DUTY TO OUR OWN GENERATION.

THANKSGIVING SERMON,
^mt]^th in It §m^vB C[iarf[j,
NEW-YORK,
DECEMBER 12, 1850,

BY STEPHEN H. TYNG, D. D.,
RECTOR.

PU3UISHED BY THE VESTRY OF ST. GEORGE'S CHURCH.

Nca)-J3ork.

1850.

SERMON.

For David, after "he had served his own generation 'by the -will of God,
fell on Bleep, and "was laid unto his fathers. — Acts, xiii. 66.

I DO not select this text to speak of the character of
David. I 'wish to consider the description which the Apostle
gives of individual duty, and personal responsibility and in
fluence, as illustrated in the example of David. David,
cfter he had served his own generation by the will of God,
fell on sleep, and 'was laid unto his fathers. It is the duty
and responsibility of serving one's own generation, of which
I desire you to think this morning, as a subject eminently
appropriate to the particular occasion and reason of this day.
There are attainments and responsibilities in every gene
ration of men, in every portion of their earthly dwelling,,
which are peculiar to itself; and the duties of the indi-vi-
dual arise very much out of the circumstances of advantage
or discouragement, and the instruments of power and
means of influence which these attainments of his own
generation present. These are, therefore, to be particularly,
considered as Ulustrating the personal duty which arises
from them.

The particular circumstances of the birth of man are
the result of the power and providence of his Creator.
Whatever they may be, so far as the individual subject is
himself concerned, they are an absolute divine appoint
ment. He is introduced into relations which he has not
sought. AM the advantages which attend his condition are
a gift of Divine bounty to him. The restrictions which
are imposed upon it are equally the will of a supreme
Divine authority over him. Various may have been the
agency, and most remote some of the instruments, by which
these advantages and restrictions may have been severaUy
prepared, for his possession or endurance ; but so far as
he is concerned, they are all completely the decrees of an
authority above ; and they involve a personal responsibUity,
under which he must work, and which he has no power
to remove. In this appointed field, the greatness and the
usefulness of man are to be the product of his own fideUty.
The circumstances in which he is placed, are but the whet
stone to his faculties. It is the conjunction of his talents,
his need, and his opportunities, which generates his emi
nence, and his influence for the welfare of his race. AU
that honorably distinguishes his character while living, and
all that embalms and immortalizes his memory after death,
is the progeny from this parentage. Give him, the native
energy of inborn genius, and the creative power of personal
necessity, and the honest fidelity of purpose to fill up the
measure of his opportunities, and then, the position of birth
most of aU to be desired, and presenting the highest ad
vantages for him, is amidst the attainments and circum
stances of his race, at a period in their history, and in a
location in their dwelUng, which furnish the fairest field
and the most adapted instruments to stir up the gift that

is in him, and to enable him to work out, with the ut
most encouragement of opportunity, and the greatest like
lihood of success, the glorious career and issue fiir which
he was designed.
These advantages do not depend wholly upon his own
possession of adequate mental powers and moral purposes.
The noblest powers may be -wasted and concealed, and
rendered comparatively useless to man, from the want of
adequate occasion, and means of exercise and exhibition.
Birth, a hundred years sooner or later in the history of
the race, or in one national locality rather than another,
may make all the difference to the same powers of mind,
of success or failure, of oblivion or renown. They are
the attainments of his own generation, which essentially
mark the direction and limits, of the course of the in
dividual man, and shape out the duty and responsibihty
which are imposed upon him.
This leads me to the practical illustration of this sub
ject, which constitutes my present design. I view this
country and this age — the present generation in the history
of man, in the special location of these American States
— as offering the highest advantages of human birth thus
far ever attained by man. How glorious is the privilege,
to a man who desires to leave the deepest impression
of his mind and energy, in the advancing elevation and
happiness of his race, to have been born in a nation,
the institutions of which are the perfection of all past
experiments in the social relations of man, — furnishing
the surest hope yet given, of his future elevation and
improvement in every attainment which can dignify and
adorn humanity, — at a time in its history, exhibiting a
point in this course of improvement, which ofl^ers the

