There is another excuse which is worthy of more notice. One says, "My own country claims my first attention. It presents a field of vast extent, and demands a vast amount of labor. Its schools, colleges and seminaries, must be sustained. Its religious periodicals must be edited. The churches must be watched over, and brought up to a higher standard of piety. Revivals must be promoted. But passing by these claims for labor, look at the wide-spreading desolations of the West, where ignorance, infidelity, and Romanism prevail, and threaten, at no very future day, to be the overthrow of our government--the extinguishment of our dearly-bought and precious inheritance. All our exertions must be put forth to save our country; for the progress of light and knowledge throughout the world depends on its existence. The overthrow of our government would put back the dial of the moral world ten centuries. Our own nation lost, and what would become of the heathen? when would the millenium arrive? Our present attention must be directed to the salvation of our own country, and our missionary exertions must be concentrated on the West." The excuse does not stop here; but a citizen from Great Britain would say, "I too must speak in behalf of my country--a country whose possessions encircle the globe. The existence and religious prosperity of a nation whose commerce is so great, and whose dominions embrace a large portion of the heathen world, cannot but be intimately connected with the universal prevalence of light and peace. It is of the first importance, that the _heart_ of such a nation should beat with a healthy pulse; that much effort should be made to promote a high standard of vital godliness in the universities and churches at home. But more than this, look at the vast body of laboring men in England and Ireland, who are living in ignorance and in sin. They call loudly for teachers and for preachers of the Gospel, and ought to receive, for the present at least, all we can educate and all we can support."