The Infinite Being, who through generation upon generation, progressively incarnates himself in the human race, and so manifests his glory upon earth, calls this age to its heavenly mission, and speaks through it with an eloquent longing, that cannot be uttered, his welcome and promise. The word whispers through the nations: "Man made One; a World at Peace; Humanity, the Earth round." At the nativity of this great hope, of this present Immanuel, the angels of our highest aspirations bend from their cloudy thrones,-- "Harping in loud and solemn choir, With unexpressive notes, to Heaven's newborn heir." And the burden of the song that interprets their symphony is this:-- "Justice and Truth again Shall down return to men. Orb'd in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing, Mercy will sit between, Throned in celestial sheen, With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering, And Heaven, as at some festival, Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall." The hope of universal unity has been born, cradled in the rude manger of labor; nurtured by charity, ever virgin; worshipped by shepherds, guarding humble, humane thoughts, like flocks in the fold of their hearts; it has sat with the doctors in the temple, unsullied by timidity and prudence, and has astonished them at its profound doctrine of unbounded love; it has grown in favor with God and man, and answered to its half doubting, half hoping parents of the church and state, "Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" and now is it driven away into the wilderness of poverty and hard toil, of loneliness and mortification, to be tempted of the devil. Let us first consider awhile these temptations; then review the forty days' meditation upon the divine mission of this principle of perfect love; and so be ready to preach, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." To the scattered band who, few and weak, are here and there withdrawn from the thoroughfares of life, to commune together and to cöoperate in the grand movement of the age, the world comes in with scarce dissembled sneer, and ironically says, "_If_ Association is really this Messiah to the ages, this pledge of universal prosperity, of overflowing wealth, then let it make these barren fields into gardens, these thick growing woods into palaces, these stones into bread."