and our own admiral, who was professedly a member of the Church of Rome, but more an Englishman than an ultramontane, went out to meet the foes of his country, and completely overwhelmed them. And then Queen Elizabeth, with that piety which ought never to be forgotten, had medals struck commemorating the deliverance of her country with these words engraved on them, "Afflavit Deus et dissipantur," "God breathed upon the armada, and it was scattered to the winds;" in other words, she said, "Truly this is the finger of God." We have traced the finger of God in all these events in our past history; let us see the result of all. After the long peace we have enjoyed, after the conquests which were the parents of that peace, see what progress our country has attained. Britain, at this moment the most Protestant nation in the world, the most free, the most enlightened, dictates her terms on the banks of the Indus and the Ganges. At this moment Cabul, Affghanistan, and China stand ready to receive her orders. Africa is penetrated by her civilization, her Bibles, her freedom. America is her eldest daughter, doing her kind mother's work, according to her means and opportunities, across the Atlantic. At this moment her flag waves in every wind, her ships drop their anchors on every strand; the sound of her conquering drum reverberates on every quarter of the globe; the boom of her cannon is the signal to the slave that he shall be free, and to the oppressed that he shall be delivered. It is literally true that the sun never sets upon the empire of our gracious sovereign. Why is this? Is it chance that the nation that is most free, most religious, most furnished with Bibles, is the most mighty? Is it chance that it has this power? Is it chance that the whole world is to a prodigious extent beneath the influence of her sceptre? I will not believe it. I believe that our country has been raised up by the finger of God; I believe that it is now preserved by the same finger, for great and beneficent effects. And with all her faults, and her sins, I do believe that Britain's sun will yet mingle with the beams of the Millennial day. Look again at the spread of the English tongue. Our language is spoken increasingly over the vast provinces of India; it is at this moment the only language of the States of America; and if we go to any place in Germany or France, you will find that the better educated classes are all able to speak English. The English tongue is spreading over all the earth, and threatens, in spite of the more elegant, but less expressive French, to be the language of all mankind. Is it chance that the tongue of Milton, of Shakspeare, the tongue, above all, of our noble English Bible, is becoming that of mankind? Is it chance that the language that unlocks such stores of wisdom, of sacred learning, of true piety, of pure religion, is more and more becoming the language of the whole world? Just before Christ's first Advent, Greek was the universal tongue, and the Roman, which comprehended it, the universal Empire. It looks as if our country was to be the universal Empire, or at least to have universal power, and our tongue to be world-wide, before our Blessed Lord comes the second time. If we retrace the last forty years of peace, we shall see how much has been done in so short a period. Look at the extraordinary progress that has been made I can in the communion of one nation with another. not regard those inventions for communication as the mere creations of Mammon, in order to enrich man. Oceans are now become ferries; continents and islands are now become near neighbours; the East and the West may sit at the opposite ends of a long wire, and talk familiarly, the one with the other. At this moment America is not further from London than Edinburgh used to be. The railway scream is heard in the bleak deserts of the East, and the paddle-wheel stirs the stagnant waters that are around Constantinople. Is this for Mammon? Surely not; it is the finger of God, Baptist-like preparing the way of the Lord, and ripening the nations for that grand era when Christ shall come, and the whole world shall be filled with his glory, and all shall bless him, and be blessed in him. Let us rejoice that there is in every chapter of history, as truly as in every miracle, or plague inflicted upon Pharaoh, the finger of God. There is no oscillation in his doings. What seems so is part of his designs, not accident. There is no margin in the providential history of God. What seems to us margin is really written over with glorious truths, if we have only light to read them. The great ocean is still and calm in its silent depths, when the waves on its surface are lashed by the storm. God's great presence lies silently underneath all the movements on the surface, controlling all to give glory to himself and good to mankind. God takes time to accomplish his purposes. We are always in a hurry; we judge of God by ourselves; but we ought not to do so; we must recollect that with him a thousand years are but one day, and that what seems to us long is with him as nothing. He is ripening his plans, preparing his purposes, though unseen by us, and he will soon accomplish them. All things are at the present moment rushing to a great crisis. It looks as if everybody-statesmen, ministers, merchants, tradesmen-felt that the daylight is about to be quenched, and that the night is soon coming when no man can work. There seems to be a universal presentiment that we must do all before our efforts close for ever. It proves that the morning twilight is near; and that therefore the axles are heated by the accelerated revolutions of the wheels of time, as they near their rest. But instead of this being a reason for our relaxing our exertions, it is the reverse; if the letter-paper is nearly full, let us crowd more writing into the space that remains; if the candle-light is nearly extinguished, let us work the harder ere it go out. Let our loins be girt, and our lamps burning, as men waiting for the Lord. In all circumstances Christianity is safe. All the Popes of Rome cannot extinguish the Bible: all the Grand Dukes of Tuscany cannot imprison Christianity. Religion dies not with its martyrs; Christianity departs not with its professors; pyramids shall be reduced to ruin, and the great granite hills from which they were dug shall be scattered, like dust, before the winds; but Christianity has God for its Author, omnipotence for its shield, and eternity for its glorious life; and when this dispensation shall have passed away, it will only be to give place to a better. The olive and the palm shall grow upon the soil that is beaten hard by the |