But, considered simply as an intellectual production, who will compare the
poems of Homer with the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments?
Where in the Iliad shall we find simplicity and pathos which shall vie with
the narrative of Moses, or maxims of conduct to equal in wisdom the
Proverbs of Solomon, or sublimity which does not fade away before the
conceptions of Job, or David, or Isaiah, or St. John? But I cannot pursue
this comparison. I feel that it is doing wrong to the mind which dictated
the Iliad, and to those other mighty intellects on whom the light of the
holy oracles never shined.

If, then, so great results have flowed from this one effort of a single
mind, what may we not expect from the combined efforts of several, at least
his equals in power over the human heart? If that one genius, though
groping in the thick darkness of absurd idolatry, wrought so glorious a
transformation in the character of his countrymen, what may we not look for
from the universal dissemination of those writings on whose authors was
poured the full splendor of eternal truth? If unassisted human nature,
spell-bound by a childish mythology, have done so much, what may we not
hope for from the supernatural efforts of preeminent genius, which spake as
it was moved by the Holy Ghost?
Dr. Wayland.


LXXV.

ON ADMITTING CALIFORNIA TO THE UNION.

A year ago, California was a mere military dependency of our own. To-day,
she is a State, more populous than the least, and richer than several of
the greatest of our thirty States. This same California, thus rich and