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The Moral Relations of Physical Science.
AN
ADDRESS
DELIVERED AT THE COMMENCEMENT
»®b>8©a&  ©b&ar^bbbis©
WESTERN RESERVE COLLEGE,
At Cleveland, March 6, 1850.
By SAMUEL C. BARTLETT, M, A.
  HUDSON:
W. SKINNER &, CO.
1850. 
 
ADDRESS.
    An adequate account of the progress and the applications
 of physical science during the half centuiy about to close,
 would be a narrative of singular interest.   It would describe a
 series of events quite unparalleled.  Within or nearly within
 that time, such results as these have taken place:  Chemistry,
 by a succession of brilliant discoveries, has become a science,
 with vast associated sciences; Physical Geography, in several
 of its branches, Geology, Zoology, Mineralogy, Meteorology,
 has received nearly all of its accurate and scientific character;
 the laws of Optics have been further ascertained; the Telescope
 and Microscope well-nigh  made  over, disclosing systems of
 infinite  and  infinitesmal range,  and  the Photographic art
 suddenly created;  Human  Physiology  has undergone  a
 revolution,  attended  with  important  advances in Medicine
 and Surgery, and crowned by the discovery of  anaesthetic
 agents;   Agriculture has advanced with  lengthened strides;
 Metallurgy and practical Mechanics have gained as much;
 the Steam-engine has received its perfection and its most im-
portant applications, in the  car, the steamboat, and the manu-
factory ;  The Cotton-mill, with  its world of wonders,  has
grown from nothing; the Cotton-gin is scarcely sixty years of
age ; the Gas light is of much younger birth; and the Electric
Telegraph is but of yesterday.
   At no time, consequently, have the Physical Sciences and
their  resulting Arts more  completely filled the public mind. 
4
The fact has been proclaimed alternately in honor, and  in
reproach, of the age.  Some have boasted of the abandonment
of the speculative and more purely intellectual for the physical
and  practical.   Others  have sneered  at  the "material and
mechanical" cast of the times.   Perhaps the extremes are, as
usual, in  the  wrong.  Natural  Science and its applications
can never deserve a sneer, till the doings of God and the well-
being of man become contemptible.   Yet possibly some of its
votaries, in their enthusiasm, may at times have undervalued
the studies which relate more directly to the intellectual and
the moral nature.  They have often exhibited  this tendency
in the inadequate grounds on which they have extolled their
favorite pursuits.  Natural Science, at least in its experimen-
tal portion, has  commonly been advocated for  its wonderful
effect upon man's physical condition; its great  enhancement
of his comfort and material  prosperity.   This  is, indeed, its
primary and direct result.  Nor  can its efficacy here, be over-
rated.   It has  greatly increased man's comforts,  multiplied his
enjoyments,  and soothed his sufferings.   Yet laud it as we
may on these accounts; if this be all, if its force be expended
only on his physical necessities, if its utmost range be bounded
by these three score years and ten, its virtue exhausted in pam-
pering the life  of the  body, its highest end  accomplished when
it has made man live the grandest and the most luxurious of
animals, and smoothed his passage to the grave; if  it have
subserved no  loftier purpose in his destiny—this  were to
acknowledge it  in its  best estate  altogether " of the earth,
earthy."  It would be hard for  the  ingenuous soul to  check a
saddened feeling, as it turned to its downward task for life.
    We are relieved from such a necessity.  We may rise above
the low utilitarian view that considers science as tributary only
to the animal nature, and view it as an end itself; science, the
proper aliment and element of the human intellect;  study of
the  manifold and glorious  works of the Almighty, the appro-
priate business of him unto whom the Almighty giveth under-
standing. 
o
   I propose, however, on the present occasion to take a more
decided view, and to show how, in  the economy of Divine
Providence,  Physical Science even  in  its  applied  forms, is
made to subserve higher  purposes for the human race than to
cherish the body or to expand and delight the mind.  I wish to
consider

       The  Moral Relations of Physical Science.
   I wish to show how the Science of Nature, even in its ex-
perimental portions and in its  applications to the  arts, is made
instrumen tally  to promote  the moral  elevation of the  race;
how,  in  the constituted  course  of things,  it  lends itself  a
fitting,  an efficient agency to  the cause of righteousness, and
falls naturally into the great chain of better influences.
   I assert  no moral  character  nor  recuperative energy in
science or its applications.   A higher influence must move its
mechanism for  good  ; but its mechanism is peculiarly fitted to
be so moved.  It offers facilities to the  cause of righteousness,
harmonizes with its  operations, naturally aids in accomplish-
ing its ends.
