“‘Perhaps we are unable rightly to appreciate the blessings which were placed within the reach of man at his creation, when “the sons of God shouted for joy.” Yet I think that we do realize some of the evils to which man is heir by reason of “sin, and death by sin,” which have entered the world. How manifest it is, at the present day, that all the influences of the pit are inciting men to crime, bringing in their trail consequences ten-fold more dreadful than those entailed upon us by the sin of our first parents! If there were one spark of philanthropy existing in the world, methinks it must bleed at beholding the rapid increase of evil within the last few years. “‘I confess that to me it would be but a dismal and appalling prospect in the future, did not a ray of light beam forth from the word of God, that there should be a glorious and final renovation of all things! This “exceeding great and precious promise,” to the man of God, is the only hope that cheers him in his weary pilgrimage. Every means that the wisdom of man could devise for the melioration of the condition of man has failed; ministers of the gospel have been sent into every land; Bibles have been scattered broadcast in the earth, translated into almost every tongue, and placed in the hands of the poor, “without money and without price;” schools of every grade, from the college to the common, have sprung up, in which have been developed the highest mental qualities of man; societies have been multiplied for the moral improvement of our race,—to Christianize the heathen, to reform the inebriate, to break the bonds of the enslaved, to liberate the debtor, to stop the horrid practice of legal murder, to promote peace among nations, to protect the orphan, to clothe the naked, to feed the hungry, to nurse the sick, and even to bury the dead. These, and many other noble and benevolent enterprises, have been formed within the present century. But how much good have they accomplished? That great good has been done, cannot be denied. But it is likewise true that evil has predominated in a far greater ratio than at any former period.