Recall for one moment what has taken place during a brief span of time, hardly exceeding a year. I do not dwell on that mighty revolution in France, with whose throes the earth still shakes, and whose issues are yet unrevealed; I do not pause to contemplate the character of that Pontifical Reformer who has done so much to breathe into Europe the breath of a new life; I can only point to Sicily and Naples, rising against a besotted tyranny,--to Venice and Lombardy, claiming long-lost rights,--to all Italy, filled with the thought of Unity,--to Hungary, flaming with republican fires,--to Austria, roused at last against a patriarchal despotism,--to Prussia, taking her place among constitutional states,--to Germany, in its many principalities, throbbing with the strong pulse of Freedom. These things are present to your minds. Other events, of a different character, are not less signs of the age. Discovery has achieved one of its most brilliant, as also one of its most benign results. The genius of Leverrier, traversing the spaces of the heavens, has disclosed a new planet. By the application of ether, the dreaded pain of the surgical knife, and even the pangs of Nature, are soothed or removed, while Death is disarmed of something of its terrors. These latter times have witnessed two spectacles of another nature and less regarded, which are of singular significance,--harbingers, I would call them, of those glad days of promise which we almost seem to touch. I would not exaggerate, and yet I must speak of them as they impress my own mind. To me they are of a higher order than any discovery in science, or any success in the acquisition of knowledge, or any political prosperity, inasmuch as they are the tokens of that moral elevation, and of that Human Brotherhood, without distinction of condition, nation, or race, which it is the supreme office of all science, all knowledge, and all politics to serve. I refer to the sailing of the Jamestown from Boston with succor to the starving poor of Ireland, and to the meeting of the Penitentiary Congress at Frankfort. All confess the beauty of that act, where prophecy seems fulfilled, by which a Ship of War was consecrated to a purpose of charity. Hardly less beautiful is the contemplation of that assembly at Frankfort (perhaps it is new to some whom I have the honor of addressing), where were delegates from most of the Christian nations,--from military France, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, the States of Germany, England, Spain, Italy, Denmark, Poland, distant Russia, and frozen Norway,--convened for no purpose of war or diplomacy,--not to agitate selfish coalitions, not to adjust or disturb the seeming balance of Europe, not to exalt or abase the vaulting ambition of potentate or state, but calmly and in fraternal council to consider what could be done for those who are in prison, to hear the recital of efforts in their behalf among all the nations, and to encourage each other in this work.