USA > Indiana > Johnson County > Franklin > History of the half century celebration of the organization of the First Presbyterian church of Franklin, Indiana > Part 4
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Not fifty years ago the favorite skating park of New York was where Canal Street now is, and oppo- site the city, on what was either marsh land or land under water, are the depots, yards, freight houses, wharves and piers of four mammoth railroads, and these properties are worth millions.
In this connection let me ask you to reflect on the vast revolution that in that time has taken place in farming implements. The plow, harrow, hay-fork, rake, scythe, cradle, flail, hoe, and a few more in- struments in use half a century ago were very rude. In the coming Centennial Exposition a most attrac- tive section could be made by gathering the rude utensils of the farm half a century ago, and placing them in contrast with the plows, mowers, reapers, drills, corn planters, threshers, and all the ingenious and varied instruments which belong to the farm now. Indeed in these respects, as also in the matter of en- riching and draining lands, the improvements of seed
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and stock of all sorts, the changes have been very wonderful.
The same might be shown of commerce and trade, and also manufactures, but I have not time to dwell on them to show the marvelous growth of such cen- ters of commerce as New York and Liverpool, and such centers of manufactures as Lowell and Glasgow. I may add in this connection that the growth of capi- tal in the world during that period has been enor- mous. Not to name the old money centers of Europe, what a vast growth of capital has there been in this country! During that period what vast for- tunes have been realized !
Let me add a few facts from our census in regard to our own country, to show what has been done in this period. We have organized thirteen new States and nine Territories out of what was a wilderness fifty years ago, with only 89,000 people in it. There are now on that same area 10,000,000, who produce on the 50,000,000 of new acres they have plowed almost a billion of dollars annually. At that time Ohio, In- diana and Illinois had 783,000 people; to-day they have not less than 7,000,000.
The growth of this sort has not been confined to the Western States .. For example, New York and Pennsylvania have grown in population from 2,372,- 000 to not less than 8,000,000. But these facts are sufficient as indicating the vastness of this class of physical changes during this period in the world, but especially in our own country.
Among the most powerful agencies effecting these and other great physical changes are the canal, the
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railroad and the magnetic telegraph. It is a most curious and instructive chapter in the growth of na- tions, and in the changes which produce growth in values, to trace the almost miraculous effect of the canals in the old world and in the new.
Let me refer chiefly to our western country. Fifty years ago, in Central Ohio, thirty bushels of wheat barely sufficed to procure five dollars to pay a certain farmer's taxes! And at the same time farmers in the Wabash Valley actually hauled their wheat to Chi- cago, a load of it being worth enough when there to buy a barrel of salt! The Western States raised large amounts of grain which had very little value. The same was true of the coal and the minerals of the East and the West.
The canal was like Aladdin's lamp, turning these bulks of produce into gold, by providing for them a way to market. The Ohio, the Wabash and Erie, and the Illinois and Michigan Canals accomplished miracles for the western country.
The railroad was a mightier and more permanent agent, and the half century under review was in its fifth year, 1829, when George Stephenson placed "The Rocket," the prototype of all locomotive en- gines, on the rails, the beginning of a new and most astounding development that has changed the very world. Europe feels this power in every nerve. The force and value of it in Great Britain are incalculable. It is regenerating Egypt and India. It thunders along the valleys of the Nile, the Ganges and the Mississippi. It has tunneled the Hoosac, the Apen- nines and Bergen Hill. It has climbed over the Alle-
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ghenies and the Rocky Mountains. It has bridged the Niagara, the St. Lawrence, the Mississippi, and, overcoming all obstacles, has spanned continents.
