knowledge sufficient for its hourly needs, since ever, back in the far
dim ages of the earth, primeval man, beetle-browed, furtive and
fashioned fearsomely, first felt the faint vibration of a Soul; and,
like an awakened giant, that chief of human faculties, a Mind took form
which, pressing on along the uncertain way, has scaled the giddy heights
of knowledge where genius, enthroned, does battle with an envious world
of shams and greed and venal prejudice. Led by the resistless pulse of
power it follows still that "banner with a strange device:
Excelsior!";--for, ever onward yet it wends its way where'er the devious
pathway trends, whose troubled, varied course is time, whose bourne is
in eternity.

But where seek we, then, the answer to a cry so shrill, that smites the
high face of heaven from a world in pain?

Shall we seek it where false learning leads us in the quest?--Ah no.

It comes, not in the crash of Sinai's thunders with the rockings of a
riven sphere, as in the allegoric stories of a puerile past.

Softly it falls--yes, almost fearfully--from the fervid lips of some
lone world-neglected persecuted man--some patient toil-worn son of
science, whom Genius loves to call her own--though, haply, to the
schools, to fortune and to fame unknown. One whose transcendent,
superconscious mind has dared, Prometheus-like, to snatch from heaven
the fire of the immortal gods and offer it in benefits to all mankind.

Thrice happy he upon the sensory surface of whose open mind such seeds
of knowledge and of wisdom fall, and happy the land where one and all
may dare to warm chill hands and hearts before its sacred flame; that