empire; the other, the swelling floods of foreign immigration continually pouring into this country.

Russia, as a European power, started into being nearly contemporaneously with the United States. Her growth has been quite as rapid. The elements of her power are,-a territory covering a full seventh of the earth's surface; a population of fifty-four millions; a standing army of one million well-disciplined soldiers; a vast military and commercial marine; extensive manufactures; inexhaustible resources of wealth; the most ambitious hopes and aspirings; and, last though not least, the bounding vigour and elasticity of a youthful existence. She is the leading power of the old world. She dictates the policy of most of the European cabinets. As to her government, she is the impersonation of despotism. She centres all authority in a single head, all power in a single arm. The whole virus of European absolutism is distilled and concentrated in her. There must be some great design of Providence in this. Mr. Godwin has made a rational conjecture as to what it is; viz., that by the defeat of a single power, when the fulness of the time for Russia's fall has come, tyranny might be extinguished forever, blotted by a single blow from the face of the whole earth.

We have mentioned immigration into this country as another pregnant token of the times. Famine, oppression, and political disturbances at home, and the inviting prospects held out by these climes of the setting sun, are rapidly draining the old world of its superabundant population. Within the last ten years, nearly three millions of British subjects have transferred their home to our shores, and their allegiance to our government. From Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and Hungary, the emigration has been, during the same period, unwontedly great. The stream continues to flow steadily, with a constantly widening sweep and accelerated force. This stream is already beginning to be met by a contrary current setting towards the shores of the Pacific, now our western boundary, from the isles of the ocean and the countries of eastern Asia. So numerous are the immigrants from China, that they have erected an idol-temple in San Francisco, the first that ever polluted' American soil.

From this rapid survey of the signs of the times in the political world, it is manifest, that Providence is teeming with great designs, that the future is pregnant with stupendous and beneficent events. "The world is opening to receive a Christian civilization, by which the process of universal redemption will be rapidly consummated." Our last inquiry relates to the domain of the Church.

In glancing at this department of our subject, we are constrained

to exclaim, "What hath God wrought! How wonderful are his signs!" Great are the changes that have been wrought, and the results that have been achieved, within the last fifty years. Until a few years before the opening of the present century, no sect of Christians had sent out missionaries to the heathen, except the Moravians. No Bible, tract, or missionary societies were in existence. An infidel press was busy in scattering its pestilent productions far and wide; and the poison of infidelity had distilled its venom deep into the vitals of society, corrupting the very fountains of social virtue. No bow of promise in respect to the heathen world had as yet appeared in the spiritual heavens. The cities of northern Africa were nests of pirates. Her long line of western coast was a mere hunting-ground of slaves. The British East India Company refused to let a single missionary set foot on the soil of India. Walls of adamant shut out the heralds of the cross from China, from Japan, from Turkey, from Persia, and from the territories of the papacy. Few of the languages spoken on the islands of the sea, the continent of Africa, and by the various tribes of American Indians, had ever been reduced to writing; and they were all scanty in terms fitted to convey the truths of the gospel to the mind. The written languages of Asia were but little if any better suited to such a purpose. The Bible was translated into scarcely one of them. Such were some of the obstacles and discouragements in the way of missionary efforts for the conversion of the heathen.

But what a change! Almost the entire globe is now freely open to missionary labour. The spirit of intolerance is chained. There is no beheading and no burning for religious opinions in any quarter of the earth. Christ crucified can be everywhere preached in safety. The chief of the Ottoman empire now protects and honours the faith which once he destroyed, since he sees it bringing forth abundantly the fruits of righteousness. "Scarcely an evangelical denomination exists that has not its society for giving the gospel to the heathen. The missionaries of these societies are found over the whole world: in our western wilds; on the islands of the sea; in Labrador and Greenland; far towards the centre of Africa, as well as along its extended coasts; dotting with their stations the Ottoman empire and Southern Asia; and gaining a foothold on the sides of China. They are already numbered by thousands. Everywhere churches are springing up. Those among the heathen who call upon the name of the Lord are hundreds of thousands. In one instance, that of the Sandwich Islands, a nation has been created. More than two hundred versions of the Bible have been made and circulated. When a language had not been

written, its fleeting sounds, as they issued from the tongue, were caught and fixed; its laws determined; and at length, after incredible pains, they to whom written words had been a matter of greatest astonishment, were able to read, in the tongue in which they were born, the wonderful works of God."

At the beginning of the present century, there were not four millions of copies of the Bible on the globe. Since then more than thirty millions of copies have been issued by Bible societies alone, a greater number than had been issued in all preceding ages, since the invention of printing; and these are over and above the millions that have been published by private enterprise. When the century opened, the Scriptures had been printed in languages spoken by about two hundred millions of people; now they have been published in languages spoken by the great majority of all the dwellers on earth's isles and continents.