most glorious view yet acquired of what man can do, —
and the highest ground for anticipation of what he really
wiU do, — to exalt his own condition, to bless succeeding
generations, and to fulfil the great destiny for Avhich he
was designed. I view the coming generation of Ameri
cans as certain to occupy the most important and re
sponsible position ever held by the sons of Adam; as
ha-ving an influence to exercise, and a work to accom
plish, •
" Such as earth
Saw never: such as heaven stoops down to see."
Birth in such circumstances, and at such a time, brings
the highest pri-vilege which birth can bring. The man
thus born, in possession of the fairest field and the most
adapted instruments ever given to man by the Being
from whose hands he came, for influence upon the well-
being of his race, is to be congratulated as highly favored.
He is the master of the labors of generations which
have preceded him ; and he may well come to offer
the tribute of his thanksgiving to the God who has fixed
the bounds of his habitation, and to learn the divinely
imposed responsibility upon him, for the benefit of his
own generation, and of those who are to come after
him. These United States have a vast moral mission to fulfiU
for God, among men. This nation is a commissioned mes
senger from heaven to the residue of earth ; set up and
designed, with the most accredited testimonials of a Provi
dence on -high, to proclaim and Ulustrate truths which the
world has never understood before ; appointed and quali
fied to demonstrate the possible peaceful self-government

of men ; to exhibit the entire consistency of unlimited
personal freedom with the public order of society ; to
display to the residue of the world, the freest and the most
perfectly balanced scheme for the guidance of the mutual
relations of men ; to teach the purest Christianity to the
human race, the actual revelations of the Creator's mind,
the simple Gospel of man's salvation, unincumbered by
traditionary human forms, and unrestricted by arts of
man's device ; ai-^d to offer to aU nations an inestimable
opportunity for the moral and intellectual improvement of
the family of man. For these great purposes have the
privileges of this generation been conferred. For these
great purposes have the responsibilities of this generation
been imposed. And we are to serve our generation by
the will of God, by maintaining and perpetuating the privi
leges which we have thus received.
I. Protestant America, in its peculiarly Protestant character,
has been the object of a particular Divine Providence
from the beginning of its history ; and one great duty
to the present generation is to perpetuate the acknow
ledgment a,nd the influence of this fact. Secreted
among the treasures which have been laid up for the la.ter
ages of man, this noble continent was discovered and
brought under the notice of civilized men, at the very
juncture when its vast theatre was to be demanded for the
new exhibitions to be made of the Divine purposes ; ex
hibitions for which earth presented no other adequate
field. All Europe had been stirred up by the previous ex
citements of the Crusades, and the controversies of the
Reformation. Men had been aroused from the slumber of

ages, to realize that they were designed to be some
thing more than the tools of despotism, or the victims
of titled licentiousness. Extensive and long-protracted
agitations had sundered the crust which covered the
secret bosom of human want and consciousness, and had
opened the elements long smouldering there, in a crater
never again to be closed by man. The art of printing
had given to human thought, motion and permanency
and power ; wings of light, and tongues of fire. The
mariner's compass had calmly, but effectually, triumphed
over the ocean's wastes. Beautiful emblems both, of a
Divine majesty ruling in silence ; of a Divine power
working untraced ; of a steady, unyielding process of ag
gression and conquest now to be commenced, greater and
more wonderful than the battles of the warrior had ever
accomplished, without their confused noise, and garments
roUed in blood ! "No speech I no language ! their voice
is not heard ! and yet their line is gone out through all
the earth, — their words to the end of the world."
The first agents in the discovery of this continent were
Papists, deeply imbued with the delusion that the Bishop
of Rome rightly possessed the keys of earth, and granted
its territory as his own domain to whomsoever he pleased.
In his mighty name was this land to be possessed, and
by his authority was it to be ruled ! But this was far
from the issue of Divine appointment. There was every
human probability that France and Spain might divide the
whole continent between them. Spain was suffered, in its
southern section, to try over again the old experiment up
on a new soil — that reign of bigotry, cruelty, and terror,
beneath which the whole earth had groaned so long ;
that the rising majesty of new and purer principles mighl

