Love has been the sovereign power in all the Church. Judgment may be generous; love is lavish. Judgment may be stedfast in its conclusions; love is heroic in its affirmations. It was love that garnished the house, and poured out the spikenard, and spiced the sepulcher. It was love that faced the flames, as in Felicitas and Perpetua, fronting the dungeon and not shrinking, fronting the sword and not blanching. It was love that said, "The nearer the sword, the nearer to God." You can not conquer that power, indestructible, full of a divine energy. And with the experience of this comes the vivid vision of the divine Providence, working for the gospel in human history. How wonderful it is! Look at the progress of the last ninety years, since missionary work began in this country! The changes, except as they are matters of public record and of universal personal observation, would be simply unthinkable--the vast new machineries of travel and of commerce; the incalculable additions to the wealth of civilized lands; the ever-increasing prosperity and power of Protestant nations, in which the gospel is honored; the equally ever-reduced power and lessening fame of nations, ancient and famous, in which the gospel is refused free movement with a home among the people; the continually closer approaches of civilized and Protestant nations to each other, as of Great Britain and this country. Many years ago Lord Brougham said, you remember, "Not an ax falls in the American forest but it sets in motion a shuttle in Manchester." That has been true ever since, and is more true to-day than ever before. Not a mine is opened, not an industry established, not a mechanism invented in the one country, which is not recognized, and the power of which is not felt, in the other; and more and more their policies are weaving together, not necessarily in form, but in fundamental, underlying sympathy. All these things are going forward with the opening of regions and realms formerly inaccessible to Christianity; so that now the Christianity which seemed buried in the catacombs, which seemed burned up in the martyr fires, has the freedom of the world, and may everywhere be preached in its purity and its power. Here are the plans of God going forward; and we ought to feel in ourselves that in every hardest work we do we are only keeping step with the march of omnipotence.