   The sciences of observation and the sciences of experiment
are distinguished by  this: that the latter admit far more direct
and varied applications to the uses of life.  It is to  these mainly
that the public  mind now turns, and to these more prominently
the present argument may refer.
   I. The  most obvious mode  in  which  Physical Science
favors the moral elevation of  the race is, that it relieves the
constant pressure of physical necessities.   It thereby affords
men the indispensable means and opportunity of getting and
of doing good.   It accumulates the means of subsistence and
of benefaction,  and redeems the time for higher culture.
   Employment is a good; incessant drudgery  to  the mere
cravings of the  body, is  an evil.  In blessing, the Lord placed
our first parents in a fertile garden, to  dress it and to keep it;
in cursing, he made the sterile earth  bring  forth thorns and
thistles and  require man's anxious toil.  But the same mercy 
6
that provided a redemption from the bondage of sin, provided
an escape from absolute slavery to bodily want,  and an oppor-
tunity to rescue and to cultivate the higher nature.   Only by
some  degree of accumulation can it  be done; and accumu-
lation to any extent is possible only by  the aid of science.
In the complete destitution of science man would be an ani-
mal, more than other animals forced to spend his whole time
in pursuit of the lowest necessaries.  He never is found thus
destitute; his rudest implements are  the faint dawnings  of
scientific skill. Races of mere fishermen and hunters, as found
in Northern Asia,  approach indefinitely to the  condition and
character of animals.  When the human being begins to till
the soil  even in a rude degree, in the  use of implements and
the nature of the  process he passes further  from the sphere
of instinct to that of science, and  proportionately rises from
the level of animal life.  Supplies accumulate, leisure increases,
mind and heart may expand.  By further scientific applications
the labor of cultivation  is reduced and its product  increased.
At every step another portion  of time is gained for the training
of the family and for the higher offices of  humanity.  But the
process still is incomplete.  " Without machinery" it has well
been said, " every populous  community  must sink into the
state of China, where almost  every one of that enormous popu-
lation of three hundred and sixty millions, is laboriously work-
ing merely to obtain the scantiest food and simplest raiment;
where no values can be saved for  hospitals, for asylums for
the blind or deaf and dumb, or for extensive scientific pursuits;
and where every  public  calamity  immediately  disturbs the
nicely balanced state of things, and exposes thousands upon
thousands to starvation."
    But  science comes in higher forms ; mechanism springs to
work with breath  of fire and muscles of steel;  men in thou-
sands are released  for the labors of thought and love ; the toil
of community is  lightened, their means  of culture multiplied,
and provision made, under a  higher influence, for relief of all
their woes.  The strain has been taken from the aching sinews 
7
of man, and thrown  upon the brawny thews of nature;  and
the work is done, better  and more.   They  toil  and never
tire,  to  give him  rest.  In  the  want of  machinery, Athens
gained her artistic ease and leisure from the toil of slaves ; the
Romans greatly from the wealth of  conquered nations.  In
modem times we task, instead, the air and the water, and the
fires of  earth and heaven;  the  secret affinities, the invisible
repulsions, the hidden powers that work the universe.  We
yoke the river  on its ocean journey and set to work the idle
winds;  we chain the all-pervading fluid and bind the subtle
vapor ere it vanish in thin air.   The poor man has the luxu-
ries of the once favored few,  with leisure too, because in every
article of clothing or convenience science has  saved the labor
of many scores of hands.  We float upon the waves, perchance
upon the errand of mercy, and the strength  of four thousand
galley slaves is in eveiy stroke of the paddle  wheel.  We read
at ease the daily news, while the  single press from which it
came, tended by half a score of men, is doing the work of two
hundred and fifty thousand copyists.   In many kinds of indi-
vidual employment, science has rendered it possible to perform
the same amount of  business many times as soon, to turn over
the same capital many times as  often, while, by her remedies
for man's physical failures, she has in various ways prolonged
the average period of his usefulness.
   It is  thus  that  science has  redeemed the time  of the
human  race in  vast amounts for higher uses.  Nor  is  this
effect confined to the benefits of any class.  In different de-
grees every class reaps its fruits; in countries where inequal-
ity  is greatest,  it pervades  the whole structure  of  society.
Many are enabled to devote  themselves to the work of eleva-
tion.  The  whole of society possesses greater leisure.  And
though, by reason of  artificial obstacles, relief is unduly inter-
cepted,  and in   many wealthy  communities  multitudes are
toiling for the scantiest allowance; even they in many modes
are reaping the  fruit of  beneficent effort which science has
made possible.   All  the great efforts now in action to elevate 
8
 a degraded world, are working from the high vantage ground
 of time and  capital which science has redeemed from  the
 drudgery of animal  life.