be the more effectually displayed in these northern lands,
by their immediate contrast with the wretched imbecility
and degi'adation every where seen to result from the sys
tem of oppression which they had superseded. Her re
petition of that experiment was made amidst the highest
possible advantages, in a new field glowing with the
richest natural attractions. Succeeding generations have
displayed the heritage of sorro-w^ which there, as every
where, has followed the dominion of Romish delusion and
darkness, and marked its history with blood.
But another family of the race of man was in Divine
preparation, to be the agents in bringing out the hidden
purposes of the Creator upon the field of glory for which
this northern portion of the continent was prepared. Not
quite yet, however, were they ready. England was to be
pressed beneath a stUl heavier weight of tyranny, before
the very marrow of her excellence, from whence the fat
ness of this nation was to grow, should be obtained.
This settlement was not to be a sudden process. It was
not a mere adventure for gain. It was the colonizing
and transplanting of agents and principles of immortal
truth ; of agents and principles to be strengthened by an
unceasing contest with outward difficulties. And the sift
ing of England for the best and most efficient agents in
this appointed work, was a slow proceeding. They must
be men who felt the stern inward power of self-reliance j
the majestic connexion of the human mind with its Creator ;
the glory of its destiny and privilege in fulfilling his ap
pointed plans ; the inestimable value of pure. Scriptural
truth, and its indispensable necessity in the work which
was here to be done ; who were to be employed in open
ing this new world, so sterile upon its surface, so rich in

10
its heart, and so exalted in its destiny. And after the
Tudors and Stuarts had travelled over the nation with
their threshing wheels of oppression" sharpened to the
utmost point of human invention, and had made, by this
very operation, the Protestants of their day, angular enough,
and indurated enough, for the purposes to be accomplished
by them here; then an unseen hand lifted the curtain,
and loosed the bond; and a voice of ^Divine power pro
claimed aloud, — "There is much land to be possessed —
arise — go I" The field was now ready, and the qualified
agents for its occupation were now provided. And it was
a glorious mission; and they were fitting messengers who
were appointed to it. The feebler descendants of these
Anglo-Saxon Apostlds of liberty and truth have abused
them by their reproaches, and dishonored them as much
by their professed extenuations and apologies. But the
greatness, and the glory, and the power of that genera
tion StiU abide, heeding no assault, and asking no defence.
Never was there an embassy of greater consequence to
mankind, than the faithful Protestant band who were the
parents of these northern colonies. The time, the circum
stances, the agents, and the purposes of these North Ame
rican settlements, combined to indicate the Providence
which has here constituted this most important shelter
and defence of pure Christian truth. The acknowledgment
of this providence is an inestimable privilege to this ge
neration ; a privilege which we are bound to remember
and to perpetuate ; and for the advantage and improve
ment of which, we must be held responsible. We are to
maintain the Protestant character of tliis nation. With a
just toleration in the conscientious worship of the Divine
Being for whose providence we stand, we are to give no

11

countenance to either a national or individual denial of
him. We are to hold no compromise with the lawless
infidelity which would rob our children of the word of
God, and our nation of his Sabbath ; and poison the very
fountains of social peace and order by annihilating all
reverence for that pure religion which our fathers brought
us. We are to insist upon the fact, in every relation
in which it can be approached, that this nation is a
Protestant nation, preserved, hedged, and fertilized by the
hand of God, for the dominion of order, purity, and truth ;
and that this appointment must be, and shaU be, faith
fully and solemnly maintained.
II. The same Divine Providence has given to this ge
neration an unlimited extent of territory, to be organized
and made ready, as the asylum of rational liberty for the
world ; the ark of refuge for the oppressed of all na
tions ; and we are to serve our own generation by main
taining the openness and provision of this gift. The ex
tent to which this territory may stretch I am unable to
define, even in my own imagination. A writer in a
popular foreign magazine sneeringly says, " A consider
able portion of the people of the United States are
evidently convinced that they are the instruments of
Providence in the civilization and population of the new
world ; and look forward to the time, as by no means
remote, when their descendants and form of government
shall spread north and south, to the exclusion of Brit
ish rule and Spanish American republics — from Green
land to Panama." I confess myself among the portion
thus described, in the general terms of the description
at the least; nor can I see how the original European

