Page:The steam engine fulfilling prophecy.. (IA steamenginefulfi00fenn).pdf/76

72 the earnest expectation of the creature was waiting to see manifest themselves.

We wonder what the proportion is among the common people who are reading daily or weekly newspapers, both secular and religious, and who are reading books on philosophy and science and religion, now, to what it was before the steam-engine came into existence; probably a thousand to one would be too small an estimate. Our children in our common schools, with text-books that they now have, know more than most of the old philosophers and divines knew. The steam-engine has been the means of increasing knowledge in every branch of industry, in agriculture, in manufacture, in commerce and in mining. And as to the little travel or running to and fro that was done, and the dangers and sufferings that attended it before the steam-engine was known, ask the pioneer settlers of this western wilderness; ask the sailors and soldiers and the missionariesthose who did the most of the traveland they can tell the tale. Contrast their situation with ours, and then we shall see the difference; and as