thrilling joy? Can you submit to the thought that _you_ should be torpid
in your endeavors to disperse them, while the rest of Christendom is
awake and alert? Shall _you_ hang back in heartless indifference, when
princes come down from their thrones, to bless the cottage of the poor
with the gospel of peace; and imperial sovereigns are gathering their
fairest honors from spreading abroad the oracles of the Lord your God.
Is it possible that _you_ should not see, in this state of human things,
a mighty motion of Divine providence? The most heavenly charity treads
close upon the march of conflict and blood! The world is at peace!
Scarce has the soldier time to unbind his helmet, and to wipe away the
sweat from his brow, ere the voice of mercy succeeds to the clarion of
battle, and calls the nations from enmity to love! Crowned heads bow to
the head which is to wear "many crowns," and, for the first time since
the promulgation of Christianity, appear to act in unison for the
recognition of its gracious principles, as being fraught alike with
happiness to man, and honor to God.

What has created so strange, so beneficent an alteration. This is no
doubt the doing of the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes. But what
instrument has he thought fit chiefly to use. That which contributes in
all latitudes and climes to make Christians feel their unity, to rebuke
the spirit of strife, and to open upon them the day of brotherly
concord--the Bible!--the Bible!--through Bible Societies!

[Footnote 6: A Presbyterian clergyman of great distinction, long settled
in New York; rarely surpassed in controversial acuteness, and in
religious eloquence.]

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