The world itself is a seed.

Not until ages have passed shall it burst into bloom and blossom.
Troubled by the strifes of society, depressed by the waste of its forces and the delays of its columns, he who seeks character for himself and progress for his kind, oft needs to shelter himself beneath that divine principle called the time-element for the individual and the race.

Optimists are we; our world is God's; wastes shall yet become savings and defeats victories; nevertheless, life's woes, wrongs and delays are such as to stir misgiving.

The multitudes hunger for power and influence, hunger for wealth and wisdom, for happiness and comfort; satisfaction seems denied them.

Watt and Goodyear invent, other men enter into the fruit of their inventions; Erasmus and Melanchthon sow the good seeds of learning; two centuries pass by before God's angels count the bundles.