     II. Another effect of science is, that by releasing man from
 the constant thraldom of the lowest wants, it tends to elevate
 him above a mere regard to their gratification.   They lose to
 some  degree their lordship  over him.  He ceases to be a mere
» animal.  The lowest wants  are not  continually tasking his
 powers, nor therefore  always  awakening his  desires.   His
 thoughts can  range on  other things.  They tend to  higher
 topics.  He  is no longer bound hand and foot to the present
 and the sensual.  His soul crawls out from among the clods,
 and with ever strengthening wings rises aloft.   Other minds
 react  on his.  Observation and reflection follow;  his powers
 expand; and  though no moral influence can be said to have
 passed upon  him, he becomes  ever a more fitting subject for
 it;  better qualified  to recognise its powTer, to  perceive its rela-
 tions,  to follow its obligations when assumed, and to exert its
 force.   The more a man  is imbruted to  the  indulgence of
 animal appetites, the less accessible to moral influence;  the
 more  habitually  and completely bound  down to the present
 and the seen, the less susceptible to that influence which deals
 WTith  the future and the invisible.  It is a clear  gain to the
 cause of human  welfare, when the thoughts and desires  are
 elevated from these lowest objects  though their range is still
 limited to worldly ends ; when, if earthly, they are less earthy.
 The  Chinese  is  a  more hopeful, and will  become a more
 reliable subject of the gospel,  than the Bechuana, the Hindoo
 than  the Hottentot.  From peculiar  favoring circumstances,
 the Sandwich Islanders have received the gospel in unwonted
 numbers; but how  variable  and uncertain is the control of
 moral influences  over men deep sunk in sensuality,  has been
 clearly shown in their religious history as compared with Arme-
 nian and Nestorian piety.  The congeniality of civilized  Art
 and Science with moral and religious influence, is plainly seen
 in  the  tendency  of the  gospel to introduce those  arts and 
D
science's, and the proved necessity of introducing them for the
gospel's best effect in heathen lands.
   If it be said that these  things tend to artificial wants; I
deny that artificial wants; so far as they include the means of
decency^ Comfort, convenience  and even a degree of elegance
are evils.   I affirm the  contrary.   The tendency  may be
abused ; but it is the bane of many nations and many indi-
viduals that they  have not artificial wants enough.  They
live like brutes, and like brutes they feel.   It is the curse of
many an  Irishman that he wants  nothing but a  potato and
a mud hovel where he and his swine can live  in equal bliss*
The consequence  is that  all  appeals  to  a higher manhood
and  a higher  life, are equally efficient upon him  and  the
kindred occupants of his hut.   Any thing  which  should re-
lease  him from the more brutish modes and aims of life,
whatever  mark should to his  own judgment more conspicu-
ously distinguish him  from brutish beings,  and should serve
to make him conscious of  a higher dignity, would open new
avenues of  influence for his  moral elevation.  Thus even
missionaries  of the  gospel have  found the  introduction of
civilized modes of life,  arts, dress, refinements,  indispensable
to the best  success of their higher efforts;  and thus in one
of the Indian missions where, from a laudable desire of sim-
plicity and economy, they introduced a ruder  style  of living
with dishes of tin  and other things proportional, they soon
learned their mistake and conformed to the usages  of common
life.
   If it be said there is danger of excessive devotion to arti-
ficial wants, I admit it; but affirm that inordinate engrossment
in some of the objects that  man  alone  can desire is better far
than destitution of all the traits and apathy to all the motives
of humanity.
   III.  Another effect of science in its applications,  has been
in several ways to act as a restraint upon vice and  crime.
   We ought not  to overlook its influence in furnishing vari-
ous employments for men gathered in dense masses.  By its 
10
 countless multiplication of employments, it has offered to every
 man the privilege of congenial and successful occupation, and
 the assurance of ready demand for Avhatsoever he is best fitted
 to  produce.  And the lively stimulus and the ceaseless vigor
 of hopeful labor seem to fan and purge the very air it breathes.
 The place to hatch and rear the brood  of vice is the crowded
 pool of idleness or the scene of spiritless, hopeless toil.  Through
 the great masses that congregate in some populous land, other-
 wise to breed moral infection and to maraud upon each others'
 rights, the arts of civilization shoot off a thousand threads of
 order and of enlivening,  virtuous activity; her myriad  influ-
 ences play through the scene in living streams.
    By the betterment of man's physical condition, science has
 done much to remove the temptations  of extreme destitution.
 Since the time, at least, of Agur's prayer, hopeless destitution
 of  the comforts of life has been the fruitful source of crime.
