will be constantly reminding us, by its feverish restlessness and by its terrible sores, that it is not nicely compacted together—that “where one member suffers, all the members do not suffer with it,” that we have not paid sufficient heed to “the one thing needful;” and that we are, in consequence, reaping, by way of warning, disquieting and painful intimations that though our progress is rapid, the rails on which we run are alarmingly insecure. Now among the Welsh people the elements of stability, of unity, are strong, but those of progress or differentiation are weak. Then as regards the people’s social condition in general, it exhibits few of those disheartening extremes which are so often to be met with in our large towns, but presents, with slight deviations, a general level of moderate elevation. In more civilized communities, and notably in one of them, while the elements of physical and intellectual advancement are in a state of vigorous existence, social virtue and political stability are in a very unsatisfactory condition indeed. There are many members, but they have not arrived at that stage of perfection in which they constitute one body. Let us hope, however, that as _chaos_ preceded _cosmos_, so it will be with them. Then as respects the various stages of development which exist side by side, they present all the inequalities of a mountain region— A savage horde amid the civilized; A servile band among the lordly free. Now these two requirements, variety and unity, when you go hence to proclaim the Gospel, it will be most important that you should promote. The “unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” will, doubtless, be to you a prime object of cultivation. But will you not also exert yourselves to kindle in the bosom of your country-people that spirit of progress which results from always adding new truths to those of the past; and from continually realizing more and more the truth, beauty, purity, and grandeur of the indwelling Word of God, namely, “His Word abiding in you,” that is, in the children of light, the only medium through which revelation, as distinguished from the mere outward signs which alone can exist in the Book, is kept, by the Holy Spirit, a living saving power on earth. II.