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 (X. 
 
 Qit^i 
 
 DISCOUKSE. 
 
 Matt. 10 : 5, 6. "These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying: 
 Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye 
 not: bat go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." 
 
 If I mistake not, the superficial reader of the Bible 
 often greatly misapprehends these words ; perhaps some 
 have even felt themselves shocked at the sentiment sup- 
 posed to be expressed in them. If we wiU not have the can- 
 dor or take the trouble, to infer their true spirit from the 
 general tenor of our Lord's life and teachings, and espe- 
 cially from the relations of his then present labors to the 
 establishing of the kingdom of heaven among men, these 
 words will seem to have been uttered in that spirit of 
 Jewish exclusiveness, which would forever confine the 
 knowledge and the blessings of the true religion to the 
 Jewish people, and deprive all the rest of the world of 
 any participation in them. Nothing, however, could be 
 fai-ther from the true spirit of the text. 
 
 Many pei*sons seem to consider the Jewish dispensa- 
 tion as a perfect failure. Their conception of the sub- 
 ject is, that God raised up the Jewish nation to be his 
 peculiar people, disciplined it by a series of miraculous 
 interpositions through a period of fifteen hundred years, 
 and then broke it in pieces and cast it off, because no- 
 thing could be done with it ; that it did indeed receive 
 in trust those lively oracles of God, the Old Testament
 
 Scriptures, and hand them over to the Christian Church, 
 and that a Jewish mother did indeed give birth to the 
 Messiah ; but that from this point the influence and use- 
 fulness of the Jewish dispensation ceased. 
 
 This is certainly a very shallow and inadequate view 
 of the subject. It was the object of that ancient econo- 
 my to raise up and qualify one people to receive the 
 promised Messiah, to appreciate that fullness of divine 
 revelation which he should make, and to become his 
 missionaries to publish his glad tidings to the nations, 
 and found the Christian Church in many lands. 
 
 And with this design of the Jewish Church the result 
 corresponded. True, the Jewish state rejected the Son 
 of God, and instigated his crucifixion, and thus doomed 
 itself to speedy and terrible destruction. But there 
 were thousands of humble and devout persons among 
 the Jews, who were prepared to receive the promised 
 Saviour, and to appreciate his spiritual doctrines and 
 his divine mission ; while the most refined philosophy of 
 Greece mocked and said, What will this babbler say ? 
 Jewish men did first receive the Gospel ; Jewish men 
 became its first preachers and missionaries ; Jerusalem 
 became the very centre and citadel of the christian 
 mission ; and from Jerusalem Jewish men carried the 
 Gospel to the Euphrates and to the Pillars of Hercules, 
 to the banks of the Nile, and the Khine, and the Danube. 
 Jewish men did, in a single generation, fill the vast 
 Roman Empire with christian teaching and christian 
 churches. 
 
 Hence, in establishing his kingdom on earth, our 
 Lord's first work was with the Jewish mind. The ripe 
 harvest of fifteen hundred years was to be gathered in. 
 The men who, as the product of the long history of 
 God's chosen people, were trained for the solemn crisis, 
 now at hand, were to be, by the voice of the Master and
 
 his chosen band, called out from among the Jewish 
 people, and prepared to go abroad on their mission to 
 mankind. The chosen people of God were to be sum- 
 moned to come up to the help of the Lord against the 
 mighty. The Pentecost was to be ushered in ; the 
 church of Jerusalem was to be founded, from which the 
 beams of salvation would shine on the remotest nations 
 of the known world, before the men then living were in 
 their graves. And time pressed — the hour of destiny- 
 was near. In a few months the great expiatory sacri- 
 fice would have been offered, the veil of the temple have 
 been rent, and the time for proclaiming the kingdom of 
 heaven to all nations have come. To the Jews then — to 
 the Jew, was the first message. Well might the Lord 
 say, " Go not into the way of the Gentiles," they are not 
 prepared for this crisis of the ages ; " into any city of 
 the Samaritans enter ye not," their time is not yet. 
 " Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel," and 
 summon them to their glorious national destiny, as the 
 missionaries of these glad tidings to every people, and 
 kindred, and nation. This is, I am persuaded, the true 
 spirit of our text. There is no national narrowness, no 
 Jewish exclusiveness here. 
 
 There are several analogies between the age in which 
 the Christian religion was first propagated in the world 
 and that in which we live, which are full of interest 
 both to the philosopher and the Christian, and which 
 must be regarded as invested with very great practical 
 significancy. In that age a general expectation had 
 been awakened by the prophecies of the Old Testament, 
 that the Messiah was about to appear, and establish the 
 kingdom of God among men. The meaning of the pro- 
 phecies foretelling those great events, was then but ill 
 understood ; but we know that they implied that the 
 blessings of the revealed religion were to overleap those
 
 national boundaries, whicli had hitherto confined them, 
 and to be freely imparted to the Gentile world. In our 
 age, the prophecies of that same ancient Book of God have 
 awakened a like expectation, that the Gospel of Jesus 
 Christ is to overleap the boundaries which have long 
 confined it, and to be given to all nations. In that age, 
 there was a providential preparation for the planting 
 and wide dissemination of the Gospel in the world, such 
 as had never existed before, and did not exist again for 
 more than fifteen hundred years. In our age, there is 
 an equally providential preparation, the work of many 
 ages, for the fulfillment of the prophecies which point 
 to our time ; the giving of this same Gospel of salvation 
 to every nation under heaven. In that age, there was 
 one people, a rebellious and stifi^-necked people indeed, 
 and yet trained by ages of providential discipline to be 
 the messengers of Christ to the millions of the Roman 
 Empire, and that people placed by their wide dispereion, 
 — which had already been going on for ages, — ^in such re- 
 lations to the mighty mass, as to give them peculiar and 
 unrivaled facilities for accomplishing the work assigned 
 them. The converts on the day of Pentecost were de- 
 vout Jews, from every nation under heaven, assembled 
 at Jerusalem to worship. In that assembly, was the 
 nucleus of a christian church in almost every city of the 
 Eoman Empire. Wherever the Apostles went, they 
 found Jews and a Jewish synagogue, and in that syna- 
 gogue they preached their first sermon, and made their 
 first converts. Dispersed Jews formed the line of elec- 
 tric conduction, along which the Gospel flashed from 
 Jerusalem to the extremities of the empire. This is 
 Providence — ^this is God's work. 
 