12
settlement of this land is to be justified, upon , any prin
ciples which do not equally cover the extending of the
dominion and purposes of that settlement to the utmost ex
tent of occupable reach. How much happier and better for
humanity, and for Mexico herself, would it have been, had
that whole abused and wasted territory been colonized and
controlled, by those who were able to improve and cul
tivate it, for the honour and the advantage of man ; had
the peaceful and improving institutions, Protestant liberty
and religious toleration, which distinguish and honour this
nation, been allowed to put a final end to the series of
sanguinary revolutions through which that wretched peo
ple have passed, and through which, we may justly fear,
they will still pass, till the reign of their darkness shall
be over.
The importance of our actual westward extension can
not be overrated. The colonizing of California is an un
equalled wonder in the history of the world, whether
you consider the rapidity of its progress, the moral dig
nity of its settlement, even in the midst of the over
whelming confusion of its multitudes tumbling in from
every quarter, the wisdom displayed in its organization
by the first generation of its inhabitants, in the first year
of its occupation, or the incalculable results to which its
settlement must lead, in the moral and commercial his
tory of the world. By this process of settlement, this
continent must soon become the highway to the opening
riches of Eastern Asia, and the great road also on
which moral and intellectual influence is to travel tliither.
So that either for the purposes of earthly gain, or of
religious usefulness to man, we may hope the stormy
doubling of the southern Capes will soon come to an end.

13
Now, I call this whole extent of territory a gift to
this generation ; an attainment from a far higher po-wer
than the mere power of man, for purposes most im
portant to the interests of man, and most near to the
honor of his Creator. Let the suffering inhabitants of
the old world come : we may reel a little beneath the
burthen on this Atlantic strip, but it will be to gather
strength and greatness by the effort. Let every sorrow
ing refugee feel, the moment he has reached our shore,
that he is an American, born in that auspicious hour,
and entitled to an inheritance for himself and his child
ren after him, to be made dependent upon nothing but
his own fidelity in sustaining and defending American
principles of liberty, order, and truth, and carrying out
in his own efforts, the great and noble purposes for
which America has been opened and provided. With
this extending territory we may safely invite the hard
working men from all the earth. We may tell the whole
crowd of sufferers under foreign despotism, that there is a
Goshen for them here, and that God has sent us before
them to preserve life. Here they may cast away the
iron which has entered into their soul, and rise to the
manhood of their Creation, fi-ee, honored, and useful to ¦
manldnd. III. Upon this vast extent of territory, this generation
has received the establishment of the most rational and
orderly freedom ; and we are to serve our generation,
by every effort to maintain and preserve it. There are
here no more limits placed upon personal independence
of will, and action, and property, than the security of
the social bond absolutely demands. Never was there

14
greater personal freedom given to man in a civilized
state. Probably there never can be, in accordance with
the maintenance of public order and individual security.
No surveiflance can here be exercised over his domestic
life. No encroachment is allowed upon his family, or
private relations and rights. He neither feels nor fears
the intrusion of official agents upon the seclusion of his
fireside ; the mean graspings upon his person or his habi
tation, of arbitrary authority, unaccountable and^ supreme,
and the more hateful from the very baseness of the
agency employed. And yet there is a majesty in the
law, which no other land on the earth can equal ; a
power, not augmented by tinselled robes or bristling guards,
or official display, but which has its throne in the dig
nity of the conscience, and rules by the affectionate, re
verential ^consent, and the united, determined support, of
the vast organized majority of society. Painful but noble
demonstrations have been given of this power, and of
the defiberate determination of the people thoroughly to
sustain it, even though the fives of infatuated individuals
shall be made a sacrifice in the effort. It is this
dominance of complete order in the midst of the widest
freedom, which has so astonished the eyes, and bewil
dered the judgments of Europe, in observing us. The
metropolitan police of the immediate neighborhood of
London alone, is said to be ten thousand men, to guard
the peace of little more than two millions of inhabitants.
Probably the whole police force of the United States,
for near twenty millions of people, is not so large ; and
yet nowhere on earth is private repose more secure,
public decorum more guarded, or official authority more
strictly reverenced. This is a wonderful attainment. It

16
seems almost an atmosphere of order. It pervades, more
or less, every portion of the land. It is especially, and
considering its heterogeneous population, remarkably the
characteristic of this city. How striking, too, is the
demonstration which was given of this rule of order, in
its calm and instinctive adoption, in the first conventions
on the Pacific shores, where, though society seemed
to be an unficensed mob, the noble principles which
have dignified and elevated the older portions of the
nation, were immediately exalted, almost unopposed, as
the basis upon which the new republic should be formed.
It was the silent, but majestic influence, of the principles
which first estabHshed themselves amidst the snows of
New England, reaching across the whole intermediate
extent, to rule also on the western ocean.
This secured and consofidated freedom is an attain
ment, for the perpetuation of which we are deeply re
sponsible to our generation. But its perpetuation must
depend upon reverence for the majesty of the law ;
upon the wisdom, caution, and mutual forbearance of the
various sections of our people, in their different territories,
and with their sometimes conflicting interests ; upon the
solemn determination of all classes to resist " all sedi
tion, privy conspiracy, and rebellion ;" to protect and
maintain the execution of the law, against the power of
individual opposition, or organized anarchy, however tem
porary evil or individual injustice may seem to arise from
its administration.
Over this glorious prospect of human freedom, one
sad and heavy cloud has been slowly passing ; but
certainly passing, as I stiU must hope and beheve.
This cloud of inherited slavery, a burden not sought or

