benefits on either side, nor any odious pretension of superiority; but it implies on the contrary, a recognition of mutual dependence, and the experience of mutual benefits. The hostilities between nations, that have arisen from time to time upon commercial questions, have originated, not in the workings of a legitimate and honest commercial intercourse, but in those jealousies and hatreds which result inevitably, in one quarter or another, from attempted restrictions upon the natural freedom of commerce. The more completely two communities, larger or smaller, are commercially dependent on each other, the more easily and abundantly the products of the one are exchanged for the products of the other; the more completely will these two communities be bound together. Thus one of the strongest of the bonds by which the union of our states has been made indissoluble, is the free and constant commerce between each state and every other. Thus the removal, in part, of the old obstructions in the way of the natural commerce between these states and the provinces adjoining on the north, has already begun, after the lapse of not more than two or three years, to change the public sentiment of those provinces in regard to us, our manners, our ideas, and our forms of government. Thus too when shallow and unprincipled demagogues attempt to kindle a war between this country and Great Britain, the sense of mutual commercial dependence, and the kindly feelings which, in spite of antipathies and provocations, are engendered by constant intercourse, are too strong to be overcome; and reckless politicians bellow their vulgar rage in vain. In proportion as communities and nations are connected by commercial ties and interests, and by that constant intercourse which commerce implies, the peace of the world, and the world's prosperity and progress in the arts of peace, are effectually promoted.

Do we not see, then, in the progress of this new power, so lately introduced into the world, a new security, provided by the wisdom and the care of God, for peace and union among nations? Have we not here a new barrier against the men that delight in war? Every new railway that is constructed in any part of our country, is another band of iron to hold these states together in willing union. The increasing facilities of intercourse, reducing all distances, and bringing the remotest regions of our wide country into close and friendly proximity, will soon make it impossible to sunder the East from the West, or the South from the North. Bound by such ties, we have a common destiny; and we must stand or fall, and live or die together. In the same way, every new steamship that crosses the ocean, brings us into a closer connection with the nations of the old world. As this wonderful intercourse increases between us and them, they act upon us, and we upon them, with a power which the world

never saw before. The populations of those ancient lands are moved more deeply and widely by the report and the exhibitions of our wealth, our peace, our liberty; and the floods of emigration pour in upon us as if the foundations of the deep were broken up. A thousand ties of kindred-ten thousand filaments of personal affection-connect living hearts that have their homes among us, with living hearts in every land of Christendom.

It

In another respect this new power is making a new world. is tending to put all men upon one level, not by depressing any, but by elevating all. It is tending, not indeed to abolish the distinctions of rich and poor, but to diminish the advantages of the rich, by multiplying to the poor the opportunities and substantial means both of enjoyment and of personal cultivation. This is the tendency of all those great improvements which mark the progress of the human race. Before the invention of printing, books were rare and costly; and knowledge, as contained in books, was accessible only to the few. But now, the paper-mill and the printing-press have made books so abundant, that the advantage of the rich in this respect is almost inappreciable; books are within the reach of every man that thirsts for knowledge. Before the modern inventions of machinery for manufacturing uses, how few were there whose clothing and whose domestic utensils and furniture would now be considered comfortable and decent. But now how few are there, in such a country as ours, whose clothing would not once have been in some respects the envy of nobles, or whose dwellings have not some comforts which would once have seemed luxurious to the rich and mighty. So it is with this improvement. The steamboat, or the railway, is a mighty leveler. It does not depress the rich, but it brings up the poor. The laborer seeking a distant field of employment, or the emigrant removing to a new home, instead of plodding his weary way on foot, traverses wide regions with a speed which once the wildest wishes of wealth would not have dreamed of. The laborers of the city find their way into the country, and taste the luxury of pure air and of rural sights and sounds. The laborers of the country look with delight upon the magnificence of the city, and return unpauperized to their homes.

The more strictly moral bearings and results of this great improvement are of the highest importance. Of course, the moral results must depend very much on the character of the people as formed and affected by other influences. But if other influences, such as the influences of law and justice, of education and diffused intelligence, and of Christian truth and Christian institutions, are rightly employed to form and direct the character of the people, the influence of this great agent, instead of being hostile -an influence to be resisted and overcome-will be in many respects a mighty auxiliary.

It is an obvious illustration of the mode in which this new power acts upon moral character, that it develops and stimulates the energy of the people. The steam-engine, in all the variety of its uses, is perhaps the grandest and most impressive of the many symbols by which the idea of force, and especially of the force of human thought and will, is presented to the mind. But of all the forms in which that mighty agent is applied, the steamboat, holding its way with dashing wheels against the winds and waves, or the locomotive engine spinning along its track, roaring and whistling as it goes, and drawing after it the ponderous train with a speed that seems to distance all material images of swiftness, and to leave nothing behind it but the lightning, the light, and the winged voice,-is the most awakening and eukindling in its appeal to the mind. If such thoughts seem too fanciful to the reader, there are other views which may be admitted as more conclusive. These facilities of intercourse-this mutual contact and interfusion of all parts of the country, awaken and stimulate a thousand tendencies to activity that might otherwise be always latent. To every young man, the whole area of the country is opened as his homestead and the field of his enterprise, with the most various opportunities for exertion, and the most stimulating prospects of success. Doubtless the intense activity which characterizes the American people, is the result of many causes; but who can doubt that it is greatly stimulated and is to be yet more developed, by these increasing facilities of intercourse? For good or for evil, according as good or evil shall predominate in the various and complicated influences that mold the moral character of our people, the boundless area thus opened to all sorts of activity, with all these new and diversified incitements to enterprise, will make that characteristic energy more restless and adventurous than ever.