 But in this particular, our analogy does not fail us. 
 In our age, there is a people no less distinctly marked 
 than the Jew in the age of Augustus — ^prepared by a
 
 providential training no less peculiar, for achieving this 
 work of Christian propagation, now indicated alike by 
 the index finger of prophecy and Providence. As 
 Abraham was called by the voice of God, to go out 
 from his kindred and country to seek an unknown land 
 for the inheritance of his posterity, so was that modern 
 people, to which I refer, driven out by the fierce 
 persecutions of the seventeenth century from kindred 
 and country, to seek for themselves and their children 
 a home across an almost unknown ocean, and in the 
 great and terrible American wilderness— a home where 
 they might worship God according to the dictates of 
 their conscience, and construct the Church and the 
 State after the model which had already been shown 
 them. It is due to the simple historic truth, to recog- 
 nize the fact, that all which is most characteristic and 
 most valuable in American history and American so- 
 ciety, is due to the influence of that portion of our 
 original population, which was brought to our shores 
 by the pressure of such circumstances, and the influence 
 of such motives. This is all which is intended by the 
 statement just made. And I give no other preeminence 
 to New England, than results from the undeniable fact 
 that its settlement was almost wholly the result of the 
 causes alluded to. It is enough for my purpose that it be 
 borne in mind, that God did separate from all the ele- 
 ments of the old world, a very pecuhar people ; that he 
 let loose the fires of persecution to drive them from 
 their homes, and led them by his providence, to this 
 good land of ours, to lay the foundations of a free re- 
 ligious republic, which, though it had no model in the 
 past, was to be the hope of the future. 
 
 The proposition which I assert, and which I wish to 
 confirm and apply is, that aa God in the apostolic age,
 
 8 
 
 committed the worlc of propagation to Jewish hands^ 
 eo, in this age of universal Christian propagandism^ lie 
 Imth preeminently committed it to this people^ which 
 he thus providentially planted in the American wilder- 
 ness; and that, consequently, this American people 
 should enlist the prayerful solicitude of all who in our 
 day labor for the conversion of the world to Christ — 
 just as the Jewish people were regarded with most 
 peculiar interest by Christ and his Apostles. 
 
 It will at once be apparent to every thoughtful hear- 
 er, that the subject thus indicated is of vast extent, and 
 that in order to have any hope of handling it success- 
 fully in a single discourse, I must pass by a very large 
 portion of the material of instructive thought which it 
 suggests, and present it only in a single aspect. And 
 there is a single view of the subject which is peculiarly 
 appropriate to this occasion. What is the function of 
 the Arnerican Some Missionary Society, in whose behalf 
 we are met this evening ? It is, to folUnu the American 
 etnigrant, in all his migrations, and to plant the perma- 
 nent institutions of the Christian faith ivherever he builds 
 his cabin. That religious stock from which, as I have 
 said, all the best peculiarities of American society 
 originated, have ever regarded it as a cardinal article 
 of their creed, that religious instruction must keep pace 
 with the migrations of the emigrant, and that ample 
 provisions for religious culture must be made coexten- 
 sive with the tillage of the soil. The American Home 
 Missionary Society has been, now for these many years, 
 the principal agency by which this article of their re- 
 ligious faith has been carried into practice. With 
 American emigration, then, has this noble Society to do. 
 
 I risk nothing in the assertion, that it is through 
 this same emigration that the American people is to
 
 exert, beyond comparison, its most powerful inflaence 
 upon the religious destinies of the world. It is this 
 very emigration which, more than any other peculiarity 
 of our history, constitutes us the missionary people of 
 the nineteenth century. 
 
 Let us, then, for a few moments contemplate this 
 phenomenon of American emigration^ and try, if pos- 
 sible, to grasp its import and its relations to the future 
 religious condition of mankind, and endeavor to derive 
 from thence those motives to greater efficiency in the 
 cause of Home Missions, which a true view of this sub- 
 ject will certainly furnish. The Jew converted the 
 Roman Empire to Christianity, by the occasion of his 
 forced dispersions. The American people shall yet 
 convert the world to Christ, by their voluntary and 
 spontaneous migrations. 
 
 Since the introduction of Christianity into the world, 
 perhaps the most striking feature in history is the steady 
 and irresistible progress of population from the East 
 towards the West. It is as steady as the flow of our 
 own Mississippi towards the Gulf, and almost equally 
 dates from immemorial antiquity. What is- modern 
 Europe but one of the products of this migration, which 
 overhung in dense and threatening clouds of barbarism 
 the frontiers of Greece and Rome in the palmiest days . 
 of their power, which trampled them in the dust, in the 
 days of their decrepitude, and overspread aU Europe. 
 And when Europe was full, and these barbarous hordes 
 had been for ages subjected to civilizing influences, 
 borne over that deluge of barbarism in the ark which 
 God had provided — the Christian Church — then Ame- 
 rica was discovered, and laid open by an improved art 
 of navigation to the colonial enterprises of Europe. 
 The ocean was bridged, and the mighty human stream
 
 io 
 
 rolled on towards the West without obstruction. An 
 unpeopled continent opened its bosom to the coming 
 emigrant It ig now more than three hundred years 
 since emigrants from all the principal nations of Europe 
 have been taking possession of this new home of the 
 human race in the West. Nearly all the principal na- 
 tions of Christendom have participated, in greater or 
 less degree, in the movement ; and the Atlantic Ocean, 
 before unvisited by the most adventurous mariner — ex- 
 cept along its eastern shores — has become the great 
 highway of the world. 
 
