However, it led to his
entering upon public life. Lecturing was then coming into vogue, and he
was frequently invited to the platform. Accordingly, he wrote a lecture,
entitled "Application and Genius," in which he endeavored to show that
there is no such thing as genius, but that all extraordinary attainments
are the results of application. After delivering this lecture sixty
times in one season, he went back to his forge at Worcester, mingling
study with labor in the old way.
On sitting down to write a new lecture for the following season, on the
"Anatomy of the Earth," a certain impression was made upon his mind which
changed the current of his life. Studying the globe, he was impressed
with the need that one nation has of other nations, and one zone of
another zone; the tropics producing what assuages life in the northern
latitudes and northern lands furnishing the means of mitigating tropical
discomforts. He felt that the earth was made for friendliness and
cooeperation, not for fierce competition and bloody wars.
Under the influence of these feelings, his lecture became an eloquent
plea for peace, and to this object his after life was chiefly devoted.
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