16

voluntarily assumed by the people of this nation, but im
posed upon them, and transmitted to them, by a coloniz
ing parent, has been graduaUy and rapidly narrowing its
shadow, until within -the few past years. We were en
couraging ourselves with the hope that the evU would be
soon finally and for ever removed. We were content to
wait, and hope patiently for its complete extinction, in the
course which had been so successfuUy and happily com
menced. But a violent eagerness for the immediate over
throw of the evU has, I fear, in its operation, materiaUy
retarded it, and thrown new difficulties in the way, of
very peculiar and painful force. And yet, notwithstand
ing this discouraging interference, I would never lose
sight of the purpose, by every equitable, constitutional,
and Christian means, to extinguish the dominion of hu
man slavery for ever. Unfimited and immediate emanci
pation upon our own soil, I befieve to be impossible, and
certainly ruinous to one class involved, if not equally to
both. But there is one manifest remedy ; and I must
StiU labor, and hope, and pray, for the time to arrive,
when the general sense of the nation shall perceive its
interest and duty, by a complete and generous coloniza
tion of Africans in Africa, to loosen every bond ; and
thus to perpetuate, as may be so ' readily done, on the
largest scale, and with the most glorious results, the
principles of freedom, Christianity and civUization, upon
that densely peopled continent, as they have been es
tablished in the rising repubUc of Liberia, — a community
whose organization is scarcely less an honour to the
United States, than the settlement of our own Pacific
shores. Of the frequent threats of national rupture and poli-

17
tical destruction which are heard in connexion with this
subject, I shaU not trust myself here to speak. Agitat
ing as they are, I cannot suppose they wiU be urged,
or aUowed to proceed, to an actual accomplishment of
purpose thus declared. I cannot believe that the
gi-acious blessing and protection of God, over a nation
which he has so remarkably fostered, have been so ut
terly withdra-wn, that the continuance of this great Union,
the last earthly shelter of the wretched, from the evils
both of despotism and anarchy, is to be made depen
dant upon the perpetuation of suffering on the one side,
or the threats of violence on the other. Slavery ca.nnot
be violently or immediately broken up in those States
in which it has been inherited; and the continuance of
the Union seems to me the appointed, and the only
possible instrument for the prevention of this violent
issue. Many months would not elapse, I fear, after
the protection of that Union was thus fatally rejected,
before the tragedy of St. Domingo would be repeated,
on the soil which had thus cast off the guardianship of
national defence ; and the destruction of either one or the
other of the two races involved, would be the inevitable
result. To gain the final universal aboHtion of slavery
in the United States, is one of the responsibilities we
have to this generation, and to those who are to suc
ceed us. To accomplish this result, in connexion with
the great principles and purposes of our national con
federacy, and in furtherance of them, is certainly another.
But the maintenance of this Union, for the great moral
ends in human welfare which it is to accompHsh, and
to secure the still greater extent of human freedom
which it is intended to perpetuate, I esteem an object
2

18
for us, paramount in its importance, and for which
every sacrifice is wisely made, but the final surrender of
righteousness to wrong.
IV. Unlimited opportunities of pubfic education form
another privilege of inestimable value, which this gene
ration has received ; and we. are to serve our own ge
neration by the most liberal purpose and efforts to per
petuate it. The provision for this pubHc education was
a fundamental principle laid deeply imbedded under the
free institutions of our country. It started with the very
origin of the nation. But six years elapsed from the erec
tion of the first European habitation in Boston, before the
foundation was laid for that noble university, which is
the oldest and the most extensive in our land. This
principle has been valued from this beginning, as one
of the most important distinctions of the nation. The
school-house and the college have foUowed the emigra
ting settlement, from the first establishment of the -villages
on the Atlantic coast, until they have reached the Pacific
shore. And Oregon,- the oldest settlement there, is now
sending her earnest appHcations across the mountains, for
an increasing supply of stiU more elevated teachers for
her rising and craving population. Americans Svill • not
be untaught. No separation from the propitious circum
stances of their early national training ; no pressure of
labor or difficulty, in struggHng for a new maintenance,
even in the wilderness, can persuade them to sit down
in contented ignorance, or to allow a new generation to
grow up, unguided by the knowledge which their fa
thers had. The present public school education in the
older States is the most perfect model for such an ef-

