qualities which fitted it for this work. Its wonderful tenacity of impression, its power to hold what once had fairly been forced into it by divine energy, like the rock hardened around the crystal, belongs to its nature, reveals itself after Providence had shattered the nation, in that granite character which, under the fire of eighteen centuries, remains unchanged. It was its mission to hold, not to give; to stand, not to advance; and it was not until a mind of large Grecian culture was chosen to bear the truth to the Gentiles-not until the men of another race and another style of thought had received it, that the gospel went forth to win its grandest triumphs.

At every step of the progress of Christianity since, illustrations multiply of the truth contained in our text, that God forms nations to his work, and chooses them because of their fitness to accomplish certain parts of that work. I need not dwell upon the Greek, with his high mental culture and his glorious language-fit instrument through which the Divine Word breathed his life-giving truth; upon the Roman, sceptred in power over the whole realm of civilization, and undesignedly constructing the great highway for the church of Jesus; upon the German, with his innate freedom of spirit, nourishing the thoughtful souls whose lofty utterances awoke, whose wondrous power disenthralled a sleeping and captive church.

Passing by these and other illustrations of the truth before us, rich though they be in thoughts full of instruction, I deem no apology necessary for engaging in the inquiry, as to what work in

the cause of evangelization God has been forming this nation to accomplish. This unusual occasion -this gathering of representative Christians from all parts of our country, to celebrate the close of our first half-century of special missionary activity, is amply sufficient to justify me in turning from the general discussion of the theme before us, to a special application of it to our own time and nation. We stand this day on an eminence from which it needs no prophet to discern the rapidly converging lines of God's providence, or indicate the point of light towards which they hasten. Twenty-five years ago, this would have been difficult; fifty years ago, it would have been impossible. Trains of influence that once demanded centuries for their development, unfold and open in the life of a single generation. All over our brief history, impressed on every page of it, God has revealed a great purpose to be accomplished by this nation. The object for which he has been forming us is no longer hidden in the darkness of the future; it stands forth more clearly than did his great purpose in respect to Israel, when Solomon dedicated his temple, and for nearly a thousand years that purpose had been ripening.

In speaking to you on this subject, it will not be in my power to do even partial justice to it, without including some things that belong to the great nation out of which have flowed the main currents of our national life. Other nations have contributed some of the finest influences that have moulded us; our position has modified our character; but the vitality, the commanding energy

that has given birth to such great results, is directly traceable to the Anglo-Saxon. That wonderful race moves forward step by step with us in this work of evangelizing the world. The half century which has done so much in developing our missionary activity, has produced results scarcely less remarkable in the nation that planted us here. The nation which has brought forth Whitfield, and Wesley, and Wilberforce, and Newton, and Cary, and Morrison, and Williams, and hundreds like them, has done vastly more for us than all the world besides. We glory in this filial relationship, not because it allies to earthly greatness, but to the piety which, clothed in the radiant panoply of a consecrated learning, has entered, with unconquerable zeal, into the work of preaching the gospel to every creature.

To this point, therefore, let us direct our attention; let us trace out some of those things which indicate that God has formed us as a nation to exert a special and vast influence in the evangelization of other nations.

I. If you look at the natural constitution of this race, you will see in it an admirable fitness for this work. The character of a nation's influence is in part grounded in its natural constitution. The Anglo-Saxon inheriting, in common with the Northern races, strong intellectual powers, conjoins with these a hardy, persistent, energetic nature. The child of the temperate zone, the very extremes of temperature to which it is exposed impart vigor, elasticity, restless energy to its temperament. It

stands midway between the phlegmatic and the passionate-between the races so cold as rarely ever to be roused to great attainments, and the hot blood which, like the torrents raised by the summer shower, is stirred by slight causes, and then as quickly sinks into lethargy. It has the constitution which bears up under the severest toils of body and mind; it conjoins with this an energy springing from the fullness of natural vigor, that delights in action and perpetually impels to progress. The clear, practical understanding, laying its plans far in the future, the courage that danger cannot daunt, the fortitude that counts suffering a triumph, the persistent energy which works on in the eye of despair, find their most splendid and numerous illustrations in the history of this race. These are the native qualities which fit it for conquest; these prepare it not only to conquer, but to possess, not only to acquire, but to hold; these enable it to make one advance the stepping-stone for another, to wring out of the barrenness of nature rich' tribute, to coin the gold of a triumphant civilization out of the granite, and through pathless snows, or the bloody welcome of savage foes, win freedom, plenty and peace.

This race thus constituted, while it takes from others only what is in harmony with its nature, gives vastly more than it receives. The multitudes, that from other races unite with it, are quickly subdued by its all-controlling energy; their prejudices, their habits, their language vanish; the forms of their religion change; a spirit, silent, allembracing, like the warm breath of spring upon

the snows of winter, dissolves their stubborn nationalities and mingles them as homogeneous elements in its own rich life.

A race like this is formed of God to be a vast power for good in this world. He combined in it the finest qualities of half a dozen nations, that it might impress itself upon others; that its laws, its knowledge, its spiritual life might become quickening forces among the dead millions. Not for itself, not for any merely temporal object has he created it; but to diffuse the truth, to be a plastic power among the nations, in the hand of Jesus, in hastening his final triumph.

II. Let us look now at the peculiar training which God has given to this race-a training all in harmony with this great object. With the same original qualities, education-especially an education working in the same direction for centuriesmakes a vast difference. In one direction it may restrain, repress, modify, almost annihilate the primary tendencies of a nation; but when it falls in with those tendencies, its effect is to enlarge and stimulate them. Now just as the education of Cyrus and Moses and Paul gave them a special preparation for their missions towards and in the church-just as the peculiar and protracted discipline of the Hebrew fitted him to be the conservator of the truth until Messiah should come-just so the divine Providence has given scope and stimulus to the original endowments of the Anglo-Saxon and American, fitting him for the offensive work of missions among the nations.