SERMON VII.

THE INFLUENCE OF THE UNITED STATES ON OTHER NATIONS.*

HE HATH NOT DEALT SO WITH ANY NATION; AND AS FOR HIS JUDGMENTS, THEY HAVE NOT KNOWN THEM. PRAISE YE THE LORD. Ps. cxlvii. 20.

THE Occasions or causes of gratitude towards God, on the part of an individual, are twofold ;-first, the positive blessings which he has enjoyed, or does now enjoy, the gifts conferred on him, or upon those in whom he is interested; secondly, the opportunities of doing good with which he is favored, his facilities for being a benefactor to his race. He is the passive recipient of God's favors; he may also become the almoner of them. He is in a sphere of enjoyment and of responsibility. Precisely so is it with communities and nations. The blessings of Heaven descend upon them, both for their own individual use and for the universal welfare. They are privileged with enjoying and communicating. They bask in the sunshine of God's counte

* This discourse was preached on Thanksgiving day, November, 1848.

nance, that they may reflect its beams to communities less favored. The ancient Israelites fed upon the dainties of the earth and the corn of Heaven. Yet they were endowed with the richer blessings of being a light to enlighten the gentiles; they were a city set on a hill; they might have been philanthropists on the largest scale; they were the depositaries of knowledge inestimable. By their bright example, all the surrounding tribes might have been won over to the true religion. In respect to their position, central, illuminating, furnished with attractive influences, God had dealt with them as he had with no other nation. In like manner he has blessed the inhabitants of our land, as he has no contemporary people. The language of the text is as applicable to the United States as it was to the Hebrews. We are not called to day to the exercise of a thankful spirit towards the Almighty, simply because of the bounties of his providence, of the rich and various stores lavished upon us, nor for our happy exemption from the sufferings and disasters which have befallen other nations. Our gratitude is due because we are in a commanding position, we are in peculiarly favorable circumstances to do good to others. In addition to the positive blessings which we may confer, we cannot help doing good largely, by our example, provided we be true to ourselves and to the gracious Being who has so signalized his kindness towards us.

Wherein con

What are the elements of this influence? sist our resources for doing good? What are the peculiarities in the character and present condition of the people of the United States, which constitute at once their happiness and their responsibility, which call alike for fervent thankfulness and trembling solicitude ?

Our means for benefiting other nations arise in part

from the variety of elements which have been, and are now, forming our national character. The strength of individual or national character consists in a measure in the variety, perhaps diversity, of the original ingredients. God made of one blood all nations of men. An Ishmaelitish exclusiveness is neither pleasing to him, nor conducive to the good of his creatures. The idea that there is some original and inherent purity in the blood of a particular family or race, which requires an aristocratic segregation from all baser mixtures, has been proved, times without number, to be utterly baseless. In many cases it has led to the total extinction of the proud families who have indulged it. The power of the British people would have been greater, had there been a larger infusion of the Norman element. The invincible might of her armies and navies has been as much owing to the Celtic as to the Saxon constituent. The poor and despised Irishmen at this moment compose a large part of the armies whose renown is celebrated in every quarter of the world.

One advantage of the variety of elements which are rapidly working out the American character, is the interest. which it calls forth in our behalf in almost every part of Europe. The Norwegian on his snowy cliff, the Hollander repairing his dikes, the Swiss goat-herd who pulls up the medicinal herb that fringes the eternal ice of his mountains, the gay Parisian, and he whom the morning wakes among the dews and flowers of Lombardy, have each a father or a son, or dear kindred, in New York, or in Virginia, or in the vales of the Upper Mississippi. Our prosperity is the prosperity of thousands in every part of Europe. There is not a wind from the Atlantic, which is not laden with the vows and prayers of many yearning hearts separated from those whom they love. Some of these foreigners are pious

members of the Krummachers' flocks at Elberfeld, or they are pietists in Bavaria, or persecuted Christians in Holland or in Switzerland. Mingling with the prayers which these poor peasants daily offer at the throne of grace for their kinsmen and friends here, are warm intercessions for our government, for the stability of our free institutions, for the spread of the Gospel which binds all Christian hearts into one dear and universal communion; and, in proportion as the immigrants become enlightened and familiar with our institutions, will they not only feel an interest themselves in upholding and cherishing the principles of order and good government, but they will awaken the same and be the channels of intercommunication for the same, in multitudes who will remain at their old homes. We shall thus have enlisted in our behalf the good wishes and the prayers of a multitude as great, at least, as that which has actually come to our shores.

Another advantage of this commingling of races is the positive good elements which we shall acquire, and the counteraction of certain defects which all of us must see and acknowledge. One prominent fault in our national character, or in our exhibition of it, is nervous excitement, a restless and unappeasable pursuit of some object, laudable perhaps in itself; such an absorption of the soul in the search for worldly good, often also transferred to the territory of morals and religion, that many of us lose all perception of, or taste for, quiet domestic scenes, endanger all true symmetry of culture, often fail of the very object we would reach, by our headlong pursuit of it, in many instances shorten life or render it unhappy, and by our one-sidedness, and by the formation of what might be called a projecting and angular character, really incur the reproach of a modified insanity. The energy we boast of degenerates into a pernicious vice.

It is not strength of purpose or force of character, so much as it is a foolish improvidence or recklessness. It leads us to consult effect, rather than true ornament; to be pleased with an imposing exterior, rather than solid utility; immediate profit, rather than permanent good; a hasty and ill-balanced education, rather than patient and laborious discipline. When the fire breaks out, or the floods come, our poor structures fall or are swept away, before their weakness even can be fairly tested.

Now it is certainly important for our national character, if something of the steady patience, the calm perseverance, the unimpassioned steadiness, which characterize the Northern nations of Europe, can be interfused and incorporated with it. Well might we exchange some of our wasting anxiety, our unreasoning and short-sighted energy, our wretched utilitarianism, for the serenity, the light-hearted joyousness, the uncomplaining industry, which distinguish whole tribes and nations on the continent of Europe. It would be an element of strength in every point of view. We could not, indeed, crowd so much into a day or a year, but we should accomplish far better the great ends of life, both temporal and religious.

Even the French character, which we are so much accustomed to undervalue and denounce, and which we judge most unjustly from the standard which the population of the capital city have set up, possesses elements which are worthy of respect and imitation. The French now stand, and have long stood, at the head of all nations, as profound and patient investigators in mathematical and physical science, studies which demand long-continued and unrelaxing attention, and some of which are not attended or followed by immediate fame, never by the applause of the multitude. The French, too, instead of being universally