what has been, and gaze forward at what is promised to be, with more
likelihood of being impressed than if we were a few centuries older.

If we look down at the roots out of which this tree has risen, and then
up at its spreading branches,--omitting its intermediate trunk of ages,
through which its processes have been secretly working,--perhaps we may
realize in a briefer space the wonder of it all.

In the beginning of history, according to received authority, there
was but a little tract of the earth occupied, and that by one family,
speaking but one tongue, and worshipping but one God,--all the rest of
the world being an uninhabited wild. At _this_ stage of history the
whole globe is explored, covered with races of every color, a host of
nations and languages, with every diversity of custom, development of
character, and form of religion. The physical bound from that to this is
equalled only by the leap which the world of mind has made.

Once upon a time a man hollowed a tree, and, launching it upon the
water, found that it would bear him up. After this a few little floats,
creeping cautiously near the land, were all on which men were wont to
venture. _Now_ there are sails fluttering on every sea, prodigious
steamers throbbing like leviathans against wind and wave; harbors are
built, and rocks and shoals removed; lighthouses gleam nightly from ten
thousand stations on the shore; the great deep itself is sounded by
plummet and diving-bell; the submarine world is disclosed; and man
is gathering into his hands the laws of the very winds that toss its
surface.

Once the earth had a single rude, mud-built hamlet, in which human
dwellings were first clustered together. _Now_ it is studded with