“Such results, it will be felt, may occasionally be of importance in saving a country gentleman from a hopeless mining speculation, or in adding to the powers and profits of an iron-foundry or a cotton-mill, but nothing more. When the awakened and craving mind asks what science can do for us in explaining the great ends of the author of nature, and our relations to Him, to good and evil, to life and to eternity, the man of science turns to his collection of shells or butterflies, to his electric machine or his retort, and is mute as a child who, sporting on the beach, is asked what lands lie beyond the great ocean which stretches before him.”[29] This is unhappily too true a picture of modern science. Every effort is made in scientific works to impress the material and sordid money-getting uses of science as its only true end, and the highest relation which it bears to humanity. Read any tract on the uses of geology, and is there a word of high hope that the addition which recent discoveries in this department have made to knowledge will assist in raising and elevating the mind, or throw any new light upon the mysteries of nature? Not a word: but it is carefully detailed how an acquaintance with the order of stratified rocks will facilitate the discovery of minerals, or the boring of Artesian wells. Are the uses of astronomy dwelt upon, we are taught that it enables the seaman to navigate trackless seas for commerce or for war. Are the purposes of chemistry detailed, we learn that it is fertile in assisting the manufacturer to cheapen his goods, and undersell his less experienced neighbour. And are we to believe that for these base uses it will be given to man to penetrate the wonders of the universe, and read the unexplained mystery of its creation? Surely not. No, verily, we must raise our souls far above these debasing cares, before the great and beneficent GOD will permit us to understand His sublime works. We must come to the task with clean hands, with pure, holy, unsullied minds, with humble, but high aspirations, with the submission of little children, but with the elevation of pure wisdom.