r schools with
the conceited idea that the course of study is finished, the paths of
investigation fully explored, and that life is henceforth a holiday from
study. Under such a giant impulse our society could not but advance with
enormous strides in all that pertains to true civilization, since
thinkers would then be the rule instead of the exception, and talent
almost universal, which is now, like angels' visits, comparatively 'few
and far between.' This is no Utopian vision: it is a reality within the
scope of human exertion and the capacity of our people of to-day, if men
would but exert themselves to such an end, and properly apply the energy
and labor which is now too often excited upon unworthy and trifling
objects. The realm of knowledge is so boundless that a lifetime is
little enough and short enough to give to mortals even a smattering of
that sea of wisdom which swells around the universe, and he alone can
claim to be a seer who devotes the whole of a long existence to the
investigation of truth; and only when this fact is impressed upon the
minds of youth can they be made to appreciate their true position in
existence, and made efficient workers in the great cause of humanity.

Yet all education is vain, all intellectual development is of little
benefit, all civilization hollow in its nature and ephemeral in its
duration which lacks the moral element. And by the word _moral_ in this
connection is intended to be understood not only what is usually
conveyed in the term morality, but also all religion. It is a
well-established fact, more particularly exemplified in our own history,
that all political parties founded upon an ephemeral issue, inevitably
disappear with the final adjustment of the questions upon which they are
based, having nothing left to rest upon, so it is in the affairs of
nations. In the weakness of human nature and the fallibility of all
human prescience, no system or theory can be devised which shall endure
through all time, which shall not become effete, useless, and even
erroneous in the progress of human development, and in the ever-shifting
condition of human society. Hence any government and society founded
upon a system of merely human devising, must, in the progress of events,
fall to pieces, and give place to the results of a new and younger
development. The law of God, as contained in Divine revelation, is alone
unchangeable, unmodifiable. It is adapted to meet the requirements of