prowess have been long proved and confessed by all lands, and in all seas.

Such is the peerless pre-eminence of Old England, in matters of a warlike character; but in the mind of Christians this constitutes the meanest of her glories. Her true glory is based on her piety, and on the institutions which it has created. In the British Isle there is more true godliness-religion founded on knowledge-the fear and love of God residing in the heart, and regulating the life-many times over, than among all the nations of Europe. Her schools, her colleges, her chapels, her churches, her hospitals, her asylums, and her innumerable receptacles for every variety of suffering humanity-these and their attendants are more substantial grounds of praise. One chief element of her greatness is the fact alleged by your Grace, that the English are "not naturally a military people," that "the army is an exotic," and that none can be induced to enlist in it but the very offscouring of society. This national feeling of aversion to war may be traced up to the evangelical principle of the Reformation, a principle which has affected the moral sentiments of multitudes who never received the gospel in the love of it. She has become deeply imbued with that gospel which is destined to extinguish war throughout all the earth. Next to her glory in being the great European depository of pure religious truth, is her glory in being the foster-parent of Christian missions. She has been chosen of God, in preference to all other kingdoms, for this great work of piety and mercy. She has not only taken the lead of all the nations of Europe, but she has the honour of performing nearly the whole work alone. It is British type that is diffusing the Scriptures of truth

among all nations; it is the English tongue that is calling upon those nations to behold the Lamb of God!

In connexion with the work of Christian missions, and in order to facilitate its advancement, God has given to England more colonial territory than to all Europe. She is marked out to be the great mother of empires. Her gigantic first-born, in the New World, is fast becoming her rival in all that constitutes true worth and national greatness. What interest attaches to Plymouth Rock, New England, on which the Pilgrim Fathers first set foot as they left the little ship which had wafted them from the land of their fathers' sepulchres! See them ascending from the frozen beach, and penetrating the pathless forest, where they effected a first lodgment for the arts, letters, and religion! What a work was that day begun! Never was colony so commenced. Never did perfect liberty so combine with the most enlightened piety. On that day, a continent, stretching from pole to pole, became the residence of a portion of the highest civilization and the purest Christianity that the world had seen. The arrival on those shores of the bark of the Pilgrims was an event only second in importance to that of Columbus. But how different the principles, religious and political, of the Spaniards and of the English! and how different the results! From the one colony sprung evil without mixture-crimes without parallel-calamities and curses which baffle description, which baffle conception! From the other incalculable and unmingled good,-good which will exist through all future time, and which will be diffused over all countries. The shores of New England are now studded with cities, its plains are waving with

golden harvests, religion and commerce, liberty and learning, preside, with matchless beauty, throughout all the happy land!

What the doctrines of the gospel have done for the colony of the Pilgrim Fathers they can effect for all the colonies of Britain. No place more loudly demands their restraining presence and mitigating labours. Nothing but the doctrines of Christ, as diffused by his true and faithful missionaries, can prevent even British colonies from becoming what the Spanish and Portuguese colonies have ever been, a double curse-a curse to the Aborigines and to Britain herself. She has, in her colonial movements, too much resembled ancient Rome. Her object has not been to benefit the natives, but herself; her policy has not been governed by the principles of Christianity; it has been always military and commercial. Her aim has been subjugation, ascendancy, and wealth. Like Rome, her colonies, as your Grace well knows, have been little more than military establishments, advanced posts in the path of rapacious conquest. Her law has followed her cannon. First the

soldier, then the merchant, while both have done their utmost to exclude the missionary. "First bind, and then plunder," has been the motto of England's colonial procedure; and if God had not, in mercy, raised up Christian missionaries, and sent them forth to both the East and West Indies, to Africa, and elsewhere, to mitigate misery as well as to abolish or prevent it; to plead for the oppressed, and to break the rod of the oppressor, the cry of the afflicted in the British dependencies had long since ascended to the throne of Eternal Justice, and brought down vengeance upon the head of the guilty! But why has God given to England those

immense territories? That she may bear to them the Gospel of Salvation. This object begins to be realized; it is apparent already, that what was at first a curse is, through the labours of the missionary, becoming a blessing.

My Lord Duke, in carefully examining the great question of Christian missions, you will find it to involve the highest points of the policy of nations. The real purposes of Heaven, in giving to Britain so much colonial territory, will soon become obvious even to mere statesmen. The Population question will shortly be solved. A current of distress is setting in which will try the skill of those who guide the vessel of state. Temporary expedients may be adopted, and, for a season, they may appear to succeed; but the evil will, from time to time, return with a more appalling power and a more deadly malignity. Philosophers may speculate, statesmen may debate, party may upset party, experiment may succeed experiment, and scheme follow scheme, but the affliction will continue, without any material abatement, in spite of the legislature. The province of true legislation is limited. In regard to commerce and colonies, it generally does most for their benefit when it does least, unless in the way of undoing its previous enactments. When all has been done that can be done by either of the great parties in the state, or by both, should the cry of calamity happen to unite them, still wants, vast and pressing, will remain which nothing can supply, and hardly any thing mitigate. Legislation cannot ultimately defeat the purposes of Divine Providence; but by delay it may double the difficulties of obedience, and prolong the calamities which it is intended to alleviate. Carefully surveying the present state of the globe, with

the history of past times before me, and with the condition of our country full in view, I am reluctantly, but irresistibly, led to the conclusion, that England is on the brink of a great era-an era marked by difficulty, distraction, convulsion, and peril. But her affliction will, in the end, redound, to her honour and glory. She will be summoned to the self-denying task of sowing the seed of her people, her institutions, her arts, her sciences, and her piety, in far distant lands. The people of England must, at a day not very distant, emigrate by millions; and the process, at brief intervals, will be repeated. This, however, will, no doubt, be attended with sore, although temporary trials, to the separated parties; but these will diminish with time, and soon be much mitigated by circumstances: while the benefits to posterity and mankind will be boundless and endless.

Taking a wide view of the whole question of civilization, of which the grand element is Christian missions, I conceive that Prophecy, Providence, the temporal welfare of England, and the general good of all nations, alike and urgently call for British emigration upon a scale which no country has ever yet attempted. This measure, wisely conducted, will be fraught with a multitude of benefits. To England it will be profitable at once in point of wealth and of morals, both of which will be increasingly and fatally affected by the perpetuity of things as they now stand. Want apart, it is not desirable to cover England with buildings, and thus to convert the whole island into one great city. Emigration, on right principles, commercially, politically, morally, religiously considered, is a measure which well merits the support of every true friend to England and to mankind. Let cities rise in the wilderness, and let