In the accomplishment of great moral purposes, a Divine Providence employs human instrumentalities. Of this we have ample evidence, not only in the history of nations, but in the career of individuals. A little more than eighteen centuries ago, a few obscure fishermen, while casting their nets into the Sea of Galilee, were called to abandon their nets, and become "fishers of men." A little more than sixty years ago, a few obscure young men, while pursuing their classical studies in Williams College, were called to go into benighted lands beyond the sea, and proclaim the divine doctrine of "peace on earth and good-will to men." These students, though unknown to fame, were young men of thought and of high moral aspirations. Influenced by a devotional spirit, they felt that God had a great work for them to do, and that it was therefore important for them to comprehend their true relations, both to God and to man. What was the precise character of the great work assigned them, they did not seem to know; and for this reason they sought for more light, and for guidance from the Mighty Counsellor, whose wisdom is infinite, and who cannot err. In seeking for that knowledge which "cometh from above," they were accustomed, in the milder months of the year, to hold occasional prayer-meetings in the solitudes of Nature, believing that "The groves were God's first temples." And doubtless they felt that the Divine Presence dwells more essentially in the silent sanctuaries of Nature than in "temples made with hands." It was here, within the quiet and cool retreat of the maple-grove in which we are now assembled, that they had convened at the close of a sultry summer day, in the year 1806, to hold the accustomed prayer-meeting, when they were overtaken by a sudden shower of rain, and compelled to seek the friendly shelter afforded them by a neighboring haystack.