The endless invasions of the Roman empire by northern tribes is another instance of whole races being used by God for his own purposes, without their having any idea of the work in which they were employed. They came to punish those who had revelled in the blood of the saints, and to supply fresh material for the great work of the Church of God. Towards the close of the fifteenth century, an Italian sailor, led by some astronomical observations and some half understood, or rather misunderstood, tales of ancient travellers, to believe that there must be another continent far away beyond the western waters, wandered from court to court, in Europe, in search of means to fit up an expedition to discover it, and he finally succeeded in making known a new world. It requires little faith in divine Providence to believe that it was God who was impelling him thus to open a new outlet for the energies of the ancient world, which were then about being developed on a gigantic scale, and, still more, to prepare a field for a more extensive spread of the Gospel, in which the Church might repair the losses she was about to sustain in the religious convulsions impending in Europe. Numberless similar instances might be quoted. These designs of God are sometimes manifest, sometimes hidden; sometimes they are far-reaching, sometimes limited. Ignorance and pride may mistake or pervert them. But they always prevail; they are always worthy of their Author; and let me add, that the salvation of men being the object most highly prized by God, it is not only rightfully considered the most noble, but it is that to which his other works may be justly accounted subordinate. It is under the light of these principles that I undertake an investigation of the purposes of God regarding the Irish race. These purposes seem to me no longer matter of speculation; they may be pronounced manifest; for they are written in unmistakable characters in the development of events.