Often is it said that we need not be wiser than our fathers. Rather strive to excel our fathers. What in them was good imitate; but do not bind ourselves, as in chains of Fate, by their imperfect example. In all modesty be it said, we have lived to little purpose, if we are not wiser than the generations that have gone before. It is the exalted distinction of man that he is progressive,--that his reason is not merely the reason of a single human being, but that of the whole human race, in all ages from which knowledge has descended, in all lands from which it has been borne away. We are the heirs to an inheritance grandly accumulating from generation to generation, with the superadded products of other lands. The child at his mother's knee is now taught the orbits of the heavenly bodies, "Where worlds on worlds compose one Universe," the nature of this globe, the character of the tribes by which it is covered, and the geography of countries, to an extent far beyond the ken of the most learned in other days. It is true, therefore, that antiquity is the real infancy of man. Then is he immature, ignorant, wayward, selfish, childish, finding his chief happiness in lowest pleasures, unconscious of the higher. The animal reigns supreme, and he seeks contest, war, blood. Already he has lived through infancy and childhood. Reason and the kindlier virtues, repudiating and abhorring force, now bear sway. The time has come for temperance, moderation, peace. We are the true ancients. The single lock on the battered forehead of old Time is thinner now than when our fathers attempted to grasp it; the hour-glass has been turned often since; the scythe is heavier laden with the work of death. Let us not, then, take for a lamp to our feet the feeble taper that glimmers from the sepulchre of the Past. Rather hail that ever-burning light above, in whose beams is the brightness of noonday. * * * * *