What progress has this providential teaching of the Latins in the New World made?  So swiftly did they learn the lessons of liberty that hardly had the conflict which won complete freedom for the United States closed before the inevitable struggle for the same priceless heritage was in full swing in all Latin-America.  And be it said to their everlasting credit that this sacred cause, in spite of revolutions and reactions, which at times hazarded the whole scheme, has made steady advance, all critics to the contrary, nothwithstanding.  Political liberty is potentially at least achieved in South America.  It is written in the Constitutions of the Republics and in the purposes of the people.  While many battles will be fought to establish it in detail, yet the principle is so well established that it will never be uprooted, provided we give the moral and educational aid we should render at this critical hour.

We have come upon a time when we must give to our South American brothers unstinted support.  They have attained political freedom, but they have not yet gained religious freedom.  Nothing can be more anomolous than a State with political freedom fostering a State religion that is desperately and unscrupulously intolerant.  No genuine Republic can support a State religion.  The two will not live together.  One or the other must go, as the history of France will abundantly substantiate.  One result is inevitable—­the people will eventually repudiate the despotic religion and drift into atheism and infidelity.  Indeed, such a thing is happening in South America today.  The better educated classes are being set hopelessly adrift religiously and the more ignorant, the common people, are following idolatry.  Neither have the gospel preached to them.  The Bible is withheld.  Such a state of affairs is a loud call to us.

If these people are left without a vital, character building religion they will, because of their volatile natures, degenerate into the grossest perversions of morality.  In such an event the Monroe Doctrine itself would become a menace.  Unless we give these people the gospel it will be far better to annul the Monroe Doctrine and permit the stronger nations of Europe to enter for the sake of good government and morality.  We must either carry to our Latin brothers the regenerating, uplifting, energizing gospel of Jesus, or step out of the way and let England and Germany interpose their strong arms to prevent one of the most colossal catastrophies of all time in the moral collapse of the 70,000,000 Latin-Americans.  Surely, this must be the time when we, if we ever intend to do so, must reinforce our Latin brothers.  They have done well, they have made progress, but they have gone about as far as they can in the struggle upon the moral resources at their command.  Their very progress in education and civilization is widening the breach between them and their former religious teachers.  A new life must come in, even the power of the gospel.  This alone can save Latin-America from inglorious failure.