"This burden of toil is lightened by the progress of modern sciences and inventions much less than some men think. Every step of progress has been made by the sacrifice of hecatombs of human lives. From our laboratories and workshops products of human skill, rich and rare, are sent forth; but what are they but smelted and hammered and graven and woven human bones and sinews, the health and life of men? No means have been discovered by which the most necessary processes of the arts can be made otherwise than dangerous to health. Only when thousands of miserable workmen had perished was Sir Humphrey Davy's safety-lamp invented; and now the danger, to say nothing of the hard toil, of the collier's life is only lessened, but not removed. Still, our furnaces roar and the whole tide of civilization goes on by the health-destroying servitude of men, buried alive as it were in the dark bosom of the earth. Would that seem to be a fitting employment for the sinless children of the all-loving Father? Employés in many kinds of manufacture slowly sink under the accumulated evils of daily toil, and no means of making their employments healthful have been discovered. The friction-match, which has become so nearly a necessity, is made by a process so destructive to health that only a certain class of laborers can be prevailed upon to do the work. I might go on to speak of other painful circumstances in which men find themselves by the almost antagonistic attitude of Nature. But if we reject these dangerous processes of manufacture and art, we go back at once to the wooden plough, the distaff and tinder-box of primitive times, and also to primitive poverty and primitive toil, and, I may also add, to primitive exposure to the hostile and pitiless forces and inclemencies of Nature. Purge the earth of sin, and wearisome toil would still remain. Nature must be nursed and cultivated or she yields no bread. Her hostile attitude must be overcome; the thorns and thistles must be rooted out; and every step of progress, won by suffering, must be held by painful work and watchfulness; otherwise Nature returns to the wild and savage state. Relax the culture of the choicest fruit, and it begins to deteriorate; leave the best-blooded breed of cattle to itself, and it returns again to the level of native, uncultured stock.