In 1824 there was not a mile of railroad on the globe, now it is said there are 200,000 miles, built at a cost of four billions of dollars. Over 74,000 miles, or one-third of the whole, are in our country. And this change has all taken place within the period un- der review. The first rail was laid on this continent in 1830. If we analyze the 74,000 miles of railroad in the United States we stand confounded at the re- sults, since this mighty agency has reached every State, and almost every Territory, of the Union. The stage coach and canal packet are succeeded by the swift palace train, as the Conestoga wagon is by the freight train. It is astonishing what we can do in the way of travel through this agency. From Bos- ton to Washington was a journey of several days ; now it is a day's journey. Formerly, by coach and steamer, the traveler, in a period of from two to four weeks, could go from New York to New Orleans, and by a journey of several months to San Francisco. Now he can make the one journey in sixty hours and the other in a week.
This agency affects all things which seek a market, so that the railroad has made the eggs of Ohio, In- diana and Illinois now bring more cash than their hogs did before the canal and railroad reached them. There is not a pound of cotton, or a bushel of grain, or a fleece of wool, or a fat hog, or a fat ox, or a horse, or a foot of lumber, or a yard of cloth, or any article of any sort, produced in any part of the coun-
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try, whose value is not increased by the railroad. The largest increase is in real estate. It is impossible to exaggerate when we attempt to tell what the railroad has done for lands and other real estates, whether in city, in forest, or in mine, or in manufactory. If we could get a fair estimate of the value of real estate in this country in 1830 we should find that the railroad has probably added to that value all it cost to build it.
It is wonderful to think of what this force, which belongs to the last half century, has accomplished for the world in very many respects, and without be- coming a partisan in the conflict now going on be- tween capital and labor over the railroads, let me in- voke your kindness not merely for the railroad, but for the men whose brain, enterprise and capital built it. For the business world to-day the railroad is the king power that moves it and makes its business pos- sible.
But there is a third agent, scarcely less potent, and in most respects far more wonderful-the telegraph. This, too, is the child of the last half century. Men recently dead remember the flaming advertisements in the Philadelphia and New Jersey newspapers of the "flying stage-wagon," which would take only two days to make the journey from New York to Phila- delphia, and the admiration excited by the passage of a letter from New York to Charleston in twenty days ! In 1845 one Thursday the great fire occured at Pitts- burg, and the next Sunday the news reached Phila- delphia! New York was separated by weeks from the capitals of the old world, also the new. . But now, through the genius of Faraday, Henry, Morse and
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Field, distance is annihilated as related to the trans- mission of news. The wires stretch over continents and under oceans, so that one in a telegraph office seems to be in the whispering gallery of the world. San Francisco, New York, London, Calcutta and Canton are neighbors. And I may not dismiss this part of my subject without stating that on the Amer- ican continent there are 110,000 miles of telegraph lines, using 250,000 miles of wire; in other lands there are 250,000 miles of telegraphic lines, using 600,000 miles of wire, a total in the world of 360,000 miles of telegraphic lines, using 850,000 miles of wire. In this very year, 1874, there were sent over these lines 75,000,000 messages, at a cost of $40,000,000! There are one hundred and forty-six principal sub- marine lines, which have laid 70,000 miles of cable, of which 50,000 miles are now in operation. The capital of sixteen of these lines amounts to over $101,000,000! Truly, then, it was a divine thought, in harmony with facts, which led Miss Ellsworth to dictate my text as the first message over the wires: "What hath God wrought!"
What was said of the railway may be said of the telegraph; it has changed the very world itself. Bus- iness, social life, diplomacy, all things are changed by these agents of the period under consideration.
I am interested in tracing the changes effected in the various trades and manufactures within fifty years. As an illustration, one of the most important busi- nesses in this country is the shoe business. Half a century ago machinery was scarcely thought of as likely to be applied here. In many country places
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the cobbler actually went from house to house to make the shoes of the neighborhood. In the Middle and New England States were communities of shoe- makers. There were thousands of little shops in which every pattern was cut by hand, every stitch made by hand and every peg driven by hand. Now machinery has assumed this work. It cuts the leather, fits and crimps it, sews and pegs it. In fact, the changes in this occupation alone are very wonderful, and they are a fair sample of changes in other forms of manufacture.
