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CONSTRUCTIVE GENIUS.
alone for his own generation. With keen sweep of intellectual vision he pierces the shadowy twilight which yet envelopes the eastern horizon of advancing centuries. He sees emerging from the gray and shifting orient mists the thronging legions. He hears echoing down the corridors of approaching time the unbroken tread of
countless millions—the millions who in a few decades will people the continent—the millions whose destiny it is his happy privilege to so shape that they may walk in full obedience to that law "whose seat is the bosom of God and whose voice is the harmony of the world." F.
CONSTRUCTIVE GENIUS.
For many centuries astronomical investigation was contented with the theory that the earth was the center of the universe; that around it the sun, the moon and all the stars revolved. Upon this hypothesis it based all of its inquiries and it was sufficient to answer all the problems propounded by the then accumulated facts. But, in the progress of time, phenomena which this theory could not explain were observed. Facts stared the astronomical student full in the face; and when he turued to the ancient hypothesis no solution came; all was chaos, all was darkness. In this emergency a great constructive mind came forward and gave to science the Copernican theory; and out of chaos came order, out of darkness came light.
For hundreds of years all Christendom was well contented to bow and cringe in abject mental slavery at the feet of a priesthood;well contented to receive the teachings of Christ from the lips of the priest;to make him the companion of their msot secret thoughts and deeds, to use him as the instrument to absolve them from sin. But in the progress of time facts became known, and at last the good sense of men revolted. When the religious thought of Europe was
in this condition the constructive power of Martin Luther's mind gave us Protestent Christianity.
Until quite recent times scholars never thought to quesuion the belief that Hebrew was the mother of all languages. Upon this hypothesis books enough to make an extensive library were written, but each attempt failed to establish the science of language. Finally investigation heaped up the facts until words and principles of grammar were found, which, when traced backward through their history, fell entirely without the Hebrew. Surrounded by these conditions the constructive thought of Leibnitz' mind culminated in the theory upon which is based the whole science known as comparative philology.
From the time when Moses stood upon old Sinai until the present century, the world has been pleased with the dream that "the heavens and the earth and all that in them is," is the product of a six days' work of creation. Always the botanist, the zoologist, and the biologist has investigated upon the supposition that man and all species of life is the result of instantaneous creation—an instant's work of the great Creator's will. But, in recent times, the crow-