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long terms as anxious seekers for daily bread among the jostling crowds of great cities, and other thousands who are exhausting brain and nerve over Blackstone, Kent, Chitty, lex scripta and lex non scripta, dreaming of future fame and honor, or the ease of a genteel professional life, would do well to heed. This generation is prolific in the invention of intellectual as well as material velocipedes, but few can ride them successfully.

Politically, Mr. SAWYER was formerly a democrat of free soil proclivities, and since 1856 has been identified with the republican party. Like Andrew Johnson (whom he resembles in no other respect), he commenced his public career as an alderman, in which capacity he served several years.

He was

elected member of the legislatures of 1857 and 1861, and Mayor of the city of Oshkosh in 1863 and 1864. In these positions he brought to the public service the same clear-headed sagacity which had marked the conduct of his private business. While in the legislature, he became known throughout the State as a man fitted, by his naturally quick perceptions, indomitable energy, untiring industry and personal bearing, to wield a large influence in a public representative sphere.

So strong was the confidence in his ability and integrity among those who knew him best, that in 1864 he was, by the general consent of the people and the unanimous vote of the Common Council of the city of Oshkosh, designated and clothed with full power and unlimited discretion to compromise and settle a city indebtedness of $150,000, upon bonds issued some years before for railroad purposes, of which he succeeded in compromising nearly the whole amount at an average of less than fifty per cent. of the principal, upon terms favorable to the city.

In 1862 he was strongly urged to become a candidate for Congress; but be

lieving that his private business required his presence at home, he refused to allow his name to be presented in the convention of his party. In 1864 he was nominated. The district, at the first election under the last apportionment two years before, had elected the democratic candidate by over a thousand majority; but Mr. SAWYER was elected by about three thousand majority over an opponent of conceded ability, integrity and personal popularity. In 1866, and again in 1868, he was renominated without opposition, and elected by largely increased majorities.

The fifth district of Wisconsin, which Mr. SAWYER represents, is an extensive and populous district, having a large water front on Lake Michigan and Green Bay, and important commercial interests. During most of his Congressional career he has been a member of the Committee on Commerce in the House of Representatives, and has been very successful in procuring government aid for improving the harbors in the district. If the humblest of his constituents has a meritorious claim against the government, which has become tangled up in the red-tape of some branch of the circumlocution office at Washington, or hung up for want of some impossible certificate or affidavitnot a very unfrequent case since the close of the war-he has but to satisfy Mr. SAWYER that the claim is just, to secure his energetic and generally successful assistance; but not till he is satisfied of its justice. No member of Congress has a more extensive acquaintance in, or more ready access to, the various bureaus in the departments of government; and it has been remarked of him, that when other members promise to attend to the wants of their constituents, he goes and does it. No member has more friends in the House, or a more extensive and familiar acquaintance among Senators. Such a representative, though his name ap

pears but seldom in the debates or in the despatches to the press, is necessarily an influential man in the body of which he is a member, and popular at home.

But, though ever watchful of the interests of his immediate constituents, he never forgets that he has official duties of a higher nature. He applies to the public business the same strong practical good sense and energy which have led to success in his private affairs, and which characterized his official conduct in humbler public stations, and thus influences the general legislation of the nation much more than many whose names appear oftener in the proceedings.

As a citizen, Mr. SAWYER is noted for his large-hearted liberality. While he was Mayor of Oshkosh, in the midst of the war, his expenditures of time and money were large in efforts to fill the quotas of the city upon the various calls for men to replenish the army, for which he neither asked nor received compensation; and his contributions to volunteer bounty funds were on a liberal scale. When a church is to be built, or any benevolent object to be promoted, he is always liberal in his contributions. The instances are frequent in which men with no capital but integrity and a willingness to work have been aided by Mr. Sawyer — especially in lumbering enterprises; and his generous manner of dealing with all who deal honestly with him is so well known that his confidence is rarely betrayed.

In person, he is of medium stature, broad-shouldered and inclined to corpulency-a stout-built man, to use a homely phrase with a clear complexion, and keen, searching, intelligent blue eyes. His appearance indicates

the resolute energy and practical good sense which are his leading characteristics.

His life has been too active to allow

much time to be devoted to books, and the scantiness of his early school education is still apparent; but in getting that education which is acquired by contact with men and affairs, which is indispensable to a successful career, be has been an apt scholar. The lack of book-learning is his misfortune; that he has so well and successfully used the faculties with which nature endowed him, is his title to honor and respect.

