The frame of the first man represented the frame of every man. The blood did not for the first time set out from the heart, on its circling course through the veins, when Harvey discovered the order and method of its distribution; it did not run faster, nor slower then, nor at any time since, than before his success. Attempts are sometimes made to depress mental and moral life, as mental and moral philosophy. This is well, if we do not forget that life was written in the nature of man long before it was written on paper. When recorded in books, it is the fruit of individual thought and experience, and is true or false according to the idea of the writers. Human nature is the same now that it was six thousand years ago.

In these realms of science the nearer man approaches truth, the nearer he approaches the eternal law. All planets were made and put in motion about the same time. Those are called new which are not found quite so soon as the rest. And those are regarded new truths of philosophy and new principles of life, which are of latest discovery. If they are true, they are as old as the world and humanity.

The

Should any one boast about new principles in the arts, another would expose his ignorance. By the exercise of mind and hand, and the use of the materials around him, man has always clothed his body. Fur and wool were among the first articles converted into dress. Flax, cotton and silk have been long thus appropriated. These materials were wrought into as fitting and beautiful garments, in the early ages of our race, as ever graced man or woman. process, also, by which these materials were made ready to wear, has ever been fundamentally the same as that now employed for this purpose. In some way flax was always broken before it became linen. Spinning and weaving are not modern inventions. These works were done centuries before the power-loom was thought of. It is true material forces are now made to perform the labor; but ages before factories were built, water expressed its power, rivers wore through miles of rock, tides flowed over territories of new soil, and the machinery of the universe, belted together, rolled its great round of speed and might.

In harmony with the suggestions of nature, too, man has always sought for his body a house. It is said that works of architecture have commonly been regulated by some law

of hereditary imitation. Whatever modes of structure the climate and materials of any country have obliged its early inhabitants to adopt, for their temporary shelter, has been in all its prominent features repeated by their refined and opulent posterity. The Egyptian order has its origin in the cavern and mound. The Chinese is modeled from the tent, whose shape man's thought of the sky fixed. The Grecian is derived from the wooden cabin. The Gothic still speaks of the strong trunks, bending branches, and hanging leaves of the forest. And the old specimens of architecture are the grandest and richest in the world.

The sculptor's model and material always waited for him. And it is more than four thousand years since he began his work. In this department there were four periods of illustrious ancient artists. There have been several periods called modern; and in these, great artists have labored religiously. But seldom, if ever, have they produced any thing so perfect as the earlier workman produced. It was thought high praise, when Raphael pronounced the Bacchus of Michael Angelo, equal in perfection to the masterpieces of Phidias. The age of sculpture was the ancient age.

Painting, beginning with the landscape and portrait, was practiced long before the Christian era. Till after this era, however, sculpture was the leading art of the two. Sculpture was more classical; and painting was too much an imitation of it. They who used the pencil needed more of that soul whose love is fathomless, before they could do their best. Yet it is hundreds of years since the greatest painters the world has produced have been looking through the galleries of eternity, and realizing more than their highest conceptions on earth.

Whether things useful or ornamental are regarded-implements, furniture, or cunning and wonderful workmanship-there are more to which the word old well applies than is often believed. The antiquarian has enough to busy himself about; and every year, from various sources, he exhibits the fruit of his toil to the astonishment and humiliation of moderns. Egypt has filled a curiosity box which is a looking glass for our inventive genius. And should the departed nations generally give their contributions to the exhibitions of the present, they would shame

our boasted superiority with their arts and refute it with their forms of beauty.

Plato was born twenty-two hundred and ninety years ago; and Emerson says, "out of him come all things that are still written and debated among men of thought." Words are believed to be a direct gift from heaven. Language is thought and feeling in form. This has been in use since the beginning of the human race. Now what libraries there are in the earth! But the real historian uses words, marks and rules not of his creation, and is a recorder. The true biographer helps actual character to speak through his pages. The best novel contains the clearest pictures of life. The richest poetry answers to the best aspirations of humanity's throbbing heart. The most impressive eloquence is the most natural, whether this relates to idea or manner of expression. The old lady who declared she had thought, what Burns says, in his Cotter's Saturday Night, a thousand times, expressed what thousands more of her race have thought about that and also about many other treasures of the heart, breathing in the lines of the poet, and burning in the words of the orator.

