as indeed it is essentially-a spiritual principle, that we do not trace it beyond the realm of spirit. We forget that it has necessarily had much to do in the outward affairs of the world, in the secular as well as religious history of nations, and in all the civil, political, and social condition of mankind. Now, we think this oversight a very great defect in our views of the matter. We do not deny that the influence of Christ and his religion has its seat in the inmost affections of men. These are indeed the sphere of its immediate and direct operations. It is here that he holds his government, and sways his sceptre. But there is a further consideration that cannot be too plainly stated, viz. that nothing ever enters into the hearts and spirits of men, and reigns there, without working itself forth, sooner or later, into external forms, manners, customs, and established regulations, that go to make up the outward structure of society. It is like seed sown in a field as surely as it takes root in the depths of the soil, it cannot be confined there; it will spring up, and appear in congenial forms above ground, giving another face to the scenery. Inculcate any new principle in the hearts of a people or community, and it will first affect their feelings, of course; then their personal characters. But it cannot stop there. It will work on, and work outwardly, changing their modes of life and conduct, giving rise to new laws and institutions, or affecting the old ones, and finally modifying everything in which the people take an active part, or that grows up out of their agency. For it makes them a different people; and they must, of course, act differently in all subjects on which the principle bears. I trust, my brethren, that you all perceive how these remarks apply to the influence of Christ's mission, which so deeply affects the hearts and personal characters of mankind. It has, in all ages since, manifested itself at length on the very face of society, and in the structure of the body politic. It has done much to shape the social and civil existence of every people among whom it has borne sway. It has given the course of their history new directions. How, indeed, could it do otherwise, if it operated in their hearts? For the condition and fortune of communities are, in a great measure, but the result of the internal

principles that form their tastes, characters, conduct, and aim. An intelligent people will not, and cannot, long retain even the kind of government, much less the institutions, that grew up in their state of ignorance; or, if the form remain, the character and operations will be changed. Among a virtuous or a religious people, the manners, laws, and public measures cannot continue the same as when they were vicious and irreligious. And to whatever extent Christianity has imparted intellectual and moral excellence, it has affected the secret springs that move the whole visible machinery.

But, to leave theorizing, look back, now, into past time, and see how Christianity has actually affected the history of the world. We can only glance at some of the most prominent facts, passing over wide intervals between. In little more than three centuries from the birth of Christ, the train of causes put into motion in that obscure manger at Bethlehem, had revolutionized the government of the entire civilized world, under Constantine and his successors. The babe of Bethlehem had shaken heathenism, universal heathenism, forever from the throne of empire; and, from that day forward, the history of civilized man was the history of Christianity,—of Christianity which, indeed, was often perverted, often corrupted by a mass of foreign principles, but still retaining a pure element, that shared in the control of all outward affairs. It is well known to every one who has looked into the state of those times, that the former dominant and controlling influences had nearly lost their hold of the public mind. The superannuated civilization of old Rome had long been sinking, and was now approaching the last stage of dotage. But, along with the decay of this, a far better culture was slowly rising towards the ascendency, and exerting in every city and town a healthful power to renovate the diseased and staggering carcass of the social system. Nor did it work in vain. It kept the body alive, and supplied a germ of vitality which has never perished.

Look again; direct your attention to a period somewhat later. When the barbarians from the fierce and turbulent North broke, like a flood, into the ancient seats of empire, and in successive surges overflowed all Europe, what was

it that saved the world from the hopeless devastation of Gothic ignorance and Vandal ferocity? The Christian church and the Christian institutions, degenerate as they had become in that age. When all other power had passed away in the general wreck, the church alone kept her station; and she retained vigor enough to bring the countless hordes of invading and conquering savages into her own bosom, where, by slow degrees, she softened down their asperities, and transformed them, though imperfectly, into civilized men. It was the influence of the event we are now commemorating, that was the mighty agent in preserving the relics of cultured life, and in reducing the stern victors to social order. Their irruption had been like a mountain avalanche, rushing from frozen heights into the vale below; a wide-spread waste of earth, and rock, and all kind of unformed materials! And it was Christianity which, uncrushed herself when all else went down, stood up amidst the ruin, and toiled with untiring energy at the chaotic mass, till she had converted the crude elements, by degrees, into the soil of a new cultivation. A task of centuries! and on its success depended the subsequent condition and fortunes of Europe.

