The social mission of the Christian Church is a subject to which none can be indifferent. For eighteen centuries and a half the career of the Church has remained unchanged; and amid the revolutions of nations and the migrations of tribes and peoples, her social mission has ever been to educate, to civilize, and to elevate humanity. The civilization of the east had languished into decay, the greatness of Greece was merged in the universal empire of Rome, and the east and the west groaned under the despotism of the Cæsars. When this new and strange power appeared upon the earth it was a power insignificant in appearance, and far beneath even the contempt of the haughty emperors; yet that little society, these few poor and despised Galileans were destined to crush the colossus of Paganism, and to erect upon its ruins an empire more extended than that of Rome, and a civilization more refined and more enlightened than that of Egypt or of Greece. These few ignorant men were to purify the philosophy of Greece, to humble the greatness of Rome, to arrest the wandering tribes of the desert and the savage hordes of the north, to civilize them and to lead them within the pale of the Christian Church; slavery was to retire before her influence; the dark clouds of ignorance and barbarism were to be dispelled by her light; and arts, learning, and civilization were to flourish under the shadow of her patronage. Her hands were full of gifts to men; to the slave she was the herald of freedom, to the ignorant she was the bearer of knowledge, and to all she was the teacher of a pure and elevated morality, unknown to the pagan world. Such was the social mission of the Christian Church; how nobly has she fulfilled it!