19
fort, that the world has ever seen. It is, indeed, the
very first attempt which has ever been made, to give
universal education to a nation, — and it is an effort of
surprising dignity and success. The poorest man, who
supports his family in a single room, upon the wages
of his daily labour, may give to his son, without a dol
lar's cost to him, an education as entire, as the money
of the rich can purchase. This is free, public educa
tion ; at the cost of the people, for the children of the
people ; — the liberal preparation, and the noble purpo.se
of America, for the sons and daughters of Americans.
There is no such thing on earth beside. What other
nation is there, which provides this universal opportu
nity of public instruction ? Which taxes the property
of all, for this common purpose of education for all ?
Which lays the Bible, the sacred word of God, at the
foundation of public education ? Which points the poor
est laborer's son to the highest position of eminence
and usefulness, and bids him to strive honorably and
faithfully to obtain it ?
And yet the mere education of books and schools is but
a part of this great plan. The idea of public education
includes the whole provision for the religious, moral, eco
nomical and social training of our population, especially
the laboring portion of it ; the universal purpose to
elevate and set up, upon a sound and practical emi
nence, the working classes of men ; — the disposition not
to envy their exaltation, but. to rejoice over all that
they can do, individually or collectively, to advance the
prosperity, and to honor the reputation of the nation ;
aU these are parts of the same great system of pubUc
popular education. One living principle ' pervades the

20
whole system, — a principle which is in striking contrast
with the social plans of older nations. The organization
of society in Europe operates upon the fixed system
to keep the poor men down; to compel them to oc
cupy permanently the lower place. If individuals do
occasionaUy break through the bondage of inherited re
strictions, and elevate themselves to personal indepen
dence and importance, it is because the influence above
them cannot prevent it. The elastic expansion of their
native powers within, has proved mightier than the su
perincumbent pressure of the weight above them. There
certainly have been glorious instances of this — instances
which have honored humanity ; and displayed the more
remarkably in this very triumph over surrounding dis
advantages, the powers bestowed upon man by his
Creator. But the purpose, as well as the operation of
society in America, is to encourage and help the poor
man's elevation. In our view, it is a wretched charac
teristic of a nation, that its poor people must be al
ways poor. Accordingly, we take off all the weights, if
possible, and open the path to honor and usefulness ;
and urge the man to arise and reap a harvest, which
is as much his own as the property of another. The
social principle of Europe for every laborer is fixed de
pression. The social principle of America is active en-
courageqjent. This inherited system of universal education which this
generation has received, devolves upon us a most im
portant responsibUity. As years pass this responsibUity
grows the heavier stUl. The real strength of our country
is in its extending advances in the uitellectual and
moral elevation of the people, under the blessed influence

21
of Christian truth, and sound Protestant instruction.
What the character of the few in the two extremes of
society may be, is comparatively a secondary consideration.
Our national character is formed and decided by the
character and habits of the working classes of men.
What they are, the nation is. If they are God-fearing,
and self-respecting, and mutuaUy improving, and truth
loving, such is the pubHc aspect and reputation. And
it is the privUege and duty of our nation lo educate
and exalt, to the utmost degi-ee of virtue, intelligence,
and prosperity, this whole multitude of our citizens ;
that we may say with truth, Americans are not more
free and equal in the theory of their institutions, than
they ai-e in actual character, attainments, and usefulness
to mankind.
V. Another attainment of our generation upon which
all the preceding bear most intimately, is an increasing
sympathy among our people with the residue of man
kind. For this we may well oflTer our thanksgiving ;
and we are to serve our generation by all our efforts
to perpetuate it. There would have appeared to be
much in our location and early settlement to create a
national selfishness. There has been much in our his
torical experience to bieak up this tendency to exclu
sion, and to call out a tender concern for the suffer"
ings and wants of the remaining portions of the earth.
Every such exercise of general or national benevolence
gives to the community just what habitual acts of kind
ness give to the individual ; an increasing desire to be
useful, and a strengthening wisdom and ability to ac
complish the desire.

