There is little affectation of concealment, on the part of thoughtful Americans, of the conviction that our national growth and the success of our government are subject to the universal laws according to which past empires have risen and perished. It is to be hoped that the success with which we have been blessed so far will not blind our eyes to this truth. We must have a solid basis of morality, or we are doomed to fall into such a condition as will make our absolute extinction a desirable thing. Whence is this new life to come? Is there anything in American Protestantism which can reverse its steady process of decay and disintegration? Has it any principles which can arrest for one moment the popular tendencies? We are unable to see in it even a “serviceable breakwater against errors more fundamental than its own”; quite the contrary. Its dogmatic front only serves to disgust those who mistake it for Christianity. Protestantism never converted a nation to Christianity or formed one. It could do neither even if it had an opportunity. In its latitudinarian aspect it directly fosters the present vagueness of moral convictions; while its emotional tendency only justifies the substitution of sentiment for reason and nullifies all attempts to subject the feelings to the judgment. However one may be disposed to prefer the paganism which universally pervades our era to the unlovely fanaticism of earlier times, experience, both past and present, forbids the indulgence of any hope of future success springing from it.