 Utter poverty has tended to almost unavoidable neglect of de-
 cencies and consequent  neglect of moralities dependant,  to
 envy,  to   sourness  of feeling,  dissatisfaction  with  Divine
 arrangements and human law, to theft, unchastity and  other
 vices and crimes.  This  is the well-known fact,  resulting not
 from unequal distribution but from abject destitution.  Now,
 it is the tendency of scientific improvements to  remove that
 utter destitution which  seems to obliterate all moral  distinc-
 tion, and  to scatter more and  more widely the necessaries of
 life.  It reduces the amount of pauperism;  and  it enables,
 while a higher influence disposes, society to make suitable pro-
 vision for  unavoidable  destitution.  In  England, with all  its
 artificial obstacles, the same amount of labor will purchase  for
 the farmer or mechanic twice the amount of food and many
 times the comforts of life, that it would a hundred and seventy
 years ago.
    Science  has thus strengthened  the  ties and  influences of
home, that nursery of virtue.   It has aided to make the poor-
est  home  a pleasant place; to spread  through the humblest
family circle, comforts and decencies that shall bind its mem- 
11
 bers thither, elevate their sensibilities, and withdraw them from
 the scene of vice or  temptation.  The comfort once supposed
 to centre only in an English inn, has now transferred its resi-
 dence to the homes of England.  The peasant enjoys  conve-
 niences then acccessible, if at all, only to the Prince.   " Few
 knights  of the  shire," says Macaulay, " had libraries so good
 as  may now perpetually be found in a servant's  hall."  In
 all  that  invests the fireside with attractiveness, in comfort,
 elegance, education and the means of interest,  science and art
 in  two centuries  have remodeled even  the  civilized  world.
 The tavern-haunting husband it  has called back to his paper
 and his  book by the  cheerful hearth; the roystering,  night-
 walking boy to his  studies, and the society of an  intelligent
 mother and educated sisters.  Nay, when he leaves the pater-
 nal roof, art  has followed him still  with the home influence.
 No longer has he severed those bonds for ever;  space and lime
 have well-nigh  been  annulled, that neighbors' eyes may be
 upon him yet and a mother's voice still reach his ear.
    The  more  complicated relations and higher  functions of
 advanced society, moreover, are  incompatible with  many forms
 of sin.  It is impossible for the man  imbruted  by vice to hold
 his position or fulfil his expected duties.
    More and stronger interests  stand opposed to crime and
 bent  upon its punishment.  It  strikes at the foundations of
 society's  whole structure.   Vengeance is no  longer  left to pri-
 vate revenge and a kinsman's arm.  Society has been smitten.
 The indignation of a state burns against the culprit; a whole
 people have become the kinsfolk of a murdered man.   If the
 origin of the sentiment be due  to a higher  source,  its  action
 has greatly been increased by broader relations introduced by
 science and art.
   At the same time  science still  more effectually acts  in  re-
straint of crime  by ensuring its  detection and its punishment.
Every advance in its application renders  villany less secure.
Incorruptible witnesses record the  secret act;  voices  of nature
tell the tale.  Science detects the spurious coin, the adulterated 
12
drug, the assassin's blow, the murderer's potion.  In great and
responsible establishments, some manufactory or some Bank
of England,  mechanism keeps  truthful record  of  fidelity at
dead of night, at the place of solitude.   How many a mystery
of iniquity has science penetrated.   How has it rent away the
superstitious sanctity in which crime once shrouded  itself to do
its  dreadful work.   What untold  deeds of villany veiled in
ruder times beneath the influence of an " evil eye," the magic
power of  the  Great Medicine, the unearthly functions  of the
Witch,  has  she dragged forth  to  light.  She construes the
ancient obliterated bloodmark; long buried remains reveal to
her the deadly draught.  And he that did his damnable work
in secret, shall find that his brother's  blood cries out from the
ground, and dead men do tell tales.   Or the villain has fled
from the scene of crime ;  on wings of steam he flew; no pur-
suit can overtake ; he has reached the great metropolis ;  from
coach to  coach he has changed  his passage ; from labyrinth
to labyrinth has wound his way ;  he stands at his door; the
keenest scent can never track  him—he is  safe.  But no! a
lightning word shot by him on the way; a silent man watched
his arrival, rode on  his coach-box and followed his walkings;
while his hand is on his door-latch, the  gripe of the law is on
the  malefactor.   " There," said the honest yeoman, pointing
to the telegraphic wires,  " there  are the cords that hung1 John
Tawell."
