Increasing knowledge of human life as it is found in the savage, in the barbarian, and in the civilized man, fixes us more unalterably in our belief in the worth of progress. The savage and the barbarian are hopelessly ignorant, and therefore weak and wretched, since ignorance is the chief source of man's misery. "My people," says the prophet, "are destroyed for lack of knowledge." From ignorance rather than from depravity have sprung the most appalling crimes, the most pernicious vices. In darkness of mind men have worshiped senseless material things, have deified every cruel and carnal passion; at the dictate of unenlightened conscience they have oppressed, laid waste, and murdered; for lack of knowledge they have perished in the snows of winter, been wasted by miasmatic air, have fallen victims to famine and pestilence, and have bowed for centuries beneath the degrading yoke of tyranny. Science is a ministering angel. The Jesuits by bringing quinine to the knowledge of civilized man have done more to relieve suffering than all the builders of hospitals. Vaccine has wrought more potently than the all-forgetful love of mothers; more than all the patriots gunpowder has won victories over tyrants; and the printing-press is a greater teacher than philosophers, writers, poets, schools, and universities. Like a heavenly messenger the compass guides man whithersoever he will go, still turning to the one fixed point, as turn the hearts of the children of men to God. The nations intermingle and lose their jealousies and hatreds, borne everywhere by the power of steam; and the thoughts of men are carried by lightning round the whole earth. Commerce has become a world-wide interchange of good offices; and while it adds to the comfort of all, it enlarges thought and strengthens sympathy. Our greater knowledge has enabled us to lengthen human life; to extinguish some of the most virulent diseases; to perform surgical operations without pain; to increase the fertility of the soil; to make pestilential regions habitable; to illumine our cities and homes at night with the brilliancy of day; to give to laborers better clothing and dwellings than princes in other ages have had. It has opened to our vision the limitless sidereal expanse, and revealed to us a heavenly glory which transcends the imagination of inspired poets. Before this new light the earth has dwindled away and become an atom, as the stars hide when the great sun wheels upward from out the night. We have looked into the very heart of the sun itself, and know of what it is made; and with the microscope we have caught sight of the marvelous world of the infinitesimally small, have seen what human eye had never beheld, and have watched unseen life building up and breaking down all living organisms. We have learned how to walk secure in the depths of ocean, to soar in mid-air, to rush on our way unimpeded through the stony hearts of mountains. We see the earth grow from a fire-ball to be the home of man; we know its anatomy; we read its history; and we behold races of animals which passed away ages before the eye of man looked forth upon the boundless mystery and saw the shadow of the presence of the infinite God. Better than the Greeks we know the history of Greece; than the Romans that of Rome. Words that were never written have whispered to us the dreams and hopes of people that perished and left no record; and the more we have learned of the past the more clearly do we perceive how far the present age surpasses all others in knowledge and in power.