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Show William A. Phillips. past we think we know- of the p'resent we are profoundly ignorant. Prone to expatiate on the glory of our age and country we create an imaginary millennium, and uo not want to look beyond it, but for amu cmcnt. Ilow few arrive at the point attained by a lcarneu Chinaman, when be xr1aimcd: "How comes it that the European::;,. o remote from China, think with so much justice and precision. 1'hPy haYc never read our books- they . carcely know even our letters -and yet they talk and reason J.U t as 'We <1. o . " Who amongst us docs not secretly, or openly, flatter himself that he lives in the most glorious age and time of the world. \V e scarce would admit our page of earth's hi ·tory to be part of the blotted record of the human race for five thon and year . Ours we feel to be " the glorious noontide of t.he nineteenth century," even though we have not added the invention of a pin-head to its dicoveries, or given one valuable original thought to the empire of philo ophy. If our favorite theory be true, human nature has ever been culminating, but has never reached the culmination of perfection, siuce trembling man lookrd back on the flaming word of the cherub that shut him out from the Eden of his primitive felicity. The history of the past is but the history of a few men. So far as we know, the masses of antiquity might have grown up, lived, and died, as unreflective creatures of impulse as the beasts that perish. 1Vholc nations have passed away without accomplishing enough to perpetuate their memory. In the mazes of hi::~tory one or two great minds stand out like lighthou es in the gloom. It is only the grcate, t goodand, occa ionally, the greate t infamy- that survive the preseut. l\1cdiocrity has no immortality. Ilow much, for instance, do we know of the Ilebrew nation that campcLl in the Valley of Sin. Yet theirs is supposed to be a full record. Strip out a few name , and a few acts, and all the rest is as clim !l.S what we know of the Hittites, and IIi vites, and Per- William A. Phil1ips. izzite~, and Jebu itcs, who seem to have exi, ted but tllat the IJcbi·ews .m ight have the credit of eonq net.m· g t 11 e country. Yet two p1ctur '8 wer daO'u erreot)'{>Cd thc•11 tl. t, . · . o t.t <u c 1m pen.-h-abl•. How fresh and grand to-chy arc t}10 'e II • < ' • s o l com mand-mcnts, tlllln(lcr d from the 1\lount Uo,v · 1 1·•·] 1 • . . • IIH e lu c t 1e rcconl of t h 'll' Idolatry,- how prophetic the worshiJ> of tl ' G I l Oa(f. tc o c an Antiquarians squabble over the snpJ.>os •. 1 't f N" ' · u 1 c o 1ncveh and Babylon. IIa<l tbe -c nations hl>m·cd more ft 1 . I 1 • • • < ot· JUmantty anc . c~s . for arnb1t10n and gra' ndcu 1•' tl1cy wou 1<1 11 avc re-mame< l fresh and young while the bitter11 fl ,l • • . . appcu 1ts WJOO' ovc1· the. s.IIcnt rums of Birs Ncmroud. The little knowl·d ~r~ the ma.rltune l'ntcrpri -e of the Phccnicians conferred on the race, gn'<' them a place in hi tory 'TI1• c 1C :ti'I1J·n O' Of t1iC courts of the fit·st Ptolemy, dignifies what we know of. }'0' , t" Tl . I 1 --~) p . . ley nllg It la ,.~ grown corn and riee in the Valley of the Nde, and eaten It, and died, and even the O'J·eat I> . , I b yrarmus wou d have been dumb. Then there 1- the golden 0' f At! · a0 c o . lcman glory; but what arc nine tenth, of tho!'e old A the-mans to us but the unknown units of her boa ted population. Her freedom and her power lie buried beneath the rul>l>i ·h of twenty ccnturic ·. The language, immortalized by Zenoph~ n, and Socrates, and Plato, l1as become a dead jarO'on, vamly peddled by pedants, for their immortal utterances !~we tflo und voices in liYinO' to . d o ngue .. , an may not be wrapped in IC mummy casements that could not contain them. Excm 1 >t from dcc't · tl · · f.' c Y IS 1c spu·1t JOr human Fn.! ·dom he breathed upon the race. The Temple of Neptune, and the Parthenon have crumbled to the du t, but the thoughts and aspiration; she gayc humanity arc impcri ·hable. And thus we learn, as we try to unravel the mazes of his-tory that tl . n ' le g1 ts made to humanity and ph ilo. ophy nre of a11 human ere· t' 1 ' ' .1 JOnR, a one eternal. It docs not matter. thou<rh the acre· iu ' I . I tl . , o . '.o , v lit 1 1cy were offered r eJected them. Old Gal- Ileo Invented the telescope, and turned this new lever into the |