    It would  be  impossible to point out the  many modes in
which science has contributed to the security of human life
and possessions, from the  hand of injury.  It has done much to
clear the land of robbers, to sweep the sea of pirates ; and it
has well been said that the discovery of gas and its application
to light the streets, did as^ much to check street robberies in
London as did the organization of a powerful police.
   It may be objected that the varieties of crime increase in
civilized lands.  So  they must;  as the relations of men are
multiplied, so must the opportunities of violating them increase.
But variety and amount are very different things.  If the vari- 
13
 eties of disease are greater here than thirty years ago, it will
 not follow there is more disease than when every one was sick
 with the same complaint.   Moreover the actual  number  of
 offences must increase with increasing population, and must
 seem to be  still more increased when every one is  heralded
 through the  land ;  and yet the proportion may be less.  Some
 new forms of temptation will  exist,  though their aggregate
 force be less and the checks be stronger, and while some older
 forms die out.  In support of our general position we mio-ht
 safely  present the Sandwich Islands as seen by Cook, beside
 the worst state of  Athenian, Chinese or Parisian society, and
 rest the subject there.  We assert  however not simply some
 restraint on  immorality exerted necessarily by the action  of
 science and art; but that, given a righteous influence existing
 in society, they act a most  important part in aid of its re-
 straints.
    IV.  But science in its applications has not put forth a neg-
 ative power  alone—a restraining influence.  It has laid on
 men additional inducements to virtuous and beneficent action.
 Ever widening the range of human occupation and human
 desire, and contracting the sphere of individual labor, it has
 incalculably increased  the ramifications of human relationship,
 and lengthened and strengthened the ties that bind men to
 each other.
    The very intercourse and  knowledge thus induced have
 done much to humanize men's feelings towards each  other.
 It tends to peace. With nations as with individuals, how much
 does the sound of another's voice, the sight of the face or the
 grasp of the hand, to extinguish the unknowing prejudice or
 to preclude the sinister influence.  It is hard for men to fight
 their neighbors; horrid to mar with wounds, features  familiar
 to the eye.  Hence savage tribes that have none but hostile
 intercourse, always are at war.  Commercial  nations incline
 to peace. From ancient grudge or sudden passion, Frenchmen
and Englishmen may meet in deadly strife;  Frenchmen with
Frenchmen fraternize.   The  army brought to overawe a capi- 
14
 tal mingles with  its citizens, and  they are one.  Rebellions
 were rooted out of the Scottish Highlands by the simple pro-
 cess, not of wasting  them with armies, but intersecting them
 with roads.  The  steamships that dart across  the ocean have
 well been called the  shuttles that weave the great web of na-
 tional  and human union.  And while  we might  hesitate to
 say that Railroads and Steamers and Manufactories are better
 than all  Peace Societies and World's Conventions,  we do
 affirm  them to be powerful auxiliaries.  Nor ought we in pass-
 ing to  omit the known fact that modern discoveries, instead of
 increasing, have  diminished  the horrors of war.  While the
 relations of civilized life have necessitated  many restrictions
 that humanity requires;  modern warfare risks fewer but more
 decisive battles, and  so far affords elements of calculation as
 seldom to prolong a hopeless contest.  The horrors even of the
 battle field are diminished.   Fighting from a distance and as
 portions of a great mechanism, each man no  longer  sees the
 foe who gave his  wound to grapple with him in  demoniac
 hate;  less of personal malevolence  prevails throughout and
 follows the defeated  with thirst for blood.  The battle which
 seated  Edward IV on the throne of England, with half the
 numbers, was twice as bloody as that of Waterloo.   The Ro-
 man loss  alone on the field  of Cannae was equal to that of
 French and Russians both in the bloody fight of Eylau.   The
 strifes of ancient days will in general be found bloodier in pro-
 portion than those  of modern  days.
   The common interests and mutual dependencies introduced
 by science and  art  increase the  tendency to mutual good
 offices.   Men need and are indebted to each other more.  Re-
ciprocal obligations and benefits tend to common sympathies.
And not alone to common sympathies, but to reciprocal neces-
sities.  The complicated commerce, the extensive manufactur-
ing and other interests dependant,  force men  into amicable
relations.   War become too costly a luxury for them to afford
too terrible a calamity for them willingly to undergo.  Thus
the great body of interests in Britain and America has more 
15
than once proved too  firmly joined for the strongest efforts of
knavish  demagogues; and thus,  we  trust,  will  North and
South yet prove so closely knit together as to bid  defiance to
the ravings of a few thousand  frothing madmen.   Every ad-
vance in civilization renders man more necessary to his fellow,
and brings the nations to a clearer recognition of common in-
terests.
    The operation of this principle and the natural growth of
social respectability have concurred with the gospel, greatly to
increase  the  value and the influence of the masses.  With
whatever drawbacks, their relations have been vastly changed.
