served and enriched as we are by
these splendid legions of mechanism, the danger is that material
achievement will seem to us the _supreme_ achievement; that all life
will become machinery; and the higher interests of being, and the great
firmament of immortality, be eclipsed by these flashing wheels. We are
in danger of being drawn away from the sanctities of the inner life and
the still work of the soul, by this maelstrom of excitement and power.
No religious man can help asking, and asking anxiously, whether the
spirit of devotion is as deep and fresh, whether spiritual communion
with God is as direct and constant, in this whirl and roar, and
marvellous achievement, as they were in times bearing less evidently the
signs of material progress. For, that which merely gives us a stronger
grasp of the world around us, and sends us along the level of nature, is
not the most genuine element of progress; but that which elevates our
moral plane and enriches the great deep of our spiritual being. The
steamship and telegraph are not absolute tokens of this progress, but
the moral earnestness and the Christian charity that work through them
are; and these must spring up in hearts that are not merely adjusted to
the world, but lifted above it--that are not so occupied by mere
machinery as to neglect the living streams of an inward and devout
culture.

But, for another reason,--or as an extension of the same reason,--we
need to realize the truth that man is separate from and superior to
machinery. It is because, upon a practical recognition of this truth
depends the just action of all who control the interests of labor, and,
so to speak, the lives and souls of the laborers. If we should beware of
an influence that would render us _mere_ mechanics in our own higher
nature, we should likewise remove anything that makes others mere
machines, presenting for us no other consideration than the amount of
work they can perform for us, and with how little care and cost. I
cannot now enter into the great questions that spring up here concerning
the relations of capital and labor, and of the employer and the
employed. I only observe that these are among the deepest questions of
the time: questions which will be heard, which must be discussed, and
practically answered. And they who by plans and experiments, however
visionary they may seem, however abortive they may prove, are trying to
solve this problem, are much wiser in their generation th