Such are the signs of the times in the department of the Church. The world lies open for the reception of the gospel, and a great highway has been cast up for spreading the knowledge of salvation to the utmost limits of human abode. The benevolent institutions of the Church are sending out their agents by thousands, and causing a wonderful increase of knowledge. Steam-presses are scattering the words of life far and near, in every direction, thick as autumnal leaves. The corrupting alliances of religion with worldly pomp and power are giving way. The crescent is no longer a fitting emblem of the Moslem faith; for its moon is on the wane. The papal superstition, which has degraded Christianity almost to a level with paganism, and the idolatries of paganism itself, are sinking into decrepitude together. The papacy, which flourished in the darkness, is confounded by the blaze of day; and false religions, the most venerable for their antiquity, the most deeply-seated in the hearts of men, and the most strongly entrenched in their prejudices, are melting away before the genial warmth of a better faith. Even in India, the great stronghold of idolatry, a moral revolution is in silent progress, which is shaking the system of Hindooism, blotting out its darker features, and introducing into it more liberal and enlightened elements. The star of hope for the benighted nations shines brighter, and peers higher above the horizon, than ever it has done before. In short, all things seem tending to one grand consummation, when the kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever; when the whole earth shall become a great temple, whence prayer and praise shall ascend to the universal Father from the hearts of all his children. Well may our hearts exult in these bright tokens of coming glory,

as they catch a portion of that joy which swelled the hearts of the eastern sages, when, on leaving Jerusalem for Bethlehem, they saw the star that guided them to the spot where the infant Redeemer was cradled.

The signs of the times, as thus developed, lay upon us solemn duties and inspire cheering hopes. We proceed to unfold both the one and the other.

Here we observe, first, that the signs of the times point to a great duty incumbent upon us, as American patriots. It was a celebrated saying of Archimedes, that, if he had a fulcrum for his lever, he could move the world. The dream of the ancient philosopher is the realization of our youthful republic. Standing upon the soil of freedom, and using the lever of Christian civilization, we have a place whereon, and a power wherewith, not only to move the world but to transform it from a desolate wilderness into the garden of the Lord, covering it with the light of truth and the beauty of holiness. There are two principles, American principles we may call them in a preeminent sense, which may be made to mould and sway the destinies of this earth. These principles are popular constitutional government and universal Christian education. If we are true to our position and the trust which it involves, these principles will move on, with a constantly increasing momentum, till they shall have completed the circuit of the earth, dropping everywhere, in their course, the inestimable blessings of truth, liberty, virtue, refinement, and happiness. Such is our mission as a nation; such the part assigned us by Providence in the great work of improving human affairs. Our path is straight onward, and as clearly defined to the view as the milky girdle of the heavens in a cloudless night. We must stand by the constitution of our country. If that perish, our happiness perishes with it; the hopes that now swell the hearts of millions of our race are extinguished; the sublime enterprises of Christian philanthropy are arrested; and the chariot-wheels of the gospel, that are now rolling on to the conquest of a world, are stopped, turned back, and made to recede far within the line to which they have already advanced. We must stand by the laws of our country, frowning upon those sentiments of revolutionary violence which have of late been so freely proclaimed from various quarters. We must stand by the rulers of our country, honouring them as the ministers of God to us for good. We must stand by the schools of our country, multiplying and purifying these fountains of knowledge. We must imbibe the spirit, and pray the prayers, and live the life of Christ; for then are we the best citizens when we are the best Christians. A free government, a

free gospel, a free education, an open Bible, a reverence for law, and an enlightened, earnest, active piety,-these are the appropriate, the vitalizing elements of American institutions and American character. To give them a broader development and a higher activity is the paramount duty of American citizenship.

We observe, secondly, that one of the signs of the times, noticed above, involves a duty which presses with great force on American Christians, we refer to the foreign immigration, which is pouring, like the tides of the ocean, upon our shores. The oppressed and stifled millions of Europe are rushing to this new land of promise, to breathe the air of hope and freedom. A stream of Asiatic and Polynesian immigration has already begun to set towards our territories on the Pacific coast. We may not be able, and probably are not able, to comprehend all that God intends by this movement; for his purposes, in whatever he does, stretch forward into eternity, and spread themselves out over his illimitable empire. Yet there is a meaning in it that we can understand. We may not know enough for curiosity; but we know enough for duty. Our cravings may not be satisfied by what we see; but our conscience is bound by it. To these strangers from such a multitude of strange lands we owe many and solemn duties. The first is a Christian welcome to our shores, a Christian care for their bodily comfort, and a Christian solicitude for their spiritual welfare. Then we owe them the blessings of a Christian press, the Bible, the tract, the religious newspaper, and the volume breathing the gentle spirit and freighted with the living words of Christ. Next we are under obligation-God has laid this obligation upon us by sending them here-to provide a body of devoted missionaries, who may preach to them the story of the cross in the various languages wherein they were born. We owe their children a Christian education. Every proper inducement ought to be held out, and every proper effort made to bring them into the common school and the Sabbath school, where they may be taught to practise the duties of citizenship here, and to aspire to the privileges of a higher citizenship above.

For ourselves, we do not share in the fears felt by many on account of the influx of foreigners. We do not believe that our institutions are thereby endangered. On the contrary, we feel thankful to the sovereign Disposer of all good, that we have a country which is the true Bethesda, a house of mercy for the suffering of all lands. It is true, they come here deeply ignorant, but they come that they may be enlightened. It is so much work brought to our own doors, without the labour and expense of seeking it elsewhere. Lessons of wisdom are here FOURTH SERIES, VOL. V.-28