forces, which have a conservative influence, then I cannot see how America can long continue to be the home and refuge of the poor and miserable of other lands.  A new and better spirit must vivify schools and colleges and philanthropic enterprises than that which has prevailed in older nations.  Unless something new is born here which has a peculiar power to save, wherein will America ultimately differ from other parts of Christendom?  We must have schools in which the heart as well as the brain is educated, and newspapers which aspire to something higher than to fan prejudices and appeal to perverted tastes.  Our hope is not in books which teach infidelity under the name of science, nor in pulpits which cannot be sustained without sensational oratory, nor in journals which trade on the religious sentiments of the people, nor in Sabbath-school books which are an insult to the human understanding, nor in colleges which fit youth merely for making money, nor in schools of technology to give an impulse to material interests, nor in legislatures controlled by monopolists, nor in judges elected by demagogues, nor in philanthropic societies to ventilate unpractical theories.  These will neither renovate nor conserve what is most precious in life.  Unless a nation grows morally as well as materially, there is something wrong at the core of society.  As I have said, no material expansion will avail, if society becomes rotten at the core.  America is a glorious boon to civilization, but only as she fulfils a new mission in history,—­not to become more potent in material forces, but in those spiritual agencies which prevent corruption and decay.  An infidel professor, calling himself a savant, may tell you that there is nothing certain or great but in the direction of science to utilities, even as he may glory in a philosophy which ignores a creator and takes cognizance only of a creation.

As I survey the growing and enormous moral evils which degrade society, here as everywhere, in spite of Bunker Hills and Plymouth Rocks, and all the windy declamations of politicians and philanthropists, and all the advance in useful mechanisms, I am sometimes tempted to propound inquiries which suggest the old, mournful story of the decline and ruin of States and Empires.  I ask myself, Why should America be an exception to the uniform fate of nations, as history has demonstrated?  Why should not good institutions be perverted here, as in all other countries and ages of the world?  Where has civilization shown any striking triumphs, except in inventions to abridge the labors of mankind and make men comfortable and rich?  Is there nothing before us, then, but the triumphs of material life, to end as mournfully as the materialism of antiquity?  If so, then Christianity is a most dismal failure, is a defeated power, like all other forms of religion which failed to save.  But is it a failure?  Are we really swinging back to Paganism?  Is the time to be hailed when all religions will be considered