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with infinite capacities, inspired by infinite desires, and commanded to strive perpetually after excellence, amidst the encouragements of hope, the promises of final success, and the inexpressible delights which spring from its pursuit.
Thus does the law of human progress Assert eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men,
by showing evil no longer as a gloomy mystery, binding the world into everlasting thrall, but as an accident, destined, under the laws of God, to be slowly subdued by the works of men as they press on to the promised goal of happiness.
In
Mr. Sumner's closing words on future progress, its certainty, and the means of making it, may be seen his lofty ideal of humanity, the leading motive of his life, which was the liberation of the captive, the upraising of the masses; and also his idea of a true reformer:
Be it, then, our duty and our encouragement to live and to labor ever mindful of the future; but let us not forget the past.
All ages have lived and labored for us. From one has come art, from another jurisprudence, from another the compass, from another the printing-press: from all have proceeded priceless lessons of truth and virtue.
The earliest and most distant times are not without a
