The contempt with which Comte and many other philosophizers have treated the press which tells of the progress of mankind is an example for all good men to avoid. If we recognize the brotherhood of humanity, we cannot be indifferent to the passing lives, the joys and misfortunes of our brothers. Let pedants and philosophasters bury themselves in the writings of the dead, the good man prefers to know something of the living, and he finds it in the daily, weekly, and monthly press. At our first outward glance, we are struck with the elevation of our standpoint. This great republic has attained an elevation in intelligence, wealth, and power, which enables it to look down on the lands that are overshadowed by the darkness of the past, and to anticipate the time when American pre-eminence shall be universally acknowledged. The condition already attained was eloquently stated by Chauncey M. Depew, in a recent address at New York, which gave a startling view of AMERICAN PROGRESS. "Last summer I stood upon the White Hill at Prague, in Bohemia, where the thirty years war began and ended. There is no more suggestive spot in Europe. It recalled a picture of the horrors and desolation of war unequalled in history. The contest began when the continent was dominated by the German empire, and ended with the magnificent creation of Charles V. broken into numberless petty principalities. Like the contest of the 17th century, ours was both a civil and religious war. But the country came out of the conflict not like the old German empire, but a mighty nation. "Vapid sentimentalists and timid souls deprecate these annual reunions, fearing they may arouse old strifes and sectional animosities. But a war in which 500,000 men were killed, and 2,000,000 were wounded, in which states were devastated and money spent equal to twice England's gigantic debt, has a meaning, a lesson and results which are to the people a liberal education. We cheerfully admit that the Confederate, equally with the Federal soldier, believed he was fighting for the right, and maintained his faith with a valor which fully sustained the reputation of Americans for courage and constancy. The best and bravest thinkers of the South gladly proclaim that the superb development which has been the outgrowth of their defeat is worth all its losses, its sacrifices, and humiliations. "In 1860 the developed and assessable property of the United States was valued at $16,000,000,000. One-half of this enormous sum was destroyed by the civil war, and yet so prodigious has been the growth of wealth that the estimate now surpasses the imperial figure of $60,000,000,000, and the growth at the rate of nearly $7,000,000 a day. Our wealth approximates one-half of that of all Europe.