And at this point let me simply call attention to the changes effected in all kinds of business by the divis- ion of labor. The professions have been revolution- ized by it since this period began. The lawyer of all work is succeeded by the lawyer who has a specialty, the general physician of the olden time by the sur- geon, the oculist and the dentist. The old-fashioned merchant who dealt in everything is succeeded by the merchant who deals in one thing. Thus it is with all the occupations of life. They have undergone re- markable modifications in these respects within the last half century.
Fifty years ago all the trades that work wood did, as the shoemakers did, everything by human muscle. Compare an old saw mill with a Minneapolis gang saw mill, or a man sawing the lumber for house fur- nishing, or wagon making, or furniture, with the saws and planes of a modern mill, and you see at once how great the change in all these respects. We make mortises and tenons, we bore and we saw, we turn and we square everything made of wood, not by hu-
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man muscle, but by machinery. It is indeed one of the most curious investigations we can institute to learn how many applications are now made of ma- chinery to the manufacture of all sorts of wooden and metal merchandise from a shoe peg to a house, from an ax handle to a gang plow, from a pin to a locomotive. One can not touch a door, a window sash, a shoe, a plow, or any other useful article, with- out knowing that his house, his hat, his coat, his everything has been made by machinery which was not thought of fifty years ago.
New businesses have sprung up and grown to enormous magnitude within that period. For in- stance, shops for making and repairing cars in 1870 produced for market $31,000,000, and for railroad re- pairing $27,500,000! And to this we must add the capital and labor, jointly producing the almost incon- ceivable amounts of railroad iron, which in this and other counties are on the 200,000 miles of railway, and we see at once what has been done in this direc- tion that was scarcely begun fifty years ago. It may be said, without exaggeration, that the great manu- facturing towns and cities of this country have been founded, or at least attained their greatness, during this period. Lowell, Lawrence, Fall River, Newark, Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Chicago, and many such busy manufacturing places belong to this half century. The changes have been so vast and the results so great in the new manufactures alone, such as railway iron, locomotives, railway cars, sewing machines, agricultural machinery, and many other kinds of new businesses, that they seem like some wonder of a 7
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fairy-tale rather than a sober reality, whose magnitude is too great for us to comprehend.
With a like result shall we be met if we remember that even inland steamers belong principally to this period, whilst all the wonders of the ocean steamers belong exclusively to it. One is both amused and amazed to note the much lauded but very cold fire- places of fifty years ago and compare them with the beautiful and comfortable stoves of our own day. The words "cooking stove " belong to the last half cen- tury, and they tell of amazing progress. Fifty years ago only the rich could purchase the coveted portrait and work of art, but now photography ministers both to the taste and affection of the rich and the poor. Within the last fifty years the vulcanization of india- rubber has added very greatly to the health and comfort of the human family, and that in a great many ways. It is a very wonderful agent in the world of to-day. To how many uses do we apply it?
To the same period belongs another famous dis- covery, which has brought relief to the multitudes of unfortunate people in the home, the hospital, and on battle-field, who have found the surgeon's knife the only means of escaping death.
Who can measure the value of the discovery of chloroform, the beautiful angel of the hospital and surgeon's table ?
How much of human welfare and happiness depend on the means of producing light? Fifty years ago the tallow candle and the oil lamp shed light on the house-wife in her kitchen, the lady in her parlor, the mechanic in his shop, and student at his books.
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With very little exception, the streets of the largest cities were then lighted with oil lamps, or were not lighted at all. But since the period began which is now under review, we may say in the words of Job : "The rock pours us out rivers of oil," and the mines of darkness furnish us coal which produces the most · beautiful illuminating gas, now shedding light on countless homes, places of business and cities where men dwell.
Fifty years ago men, and even women, reaped with the sickle the harvest fields of the earth and mowed its meadows. How great a labor this was some of us remember. But thousands of mowing and reaping machines now transfer this immense labor from human to brute muscles. The song of the shirt: "Stitch! stitch! stitch!" was a very tragical fact in the lives of millions of men and women fifty years ago, but to-day millions of sewing machines have relieved the aching human fingers by compelling fingers of steel to do their work.
