come to look into one another's faces in the "undress of
immortality."




LESSON X.

UNDEVELOPED RESOURCES.


"The world is God's seed-bed. He has planted deep and
multitudinously, and many things there are which have not yet
come up."--BEECHER.

One of the richest and best of the smaller class of American
cities is New Bedford; and the secret of its wealth and beauty is
_oil_. It is but a few years since the immense fleet of vessels
that made that thrifty port their home went out with certainty of
success in their dangerous enterprises, and came back loaded
down with spoil. All that beautiful wealth was won from the
deep, and for years as many ships came and went as there were
dwellings to give them speed and welcome. But the glory and the
gain of the whale-fishery are past. The noble prey, too
persistently and mercilessly pursued, has retired northward, and
hidden among the icebergs. Now, when a ship's crew win a cargo,
they win it from the clutches of eternal frost. It seems certain
that the fishery will dwindle, year after year, until, at last,
only a few adventurers will linger near the pole, to watch for
the rare game that once furnished light for the civilized world.