Mr. SAWYER has publicly expressed his determination to retire from public life at the close of his present term in Congress; and when he does so, though, like all other men in public life, he has not entirely escaped the censures of opposing political partizanship, he will retire with the respect of men of all parties in a greater degree than falls to the lot of most of them.

His domestic life is not within the scope of this article; but the sketch of his life is incomplete without the remark that his hospitable house-presided over by a lady admirably qualified to fill the place of help-meet to such a man, combining the comforts and luxuries of life without undue ostentation, and enlivened by the presence of affectionate and well-trained children—is a pleasant specimen of a happy home.

Such is a brief sketch of a career which has a lesson in it. History is said to be philosophy teaching by example. Biography is the same, or it is useless; and in the lives of such men as the subject of this sketch, the youth of this generation may find examples worthy of their attention.

The aspirations of Young America are running in two channels. The ambition to become suddenly wealthy leads many into devious and doubtful paths; the dream of emulating the deeds and fame of the sages, orators and statesmen of the past, who are the stock models and examples of school books and schoolmasters, fills the minds of not a few. The discovery of great de

posits of the precious metals and petroleum, and the rapid fortunes acquired by many during the war, have greatly stimulated the former; the latter never lacked stimulating, since every boy who was born in the land might become President of the United States. But less and less are the opportunities offering for the honest acquisition of wealth, excepting by the old-fashioned methods of industry, energy and economy. More and more are the vast increase of knowledge, the growing diversity of material interests, and the diffusion of intelligence among all sorts and conditions of men, compelling a division and subdivision of labor, industrial, scientific, social and political, and decreasing the opportunities -for achieving the genuine honorable fame which fills the mouths of contemporaries and the pages of the future historian. The substitute of cheap notoriety, like that of "the ambitious youth who fired the Ephesian dome," to be achieved by some startling crime or eccentricity, will be sought only by a mind upon which all lessons are thrown away, and which, like dollar jewelry, displays a combination of vanity with poverty of resources.

- never numerous

It is not the result, however honorable, of any man's life, which can unfold the lesson which the youth of every generation need to learn. Admiration

of scientific or political results will not teach a knowledge of science or statesmanship, any more than a love of gold will create wealth. It is a knowledge and emulation of the manner in which the ability was acquired and used to produce the results, that is needed. Studied with a view to acquiring that knowledge, the life of nearly every man who has acquired an honorable distinction among his fellow men, like that of Mr. SAWYER, will teach the same lesson: that the surest road to such position lies in performing the duty that is nearest, in overcoming the ob stacle that is next in the way, and, instead of looking intently to some far-off desirable goal, seeing that each step is planted firmly a step in advance, so that there shall be no stumbling by the way. The often inculcated motto, "aim high," should be qualified with another, 66 never aim at long range." He who strives to perfect himself in his vocation, by sure and honest means to add to his estate, to fill with usefulness the sphere in which he now moves, may reasonably hope or honorable success; for he will illustrate, as Mr. SAWYER and many others have, the truth of the often repeated and too little heeded couplet

"Honor and shame from no condition rise; Act well your part; there all the honor lies."

IS MAN TO BE THE LAST OF INTELLIGENT INHABITANTS UPON OUR PLANET?

IT

BY WILLIAM BRACKETT.

T is a striking fact, well worthy of notice, that Aristotle, among the ancients, seems to have been the first to clearly comprehend those important truths touching the progress and connection of organic life upon the globe, which have been verified by the labors and discoveries of modern geologists. Accordingly, in his treatise upon the Parts or Organs of Animals, he tells us that throughout all animate beings there is a scale of gradation in which they ascend from lower to higher forms. "Nature," says this great philosopher, "advances in an uninterrupted progression from the inanimate or elementary to plants and animals; and, lastly, to that which, though not wholly an animal, is yet so nearly allied to one that, on the whole, there is little difference between them."

II.