Fifty years ago most of the printing was done by the cruel hand press; to-day steam does the press- work.
Fifty years ago there were a few newspapers in this country, and there was only one religious weekly, but to-day our religious weeklies are numbered by the hundred, and our political and other newspapers by the thousand, and their issues by the million. In a word, if we compare our own country and the civil- ized nations of the old world as they are to-day with what they were half a century ago, these changes of a physical nature being almost miraculous, we may
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well recognize the presence of a Higher Power, and exclaim : " What hath God wrought!"
II. Let us consider the last half century's progress in educational and eleemosynary institutions. There has been a great advance in the means of technical education in the old world, as in other departments. Popular education is gaining ground on the other side of the seas. Prussia has been a stern teacher of Europe, and such nations as France are learning the lesson. Education in the Sandwich Islands and other. Pacific groups has made great progress.
The old world is waking up to know how import- ant and obligatory the work of education is, and light is dawning on the masses. Whilst the Free Public School of this country dates back about two centu- ries, yet especially, outside of New England, this great American idea has received its chief develop- ment since 1824. In 1870 the Public Schools num- bered 125,000, with 183,000 teachers and 6,228,000 pupils. Their cost was $64,000,000. The higher in- stitutions in 1870 numbered 16,545, with 37,700 teachers and 981,000 pupils. They cost that year $30,675,000. In both the Public and the Higher Schools the growth in fifty years was from almost nothing. ١
The appalling illiteracy does not diminish the grand facts just named. Were we to name our col- leges and universities, and were we able to name the sums bestowed by public and private munificence in the last fifty years, they would constitute an item of great splendor. Not stopping to name what has been done for the eastern colleges by benevolent men, I
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may add that, with small exception, all the higher institutions of learning west of the Alleghenies have . been planted and have become what they are during this period. Indeed, the work for education in that time has been one of almost inconceivable grandeur.
yIt is said that the asylum is the child of Christianity. The Romans had camps, the Greeks had groves, the civilizations of the old world had temples and fanes, but they had no asylum, no hospital, no retreat for the unfortunate.
A Christian clergyman first undertook to loose the tongue of the deaf; another devised the sign language for them, and another started the magnificent charities which are now the glory of our country. The Church of Christ is the mother of asylums, and I need not name the great Christian men-clerical and lay-who have conducted these enterprises to their present glory.
The work of building asylums for the deaf, the blind, the sick and other sufferers, has received its chief im- pulse within fifty years in the old world. All the twenty-eight blind asylums in the country, and thirty- two of the thirty-six deaf and dumb asylums have been built in that period.
If to these we add the beautiful charities which bring relief to the feeble-minded, orphans, widows, outcasts, vagrant children, paupers, charities unm- bered by the hundreds, and which have, for the most part, been the outgrowth of benevolence since 1824, we shall begin to see the great work of God in our world, bringing strength to the feeble and relief to the suffering. If thus we compare 1824 with 1874 in the several respects named as pertaining to educa-
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tion and eleemosynary institutions ; if we compare the public schools, the higher institutions, the professional schools, the asylums, hospitals and other institutions for the unfortunate as they now present themselves to us with the condition of things in these respects, fifty years ago, we may well exclaim with the historian of the Reformation, "God is in this history,"-and with Balaam-as he beheld the encampments of Israel spread out in such goodly array on the plains over which he was looking, "What hath God wrought !"
In the third place let me refer to the vast progress made in religious and moral enterprises during the last half century.
During that period the Sacred Scriptures have been translated into one hundred and fifty languages and dialects which, added to the fifty into which they were previously translated, bring the vernacular Bible into the tongues spoken by most of the human family.
The various Christian Churches have had an im- mense growth within fifty years. The Presbyterians in 1824 had in the whole country fewer ministers, churches and communicants than we now have in the States and Territories, which fifty years ago were a wilderness; and they have a score of single churches, each of which contains more members than all the Presbyterian Churches of Indiana and Illinois had fifty years ago. At that time we had 1,080 ministers, 1,772 churches, and 169,000 communicants. Now we have 4,597 ministers, 4,946 churches, and 495,634 communicants. That year our whole Church raised $37,590 for benevolent purposes. Last year we raised two and a half millions.