The extent to which this new order of things promotes the diffusion of all kinds of knowledge, is equally obvious. In a free and active commercial intercourse, the interchange of commodities is always attended with some interchange of ideas. Commercial intercourse, peaceful and friendly in its nature, draws after it all other kinds of intercourse; and in proportion as many run to and fro, knowledge is increased. The barriers of local and traditionary prejudice are broken down; mind acts upon mind; facts are ascertained and accumulated; thought is evolved from thought; every man who has his word to utter, and has withal the gift of utterance, has a wider and more awakened auditory; every newly discovered truth finds wings and flies abroad. If there is knowledge in the city, it rushes like light into the country. The morning newspaper is caught, damp from the press, by nimble carriers, at every steamboat landing, and at every railway station; and, before the evening lamp is lighted, it begins to tell its story

at the distance of hundreds of miles from the great emporium where, in some subterranean apartment never lighted but with gas, and ever shaken with the roar of wheels on the street pavement above it, the newest printing machine, driven by a steamengine, is already working off the "outside form" of the next day's paper at the rate of ten thousand copies in an hour. So, if there are healthful and conservative influences in the country, to those influences the city is no longer inaccessible. If there are wise and serious minds that look upon the world "from the loopholes of retreat," and have great thoughts to utter which it concerns the world to hear, they are no longer shut out as they once were by their distance and retirement; they speak to the city as if they were in the midst of it, and from the city their voices echo over the country. Knowledge is accumulated and kept bright, only where it has free and rapid circulation. Intellectual activity, without which knowledge dies into a stupid tradition, finds its vital element, only where there is freedom and activity of intercourse. He who would see the most stolid ignorance that exists within the compass of the civilized world, must find it, not in the places of concourse, but in some secluded district, where the inhabitants from age to age follow the same employments, never participating in the mighty current of events and changes that moves the world without, and never excited by anything that happens beyond the hills that skirt their narrow horizon. The supposed Arcadian simplicity of such a community is nothing but a poet's dream. Ignorance promotes neither innocence nor happiness. And it is as beautifully accordant with the nature of man and the manifest plan and counsel of God, as it is contradictory to the sentimentalism of an unbaptized imagination, that the prophetic descriptions of the golden age that is yet to come, represent it to our faith as an age of boundless activity and intercourse, and therefore glorious in the unlimited progress and diffusion of knowledge.

The opportunities and means which this new power affords for the diffusion of religious influences, ought to be devoutly appreciated. If any intelligent man will look at the work which the associated Christian zeal of this country is carrying forward in various fields of enterprise, and under various forms and names, he will find that the work, in all its departments, depends, directly or indirectly, on the modern facilities of intercourse and communication which connect the various parts of the country with each other, and our country with all parts of the world. Let the new methods by which New York and Boston are put in communication with every district of our country on the one hand, and with all foreign countries on the other, be annihilated-let us be thrown back upon those old methods which existed before the invention of the steamboat; and the entire system of evangeliza

tion, both home and foreign, as it now exists, would be hopelessly paralyzed. Nor could any other system, equally efficient, be invented. It is the "new earth," and not the old one, that is to be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord.

It was once thought that the introduction of railways and steamboats upon the great lines of travel would tend to the general desecration of the Christian Sabbath, and would thus act disastrously upon morals. But experience has shown that wherever the prevalent sentiment of the people requires, or even tolerates, the interruption of travel on the Lord's day, the pecuniary interests of steamboat and railway proprietors are wholly coincident with the duty of remembering the Sabbath day to keep it holy. The teamster with his horses and his loaded wagon, needs an enlightened and effective sense of Christian duty, to hinder a him from pressing on to his journey's end, regardless of the holy day. The proprietor of a line of stage coaches, if his carriages are full through all the six days of the week, is easily induced to believe that there is a necessity of adding to the week another day of labor and of profit. But the proprietors of a railway, or of a line of steamboats, know that by disregarding the law of the Sabbath they add nothing to their profits, but on the contrary add at least one seventh to their weekly expenditure. Their interests therefore, inasmuch as they can carry all the freight and passengers in six days as easily as in seven, require them to let their servants and their enginery rest upon the seventh day, wherever the prevalent feeling of the community honors the Sabbath, and therefore requires or even tolerates such an interruption.

A few months ago, it happened to the writer of this article to spend a Sabbath at the junction of the railways in Springfield, Mass. The reader whose journeys along the valley of the Connecticut, or across it, have made him familiar with that spot, associates with it the idea of ceaseless activity and commotion; as he thinks of it, he seems to see a confused and hurrying multitude; he hears with his mind's ear the hissing of steam, the discordant jangle of bells, the scream of whistles, and the roaring of long trains of cars as they rush in various directions. But on the occasion to which we refer, we learned to associate other ideas with that locality. As the Saturday evening passed, the heavy trains of freight came thundering in, one after another, from opposite directions; and each on its arrival at the depot, rested and was silent. At last the hours of sleep had come, and the traveler rested. He had rested there before, and the early morning had always been disturbed by all the mingling noises of railway motion. But on that morning, when the traveler, refreshed by undisturbed repose, was awakened by the summer sunlight, all was still. As he looked out upon the station-house and the diverging iron paths, there rested on that spot-strangely but how beautifully!-the holy calmness of