once the amber was unique in its peculiar property, and the loadstone
in its singular power. Now chemistry holds in solution the elements and
secrets of creation; now electricity would seem to be the veil which
hangs before the soul; now the magnetic needle, true to the loadstar,
trembles on the sea, to make the mariner brave and the haven sure.

We have by no means exhausted the wonders that have accumulated upon
man, in being accumulated by man. Their enumeration would be almost
endless. But we leave all to mention one, with which there is nothing of
old time to compare. It had no beginning then,--not even a germ. It is
the peculiar leap and development of the age in which we live. Many
things have combined to bring it to pass.

A spirit that had been hid, since the world began, in a coffer of metal
and acid,--the genie of the lightning,--shut down, as by the seal of
Solomon in the Arabian tale, was let loose but the other day, and
commenced to do the bidding of man. Every one found that he could
transport his thought to the ends of the earth in the twinkling of an
eye. That spirit, with its electric wings, soon flew from city to city,
and whithersoever the magnetic wire could be traced through the air,
till the nations of all Europe stood as face to face, and the States
of this great Union gazed one upon another. It made a continent like a
household,--a cluster of peoples like members of a family,--each within
hearing of the other's voice.

But one achievement remained to be performed before the whole world
could become one. The ocean had hitherto hopelessly severed the globe
into two hemispheres. Could man make it a single sphere? Could man, like
Moses, smite the waves with his electric rod, and lead the legions of
human thought across dry shod? He could,--and he did. We all remember