 In the early part of the seventeenth century, the 
 eastern shores of the United States began to receive an 
 European population, mostly from England, and from 
 these beginnings originated a series of providential de- 
 velopments unprecedented in the history of the world. 
 The emigrants were largely the descendants of those 
 same Saxons, who, more than a thousand years ago, in- 
 vaded England as a band of barbarian pirates. But 
 when they reach our shores they are barbarians and 
 pirates no longer. They bring to the inhospitable 
 wilderness, the highest culture of the age and the purest 
 religious faith on earth. Here they form a community 
 in the wilderness. Soon, the wilderness disappears be- 
 fore them. The Atlantic slope of the continent is a 
 garden, the AUeghanies are crossed, and a multitudi- 
 nous emigration from the older settlements spreads 
 itself over the magnificent central valley of North 
 America. Here the most adventurous emigrant ima- 
 gined that the ultimate destination of this wondrous 
 human flood was reached, that to fill all this great val- 
 ley with a civilized and almost numberless population, 
 was all that remained to be done. But how great the 
 mistake! The very men, who began the settlement 
 of the Mississippi, lived to see the barriers of the
 
 11 
 
 Rocky Mountains crossed, and tlie same human de- 
 luge, spreading itself along the shores of the Pacific ; 
 and American emigration can now as easily fill our 
 whole national domain, from ocean to ocean, as, in their 
 season, it could people Vermont or Western New York. 
 The Anorlo American emisrrant holds North America in 
 his gi'asp. And is this the end ? Have we at last 
 reached the final results of European, and especially of 
 English and American emigration ? If with a popula- 
 tion of twenty three millions we seize with such vigor 
 on the unpeopled lands of the earth, what should we 
 not achieve with a population of two hundred millions^ 
 extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific ? Are we 
 not dealing, then, with a world phenomenon rather 
 than with one which belongs alone to North America ? 
 In order to do any justice to this theme, I must be 
 indulged in a few numerical calculations. It is with un- 
 feigned sorrow, that I perceive that I can not, in accord- 
 ance with truth, found these calculations on the actual 
 population of our whole country. But I am compelled 
 to acknowledge, that there could be no appropriateness 
 to my subject in any estimates founded on such a basis. 
 I can not shut my eyes to the fact that the cruel and 
 unchristian system of oppression, which has gained 
 possession of fifteen States of our beloved confedera- 
 tion, has, to a great extent, disqualified them to take 
 their part in this missionary work, which the Lord hath 
 allotted to the American people. Instead of aiding in 
 planting Christian churches in regions beyond, they 
 have need, even now, of an expensive system of mis- 
 sionary effort, to rebuild those which this abomination 
 hath made desolate in generations past, and is making 
 desolate in the present. Their migrations are, to a won- 
 derful extent, not the migrations of intelligence, but of 
 ignorance ; the wilderness is seldom made glad by their
 
 12 
 
 coming; tlie institutions of free instruction and free 
 worship spring up but very sparsely along their path- 
 way. With few and rare, though noble exceptions — 
 with some of whom it has been my own privilege to 
 cooperate — they do not carry abroad either religion or 
 freedom. The greatest danger of our country is, that 
 vast regions of our virgin soil, now enjoying Nature's 
 freedom, will be overrun by that dark system of slavery, 
 which this portion of our country i;urtures at home, 
 and disseminates abroad. I say not these things be- 
 cause I love to say them, but because truthfulness to 
 my subject requires it ; and this I will not violate in a 
 vain attempt "to conceal that shame of my own dear 
 country, which has already fixed the gaze of an as- 
 tonished world. If these States of our Union ever 
 bear their part in fulfilling our great religious destiny, 
 it will be after that system of oppression, so fatally in 
 conflict with our origin, our history, and our religion, 
 shall have been completely swept away. Such a day, 
 I trust, is coming. The Lord hasten it in his time ! 
 
 We must, therefore, confine our view to the sixteen 
 non-slaveholding States. For obvious reasons, un- 
 necessary to be particularized, we shall also leave out 
 of our estimate the colored population of the Free 
 States. It is, in them all, too small to be a very in- 
 fluential element, and in many of them, is rather di- 
 minishing than increasing. 
 
 The free white population of the Free States was by 
 the census of 1850, in round numbers, 13,000,000. The 
 population of the same States in 1790 was, 1,900,000. 
 One may easily satisfy himself from these data, that the 
 rate of increase for this period of sixty years was more 
 than 38 per cent, for each ten yeai's. It is also worthy 
 of remark, that from 1830 to 1840, the ratio was above 
 39 per cent ; and from 1840 to 1850, almost 40 per
 
 13 
 
 cent ; showing, thus, an increasing rather than a dimin- 
 ishing rate of progress. There is no reason to doubt, 
 that nearly the same ratio of increase extends far back 
 into the colonial period — probably to the very founding 
 of the colonies ; but there are no data for ascertaining 
 this point with accuracy. 
 
 From the date of the last census to the year two 
 thousand, is a period of one hundred and fifty years. 
 Let us, therefore, assume as a basis of calculation 
 13,000,000, as the free white population of the Free 
 States, in 1850. Let us take as the ratio of increase, 
 not 38 per cent, which is the actual ratio of the last 
 sixty yeai^, but 33^ per cent, which is less than the 
 ratio of increase of our whole population, certainly since 
 the Ke volution, and probably from the very founding 
 of the Colonies. With these data, let us carry our esti- 
 mate forward for a period of one hundred and fifty 
 years, or till A.D. 2,000. The time is short. There may 
 be those sitting on these seats to-night who will behold 
 the faces of some who will witness its completion ; and 
 yet the result is overwhelming. We are almost afraid 
 to announce it. It is very little short of one thousand 
 mUlions — equal to the present estimated population of 
 the whole earth. This is not given as a prophecy of the 
 fature, or even as a proximate prophecy. But it is given 
 as showing the magnitude of that force with which we 
 are dealing, in our Home Missionary enterprise. I wish 
 also to show, that in our ordinary conceptions of this 
 subject we set much too narrow limits for the probable 
 future expansion of this amazing force. 
 
 The supposed counteracting causes which would, on a 
 superficial view of this subject, lead us to set aside the 
 astounding result just given, as of no practical value, 
 are three, and only three — want of room, failure of
 
 14 
 
 foreign immigration, and a gradual deterioration of the 
 average character of our people. 
 
 As to the first of these causes of limitation, it is to be 
 remembered that our question is not how far the Amer- 
 ican Union will extend, or how great a nation the 
 United States will become. That is a question which 
 no human sagacity can decide; and with which our 
 present subject and this occasion have nothing at all to 
 do. In regard to this matter, we are engaged in a 
 political experiment which has no precedent in the 
 past; and the world, philosophers and all, will be 
 obliged patiently to wait for the issue. But our inquiry 
 relates to the extension of a population having certain 
 religious and social characteristics, and bearing the 
 moral lineage of the Pilgrinjs of the Mayflower. 
 
