It does, however, believe in the explosive force of gunpowder, in the evaporation of boiling water, in the head of the magnet, and in the heels of the lightnings. It conjugates the Latin verb _invenio_ (to find out) through all its voices, moods and tenses. It invents everything; from a lucifer match in the morning to kindle a kitchen fire, up through all the intermediate ranks and tiers and grades of life, to a telescope that spans the heavens in the evening, it recognizes no chasm or hiatus in its inventions. It sinks an artesian well in the desert of Sahara for a pitcher of water, and bores through the Alleghanies for a hogshead of oil. From a fish-hook to the Great Eastern, from a pocket deringer to a columbiad, from a sewing machine to a Victoria suspension bridge, it oscillates like a pendulum. Deficient in literature and art, our age surpasses all others in science. Knowledge has become the great end and aim of human life. "I want to know," is inscribed as legibly on the hammer of the geologist, the crucible of the chemist, and the equatorial of the astronomer, as it is upon the phiz of a regular "Down-Easter." Our age has inherited the chief failing of our first mother, and passing by the "Tree of Life in the midst of the Garden," we are all busily engaged in mercilessly plundering the Tree of Knowledge of all its fruit. The time is rapidly approaching when no man will be considered a gentleman who has not filed his _caveat_ in the Patent Office. The inevitable result of this spirit of the age begins already to be seen. The philosophy of a cold, blank, calculating materialism has taken possession of all the avenues of learning. Epicurus is worshiped instead of Christ. Mammon is considered as the only true savior. _Dum Vivimus Vivamus_, is the maxim we live by, and the creed we die by. We are all iconoclasts. St. Paul has been superseded by St. Fulton; St John by St. Colt; St. James by St. Morse; St. Mark by St. Manry; and St. Peter has surrendered his keys to that great incarnate representative of this age, St. Alexandre Von Humboldt. [Decoration] [Decoration] XXIV. _THE ENROBING OF LIBERTY._ The war-drum was silent, the cannon was mute, The sword in its scabbard lay still, And battle had gathered the last autumn fruit That crimson-dyed river and rill, When a Goddess came down from her mansion on high, To gladden the world with her smile, Leaving only her robes in the realm of the sky, That their sheen might no mortal beguile. As she lit on the earth she was welcomed by Peace, Twin sisters in Eden of yore-- But parted forever when fetter-bound Greece Drove her exiled and chained from her shore; Never since had the angel of Liberty trod In virginal beauty below; But, chased from the earth, she had mounted to God, Despoiled of her raiment of snow.