Among the legends of our late Civil War there is a story of a dinner-party given by the Americans residing in Paris, at which were propounded sundry toasts concerning not so much the past and present as the expected glories of the great American nation.  In the general character of these toasts geographical considerations were very prominent, and the principal fact which seemed to occupy the minds of the speakers was the unprecedented bigness of our country.  “Here’s to the United States,” said the first speaker, “bounded on the north by British America, on the south by the Gulf of Mexico, on the east by the Atlantic, and on the west by the Pacific, Ocean.”  “But,” said the second speaker, “this is far too limited a view of the subject:  in assigning our boundaries we must look to the great and glorious future which is prescribed for us by the Manifest Destiny of the Anglo-Saxon Race.  Here’s to the United States,—­bounded on the north by the North Pole, on the south by the South Pole, on the east by the rising and on the west by the setting sun.”  Emphatic applause greeted this aspiring prophecy.  But here arose the third speaker—­a very serious gentleman from the Far West.  “If we are going,” said this truly patriotic American, “to leave the historic past and present, and take our manifest destiny into the account, why restrict ourselves within the narrow limits assigned by our fellow-countryman who has just sat down?  I give you the United States,—­bounded on the north by the Aurora Borealis, on the south by the precession of the equinoxes, on the east by the primeval chaos, and on the west by the Day of Judgment!”

I offer this anecdote at the outset by way of self-defence, inasmuch as I shall by and by have myself to introduce some considerations concerning the future of our country, and of what some people, without the fear of Mr. Freeman before their eyes, call the “Anglo-Saxon” race; and if it should happen to strike you that my calculations are unreasonably large, I hope you will remember that they are quite modest after all, when compared with some others.

The “manifest destiny” of the “Anglo-Saxon” race and the huge dimensions of our country are favourite topics with Fourth-of-July orators, but they are none the less interesting on that account when considered from the point of view of the historian.  To be a citizen of a great and growing state, or to belong to one of the dominant races of the world, is no doubt a legitimate source of patriotic pride, though there is perhaps an equal justification for such a feeling in being a citizen of a tiny state like Holland, which, in spite of its small dimensions, has nevertheless achieved so much,—­fighting at one time the battle of freedom for the world, producing statesmen like William and Barneveldt, generals like Maurice, scholars like Erasmus and Grotius, and thinkers like Spinoza, and taking the lead even to-day in the study of Christianity and in the interpretation of the Bible.  But my course in the present lecture is determined by historical or philosophical rather than by patriotic interest, and I shall endeavour to characterize and group events as impartially as if my home were at Leyden in the Old World instead of Cambridge in the New.