We have all heard much of the dark ages, which, after a considerable interval, gathered down on the face of the old world, the natural consequence of the rough barbarism of the new race on the one hand, and of the corruption and inertness of the remaining Roman population on the other. There was not sufficient energy left in the ancient social system to rule the chaos in which it had been overwhelmed; and the wheels of human progress seemed, for a while, to go backward. Yet, even in those times, there were brighter aspects. Throughout the long period of night, the historian cannot overlook the fact that what still remained of intelligence, or civilization, or public order, in Europe, was owing chiefly to that element of Christianity which had not entirely departed from the hearts and institutions of the people. In one way or another, indeed, the mission of Jesus Christ was still working and counterworking in the court and camp, as well as in the church and cloister, operating in the freecities, in the feudal baronies, and in the petty kingdoms,

1

as the great moving power of the whole social machinery. True, its power was sometimes developed, by the force of circumstances, in the most grotesque forms, sometimes in the most perverse, and often desecrated to the vilest purposes. But its more genuine influences also were all the while at work, arranging the elements of a better order of things, and preparing the way for the advances and improvements that have since been realized. Nothing is plainer to the eye of the observant historian, than that the present existing state of the civilized world grew up out of causes that were operating in the dark ages, and that the successive revolutions by which it has been gradually effected, were occasioned by the action or counteractions of the same dominant principle. Why need we mention the Reformation, the settlement of our country, the French Revolution, and other leading events, with each its mighty train of consequences?

But time would fail us, to follow the subject down, step by step, through the intermediate centuries. Nor is this necessary. We have only to turn to facts that lie directly before us in our own day, for the most astonishing exemplifications of the influence which the birth of Jesus Christ has exerted, and still continues to exert with accumulating force, on the general history of our race. My brethren, I invite your attention to the state of the world as it is at present: what do we behold? That Christianity has already stretched her dominion over nearly one half of our globe! He that was born in Bethlehem King of the Jews, now reigns acknowledged Lord from the eastern limits of Europe to the Rocky Mountains on the west, and from the Arctic circle to the burning sands of Africa and the farther provinces of Southern America. Over this immense region-the most enlightened portion of our earth-the religion of Christ has stamped itself, more or less deeply, into all the circumstances and conditions of outward life. The modifications it has wrought, may be traced in the forms and details of government, in the political connections of states and kingdoms with each other, in the general progress of community, in the enterprises that agitate the world, in the customs, manners, literature, and character of the people,-in short, in every

thing, from their most public concerns down to their domestic and fireside intercourse. We do not, of course, mean that it has yet assimilated this wide realm to itself, or that it bears sway in a thousand of the several departments. No, indeed; far from it. But its influence, direct or indirect, is felt in them all, even where it is avowedly discarded. We see it in the momentous part which the church acts in civilized life; we trace it in the systems of education, in the projects of reform and improvement, in the gradual elevation of the common people, in the acknowledged standards of morality and universal maxims of conduct, and in the redemption of woman from her ancient degradation to her appropriate sphere in society. Imperfectly, very imperfectly indeed, as Christianity is yet realized, a cursory glance will show that, such as it actually is in its immediate and remoter effects, it could not be separated from the existing state of things, without dissolving the entire structure of the body politic, and destroying everything that is regarded as excellent. Take the present condition of the civilized world, and all its better elements may be traced back to the mission of Jesus Christ. It would scarcely be a figure of speech, to say, that it was wrapped up, as a germ, in the unnoticed event of that evening when a Saviour was born; just as the future oak, with its towering top and wide-spreading branches, is enveloped in the acorn that is silently dropped into the bosom of earth, arnid the solitude of the forest. We have said that the birth of Christ is already felt in its influence over nearly half of the earth. How sublime and affecting the thought! "Blessed are they see; and our ears, for they hear." brethren, in that heart-swelling declaration, the one half is not told. For it is now become clear to the eye of reason itself, to say nothing of the testimony of ancient prophecy, that Christianity must complete her conquest, and carry her dominion around the whole circuit of the globe. We see unquestionable indications of her sure progress to this universal triumph, in the advances she is now making, and in the tenor of her past history.

our eyes, for

And yet, my

Everything in the existing state of affairs goes to show that Christianity cannot be restricted to its present limits,