have more than compensated for what she has lost in the Old.

Her spiritual ascendency extends over the vast countries which lie between the plains of Missouri and Cape Horn, countries which, a century hence, may not improbably contain a population as large as that which now inhabits Europe. The members of her communion are certainly not fewer than one hundred and fifty millions, and it will be difficult to show that all other Christian sects united amount to a hundred and twenty millions.

Nor do we see any sign which indicates that the term of her long dominion is approaching. She saw the commencement of all the governments and of all the ecclesiastical establishments that now exist in the world; and we feel no assurance that she is not destined to see the end of them all. She was great and respected before the Saxon had set foot on Britain, before the French had passed the Rhine, when Grecian eloquence still flourished at Antioch, when idols were still worshiped in the temple of Mecca. And she may still exist in undiminished vigor, when some traveler from New Zealand shall, in the midst of a vast solitude, take his stand on a broken arch of London Bridge, to sketch the ruins of St. Paul's.

A HUNDRED YEARS OF INDEPENDENCE

The Declaration of American Independence was a declaration of war with Great Britain, war to the knife, and the knife to the hilt. There were fearful odds against the Colonies when they threw down the gage of battle. On one side was England - strong in the consciousness of wealth and power, strong in the prestige of sovereignty, fully armed and equipped for war, insolent, haughty, scorning even to entertain the idea of possible check or defeat. On the other side, the Thirteen Colonies, stretching, for the most part, along the seaboard, vulnerable at a hundred points, and open to attack by sea and land, without army, without navy, without money or ammunition or material of war, having for troops only crowds of undisciplined citizens, who had left for a while plow and anvil and hurried to the front with what arms they could lay hands on to fight the veterans of King George, skilled in their terrible trade by long service in European wars.

On the second of July, 1776, the Continental Congress was in session in Philadelphia. There were about fortynine delegates present. That day was a day of gloom. The air was dark and heavy with ill news: ill news from the North Montgomery had fallen at Quebec, and the expedition against Canada had miserably failed;

ill news from the South a fleet of British men-of-war had crossed the bar of Charleston, South Carolina; ill news from New York - Lord Howe's ships were riding in the Lower Bay, and a British army of thirty thousand men menaced the city with attack. From all sides came ill tidings. Everywhere doubt and suspicion and despondency. It was a dark and gloomy time, when even the boldest might well be forgiven for losing heart.

Such was the hour when Congress entered upon the consideration of the great question on which hung the fate of a continent. There were some who clung still to British connection. The king might relent — conciliation was not impossible a monarchical form of government was dear to them. The past of England was their past, and they were loath to lose it. Then, war was a terrible alternative. They saw the precipice, and they shuddered and started back appalled.

But on the other side were the men of the hour the men of the people, who listened to the voice of the people, and felt the throbbing of the people's great heart. They, too, saw the precipice. Their eyes fathomed all the depth of the black abyss, but they saw beyond the glorious vision of the coming years. They saw countless happy homes stretching far and wide across a continent, wherein should dwell for

ages generation after generation of men nurtured in strength and virtue and prosperity by the light and warmth of freedom.

Remember that between the Thirteen Colonies there were then but few ties. They differed in many things; in race, religion, climate, productions, and habits of thought, as much then as they do now. One grand purpose alone knit their souls together, North to South, Adams of Massachusetts to Jefferson of Virginia the holy purpose of building up here, for them and their children, a free nation, to be the example, the model, the citadel of freedom; or, failing in that, to die and be forgotten, or remembered only with the stain of rebellion on their names.

The counsel of these brave and generous men prevailed. Some light from the better world illumined their souls and strengthened their hearts. Behind them surged and beat the great tide of popular enthusiasm. The people, ever alive to heroic purpose; the people, whose honest instincts are often the wisest statesmanship the people waited but for the word; ready to fight, ready to die, if need be, for independence. And so God's will was done upon the earth.

The word was spoken, the "Declaration" was made that gave life and name to the "United States of America," and a new nation breathed and looked into the future, daring all the best or the worst that future might

bring. If that declaration became a signal of rescue and relief to countries far away, what word can describe the miracles it has wrought for this people here at home? It was a spell, a talisman, an armor of proof, and a sword of victory. The undisciplined throng of citizen-soldiers, taught in the stern school of hardship and reverse, soon grew to be a great army, before which the veterans of Britain recoiled.

Europe, surprised into sympathy with rebellion, sent her best and bravest here to fight the battle of freedom, and Lafayette of France, De Kalb of Germany, Kosciusko of Poland, and their compeers, drew their bright swords in the ranks of the young republic. Best support of all was that calm, fearless, steadfast soul, which, undismayed in the midst of peril and disaster, undaunted amid wreck and ruin, stood like a tower, reflecting all that was best and noblest in the character of the American people, and personifying its resolute will. Happy is that nation to whom, in its hour of need, bountiful Heaven provides a leader so brave and wise, so fitted to guide and rule, as was, in that early crisis of the American republic, its foremost man- George Washington.

Thus, from the baptism of blood, the young nation came forth purified, triumphant, free. Then the mystic influence, the magic of her accomplished freedom, began to work, and the thoughts of men, and the powers