then made use of was that of the one-thread wheel, which may still be seen to occupy the chimney-corner of the thrifty housewife; a machine much superior, indeed, to the clumsy teak-wood wheel used in India, but still a very imperfect piece of mechanism. Genius stepped in to remove the difficulty, and gave wings, as Mr Baines emphatically expresses it, to a manufacture which had been creeping on the earth. A mechanical contrivance was invented, by which twenty, fifty, a hundred, or even a thousand threads, could be spun at once by a single pair of hands!

Into the details of this invention, and of the various steps by which it was perfected, till it gave rise to that astonishing Factory System, by which Britain has been rendered the manufacturing emporium of the world, I must not enter. Yet it is too intimately connected with our subject, and exhibits, in too interesting and striking a light, the progressive development of human ingenuity, as connected with the profound arrangements of Creative wisdom, to be passed over altogether in silence.

The want to which I have alluded, as regarded the spinning art, seems, about the time of which I now speak, to have called forth the inventive powers of several ingenious men ;* but those to whom the world is indebted for the inventions, the principle of which has been so successfully reduced to practice, are James Hargreaves, a weaver of Standhill, near Blackburn, who produced the spinning jenny; John Wyatt and Lewis Paul, manufacturers of Birmingham, who gave rise to the art of spinning by rollers; Richard Arkwright (afterwards Sir Richard), a native of Preston, bred to the business of

* We learn from the Transactions of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, &c., that, in 1783, that Society had in its repositories models of the following spinning machines :-" A spinning-wheel, by Mr John Webb, invented 1761; a spinning-wheel, by Mr Thomas Perrin, 1761; a horizontal spinning-wheel, by Mr William Harrison, 1764; a spinning-wheel, by Mr Perrin, 1765; a spinning-wheel, by Mr Garrat, 1766; a spinning-wheel, by Mr Garrat, 1767."-Vol. i. pp. 314, 315.

hair-dressing, whose inventive genius and unrivalled sagacity enabled him to arrange a complete series of machinery of the most admirable construction; and Samuel Crompton, a weaver, near Bolton, who combined the machines of Arkwright and Hargreaves, and thus took a new step towards the perfection of manufacturing mechanism.

Many improvements have been made by the successors of these ingenious men, but to them seems due the praise of those original inventions in mechanism, to which we owe the prosperity of our manufactures. Το these must be added the no less extraordinary inventions connected with the application of steam as a moving power, which are of too great importance not to require a separate consideration. Mr Baines thus forcibly sums up his detailed account of these wonderful improvements :-"Little more than sixty years since, every thread used in the manufacture of cotton, wool, worsted, and flax, throughout the world, was spun singly by the fingers of the spinner, with the aid of that classical instrument, the domestic spinning-wheel. In 1767, an eight-handed spinster sprung from the genius of Hargreaves; and the jenny with still increasing powers, made its way into common use, in spite of all opposition. Two years afterwards, the more wonderful invention of Wyatt, which claims a much earlier origin, but had disappeared, like a river which sinks into a subterraneous channel, and now rose again under the fortunate star of Arkwright, claimed yet higher admiration, as founded on principles of more extensive application. Five years later, the happy thought of combining the principles of these two inventions, to produce a third much more efficient than either, struck the mind of Crompton, who, by a perfectly original contrivance, effected the union. From twenty spindles, this machine was brought, by more finished mechanism, to admit of a hundred spindles, and thus to exercise a Briarean power. Kelly relinquished the toilsome method of turning the machine

by hand, and yoked to it the strength of the rapid Clyde. Watt, with the subtler, and more potent agency of steam, moved an iron arm that never slackens nor tires, which whirls round two thousand spindles in a single machine. Finally, to consummate the wonder, Roberts dismisses the spinner, and leaves the machine to its own infallible guidance. So that in the year 1834, several thousand spindles may be seen in a single room, revolving with inconceivable rapidity, with no hand to urge their progress, or to guide their operations ; drawing out, twisting, and winding up as many thousand threads, with unfailing precision, indefatigable patience, and strength ;scene as magical to the eye which is not familiarized with it, as the effects have been marvellous in augmenting the wealth and population of the country.”

