, too, sprung up a thousand useful
arts and manufactures; while the land, not being wanted for charcoal
and firewood, as of old, could be cleared of wood, and thousands of
acres set free to grow corn. Population, which had been all but
standing still, without increasing, has now more than doubled, and
wealth inestimable has come to this generation, of which our
forefathers never dreamed.

Now what have we to boast of in that? What, s