 It is also to be remembered, that our question is to be 
 judged of, not in view of the tardy movements of by- 
 gone ages, but in view of the quickened and constantly 
 quickening movement of the nineteenth century. Our 
 instruments of locomotion and communication are com- 
 mensurate with the resources of our planet. While I 
 am speaking, preparations are in progress for uniting 
 Europe and America in marriage, by the telegraph wire. 
 The iron track of the steam chariot will soon be con- 
 tinuous, from the Hudson to the Columbia, and from the 
 English Channel to the Yellow Sea. With the control 
 of such instruments of locomotion, it is in the power of 
 a people such as now inhabits these States, to expand 
 itself upon any unoccupied lands on the face of the 
 whole earth. Our question then is not what unoccupied 
 room there is in our country, or in North America, or 
 even in all America, but on the globe ! How little 
 danger there is, then, that any people having the will 
 and the power to expand itself over an unpeopled 
 world, will be restrained by want of room. What un-
 
 15 
 
 told millions may yet find room in our own national do- 
 main. The wildest enthusiast who has spoken on this sub- 
 ject after his first tour in the West, has never half reached 
 the truth. One will be much more likely, indeed, to 
 appear as an enthusiast, after a sober residence of a 
 quarter of a century in the great valley, than after a 
 single autumnal tour. Of the capabilities of our great 
 central valley for affording the materials of human sub- 
 sistence and wealth, the half has never yet been told, 
 and never will be, till we are all in our graves. And what 
 of all our Pacific slope ? And what of all the rest of 
 North America, so far as now unoccupied — or held by 
 peoples utterly incapable of retaining it for a moment, 
 against the competition of an energetic, free, and highly 
 civilized people? And what of all South America, 
 either in the wildness of nature, or held by peoples 
 who have not the energy, the civilization, or the arts, 
 to subdue and use it, in five centuries ? There is no occu- 
 pancy of South America, which can present any obstacles 
 to an energetic and free people, invading it, not by the 
 barbarous battalions of the fiUibuster, but by the arts of 
 peaceful industry. Let us take, as an illustration, the 
 empire of Brazil. Considered in respect to its territory, 
 its climate, and its soil, it is perhaps the most magnifi- 
 cent national domain on earth. Its territory exceeds in 
 extent the whole present territory of the United States, 
 by 37,000 square miles. Its settlement dates nearly 
 one hundred years prior to the settlement of the United 
 States. And yet, its present population is only about 
 six millions. And of these six millions, three millions 
 are Negro slaves ; two millions more are of the various 
 cross races, of the Portuguese, the Negro, and the Indian ; 
 and only one million are of full European blood. The 
 increase of its population is scarcely greater than that 
 of the overgrown and decaying monarchies of Europe.
 
 16 
 
 What is the probability that such a nation can hold 
 that vast territory against the peaceful spread, and 
 healthful, natural growth of a free and enlightened peo- 
 ple, armed with all the appliances of art, industry, and 
 instruction, and taking possession of the earth, not in the 
 name of any earthly majesty, but in the name of free- 
 dom, of religion, and of God ? And yet, this is but a 
 specimen of every inch of American soil, not already 
 occupied by men who speak the English tongue, and 
 love English-born freedom, and the faith of English 
 Protestantism. 
 
 America, then, from the Arctic seas to Cape Horn, is 
 open to the growth of a free religious people, such as 
 our fathers planted on these Atlantic shores. I deem it no 
 exaggeration to say, that if we are looking for room into 
 which to expand our growth, for a hundred and fifty 
 years to come, America alone, will afford accommoda- 
 tions, and a magnificent home, for more than one thousand 
 millions — the result of our numerical calculation. And 
 what of all the thousand islands of the Pacific, whose na- 
 tive population, in the loveliest climate of the earth, is 
 slowly melting away, before the vices of barbarism, and 
 leaving them almost vacant to the hand of the civilized, 
 and christian emigrant ? And what of the almost con- 
 tinental group, which divides the Pacific from the In- 
 dian Ocean, with all their vast resources of agricultural 
 and mineral wealth ? And what of all Africa, just be- 
 ginning to be opened to the geogi-apher, still almost a 
 wilderness ? And what of vast regions of Asia herself, 
 once swarming with uncounted millions, now almost as 
 desolate as the American wilds ? 
 
 I know, much of this unoccupied land is desert — 
 much of it unfit for the home of a civilized and enter- 
 prising people, on account of a malarious atmosphere. 
 But when you have made all these allowances, and
 
 17 
 
 every other which the case requires, it seems to me, that 
 the limit which will check the increase of a people, full 
 of the vital energy of freedom and pure religion, is too 
 remote to create much present apprehension, or much 
 to modify our estimates of the future, for a period not 
 longer than one hundred and fifty years. 
 
 The truth on this subject is not to be seen in the ex- 
 perience of the past, but in the clear prophecy of the 
 future. In the past, man has never been able to people 
 the earth. The causes which have prevented, though 
 full of interest, would open too vast a field for this oc- 
 casion. The fact is obvious. Here and there have been 
 found spots of limited extent, enjoying what is called 
 civilization, and with a dense population ; while nint; 
 tenths of the whole world has been, in all past time, 
 peopled by a few scattered barbarians, or lying in deso- 
 lation, untrodden by human feet. This will not last for- 
 ever. God will yet raise up a generation strong enough 
 to grasp and use this earth, which he hath given to 
 man. We are not without our hopes that he has 
 already done so. If so, we need have no fear that there 
 is not ample room for its expansion. 
 
 But perhaps it will seem to some, that though 
 there is ample room in the unpeopled earth for all these 
 millions, yet the phenomenon of Anglo American in- 
 crease and expansion is necessarily temporary and tran- 
 sient, because due to causes which must soon cease 
 to act, and that the progress of our population will then 
 only be such as has been exhibited by other lands, and 
 in other times. Let us then inquire : 
 
 What are the causes of this wonderful growth ? 
 
 It is obvious, in the first place, that it is not caused 
 solely by the mere abundance of cheap and fertile land. 
 Thomas Carlyle is reported to have said, in conversa- 
 2
 
 18 
 
 tion with an American : "The secret of your prosperity 
 is plenty of cheap and fertile land." The remark may 
 .be worthy of the transcendental mystic, but certainly is 
 not worthy of the sound practical philosopher. Many 
 other modern nations have been, or are now in circum- 
 stances as favorable in this respect as ourselves, and yet 
 in our case only has this result followed. 
 
