DIGITISED MANUSCRIPTS

ol RE ( 26 ) ties crop up in every man’s lifetime. The foolish man lets them slip; the intelligent man avails him- self of them. At no period of history have so many oppor- tunities been afforded to men of all classes for the improvement of their position as at the present time. The gigantic strides that science has made in this century have opened out limitless fields to the intelligence and energy of man. He need only glance around and he will find a congenial means of gratifying his taste, or proving his genius, whatever direction it may take. The power of steam has been applied to the production of almost every necessity of life—the engineering skill which bores through Alpine ranges and bridges over estuaries ; the telegraph ; the advance of astronomy, which now enables us to foretell to a second the advent of a ) comet, even at an interval of centuries, and to | discover the composition of the moon and the . planets; geological investigations which lay bare the mysteries of the formation of the earth and of the deepest depths of the ocean—have been the means of bringing fame, together with remu- nerative employment, to men who in other times would have been doomed to obscurity and poverty. These improvements have been attended by a diminution in the cost of living in every direction. At a comparatively trifling expense we can repair,