If then, the decline of English arts and arms be near, of which I am by no means as confident as some, it will be a very slow decline, and coincident with a new glory, and a brighter one, than England yet has known. Instead of armies, she is now sending forth soldiers of the Prince of Peace. She has discovered that it is cheaper and wiser to sustain missionaries than bayonets. The era of her greatest work is before her. She is to become the nursing mother of nations, and in her language, the sound of the Gospel is to go forth into all lands, and unto the end of the world. Hers is the deposit of the faith once delivered to the saints. The Roman Churches have divorced themselves from the promises, and in the Catholicity of England chiefly is fulfilled the promise of Christ, to be always with His own Apostolic commission, even to the end of the world. At the same time, there is a moral life in English society, which must long salt the State, and preserve it from decay. I appeal to the common sense of Christian men, and I ask, in what other country under heaven is there such a mass of domestic and social purity? Where else is there so large a benevolence, so masculine a religion, so enlightened a conscience, among any people? England has her shame as well as her glory; she is part and parcel of a sinful world; but her light is not hid under a bushel: and if the hope of the world be not in her candle, I am at a loss to know where to find encouragement as a Christian, that the Gospel is to become universal. I believe, indeed, that my own country is to share, with her, this magnificent career of peaceful conquest. We are bone of her bone, and flesh of her flesh: but I believe, also, that before we can heal the nations, we must first heal ourselves of the wretched religious anarchy which is the bane of our education, our society, and our National character.