Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/504

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CONCLUSION. mysteries, without knowledge of the good to come therefrom. The progress of scientific discovery is indeed the progress of the human race, and the question, Cui bono? is now no longer asked of him who would reveal hidden truths. Wherever men have sought wider fields of gain, or power, or usefulness, there has been science in the midst of them,—guiding, supporting, and instructing them. Wherever men have sought to plant, among barbarous peoples, the emblem of the only true religion, there has she gone before,—opening the gates and smoothing the pathway. She has lifted the curtain of ignorance from the human mind, and Christianity, following her advancing footsteps, has banished from the West the ancient superstitions, and the dark Pantheism of the East and the Fetich worship of the savage tribes are passing away. The light of science and the gospel of our Christian faith have moved hand in hand together through the world, and, overriding the barriers of custom, have, with unselfish zeal, steadily unfolded to the human understanding the material interests which concern this life, and to the human soul the sacred truths of Revelation which concern the life to come.

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