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Numerically more wonderful is the growth of the Baptists who have quadrupled their strength and numbers. They report 2,000,000 communicants, and represent a population of some 8,000,000. This in- cludes all the denominations which practice immersion.
The Methodist Church, or, rather the Methodist Churches, which spring from the Church founded by the Wesleys, have in that time made a vast growth. The M. E. Church North, alone, has of all grades 23,55 I preachers, with 1,563,000 members. Including the M. E. Church South, the African M. E. Church and the Protestant Methodist, there are not less than 3,000,000 Methodist communicants now in this coun- try at least, a fourfold increase within fifty years.
There has been a similar growth of the congrega- tional, Episcopal and other Churches during the same period. I need hardly add that in this country the growth of the Roman Catholic Church has also been very rapid within fifty years.
The Sunday-school work was organized by the formation of the American Sunday-school Union, in 1824, and such has been its expansion since that time, that there are not less than 7,000,000 scholars in the Protestant Sunday-schools of this country.
The temperance reformation belongs to this half century. Forty-eight years ago Dr. Beecher flamed his immortal six sermons on intemperance in the world. It is said that temperance has done no good ; but those who assert this have not studied the history of society fifty years ago. All classes then drank- men and women, judges, lawyers, merchants, mechan- ics, farmers, teachers, preachers. People drank in hot
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weather and in cold, at social gatherings and at frolics, in the shop and in the field, on Sundays and on other days, when they were sick and when they were well, at the polls and at funerals. Dram drinking was the universal custom, and the effects were most awful in kind and in amount. The Christian Church was in- volved in the custom to an awful degree, as is shown by the records of our own and other Churches. As no arithmetic can compute the evils of intemper- ence in 1824, so it can not compute the numbers of drunkards rescued by this instrumentality, the bless- ing conferred on families, on communities and on churches. We need not be blind to the tremendous evil as it now exists, nor should we be ungrateful that to-day millions are temperate in consequence of this reformation which began in 1826.
The changes in the relations of the different Churches have been great. The early half of this period was marked by unfraternal strife, the latter half by Christian fellowship, vying with holy strife to see which shall do most for man and for God.
It has been the grandest era of Christian missions in all parts of the earth, as also of the most astonish- ing revivals in this country, Great Britain, Ireland, the islands of the Pacific, Persia, Turkey, Southern Asia, and other parts of the world.
I do not doubt that the converts in the revivals of the last fifty years number millions.
Remember, also, that during the same period the Second Reformation has taken place in Germany, Switzerland and France; that the Free Church of Scotland made its sublime exodus from the old Scotch
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Kirk; that the Irish Church has been disestablished, and that John Bright now predicts the disestablishment of the English Church; that all legal barriers to the circulation of the vernacular Scriptures in Roman Catholic and Mohammedan countries have been thrown down, and that now the whole world is open to Christian labor. These and other facts show what a wonderful half century has this been for the world during which this church has existed. And when we take such a glance over the moral and religious movements of this period, well may we raise our hands in grateful astonishment as we exclaim, “ What hath God wrought!"
In the fourth place I ask you to note the political and personal changes which have occurred during the last fifty years.
. In a great many respects-the abolition of the corn laws, protective tariff, the disabilities of Cath- olics and Jews, the rotten boroughs ; also the dises- tablishment of the Irish Church, the serious assaults on the English Church, the laws of inheritance and freeholds, and, in many other respects, the England of fifty years ago was very different from the En- gland of to-day. The changes are in the right direc- tion.
France within this period has dethroned Charles X., Louis Philippe, and Napoleon III., and has been re- peatedly shaken with revolution. The France of 1824 was yet " the great France" that overran Europe under Napoleon. The France of to-day yet feels the hu- miliation which Prussia has inflicted. The boundaries of the French Empire have been narrowed, and its 8
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