by kindred hands, to their resting place in Auburn, and Greenwood, and Spring Grove? God educates us to leave the paternal roof for distant homes; and it needs but the living spirit of Him who said, 'Go preach my gospel to every creature,' to make this peculiar training effective in raising a great army of missionaries of the Cross.

IV. Let us advance now to another thought. The providence which has thus been training us, has given us large material possessions, and the power to develop and use them. In the material elements of national wealth, coal, iron, the precious metals, and a soil of great variety and richness, no country surpasses this. In productive power and inventive genius, this nation, by the confession of the ablest foreign writers, has no superior. With such a country, and such a power to develop its resources, what is to hinder us from ascending to a position where we shall command the markets of the world, and give laws to commerce, and possess resources sufficient to sustain more missionaries than we now have population? This, it is true, is regarded by unpractical, dreamy, and romantic minds, as a low view-a view which, on these high occasions of spiritual enjoyment, should be kept in the background. Then, too, we are taunted by foreigners of a certain class, and the taunt has been thoughtlessly re-echoed among ourselves, with our devotion to material interests. But let us be just to ourselves; let us remember that there is a bright as well as a dark side to this subject; let us not forget, that man is material as

well as spiritual. Body and soul are here married together; and no nation can ever rise to the highest influence, or be prepared to do the largest missionary work, when the interests of both are not fully cared for. Our education begins in the material, and ascends to the immaterial. But, ascend as we may, in this world we never rise wholly above the material. Influences mighty for good spring out of it. What a prodigious force of individual development along the various paths of enterprise is there in the prospect of gaining a competence, of giving to the family an education fitting it for high position in society? What a power is it to restrain from prodigal expenditures in frivolous pleasure, to hold men back from vice, even when it cannot win them to virtue? What is it but this that stirs the heart of this great city, and wakens every morning the hum of its busy population, and pours along its crowded thoroughfares these on-rushing tides of human energy ? What but this rouses the latent activities of our people to develop the resources of this continent; -to build, cultivate, mine and navigate, vexing the land and the ocean with all the instruments of a world-wide production? And this is just as it should be. This very material activity, quickened and guided by moral principle, is absolutely essential to the development of a strong and manly character. We are past the day when courage and force could only grow on the field of battle; whose choicest instruments of manly culture were the war-horse, the sword, the battle-axe; when society was divided horizontally into two classes, the serfs

who toiled as cattle, and the soldier who spent his life in alternate war and revelry. We are all soldiers, and our field of battle is the world. The path of true nobility opens to all. The boy who, flung forth like a waif on this restless sea, by honest industry, wins a position, where respect and influence attend him, he is our noble; the artisan, whose invention multiplies the power of the hand over material forces; the youth who, rising from small beginnings, ascends the heights of a profession, originates large enterprises for humanity, and sustains institutions full of blessing to humanity, these are our kings. And in the production of such men on a great scale, this attention to material interests, is a power of vast influence.

All this has a direct, logical connection with our work as a people, who are to propagate the gospel aggressively through the world. It has to do with it, because this process of self-development along the line of material interests is necessary to unfold the attributes which give us power to impress ourselves upon men. It has to do with it, because the product of this devotion to material interests is capital diffused through the masses; and capital is one of the means God uses to convert the world. Is it of no consequence, when we send forth our forces to fight for us, that other forces vastly greater, are here intensely busy in creating the means to supply the instruments and material of successful warfare? What has made the credit of this Board a power in every land? Why, when the greatest commercial houses have been prostrated, and

bankruptcy has unsettled confidence, and men have not known whom to trust, has the paper of a missionary society, without a cent of invested capital, been as good as gold the world over? Why, when debt has accumulated upon us through the diminished resources of our friends, have these secretaries, this committee, never doubted for a moment that the time would come, as this night we bless our God it has come, when every cent of that indebtedness would be canceled, and from a still higher vantage ground, they would address themselves to the work of saving a lost world? You answer, Faith in its supporters,' a conviction that this cause had wrought itself so deeply into the hearts of God's people in this land, that in due time they would come to their help. All this is true. But I am not mistaken in affirming that another idea is necessary to complete the answer-this faith had its foundation in the ultimate ability as well as the will of those who sustained it; in the fact that behind it there stood a great multitude determined to create that which should fill its coffers ;-a multitude of Christian men and women, strong in their individual responsibility, strong in their habits of productive labor, strong in their ability to rise above these temporary depressions in consequence of that energy which they share with their countrymen, and able thus to secure those material interests out of which should flow the gold and the silver to sustain the missionary and support his schools, and give him Bibles and tracts, and compass him round with the felt power of a productive Christian sympathy.

V. It is admitted that if this devotion to material interest stood alone, it would soon exhaust itself; producing wealth and consequent luxury, it would conduct us speedily to a corrupt and effete civilization. But this is not the case; it is largely animated and guided by a high literary, as well as religious culture. Education diffused through the masses has become an essential characteristic of this race. On the revival of letters, none of the cognate races embraced this idea more heartily. The establishment of the universities was the first movement, because the first necessity was that of teachers, preachers, and statesmen. But as the right of private judgment consequent on the Reformation, took root among the people, the logical result must in time follow; the people must be prepared to exercise their rights by a fitting education. When the race colonized this new world, their first step was to establish the college as the truest source of general intelligence. From this went forth men of true learning, under whose plastic influence there sprang into almost fullgrown proportions, our noble system of common schools. It is not necessary for me to discuss at large a subject so well understood. It is enough to say that this idea of the practical enlightenment of the people has taken fast hold of the heart of this race; that every where it has given birth to institutions of learning covering the whole field of science in all its departments; that the teacher follows hard upon the footsteps of the pioneer, and while the axe still resounds through our grand old forests, the foundations of the school, the