Working men can now be heard even in England and on the
Continent; they can cooperate,  they are regarded, and, to
some degree,  represented.   Science and art, as well as Chris-
tianity, have  served to raise them.  The laws  of reciprocity
and of  comity are, from necessity, better kept between the
classes of legitimate society.
    With every extension of human relationship new obliga-
tions bind the man to a virtuous life.  In every tie, he gives a
pledge to society, who  hold  him  to his duties, depend on his
fidelity, and have greater power to make  him  suffer for his
vices.  He has more at stake in a virtuous character, and they
have more at stake in him. What is reputation to the savage?
And what is  it not to  the civilized?  Nor is it valuable to him
as a good opinion merely ; it comes home to him in every form
of practical life.   From an Arctic Expedition or a Dead Sea
Exploration,  down to  a  trading firm, a stage or a cotton corpo-
ration, men will and must reject him for his vices.   A Califor-
nia Company will bind him  with a pledge  to abstain  from
gambling and  intoxication—because he  can not serve  their
turn without.   In nearly every situation he has given virtual
pledges  of good behavior,  and will forfeit his place and his
bread by ill.  More complicated relations and greater respon-
sibilities resulting, have  rendered  the consequence  a necessaiy
one, and made  it effectual.
    Public sentiment, if it existed, would be of little  avail 
16
except where men were bound together as they are by the arts
of civilized life.   There,  it is  all but compulsory.   It speaks
with meaning in its tones. And since the dictates of conscience
are imperatively seconded by the interests  of society, the com-
manding voice of public sentiment must be in the  main for
virtue.  Bound together,  too, by the business relations of life,
and stimulated by the force of that sentiment,  a great amount
of the means and influence  of the irreligious is thus absorbed
by men of higher aims, and made to subserve the moral and
the philanthropic efforts to which otherwise it  had never lent
its aid.
    V. Physical Science has  afforded great facilities for scatter-
ing the seeds of light and religion.  It has become the means
of transmitting good influences far  more widely,  rapidly, and
powerfully.   At no period in  the history of the  world has it
been possible for good men to act so efficiently  for human wel-
fare, as at the  present time.   Never has the Christian church
stood on such a vantage  ground ; never seen the time when it
would be possible so  speedily to preach  the  gospel to every
creature.  The world  is  lying open before her.  The want of
Apostolic gifts  is in some respects compensated by the vast
physical resources placed at her disposal; had she but Apos-
tolic faith how soon might she  enter and occupy.  From frozen
sea to frozen sea almost every land has been  explored.  The
supremacy  of Science  has opened the closed gates of Pagan-
ism to the Christian  missionary ; and in safety he may roam
the plains of India, explore the cities of China, lift up his voice
in sound of the muezzin's call, or sit in the Kraal of the Zulu.
Wonderful  applications  of  science have  brought the  distant
nations to our  doors; he  can  go  and come;  he labors there
among  the  sympathies of home friends borne fresh on every
breeze.  He stands among  those Pagans strong in  Christian
science, a superior being; a  man to impress the intellect that
he may reach the heart.   Or he goes the almoner of temporal
mercy, and moves with healing touch  around the couches of
disease.  Science wins to him the gratitude of the  suffering 
17
that he may minister  to a  soul diseased.  Or he meets the
learned champion of infidelity to confound him with the gross
falsifications of physical science, with which, by a noticeable
providence, God  has suffered nearly every false religion to be-
come entangled for their overthrow.  He scatters broadcast
that volume of eternal truth, which  modern art has  changed
from a prince's luxury to a peasant-boy's gratuity.
    Perhaps no more striking proof can be found  of the degree
to which God will make mere human discoveries subserve the
interests of his kingdom, than the  aid which  the applications
of science have rendered in the multiplication and distribution
of the Bible.  In the year 1274,  a small-sized manuscript copy
was sold in England  for 1000 dollars.  Four hundred years
have scarcely elapsed since, by a single invention, the common
price fell  from  500 crowns to 60; a  change so astonish-
ing as  to subject John Faust to the charge  of dealing, with
infernal agents.  Change after change have the men of science
and of art devised, till now four thousand  copies may be
had for the former price of  one, and the New Testament for a
sum too trivial to mention.  Three  centuries ago (1553), it was
computed that there were 117000  copies  of the Bible among
the English people; as late as 1777, there were supposed to be
about  four million copies  in the  world.  In our day, Bible
Societies alone, of which the oldest began in 1804, have issued
forty million copies in  about 200 different tongues.   It is not
because of increasing zeal alone, but increased facilities; four
centuries ago, the  resources of the world could not have done
the thing.  Through Heathendom and through Christendom
the word of life is finding its way ; it is roaming by thousands
through the scenes  of  French infidelity and Spanish bigotiy;
it has invaded the seat of Papal superstition, and while edging
its way through Florence, Pisa, and  even into Rome itself, the
moanings  of His Holiness have filled the ears of the faithful.