 Of the maritime powers of Europe, England was al- 
 most the last in the race of discovery, and that in an 
 age when discovery gave little to the lands discovered ; 
 yet England alone has succeeded in transplanting civil- 
 ization into the wilderness. One hundred years ago, 
 France had a far better prospect of planting a mighty 
 empire in America than England. From the mouth of 
 the St. Lawrence to the mouth of the Mississppi, all was 
 hers. The French mind was full of the conception of a 
 vast Gallic empire in America, and was exerting its best 
 energies for its realization. But where is the French 
 empire in America now ? How few the foot-prints 
 of the French colonist ! The very language of France, 
 with all its power to fascinate, is perishing from the 
 Continent. It furnished, indeed, a considerable portion 
 of our geographical nomenclature ; but the names de- 
 rived from that source are now so Anglicized, both in 
 form and sound, that a Frenchman would seldom recog- 
 nize them. 
 
 And the failure of French colonization in America is 
 not the mere fortune of war. Notwithstanding the 
 transfer of Canada to the British crown, the large 
 French population of that colony have had unlimited 
 freedom of growth and expansion. But where are their 
 colonies? The French philosopher, De Tocqueville, 
 says of them: "Wherever the French settlers were nu- 
 merically weak and partially established, they have 
 disappeared. Those who remain are collected on a
 
 19 
 
 small extent of country, and are now subject to other 
 laws. The 400,000 French of Lower Canada constitute 
 at the present time, the remnant of an old nation, lost 
 in the midst of a new people. A foreign population is 
 increasing around them unceasingly on all sides, and al- 
 ready penetrates among the ancient masters of the 
 country, predominates in their cities, and corrupts their 
 language." He elsewhere states that this remnant of the 
 old French colony is already experiencing the evils of an 
 overgrown population, almost as much as the old nations 
 of Europe ; yet nothing can quicken their enterprise to 
 spread themselves abroad over an open continent, after 
 the manner of their English and American neighbors. 
 
 Eussia has no lack of cheap and fertile land ; but the 
 increase of her population, except by annexation, is 
 scarcely, if at all, more rapid than that of England her- 
 self. Spain had possession of Mexico a century, and of 
 Peru three quarters of a century, before the Pilgrims set 
 their feet on Plymouth Kock ; yet the Mexico of the year 
 1850 is not more civilized, and scarcely more populous, 
 than the Mexico of Montezuma ; and the Peru of our day 
 has no reason to exult in a comparison with the Peru of 
 the Incas. Brazil has been longer under the hand of 
 the European colonist than the United States. Yet, 
 with a territory larger and more magnificent in its na- 
 tural features than ours, it has only one million of Eu- 
 ropean inhabitants. 
 
 There is, then, something here besides " plenty of fer- 
 tile and cheap land." What is it that has given to the 
 English settlements everywhere, and to the United 
 States in particular, this amazing preponderance over 
 all the other colonial enterprises of modern times, I may 
 say with equal truth, of all times. For the phenome- 
 na of American emigration are entirely unprecedented 
 in the history of the world, ancient or modern. What
 
 20 
 
 then are its causes ? Are they pernianent or transient ? 
 If they are transient, the results would be of great inter- 
 est. But if they are permanent, the destiny of an un- 
 peopled world is in them. I claim that they are, or, by 
 the blessing of God on our endeavors, may be, as per- 
 manent as our mountains and our rivers. What, then, 
 are they ? 
 
 Though to a superficial view the causes appear to be 
 various, yet when traced back by a careful analysis to 
 their source, they are all found to be emanations from 
 one single moral force — the cha/raotei'ietic religious sys- 
 tem of the JEhglish dissenters of the seventeenth century. 
 Despotism could not endure these principles, and 
 drove them out with fire and faggot from the Old 
 World, and in so doing, planted the seeds of a world- 
 wide freedom in the New. The Church of God could 
 not be planted in Egypt ; and therefore God suffered 
 Pharaoh to drive out Israel by intolerable oppression, 
 that he might plant it in the promised land. 
 
 The causes of American growth which strike the eye 
 are chiefly three. 
 
 1. The moral dignity and purity of the christian 
 family. It is the complaint of the philosophic and can- 
 did I)e Tocqueville, that wherever Frenchmen have 
 formed settlements in the neighborhood of barbarous 
 native tribes, they have uniformly intermarried with 
 them, and instead of making Frenchmen of these na- 
 tives, they have themselves become savages. The same 
 language may be applied, with equal force and justice, 
 to the colonial settlements which have emanated from 
 all Catholic Europe. De Tocqueville could discern this 
 fact and its sorrowful consequences ; but he does not 
 appear to discern its cause. That cause is found in the 
 Roman Catholic doctrine of the superior sanctity of a 
 state of celibacy. According to that doctrine, the family
 
 21 
 
 is not indeed exactly a state of sin ; but it is a degrada- 
 tion. No father, no mother can compare in dignity 
 with the unmarried priest and nun. There can be no 
 holiness in the family altar. If one wishes to worship 
 at a holy altar, he must go where unmarried priests offi- 
 ciate in robes canonical. Who does not see that such a 
 religion degrades the family ? — places it on the very bor- 
 ders of a vicious life, shorn of all its moral dignity and 
 glory ? No Wonder, that one whose views of domestic 
 life are thus vitiated and degraded should choose for a 
 wife a heathen or a savage. And accordingly, wher- 
 ever men of this faith have formed colonies in the 
 wilderness, this result has followed ; and it will follow 
 in the future. Society is thus rotten at its heart, and 
 what can it do but languish and die, as it does in all 
 the colonial settlements of Catholic Europe ? This is 
 the sickness of which it languishes. 
 
 How different the influence of our fathers' faith! 
 With them the family is the holiest thing on earth. 
 They knew nothing of an altar holier than the family 
 altar. They knew no priest of greater sanctity than the 
 father, priest of his own house. Oh ! how improbable 
 that a man of such a faith would choose, to preside 
 around his fire-side, a heathen and a savage ! No ! he 
 will choose a cultivated being, a Christ-like spirit, a 
 blessed heir of heaven. Ah ! thanks to God, the family 
 constituted according to that faith, is a germ of christ- 
 ian civilization, which never can die. Place such a fam- 
 ily in any remote wild of the earth, and it has life in it- 
 self; it will send out the roots, and the branches, and 
 the seeds of a christian civilization, which will cover 
 the hills, and make glad the valleys all around it. And 
 here is found one of the principal sources of the vital 
 power of the Anglo American emigrant. Wherever 
 such a family is planted in the American wilderness,
 
 23 
 
 there is tlie Church of Christ, there is freedom, there is 
 christian civilization. 
 
