placed her first among the nations of Europe in all that the wise most seek to know, or the good most desire to do.

But let us turn at once to our own country. Here, as all admit, freedom has a dwelling which is "like a city set upon a hill, which cannot be hid." Compare her as she is here, with what she was in Greece or Rome. There she was defaced by deformities inseparable from the darkness of Paganism. Here she has acquired the symmetry and beauty which could be derived only from the moulding power of Christianity. No such thing as genuine freedom can be enjoyed by a people who are divided from each other by those iron bands of caste which are interwoven with the structure of society in Pagan lands. Christianity alone has power to melt down such instruments of cruelty and injustice. It teaches the doctrine that "God hath made of one blood all nations that dwell on the face of the earth," and lays its command on every man to "love his neighhor as himself." From these two cardinal principles it enforces that safe equality which preserves the social fabric from dissolution, and at the same time renders the rights of the weakest and strongest equally secure. If it levels distinctions among men, it levels upward, not downward; it elevates the low, elevates them in mind and in conduct; and so far

as it brings down the high, it brings down nothing but those "vain imaginations which exalt themselves against God." This is the equality which our free institutions, imbued with the spirit of the Bible, are designed to effect. The Roman patrician knew nothing of it, nor did he act upon it. Had you told him that he was sprung from the same dust as the humble plebeian, he would have laughed you to scorn.

We might also compare freedom as she is here with what we find her in Christian nations of modern times, but who weaken her influence by unnatural alliance. Here she is not overshadowed and dwarfed in her growth by her proximity to towering royalty. She has the field to herself. She places sovereignty in the hands of the people, and sends them to the Bible, that they may learn how to wear the crown.

And what has been the effect of her christianized and untrammeled sway during little more than half a century, on the condition of the nation? Where do you find intelligence, enterprise, industry, competency, and a respect for religion, if not acquaintance with its power, so general as you find them here? Where such a growth in whatsoever is most essential to public greatness? Every thing rests on the diffusion of sound intelligence through the mass of the people, on the cultivation of a just standard of

right and wrong among all classes; and every where we have the school and the church, the teacher and the preacher, as the great fountains of light and truth to the nation. The result of such training is not to be questioned or overlooked. The observing stranger has passed through our country, and describes it as "a land of wonders, in which every thing is in constant motion, and every movement seems an improvement; a land where no natural boundary seems to be set to the efforts of man; and what is not yet done, is only what he has not yet attempted to do." It is the mind of a whole nation teeming with purposes for advancement in knowledge and in the power which knowledge gives. As a people, activity is our element. Idlers find themselves alone. They can meet with neither company nor countenance. The mind of every man is acting on the mind of his neighbor, thus stimulating the faculties of both to accomplish new objects and make new discoveries in the still unexplored regions of nature and of art. In illustration of this quickened and irrepressible activity, let us refer to one or two of those inventions which, acting in correspondence with the spirit of our age, are destined to work an entire change in the condition of nations, whether "Barbarian or Scythian, bond or free.”

It has been well observed that when great im

provements are about to be made in human affairs, some powerful agency is provided adequate to the end, and adapted to the occasion. Prior to the reformation came the art of printing; that being an era in the history of the world, in which a new impulse was to be given to the spread of knowledge among civilized nations. We are now on the verge of another era, in which "the field is to be the world;" in which Christianity is to be carried over every sea and through every land of the globe; in which, to use the language of prophesy, "many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." For the accomplishment of this great end, we need some new instrumentality for speeding communication between the various regions of the earth; and which, for all moral purposes, shall bring the most distant nations into close neighborhood one with another. We see this wonder-working power in the recent applications of steam and electricity, which are fast annihilating both time and space. By means of the one, our vessels move on the waters in the face of the winds, and with a speed that outstrips them; and our cars pass over the land with a swiftness that leaves our vessels far behind them. By means of the other, intelligence is sent to the terminus of the railroad, though distant thousands of miles, giving notice that the cars have just begun to move. It is

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through these newly discovered agencies, that seas and lands, although hitherto unexplored, are soon to become the pathways of truth and knowledge; and the good news of "Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace and good will towards men," are to be borne "to the utmost borders of the earth." A new longevity is bestowed on man, for the length of his life is to be measured by his power of doing good; and he can now accomplish in a day what formerly would have cost the tedious labor of months. The lever is prepared for human hands which is to do more than the lever of Archimedes. It is not only to move the world, but to transform and cover it with the light of truth. And where were these inventions first made available for the great purposes they are now answering? Whatever may be said respecting the claims of Holland to the credit of having invented the art of printing while cherishing the seeds of a republic; it cannot be denied, that in our own land of freedom, the Steamer and the Telegraph have been nurtured into activity and usefulness; and the work has been done mainly, not by men of any privileged class, but by those who sprung from the multitude; and whose faculties, sharpened by a sense of self-reliance, persevered against ridicule, wrong, and even want, till their object was gained.

The same spirit of achievement is seen in other