    This is but a specimen,  prominent indeed, of the  mode in
which the leaven of light and righteousness is brought to act upon
the mass of ignorance and  evil, by the aid of science  and art.
                          3 
IS
 Good men are enabled to join their forces and act in concert;
 they can present a more  unbroken  column ;  every stroke is
 given with heavier power and wider sweep; exigencies of busi-
 ness are made more controllable by the  common rules  of
 morals, and violations shown to be without excuse.  Art and
 science are facilitating even the observance of the Sabbath, by
 removing temptation and apology  for its public violation ;  and
 in various modes promoting the support of religious institutions.
    If it be asked why these facilities practically favor more the
 good than the evil influence ;  we answer: because the former
 has the energy, the self-denial, the union  to wield  them with
 effect, they become fitting instruments in its hand.   Sin is too
 selfish to propagate sin with the  highest success.   It will do
 vast evil when it lies in the way; it does  so  spontaneously,
 often malignantly.   But even  its malignity can  not prompt
 and sustain it in great self-denials, arduous  labors  and united
 efforts for such an end.  It loves its ease, its property, too well.
 It has no fraternal union, but quarrels with its  coadjutors.
 Combinations have been  formed  avowedly to  corrupt man-
 kind ;  but their life was short,  their labors small.   Maddened
 by the success of the Gospel in Calcutta, native opposers formed
 a  stupendous scheme of education against the missions.  A
 heavy sum was pledged,  and all began with formidable show;
 but the money failed, and  the  scheme in three years came to
 naught.   All  the malignity  of French infidelity,  headed by
 Voltaire, could not sustain, much  less perpetuate, an efficient
 organization against the Christian religion.   In all such rival
 efforts, the trenchant weapons of art and science must become
 the weapons of victory to those that can wield them with  the
 most devoted soul, the most deathless courage, the most united
 front, and the God of Hosts among them.
   And  with whatever deficiencies or counteractions, those
facilities  of moral influence have been so used that we may
confidently say, the world has advanced with steps commensu-
rate ;  it is proportionately better than it was at the beginning
of this brilliant half-century of scientific progress. During that 
19
time Christianity has made immense inroads upon the realms
of heathenism.  Some thousand circles of light have begun to
radiate ; scores of thousand hopeful converts have been made;
an elevating  and  moralizing influence has been poured upon
hundreds of thousands, yea, on millions more; the moral as-
pect  of some nations  completely  changed;  a humanizing
power so broadly exerted that  we must  look far to find  the
human banquets, the funeral piles, and some of the more hor-
rible forms  of heathenism once common enough ;  and good
seed has been sown whose mighty harvest may yet astound
the nations.  Toleration  has  been forced upon the Mussul-
man ; spiritual life infused into dead  Eastern churches.  Ro-
manism has been  shaken heavily;  the word of life placed in
multitudes  of Romish hands,  and greater advances made
toward religious liberty in Papal  countries than in previous
centuries; indications of promise are witnessed in the British
Islands ; and over most of Europe the well-being of the lower
classes has become a prominent thought, and, with whatever
deductions, their rights and influence have made  unheard-of
progress.
   In our own country elevation of character and diffusion of
morality  have  advanced  with the facilities of  information,
action, and  influence.   Making all allowances for peculiar
dens of filth  and  shame, for public and  private immoralities
that disgrace  the land, and for the immigrant vice and igno-
rance that have clogged our upward movement, the remark is
true of the country as a whole and of its most favored portions.
Since New England became  a mixed  community, and no
longer a Church, we believe there has been  no time when vir-
tue and  morality;, even  there,  have been so high.  Croakers
may inquire  as they will why the former days were better
than these; it is not so.  No  man who has taken pains to
learn. the facts  of  society  as they existed fifty or  a hundred
years  ago, will  deny the  following statements: Never, since
the first generations, has  there been a time when so much
benevolent enterprise has been  in action,  or has so extended to 
20
 all classes of community, as in the last few years; never a time
 when irreligious men were more controlled by external moral-
 ity ;  when so correct or so efficient a sentiment prevailed upon
 temperance ; when the Sabbath was so generally observed in
 the public business  of life, or when it wTas so hard for trans-
 gressors to face the prevailing sentiment; when the laws of
 chastity and propriety between the sexes were so well observed
 and so powerfully enforced by public opinion ; when the poor,
 the insane, the idiot, were  treated with so much humanity, the
 criminal with a justice so thoughtful and unvindictive ; when
 the mass of community felt so justly upon the wrongs of their
 fellow-men; nor when  the spirit of blood-shed was more abhor-
 rent to the great body  of the people, than  at the present time.
