and his mental troubles are quieted.  Becoming a Romanist before Rome is founded, he says, “Now know I that the Lord will do me good, seeing I have a Levite to my priest.”  Religion to him consisted in a fine silver apparatus of gods, and a priest in regular succession.  In this story of Micah it was seen that emigration, or a new settlement of the social state, involves a tendency to social decline.  “Our first danger,” said the preacher, “is barbarism —­Romanism next.”

The tendency to barbarism was illustrated by historic references.  The emigration headed by Abraham soon developed a mass of barbarism,—­Lot giving rise to the Moabites and the Ammonites; meanwhile, Abraham throwing off upon the world in his son Ishmael another stock of barbarians—­the Arabs,—­a name which according to some signifies Westerners.  One generation later, and another ferocious race springs from the family of Isaac—­the descendants of Esau, or the Edomites.  Then coming down to the time of the Judges we find that violence prevailed, that the roads were destroyed, and that the arts had perished:  there was not even a smith left in the land; and they were obliged to go down to the Philistines to get an axe or a mattock sharpened.  Then the preacher came to the great American question itself.  It was often supposed that in New England there had always been an upward tendency.  It was not so.  It had been downward until the “great revival” about the year 1740.  The dangers to which society in the South and “Far West” is now exposed were powerfully described.  The remedies were then pointed out.

“First of all, we must not despair.”  “And what next?  We must get rid, if possible, of slavery.” “‘We must have peace.’”.  Also “Railways and telegraphs.”  “Education, too, we must favour and promote.”  “Above all, provide a talented and educated body of Christian teachers, and keep them pressing into the wilderness as far as emigration itself can go.”  The conclusion of this great sermon was so remarkable that I cannot but give it in the Doctor’s own words.

“And now, Jehovah God, thou who, by long ages of watch and discipline, didst make of thy servant Abraham a people, be thou the God also of this great nation.  Remember still its holy beginnings, and for the fathers’ sakes still cherish and sanctify it.  Fill it with thy Light and thy Potent Influence, till the glory of thy Son breaks out on the Western sea as now upon the Eastern, and these uttermost parts, given to Christ for his possession, become the bounds of a new Christian empire, whose name the believing and the good of all people shall hail as a name of hope and blessing.”