 And God be forever praised for the American Home 
 Missionary Society. Its function is to follow such fam- 
 ilies to the heart of the Western wilderness, to the 
 banks of the Columbia, and the gold fields of California, 
 and cheer, and encourage, and help them to plant the 
 Church of Christ in those primeval solitudes. 
 
 2. Another and most potent cause of the wonderful 
 characteristics of American emigration, is the fact that 
 with us the laborer is an educated, civilized man. It is 
 with us almost alone, that the thinking, independent, 
 self-poised, and self-responsible mind, is united in the 
 same person with the brawny arm and hard hand of 
 the laborer. Yet this is a condition without the fulfill- 
 ment of which the phenomena of our emigration are quite 
 impossible. The wealthy, the high-born, the ruling 
 classes will not emigrate to the wilderness. They enjoy 
 far greater advantages at home, than the wilderness, 
 however fertile in resources, can aflbrd them. If the 
 unpeopled waste is to be reclaimed and made the home 
 of man, it must be by those, whose lot is comparatively 
 a hard one, by the laboring classes. But if the laboring 
 classes are uneducated barbarians, as has been the fact 
 in most other countries, they will be destitute of that 
 skill, that knowledge, that self-reliance, without which 
 men will seldom undertake the task of seeking a new 
 home in the wilds. The very conception of a migration 
 to Kansas, or Minnesota, or Oregon implies knowledge, 
 resources, self-reliance in a very high degree. And 
 then, again, if an uncultivated, uneducated, laboring 
 population does emigrate, it will not carry civilization 
 with it. It has it not to carry. Its colonies will lan- 
 guish for ages in ignorance and barbarism. 
 
 It is precisely for this reason, that the civilization of
 
 28 
 
 Greece and Rome did not cover Europe and Asia, and 
 fill tliem with light, and leave no barbarians to destroy 
 them, and thus render the dark ages impossible. The 
 laborer, the only man who would emigrate to the wilder- 
 ness, was too ignorant to know that there was any 
 wilderness, and too barbarous to transplant civilization. 
 This is the only reason why Egypt did not explore and 
 subdue the banks of the Nile, as rapidly as we do those 
 of the Mississippi and its branches. Talk not of ma- 
 laria — there is malaria enough in the dark, damp, prime- 
 val forests that overhang the Mississippi, the Missouri, 
 and the Illinois ; but it is no barrier to the progress of 
 the civilized laborer, seeking a magnificent home for 
 himself and his posterity. 
 
 The same consideration furnishes the only explanation 
 of the fact that, though Europe is at this day swarming 
 with emigrants from almost every nation, none of those 
 nationalities, except the English, are at all reproducing 
 themselves by their colonies. Their emigrants are all 
 mingled, absorbed, and lost in the English speaking de- 
 luge, which is encircling the globe. The reason is, that, 
 for the most part, their laborers are uncultivated men, 
 quite incapable of carrying civilization and freedom into 
 the wilderness. They are therefore glad to avail them- 
 selves of those foundations, which our emigrants lay. 
 They are absorbed into our new settlements, and rapidly 
 lose their language and nationality. 
 
 It is then perfectly obvious, that we owe our power 
 of multiplying civilized communities in every unpeopled 
 spot to the fact, that our laboring classes are educated, 
 thinking, self-reliant men — as De Tocqueville says of 
 them : " the product of eighteen centuries." Whence, 
 then, this characteristic of our people ? Clearly, from 
 the religion of our fathers. That religion is the only 
 moral force, which ever has educated men in masses as
 
 24 
 
 men, individually responsible to God, and having indi- 
 vidual, inalienable rights. Take your stand in that re- 
 ligious faith, and knowledge — knowledge of God through 
 his word and his works, knowledge of rights, and know- 
 ledge of duties to God and man — ^becomes the first 
 want of every human soul. No child will grow up in 
 ignorance in any family which heartily adopts that faith. 
 A community which is pervaded by it, will effectively 
 provide for the education of every child within its 
 limits. Education, culture, become as necessary and as 
 universal, as air, water, or sunlight. This faith it is, 
 which has educated the American laborer, and given 
 him his power to make the wilderness to rejoice and 
 blossom as the rose. And he will never lose this power, 
 till he loses his religion, and, therefore, the educating 
 force which it exerts. 
 
 3. The only remaining cause which I shall mention of 
 the characteristic results of American emigration is, the 
 peculiar public spirit, or, if I may so call it, the social 
 constructiveness, which characterizes the American emi- 
 grant. This results directly from what has been said, 
 and therefore need not detain us long. It would be 
 difficult, adequately to describe the rude and unsightly 
 figure, often presented by a company of American emi- 
 grants on their way to their new home in the wilds. It 
 has often excited the derision of the gay, the pleasure- 
 loving, and the proud. But any one who well knows 
 that group, and has a heart to appreciate it, will look 
 on with veneration, ^neas is said to have carried the 
 Trojan household gods to Italy. Those unsightly wa- 
 gons are bearing a nobler and more enduring treasure, 
 more worthy to be celebrated in the immortal epic, than 
 the Trojan Penates. They carry no material image, no 
 external emblem, but in their very minds and hearts 
 they bear along, through forest and prairie, all the in-
 
 35 
 
 stitutions of a ripe christian civilization. The school- 
 house, the college, the church, the teaching ministry, are 
 all traveling in those rude wagons to their new home 
 in the wilderness. At Harvard and Yale, college 
 halls stood beneath the shade of the primeval forest ; 
 and to this day it is the peculiarity of the American 
 emigrant, that he mingles in one concert, the tolling of 
 the college bell, the howling of the wolf, and the crack 
 of the huntsman's rifle. 
 
 Nor is it needful to spend time to prove, that this 
 peculiarity is the result of the same religious system, or 
 that all other colonizations in the New World have ut- 
 terly failed, for the want of this very social construct- 
 iveness. Among the colonies of France, of Spain, of 
 Portugal, you look for it in vain ; and for the want of 
 it, weakness and premature old age and decay, mark 
 all their settlements. 
 