    In all  these favorable changes  through the world, science
 and art have not alone  transmitted, but strenuously favored
 and enforced, the influences of the great renovating power,
 Religion.
    But perhaps examples may be  thought to show that  the
 immediate effect of physical researches upon those that follow
 them, is unfavorable;  and we  may be  pointed to men who
 have  dealt so long with second  causes, as to forget there needs
 a Great First Cause.   We simply say that the Heavens  de-
 clare  the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handy
 work; the invisible  things of Him from the' creation of  the
 world are clearly seen,  being understood by the things that  are
 made.  And they who lose themselves in second causes came
 with hearts corrupted to the contemplation.  The study never
 perverted them, but they the study.  And after all, it is a shal-
 low brain that could hide itself beneath so thin a covering of
 sand;  a slender  intellect that thinks with  s,ome  "nebular
 hypothesis" to make  a  universe without a  Creator, or by some
 " equivocal generation," a chain of animal existence without a
God to hold it up.  Such have not been the great minds that
have delved most deeply in the laws of nature;  the Bacons
Newtons, Cuviers,  Davys, Brewsters.  Such is no  legitimate
influence of physical research. 
21
    Nor is there any ground to fear that the ascertained results
 of science shall ever clash  with the teachings of the Bible.
 From the time when the heathen philosopher of Samos came
 near his death, for disturbing the peace of the gods by his theory
 that the earth  moves round the sun, till the excommunication
 of Copernicus and the imprisonment of  Galileo by the Romish
 church for a similar assertion, there has  been a  dim fear of
 collision between science and religion.  It has been occasioned
 partly by the greediness with which infidels have  laid hold of
 every science in succession  and dragged it to the onset, in the
 hope that all the salient angles and broad  exposures of the
 Bible, might present some point  of weakness.  History, chro-
 nology, archaeology, astronomy,  geology,  ethnography, have
 they brought to the  attack.   Yet while we can not but recoil
 from their irreverent handling of the word  of life, we have
 no solicitude.  Religion has no fear.   The God of Revelation
 will never prove himself a falsifier by the Book of Nature.  No
 man shall dig from the bowels of the earth or overtake among
 the stars, a lie from the mouth of Jehovah.  In tranquil expec-
 tation we  wait the issue of their  toilings, and  thank these
 Canaanites, these hewers of wood and drawers of water, for
 the unpaid labor they  are bestowing  upon the walls of Zion.
 For though it may be years or generations, before the perfect
 adjustment shall be seen between the Book of Nature and of
 Revelation, we are sure that the history of the past is a pro-r
 phecy  of the  future ; and just as  the chance-discovered manu-.
 script,  the chance-recorded fragment,  the buried coin,  the
 recovered sculpture, the  silent homes of Egypt's dead,  the
 ancient halls of Ninevitish revelry, utter their truthful tale for
 the Holy Book An  so shall the stars in their courses fight
 against its opposW^ and  a voice shall  come from the deep
 places  of the  earth to confound them, and  the strength of the
 hills shall be  His also.
    I have endeavored to show  how in the  wisdom of God,
physical science, even in its practical relations, is made subsid-
iary to higher ends than animal  necessities; how it is made.
'y*TOH. [)> 
22
powerfully to subserve the moral  elevation of the race.  It is
part of the grand system of means, whereby God is working
out his great revealed scheme of mercy.

   Gentlemen of the graduating  class:  Amid the circle of
the Sciences, you have chosen one whose nature  is eminently
practical, and its work a work of mercy ; peculiarly symbolical
of that  greater work, which God is carrying on for a dying
race.  It is yours to bring relief  to many an  aching frame,
and delight to many an anxious home.   You will be in many
circles a more intimate guest than any other.  Mingling there
in the hour of tender feeling, standing by  the bed-side at times
of deep impression, you will enjoy  means  of influence for good
such as few possess.  May it  be yours  so to  discharge your
work of earthly  mercy, as voluntarily to promote the higher
end, to which every human art and science ought to be subject.
Of what avail, gentlemen, will it be, if  we minister only to
the body ?  Skillful as  you  may be in your profession, Death
will undo your work at last.  So  may you meet your respon-
sibilities, that when patient  and physician shall have met the
inevitable lot, the whole achievement of your life shall not lie
mouldering in the dust.
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