Here we have a statement, in philosophical language, of that great principle which, through the accurate investigations of science in modern days, has been found to harmonize so closely with the well-known operations of nature as to lay claim to the title of a law of the utmost value and importance, namely : The law of the Unity of Nature. This is a law founded upon an observed order of facts, "which, to be entitled to the rank of a law," (I use the language of one of the most profound thinkers of modern times) "must be an order so constant and uniform as to indicate necessity; and necessity can only arise out of the action of some compelling force. Law, therefore, comes to indicate not merely an observed order of facts, but that law as involving the action of some force or forces of which

nothing more may be known than those visible effects. Every observed order of physical phenomena suggests inevitably to the mind the operations of some physical cause. We say of an observed order of facts that it must be due to some law." * Now the question arises, are we in possession, at the present time, of such a collection of facts, such an induction of particulars, in relation to the origin and progress of terrestrial life, as will authorize us to claim for them the sanction and control of such a law as this? Owing to the operation of some hidden and mysterious force or forces of nature, does life on the earth actually advance in a regular succession, wherein the lower order of beings are followed by higher and still higher orders? Of this there can not be the least doubt. No fact in the whole range of science is better established; and, to show the harmony of views which obtains upon this point among scientific writers, I will quote from a few of those within my reach:

"Setting apart the infusoria, a few fuci, mollusca and polyparia are the first evidence of organic existence. These are followed by a large increase of the same orders, and the addition of crinoidea, crustacea and fishes. In the succeeding period, reptiles and insects appear, with sauroid fishes and an immense development of vegetable forms. Large reptiles next prevail to an extraordinary degree, and doubtful indications of birds and a few very small mammalia attest the existence of the higher orders of animals.

*Reign of Law. By the Duke of Argyll.

The vegetable kingdom is greatly modified, and plants and trees of the coniferous tribes preponderate. The next remarkable change is in the sudden increase of mammiferous animals, and the reduction of the reptile tribes; the large extinct pachydermata, as the mammoth mastodon, etc., associated with existing genera and species, first appear. From this period to the creation of man there are no striking general modifications in the various orders of animal and vegetable existence." *

"Geology, taken as a whole, proves that the lower plants and animals preceded the higher; that the coniferæ, for instance, preceded our true forest trees, such as the oak and elm; that, in like manner, the fish preceded the reptile; that the reptile preceded the bird; that the bird preceded the mammiferous quadrupeds and the quadrumana; and that these last preceded man."+

"In the animal kingdom, the grapholites and trilobites of the silurian seas are succeeded by the curious bone-clad fishes of the old red sandstone; these by the sauroid fishes of the coal-measures; the sauroid fishes by the gigantic saurians and reptiles of the oolite; the reptiles of the oolite by the huge mammalia of the tertiary epoch; and these in time give place to the present species, with man as the crowning form of created existence."‡

"Phenomena in uniform connection and uniform relation have prevailed through all the past history of creation. Geology testifies to the successive introduction of higher and higher forms of life."?

These facts must be sufficient, I think, to convince any candid inquirer of the existence of a regular gradation in nature from the lower to the higher forms

* Mantell's Wonders of Geology. Page 884. Footprints of the Creator. By Hugh Miller. Page 228.

136.

Text Book of Geology. By David Page. Page

Reign of Law. By the Duke of Argyll.

of life, and that this is so constant and uniform as to entitle it pre-eminently to be considered the great Law of Life. In fully grasping this important truth, the mind is beset with certain difficulties which it will be well to clear away before proceeding further. If we could behold the origin or extinction of species in the same way that we behold the origin and destruction of individuals, we would not hesitate to acquiesce in the conclusions of science upon the subject. The frequency of the occurrence under our own eyes would leave us no room to doubt. But when we come to look at the origin of species, we have no authority for saying that during the whole period of man's existence on the earth, or at least during what is called the historic period, a single new species of animals has made its appearance-though it is probable that one or two, during this period, have become extinct. It is on account of this element of time, stretching out through cycles almost endless, across which we have to look in order to discover any new "biological" creations, that our faith is made to waver in the existence of a regular sequence of being, and consequently in the law by which that sequence is directed and controlled. Now, it may be said of the science of geology, that among its other remarkable revelations, it is peculiarly its prov ince to enlighten us concerning the true character and duration of time, or rather the proper view we are to take of it. If astronomy may appropriately be called the science of infinite distance or dimension, so geology may be called, with equal justice, the science of infinite time or duration. It carries the mind back so far in the records of the past, that it is staggered and confounded at the magnitude of the numbers with which it tries to compute the ages and epochs that have flown by since the earth began to be peopled with inhabitants. While it tells us of the repeated

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