achievements of England, say since the abdication of the Emperor Charles
V.

This little island is today the centre of the wealth, of the solid
civilization, of the world. I will not say of art, of music, of the
lighter social graces that make life agreeable; but I will say of the
moral forces that make progress possible and worth while. Of this island
the centre is London; of London the heart is "the City," and in the City
you can put your finger on one spot where the pulse of the world is
distinctly felt to beat. The Moslem regards the Kaaba at Mecca as the
centre of the universe; but that is only a theological phrase. The centre
of the world is the Bank of England in Leadenhall Street. There is not an
occurrence, not a conquest or a defeat, a revolution, a panic, a famine,
an abundance, not a change in value of money or material, no depression
or stoppage in trade, no recovery, no political, and scarcely any great
religious movement--say the civil deposition of the Pope or the Wahhabee
revival in Arabia and India--that does not report itself instantly at
this sensitive spot. Other capitals feel a local influence; this feels
all the local influences. Put your ear at the door of the Bank or the
Stock Exchange near by, and you hear the roar of the world.

But this is not all, nor the most striking thing, nor the greatest
contrast to the empires of Rome and of Spain. The civilization that has
gone forth from England is a self-sustaining one, vital to grow where it
is planted, in vast communities, in an order that does not depend, as
that of the Roman world did, upon edicts and legions from the capital.
And it must be remembered that if the land empire of England is not so
vast as that of Rome, England has for two centuries been mistress of the
seas, with all the consequences of that opportunity--consequences to
trade beyond computation. And we must add to all this that an