"This is a land which is choice above all other lands; wherefore he that possesses it shall serve God, or he shall be swept off; for it is the everlasting decree of God. And it is not until the fulness of iniquity among the children of the land, that they are swept off. . . Behold, this is a choice land, and whatsoever nation shall possess it, shall be free from bondage, and from captivity, and from all other nations under heaven, if they will but serve the God of the land, who is Jesus Christ. . . . And this cometh unto you O ye Gentiles, that ye may know the decrees of God, that ye may repent, and not continue in your iniquities until the fulness comes, that ye may not bring down the fulness of the wrath of God upon you, as the inhabitants of the land have hitherto done." WEBSTER'S CONCEPTION OF AMERICA. Did our own great Webster catch something of this old Nephite inspiration when, speaking something like twenty-two years after the first publication of the Book of Mormon (Feb. 22, 1852, to be precise--and before the New York Historical Society)--he said, in his own matchless eloquence: "Unborn ages and visions of glory crowd upon my soul, the realization of all which, however, is in the hands and good pleasure of Almighty God; but, under his divine blessing, it will be dependent on the character and the virtues of ourselves, and of our posterity. If classical history has been found to be, is now, and shall continue to be, the concomitant of free institutions, and of popular eloquence, what a field is opening to us for another Herodotus, another Thucydides, and another Livy! "And let me say, gentlemen, that if we and our posterity shall be true to the Christian religion--if we and they shall live always in the fear of God, and shall respect his commandments--if we and they shall maintain just, moral sentiments, and such conscientious convictions of duty as shall control the heart and life--we may have the highest hopes of the future fortunes of our country; and if we maintain those institutions of government and that political union, exceeding all praise as much as it exceeds all former examples of political associations, we may be sure of one thing--that, while our country furnishing materials for a thousand masters of the historic art, it will afford no topic for a Gibbon. It will have no Decline and Fall. It will go on prospering and to prosper.