from influences altogether foreign to man? Is it the settled destiny of
nations to rise to a certain height in wisdom and power, and then pass
away in ignominy and gloom? Is there permanence in any human
institutions? Will society move round in perpetual circles, incapable of
progression and incapable of rest, or will it indefinitely improve? May
there not be the highest triumphs of art, literature, and science, where
the mainsprings of society are sensuality and egotism? Is the tendency
of society to democratic, or aristocratic, or despotic governments? Does
Christianity, in this dispensation, merely furnish witnesses of truth,
or will it achieve successive conquests over human degeneracy till the
race is emancipated and saved? Can it arrest the downward tendency of
society, when it is undermined by vices which blunt the conscience of
mankind, and which are sustained by all that is proud in rank, brilliant
in fashion, and powerful in wealth?

These are inquiries on which Roman history sheds light. If history is a
guide or oracle, they are full of impressive significance. Can we afford
to reject all the examples of the past in our sanguine hopes for the
future? Human nature is the same in any age, and human experiences point
to some great elemental truths, which the Bible confirms. _We_ may
be unmoved by them, but they remain in solemn dignity for all
generations; "and foremost of them," as Charles Kingsley has so well
said, "stands a law which man has been trying in all ages, as now, to
deny, or at least to ignore, and that is,--that as the fruit of
righteousness is wealth and peace, strength and honor, the fruit of
unrighteousness is poverty and anarchy, weakness and shame; for not upon
_mind_, but upon _morals_, is human welfare founded. Science
is indeed great; but she is not the greatest. She is an instrument, and
not a power. But her lawful mistress, the only one under whom she can
truly grow, and prosper, and prove her divine descent, is Virtue, the