II. The advantages which man derives from the old are greater than any one knows. Those human beings that are unconscious of the existence of principles which are always venerable; to whom the word old is one of contempt; who suppose no worthy effort can be made unless it be different from every effort which has been made; are very ignorant and very poor. This stability and fixedness of the world, in spite of the many who complain because there are unvarying laws which they are forever bound to obey, amounts to the richest blessing of life. There is great dignity in it; and greater use. What if there were no abiding or tangible

laws in the universe! Then man would drift on the sea of being, like an unruled ship, as chance happened to take him. Then he might place his hand in fire one moment and burn it, and the next moment, from the same act, experience the most pleasing sensation. The good deeds of to-day might become bad to-morrow and change as much in their fruit as in their quality. In such a condition of things man would be destitute of all knowledge concerning his origin and of all hope concerning his des

tiny; he would have no place upon which to rest his weary feet, and no bread upon which to feed his famishing soul, he would stagger blindly forth until he cried out in despair, I cannot exist so, I must have something real or die, if nothing else, give me the lash for my folly,-the blood flowing from my wounds would be refreshing in this desert being, give me any thing in exchange for this dark and crushing uncertainty. Without regularity in day and night, and the change in seasons; without unvarying laws in nature and life; without the stability and fixedness of the world, if the material kingdoms did not dissolve into mist, humanity could not improve. There would be no profit of experience. But now all the truths of natural, intellectual and moral science say, There we are; you can rely on us ; we shall never vary a hair's breadth; come up, reach out, go down, look in, and find us. They said this to the people of ancient time; and the old students listened, believed and went to work. They say it to all earnest minds at present, and proclaim, Room enough yet. Now also eternal principles give their testimony through the wise and good of many ages. And these men and women of the poor say to us of the present, Use our instruments with the improve ments that have been and can be made to them. Observe the errors and dangers into which we fell; cross every bridge you know is secure; follow every line you are confident is fastened to the truth; put down your feet wherever the earth is solid; raise your head wherever light shines; appropriate our wisdom; experiment for yourselves; do as much according to your advantages as we did with ours;

move on.

Whatever man has already accomplished through discovery and by invention is so much gained for his race. The past hands over its contributions of science and philosophy to the present. The wise of the present offer no complaints because they were not born soon enough to make these contributions themselves. They use these contributions with profound reverence and gratitude. And they believe there are other things for them to do. Had all the arts been perfected in the past, the present would have the great good of them. Man's special efforts in these directions would then be to copy, to apply and thus become better prepared to do something else. If any illustrations of perfected art

have been produced in the past, the past should have their credit. Something which man has begun, has then been finished. And he may profit by this through the whole future. Whether any specimens of perfected art have been furnished for the world or not, some have been provided that are far in advance of the world's general thought and life, and up to which the common intelligence and heart. of humanity will slowly rise.

sun.

Scarred by millions of conflicts, the world turns to the The breath of truth cleanses its laboratories, sweeps its shops, and enters its highest courts of thought and feeling. In the wise of this age there is something of Moses and Socrates and Luthur and the Pilgrim fathers; something of Homer and Shakspeare; something of the shape that mountains and oceans, flowers and stars, and all the lessons of nature, gave to mind in periods long passed; something of the humility and dignity, tenderness and strength of him who stood on the dividing line of ancient and modern history, answering to the need of the former and giving the impulse of the latter. The footsteps of all the true men and women of the past are still visible. Their songs of sacrifice and victory reach the ear and heart of all the really living. The wealth of the whole universe passes into the soul of every day.. Starting when chaos was first broken, sounding along the sky of centuries, swelling through the corridors of time, the music of the world's wealth increases in harmony, sweetness and volume every day and hour. Stop the first movement of creation and its tone would expire in a wail. Cut off the arteries through which life flows from generation to generation, and humanity would struggle but a moment and die. If there was no Old, there could be no New; and if there was no New, the Old would have no means of expression.

III. So we come to our thoughts of the New. There is a sense in which some things are both old and new. Some old things pass so imperceptibly into new that the changing point cannot be determined. The old tree has new blossoms every spring, and new fruit every autumn. The old earth yields a new harvest every year. The outward universe is not a machine; it is not wound up once a day, nor once a century, and then left to go alone. The