 I tliink now, that any candid man will admit, that 
 the peculiar and wonderful success of American coloni- 
 zation, is to be ascribed, almost wholly, to these three 
 causes — the purity and moral dignity of the family, the 
 education and culture of the great mass of oar industri- 
 ous population, and the public spirit, the social con- 
 structiveness, which distinguishes us from all other peo- 
 ples ; and that these three causes run up into one — the 
 religious system of our Puritan fathers. Then must 
 such a man grant aU which I claim, on this occasion, 
 that, so far as that religious system prevails^ so far will 
 this American people retain their power of expanding 
 themselves over the earth. So far as this system pre- 
 vails, it will cause that " every one that is feeble among 
 the people shall be as David, and the house of David 
 as God, as the angel of the Lord before them." 
 
 Let us suppose that the whole present territory of 
 the United States were filled with such a people, num-
 
 26 
 
 bering, as it inevitalbly must, not less than three hun- 
 dred millions — every family a fortress of social strength, 
 every laborer an educated, civilized, relf-reliant man, 
 conscious of his duties and his rights, every com- 
 munity rejoicing in those institutions, which provide 
 for universal culture — with what power would such a 
 people extend its arms to the North and the South, to 
 the East and the West, to take hold of and subdue an 
 unpeopled world. Its colonial settlements would be 
 found on every unoccupied spot, where a furrow could be 
 turned on a tillable soil, wherever there was a water-fall 
 to turn machinery. Every wilderness and solitary 
 place would be glad for them, every desert would bud 
 and blossom as the rose. 
 
 And why should we despair, that this grand concep- 
 tion may be, in some good degree, realized ? To a re- 
 sult so sublime, the settlement of our religious fathers 
 on these shores evidently looked. If I may so speak, it 
 seems evidently to have been God's plan. And shall 
 we be like the faithless one of old, who said, if there 
 were windows in heaven, then might this thing be? 
 Shall we not rather believe that God can and will ac- 
 complish what he has undertaken ? True, slavery now 
 holds half our States in bondage. But may we not 
 believe that this giant iniquity will be swept away, 
 before this inevitable current of Christian freedom? 
 The time is near — it will perhaps be in the days of 
 some child in this house — when every foot of our 
 national domain will be wanted for the free laborer; 
 and slave labor can not long hold it against such a 
 competition. Already, are there unmistakable signs, 
 that freedom is dawning upon the fertile plains and 
 iron hills of Missouri. It is not alone to recent political 
 events that I allude ; though these are of a character to 
 enlist the sympathies of the patriot, and the prayers of
 
 the Christian ; but I refer still more especially to the 
 amazing relative increase of her free population, result- 
 ing from causes so deep and permanent, so entirely pro- 
 vidential, that her politicians have little power, either 
 to accelerate or retard it. 
 
 Nor can slavery long protect itself from destruction, 
 by the same cause — the inevitable inroads of free labor, 
 all along its northern border. Virginia — glorious old 
 Virginia, amid whose sunny hill-sides holy Mount Ver- 
 non nestles, must yet again be free, and extend, as of 
 old, the unshackled hand to her brothers of the North, 
 in carrying religion and freedom over the continent. 
 Time would fail me, to discuss this subject. Let us 
 trust in God and take courage. I can not believe, that 
 God has doomed one half the soil of this home of the 
 free to perpetual slavery. There is ground for hope — 
 the time of deliverance may be near. Room for expan- 
 sion is as much a necessity of our free laboring popula- 
 tion, as air or sunlight. The days of plenty of cheap 
 fertile land, easily accessible and protected from the 
 curse of slavery by nsitionalfaith and national law, are 
 drawing to an end. Nothing will then remain, but the 
 living stream which for half a century, has been rolling 
 on towards the North West must flow down upon the 
 border Slave States, and spread itself over lands which 
 slavery can never cultivate. The free laborers will not 
 leave three fourths of the lands of the adjacent slave- 
 holding States to lie forever uncultivated. Freedom 
 will want those lands ; and it will have them : for in 
 this country, no law can hinder, that the owner of 
 unoccupied land should enrich himself by its sale. 
 Whenever, therefore, the free laborer wants those lands, 
 he can have them. This seems to me a providential 
 cause which dooms slavery.
 
 28 
 
 ^ It may, however, be thouglit by some, tliat the ra- 
 pidity of our growth and expansion must soon be great- 
 ly diminished by the failure of foreign immigration. I 
 shall not devote much time to this part of the subject, 
 but only make two or three brief suggestions. 
 
 It may seem to some, that the sooner it fails, the bet- 
 ter for our hopes. But I think we may safely leave 
 this point in the hands of the Divine Architect of our 
 national destiny. He has, evidently, designs much 
 more comprehensive, than merely to build up a great 
 free religious nation out of the direct descendants of 
 our pious ancestry. The leaven of their principles is 
 about being mingled with a mass almost as mighty and 
 heterogeneous as that through which Christianity was 
 diffused, in the ages that succeeded that of the Apostles. 
 And God knows best, with how much meal it is safe to 
 mingle it. The leaven shall not be lost ; it shall not 
 lose its power ; the whole shall be leavened. Nor can 
 I see anywhere the indication, that the religious charac- 
 ter of the American people, is to be materially modi- 
 fied by the accession of these foreign elements. There 
 is evidence, on the other hand, that they are themselves 
 undergoing a process of assimilation, unequalled in all 
 the past. Scarcely any portion of the social structure, 
 is so sensitive to foreign influence, as its language. 
 Where, then, is the evidence that the English language 
 is to be either supplanted among us by foreign influence, 
 or permanently corrupted ? Assimilation in language, 
 is a type, and only a type, of the universal assimilation 
 that is going on. Nor can I forbear remarking, that the 
 influence of foreign immigration in increasing the rapid- 
 ity of our growth, is, in my opinion, greatly overrated. 
 The ratio of our increase has, as a matter of fact, been but 
 little greater, when foreign immigration was greatest, 
 than when it was least. And whilst these ever-increas-
 
 29 
 
 ing American communities continue, as now, to present 
 to the needy and oppressed populations of Europe, in- 
 viting prospects of freedom, wealth, and plenty, it may 
 be expected that foreign immigration will increase, 
 rather than diminish. I see no reason to apprehend, 
 either that we are to be relieved of foreign immigra- 
 tion, if it is an evil, or to be deprived of it, if a benefit. 
 This topic is one of great interest and great importance, 
 but want of time forbids my dwelling upon it now. 
 
