This he often expressed,
though with his characteristic modesty, to his friends,
especially his religious friends. His inventive work was his
religion, and was pervaded and animated by religious faith
and devotion. He felt like an apostle commissioned for that
work; and he said to his niece and her husband, who went,
with his approbation and sympathy, as missionaries of the
Gospel to Asia, that he was God's missionary as truly as
they were."
Nothing more true. The demand for the raw gum, almost created by him,
is introducing abundance and developing industry in the regions which
produce it. As the culture of cotton seems the predestined means of
improving Africa, so the gathering of caoutchouc may procure for the
inhabitants of the equatorial regions of both continents such of the
blessings of civilization as they are capable of appropriating.
An attempt was made last winter to procure an act of Congress
extending the vulcanizing patent for a further period of seven years,
for the benefit of the creditors and the family of the inventor.
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