“Every craftsman can behold in Egyptian monuments the progress of his art 4000 years ago; and, whether it be a wheelwright building a chariot, a shoemaker drawing his twine, a leather-cutter using the selfsame form of a knife of old as is considered the best form now, a weaver throwing the same hand-shuttle, a whitesmith using that identical form of blowpipe but lately recognized to be the most efficient, the seal-engraver cutting in hieroglyphics such names as Shooph’s above 4300 years ago, or even the poulterer removing the _pip_ from geese, all these and many more astounding evidences of Egyptian priority now require but a glance at the plates of Rosellini.”
Perhaps the post-office, being a more modern invention, the result of man’s progress, and its use essential to his present wants and governmental requirements, claims more originality than many of those inventions which a ruder state of society devised. And yet even here we actually owe to those ages much of the material which makes up our great postal superstructure. We learned from them how messengers, couriers, and the transmitting of letters formed an important part of their social system, and how it ultimately grew into a political one, under kings and emperors, through all subsequent ages.
“Nothing great, nothing useful, nothing high and ennobling, nothing worthy of man’s nature, of his lofty origin and ultimate exalted destiny has ever been accomplished but by toil; by diligent and well-directed effort, by the busy hand guided in its effort by the wise, thoughtful, hard-working brain.”—_Anon._
When God said, “Let there be light: and there was light,” it was not the mere flash of the brightness of heaven over the earth, but a light that was to be as lasting as creation itself.
Every thing that sprung up from the earth in its order and beauty received the spirit of a new life from this holy and divine light. And when man in the image of his Maker stood in the Garden of Eden, there shone around him another light,—an emanation from God himself. Mind—intellect—power!
Man was the pioneer of the science of government. Deity planned it, and, as the crowning work of his creation, said:—
“_Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth._”