these and other topics, that I may reserve more room for an application of the subject as already explained, and which every one will admit to be especially seasonable.

The motto in our national ensign, "E Pluribus Unum," seems to have a prophetic meaning perhaps. not contemplated by the venerable men who adopted it. We are not only one commonwealth formed out of many states, but we are one people gathered from many nations. The sentiment pervades the civilized world, and we cannot change it if we would, that here is the emigrant's home; that our western hemisphere, and especially our portion of it, is designed to be an asylum for the oppressed of the eastern; and that races of the human family which there have become worn out and effete, are here to be restored by a new growth. Such indeed seems to be one of the purposes which we are appointed to fulfil in the great drama of nations; and we believe the time is at hand when we are to see a new and farther development of it. Hitherto, the "sons of the stranger" have come to us chiefly from the countries of Europe, landing on the shores of the Atlantic. Only a few years more are to pass by, and our coast on the Pacific will be alive with emigrants from the over-peopled regions of China and Japan, led to seek a new home where they can find more room and a

*

bettered condition.

But whether these crowds come

from the East or from the West, we do not share in the melancholy forebodings which some feel as to the result. The union of such masses into one people congregated from various countries, always produces an improved type of man; while nations that "dwell alone and apart" fall back into imbecility and insignificance. An early vigor was given to Greece by the fusion of the Phoenicians and Egyptians with the Hellenistic tribes; and it was the mixture of the Saxons and Danes with the ancient Britons, followed by the commingling of the Normans with them all, that has led to English preponderance in arts and in arms for so long a period, and through so many regions of the globe. In this way conquest, notwithstanding its barbarities, has sometimes been overruled for the good of even the vanquished themselves.

But in this favored land, the commingling of races and its happy results are not purchased at so bloody a price. The invaders, if such they are to be called, come not as enemies, but as friends; not to demand possession of the country from its inhabitants, but to ask the privilege of uniting their wisdom and strength with ours, to give increased value to "much land which yet remains to be possessed." Nor should it be forgotten in this connection, that the strangers

now coming in fresh crowds to dwell within our gates, are not so often the refuse or the surplus, as the bone and sinew of the countries from which the rod of oppression has driven them to seek a home where they can dwell in the enjoyment of freedom and plenty. In all this we see only a continuance of what has been the character and history of our nation from its beginning. There is much poetic beauty combined with important truth in the observation made by one of the most distinguished among our early divines, that "God sifted three nations for seed to sow the virgin soil of America ;" and we need but to look at the leading characteristics of our various ancestors to perceive how happily they combine to form a people distinguished for power and greatness. It was the enduring strength and activity of the Anglo-Saxon, united to the staid caution and gravity of the Hollander, qualified by the elastic spirit of the French Huguenot, forming one people, and holding in the main to one religious faith, that first peopled our land and spread over it the blessings of Christianity and civilization. If they found it new and ready for any impression they might give it, they engraved on its face, features that no lapse of time can obliterate. They came to it, to erect a new empire, and to present to the world, government both civil and religious, in new aspects. They un

dertook a great work, and they laid the foundations deep. They had faith to do what God commanded, to go where his finger pointed; and He sent his "pillar of fire by night, and of cloud by day," to lead and to shelter them. Under difficulties and dangers which surrounded them, and from which many would have shrunk, he trained them for achievements which but few can ever equal. "A waste howling wilderness" lay before them; but "with the axe in their hand, the Bible in their pocket, and the encyclopedia at their side," they began their labors, and the wilderness became changed into a fruitful field. And surveying the land to which he brought them, in the vast length and breadth into which it has now spread, how aptly does it seem described in the language of Moses, already quoted concerning the country of the Hebrews:-" It is a good land and a large, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and depths that spring out of valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and honey:—a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass."

Except as to the larger scale on which everything with us is laid out, there is a very striking parallel between the land of Israel as here described, and our What advantages had they which we have not; whether contributing to their happiness and

own.

safety at home, or facilitating their influence for good among nations abroad?

We have seen the abundance and variety in which their land yielded its produce to the labors of industry, and which distinguished it as "the glory of all lands,” in its day. Our own country is so new that we have as yet examined only its surface. We can scarce be said to have commenced the experiments for testing the fecundity of the soil, or for exploring and ascertaining the stores of mineral wealth that lie hidden in its mines. And yet even at this day when its resources are so imperfectly developed, compare it with England, France, Spain, or any one country of modern times, and we must see how greatly it surpasses them in the variety and extent of its productions. Stretching through climes of every temperature, it produces every grain, plant, or fruit that can be desired for the sustenance of man, or the healthful gratification of hist appetite. It yields every material for clothing that can minister to comfort or ornament, it has stored within its bowels every mineral which most effectually ministers to the strength and safety of a people; and then we have to add, that all these rich and various stores are gained only by the labor which renders them twice a blessing. With us it