And so again we say, "the world moves," the church moves, the spirit of the All-wise and Almighty is moving upon the heart of humanity. Man advances. This is the Divine process. For long centuries there may be but little, comparatively, accomplished; then a new activity will be realized. We do not expect to go back to the Dark Ages again. The very last half-century, as we have seen, has been more marked with progress than any other before in the world's history. Our own nation has given signal evidence of this. Our Declaration of Independence has an increased luminousness at the present hour. That the next half-century will have equal advancement, we are not sure; but all signs are hopeful that there will be more growth, continued improvement. One thing seems evident in reference to our own nation, which is, that the religion of the Gospel is needed in it more than ever before, to meet its increasing needs, and to give it strength of character and permanent life. Truer words were never spoken than those by the orator at the Yorktown Centenary celebration during the past year:-- "No advanced thought, no mystical philosophy, glittering abstractions, no swelling phrases about freedom,--not even science, with all its marvellous inventions and discoveries,--can help us much in sustaining this republic. Still less can any Godless theories of creation, or any infidel attempts to rule out the Redeemer from his rightful supremacy in our hearts, afford us any hope of security. In that way lies despair! Commonplace truths, old familiar teachings, the ten commandments, the sermon on the mount, the farewell address of Washington, honesty, virtue, patriotism, universal education, are what the world most needs in these days, and our own part of the world as much as any other part. Without these we are lost. With these, and with the blessing of God, which is sure to follow them, we may confidently look forward."[66] If we are reading the signs of the present and the indications of the future aright, we readily conclude that it is but early day yet in the history of humanity,--we mean in its moral and spiritual history. Gross darkness, fearful wrong, appalling sin yet afflict and demean it. If we have the gain of the past to encourage us, if we would be aids in the world's progress, the new instrumentalities of the present which we possess must be used as though we had full faith in their power, that is, in the Divine indications that are in them. If the true millennium is yet afar off, it is advancing. So should we be, not as children of the night, nor of any darkness of the past, but of the Christian day, which has had its heavenly breaking, and whose rising bids us to be risen also, and to be moving on! We are debtors to the past, how great we can never fully realize. We are equally debtors to the future. What can we now do for its largest blessing, its permanent life?