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The spirit of improvement, which carried the spinning machinery to so high a degree of perfection, was next directed to the weaving department, and did not rest till that operation was also performed by machinery. A loom, moved by water power, had been contrived by M. de Gennes, so far back as the seventeenth century, and is described in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 1678. This machine does not, however, appear to have succeeded, and several subsequent attempts were equally unfortunate in their practical results, owing to the necessity of dressing the warp as it unrolled from the beam, which operation required a man to be employed for each loom, so that there was no saving of expense. This difficulty was happily removed by the invention of an extremely ingenious and effectual mode of dressing the warp before it was placed in the loom, which was first applied to use in 1803. The progress of the power-loom, as it is called, though slow at first, has lately very much increased, and in 1833, there were believed to be not fewer than a hundred thousand power-looms in Great Britain, by far the greater part of which were employed in the manufacture of cotton. Our *Baines' on the Cotton Manufacture; p. 211-213.

hand-loom weavers in this manufacture, are estimated at 250,000.

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I cannot more appropriately conclude this sketch than in the words of an eloquent foreigner, who has paid a just tribute to British skill and industry :-" Watt improves the steam-engine, and this single improvement causes the industry of England to make an immense stride. This machine represents, at the present time, the power of three hundred thousand horses, or of two millions of men, strong and well fitted for labour, who should work day and night, without interruption, and without repose, to augment the riches of a country, not two-thirds the extent of France. A hair-dresser invents, or, at least, brings into action, a machine for spinning cotton; this alone gives to British industry an immense superiority. Fifty years only after this great discovery, more than one million of inhabitants are employed in those operations which depend directly or indirectly on the action of this machine. Lastly, England exports cotton, spun and woven, by an admirable system of machinery, to the value of four hundred millions of francs yearly. The Indies, so long superior to Europe; the Indies, which inundated the West with her products, and exhausted the riches of Europe; the Indies are conquered in their The British navigator travels in quest of the cotton of India; brings it from a distance of four thousand leagues; commits it to an operation of the machine of Arkwright, and of those that are attached to it; carries back their products to the East, making them again to travel four thousand leagues ;-and, in spite of the loss of time, in spite of the enormous expense incurred by this voyage of eight thousand leagues, the cotton manufactured by the machinery of England, becomes less costly than the cotton of India, spun and woven by the hand, near the field that produced it, and sold at the nearest market. So great is the power of the progress of machinery."

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* Address of M. Charles Dupin to the Mechanics of Paris.

224

EIGHTH WEEK.-SUNDAY.

THE INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL ENJOYMENTS OF HEAVEN.

THE situation in which man is placed on earth, has, in all ages, been a theme of wonder to philosophers, and to those who are destitute of religion, an inexplicable mystery. He is formed, indeed, wiser than the beasts that perish, and with more understanding than the fowls of heaven. The extent to which his powers and faculties have been developed by the circumstances in which he is placed, is one of those causes of astonishment, which, however the subject may be regarded by others, fills the pious mind with gratitude and adoration, while it impresses more deeply on his mind, a sense of an overruling Providence. We have seen the surprising effects of the training man undergoes by the correspondence of the natural world to his wants, and the stimulus which it affords to his mental and bodily exertions, which convert him into an agriculturist, a manufacturer, and a mechanic; and the further we proceed in the investigation, the more cause shall we find for admiration. But it is impossible to conceal from ourselves, that these very advantages frequently prove curses instead of blessings. We are doomed to sigh for pleasures which we cannot enjoy, to be conscious of powers which we cannot exercise, and to long for perfections which we cannot attain. We feel ourselves confined in a prison, which restrains our liberty, and contracts our knowledge; and where we see through an obscure glass which darkens onr prospect, and excites our curiosity without gratifying it.

But revelation explains the mystery. Christ has brought life and immortality to light. By him we are assured that this world is not our final abode, but a state of preparation for a higher existence. We are in the