 I do not, then, pretend to set any definite limits to 
 the growth of our population, or to utter any definite 
 prediction. But I do say that, on the supposition that 
 the religious principles of our Fathers can be made to 
 prevail coextensively with the migrations of our free 
 population, I can see no cause which is likely, in any 
 great degree, to impair the rapidity of our increase for 
 the next one hundred and fifty years. There is no fear 
 of want of room — an unpeopled earth aflbrds room 
 enough. All the causes of our unparalleled growth 
 hitherto, originated only in the pervading influence of a 
 pure Christianity ; and provided the prevalence of these 
 principles be made coextensive with our growth, may 
 act with just as much energy upon hundreds of millions 
 as upon a few thousands. 
 
 With these things in view, I can not help regarding 
 this power of the American people, to extend itself 
 over unpeopled wilds and multiply with such amazing 
 rapidity christian communities and nations, as a cause 
 which looks quite beyond all our vast national domain, 
 with all the hundreds of millions it is capable of sus- 
 taining, and as promising to exert a controlling influence 
 on the religious destinies of the globe. 
 
 The depth and solemnity of this conviction is greatly 
 enhanced, when' I take in the additional fact, that our 
 own dear mother England, (she ought to be called the
 
 30 
 
 motlier of nations,) is spreading abroad her own colo- 
 nial settlements, largely composed of materials kindred 
 to our own, in almost every quarter of the globe. 
 English and American emigration is sweeping over 
 North America in parallel lines. If the population of 
 British America is less than our own, it is probably in- 
 creasing with no less rapidity ; and evidently has open 
 before it a most magnificent future. In the Indian Ar- 
 chipelago, New Zealand, and the thousand islands of the 
 Pacific, the English human current from the west, and 
 the American from the east, are soon to meet, and min- 
 gle their kindred waters. 
 
 It is true, then, beyond controversy or doubt, that 
 the migrations of the English language, the spread of 
 the old English stock, by peaceful colonization, over the 
 unpeopled world, is the grandest phenomenon now visi- 
 ble on earth : it is the mightiest visible agency, which 
 God is now employing, to change the religious and so- 
 cial condition of the human race, and plant the Christ- 
 ian religion over the world. To make England and 
 America thoroughly Christian, is to fill the world with 
 the knowledge of the Lord. It is to plant the Gospel 
 of Jesus Christ in every land, before the year of our 
 Lord, 2000. 
 
 When I have reached this stand-point, I seem almost 
 audibly to hear the same voice, that said : " Go not into 
 the way of the Gentiles, into any city of the Samaritans 
 enter ye not ;" and urging in our ears, go teach, teach^ 
 TEACH, the English and American emigrant. Let every 
 emigrant's wagon that crosses the prairie, be a sanctuary 
 of God ; let the voice of christian prayer and praise 
 ascend from the cabin of every steamer on the Western 
 waters ; let the christian minister and christian teach- 
 er accompany the woodman, the hunter, and the gold-
 
 31 
 
 digger, to the wilderness ; build the church and the 
 school-house, wherever the squatter builds his cabin ; 
 and the earth shall soon be the Lord's, and the fullness 
 thereof. Before our grandchildren go to their graves, 
 the triumphant song shall go up : " The kingdoms of 
 this world are become kingdoms of our Lord and his 
 Christ." 
 
 But let us remember, that this is not the hour of 
 triumph and victory, but of mighty, and, to human 
 eyes, dubious conflict. There is no doctrine of manifest 
 destiny here. The Jews had a manifest destiny ; but 
 of that destiny, as a nation, they failed. We may fail 
 too ; and if so, our failure will be the most signal in 
 history. The passer-by will exclaim : " O Lucifer ! son 
 of the morning, how art thou fiallen !" Worldliness 
 may invade our churches, and set up the altar of Mam- 
 mon, in the temple of God. Our migrations may be- 
 come entirely divested of the religious element. Our 
 emigrants may go to the wilderness only for gain, and 
 leave their Penates behind them. Our ministers may 
 be too fond of ease and comfort and refined literary 
 leisure, to follow the emigrant to his wild home. The 
 members of our churches may become too covetous and 
 too fond of the ostentations of fashionable life, to sus- 
 tain the cause of Home Missions, along our ever-reced- 
 ing border. Our frontier may thus be inhabited by a 
 people knowing no God but money, and no freedom 
 but that of licentiousness. And no man well acquainted 
 with our recent new settlements, can help feeling a sick- 
 ness of heart, at the symptoms of such moral disease 
 seizing on these extremities of the body politic. Let 
 us not deceive ourselves. If such a day ever comes, 
 our glory will have departed. 
 
 We can no more subdue a continent by an emigrant 
 population without religion, without the Church, the
 
 32 
 
 school, tlie ministry, than Kome could hold on in her 
 career of conquest, with the enervated legions of the 
 latter years of the Empire. If such a day ever comes, 
 we shall stand before the other nations of the world, 
 despite our boasted Anglo Saxon blood, like Samson 
 before the Philistines, when his locks were shorn. 
 
 This effort to plant the institutions of free christian 
 society upon the borders of the ever receding wilder- 
 ness demands the united and earnest cooperation of all^ 
 in every portion of this land, who love and cherish the 
 faith of our fathers. It is sometimes asked, when are 
 the churches of the old States to be relieved from these 
 demands for aid to the new settlements ? When ? 
 Never — till either these churches shall have utterly 
 apostatized from Christ, or there shall be no more un- 
 peopled wilderness on earth, to which the American 
 emigrant can penetrate ; NEVEE., till this living stream 
 shall have flowed round the earth, and planted the 
 Church of Christ on every sunny hill-side, and in every 
 fertile valley. The American Home Missionary Society^ 
 in prospect of the immediately coming future, has as 
 truly the world for its field, as the American Board of 
 Commissioners for Foreign Missions. And if any who 
 have put their hand to the plow are disposed now to 
 look back, they are unworthy of any part in this work. 
 The missionaries of this Society shall yet follow the 
 American emigrant, not only to all the fertile valleys 
 which nestle among the snowy peaks of Oregon, and to 
 all the gold fields of California, but to the table lands 
 of Mexico, to the banks of the Amazon, the Orinoco, 
 and the La Plata, and to all the thousand islands of 
 the Pacific. This is the time for girding on the harness, 
 not for putting it off. 
 
 And I can not forbear saying, in conclusion, that our 
 Home Missionary enterprise ought to be a great deal
 
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