humble dwellings of that earlier date with the costly and magnificent edifices which now beautify the metropolis; who studies the sluggish state of the mechanic arts at the dawn of the Republic, and the mighty demonstrations of skill which our Fulton, and our Stevens, our Douglass, our Hoe, our Morse, have produced; who remembers the few and humble water-craft conveyances of days past, and now beholds the majestic leviathans of the ocean which crowd our harbors; who contemplates the partial and trifling commercial transactions of the Confederacy with the countless millions of commercial business which engross the people of the present day in our Union; who estimates the offspring of the press, and the achievements of the telegraph; he who has been the spectator of all this may be justly said to have lived the period of many generations, and to have stored within his reminiscences the progress of an era the most remarkable in the history of his species.
If he awakens his attention to a consideration of the progress of intellectual and ethical pursuits, if he advert to the prolific demonstrations which surround him for the advancement of knowledge, literary and scientific, moral and religious, the indomitable spirit of the times strikes him with more than logical conviction. The beneficence and humanity of his countrymen may be pointed out by contemplating her noble free schools, her vast hospitals and asylums for the alleviation of physical distress and mental infirmities; with the reflection that all these are the triumphs of a self-governed people, accomplished within the limited memory of an ordinary life. Should reading enlarge the scope of his knowledge, let him study the times of the old Dutch governors, when the Ogdens erected the first church in the fort of New-Amsterdam, in 1642, and then survey the vast panoramic view around him of the two hundred and fifty and more edifices now consecrated to the solemnities of religious devotion. It imparts gratification to know that the old Bible which was used in that primary church of Van Twiller is still preserved by a descend- ant of the builder, a precious relic of the property of the older period, and of the devotional impulse of those early progenitors.[1]
- ↑ The Bible, that is, the Holy Scriptures contained in the Old and New Testaments. Quarto. Imprinted at London, by Robert Barker, Printer to the King, 1615, followed by Sternhold & Hopkins' Psalms. This volume is now in the possession of Dr. Ogden, of New-York.