22

The cost of all the bread which was sent to famishing
Ireland, was a very smaU price for the increased sym
pathy with suffering which the act displayed and called
into exercise among our own people. If the gift • was
valuable to Ireland, it was of far greater value to
America. A striking characteristic of the present age, is the uni
versal agitation and excitement of the human mind.
The whole moral and mental world of man is heaving
and breaking loose from its former bonds and bounds.
The people of all nations are anxious, disturbed, en
quiring. There cannot be said to be a stagnant peo
ple known upon the globe. Christian Europe and Ma-
hommedan and Pagan Asia seem equally in a crucible,
a melted mass, waiting for some impression to be re
ceived, or some new mould in which the nations are to
be cast. Men are everywhere reaching after a new
and a more perfect system of human government and
social relations. The rights of men, as such, have
been discovered and considered. Nor will they con
sent, for a long period to come, to be held in bondage
by man, or to be bought or sold at the will of their
fellow-men. One great instrument in creating this agi
tation, and giving direction to its demands, has been the
triumphant progress of this nation, and the liberal set
tlement and display which it has presented of the
liberty and advancement v/hich may be obtained and
enjoyed by man. With this observation have been con
nected most of the questions which have raised the
contests of this age. These are all moral questions ;
questions which refer to human rights, and social pos-

23
sibilities, and obligations. The strifes and wars of earth
are not now the mere contests for soil, but wars of
principle, conflicts for liberty of thought, and speech,
and action. In all these contests, the people of this
country have acquired the most intense and wide-spread
syiftpathy. Our interests in Europe, and our anxious
waitings for weekly intelligence from thence, is not that
we care whether ten thousand miles square of territory
has changed its owners or governors. All such ques
tions are soon passed by, as trifling and unworthy of
thought. But the claims of men^ for free education,
for liberty to the oppressed, for righteous conduct
among men, for the maintenance of integrity, benevo
lence, and truth, awaken universal and lasting concern.
Not only do these Atlantic cities feel the impression,
but there is not a distant village in the mountains,
where men are not aroused to listen upon this subject,
and waiting to hear. In the meanwhile, every possi
ble facility of communication among men has been in
creased. The wonders which the magnetic needle
opened, the application of steam to navigation has im
measurably enlarged. The apparently impossible ra
pidity of communication which the locomotive steam-
engine realized on land, the magnetic telegraph has
distanced in an incalculable proportion. The human
body may increase in any way the celerity of its mo
tions. The appointment of this latter age is, that the
action of the mind shall greatly and constantly precede
it. The ocean has been made like a paved highway,
for the journeyings of man. Its passages have become
as regular and as certain as the motions of the cars
upon the solid ground. Men of different and distant

24
nations are thus brought constantly together. They
cannot be kept apart. Many are running to and fro,
and every branch of human knowledge is increased.
Thus sympathy is caUed out from sources, and
directed into channels entirely new. But lately, for
instance, Hungary was a territory comparatively un
known to us ; an interior wilderness, the very names
and origin of whose inhabitants were almost as strange
to us as are still the inhabitants of interior Africa.
Now, the wrongs, and sorrows, and bondage of Hun
gary, struggling in vain for freedom, are felt as if they
were our own. A few years only have passed since
the shores of the Pacific were to us an unknown land.
A few years more only will elapse, before we shall
penetrate the mighty rivers and regions of China and
Japan, from those very shores, densely peopled as
'our own possessions. The whole world is thus opening
to our influence. We enter upon it everywhere with
hope, and with few obstructions. No intervening hos
tilities forbid our traversing the globe. When we do
traverse it, there is not a people on the earth who do
not welcome our flag, and rejoice to gain information of
the wonderful land which it represents. The oppress
ing despots of the earth may loathe America. The
oppressed sufferers of the earth reverence, honor and
desire her. We have a mission, thus, to exercise in
the world. Every facility is furnished to accomplish it,
whUe there is nothing in the way of its perfection.
The laws and the language of pure religion, of liberal
government, of free institutions, may be carried through
out the earth. And they surely will be. A temporary
darkness may still cover portions of emerging Europe ; but

25
man is yet to be made free. It may cost another sad
effusion of human blood, and another reign of sorrow
there. But the glorious issue will be worth the sufl^er-
ing. Already the common language and the com
bined influence of England and America have nearly
belted the globe. The eastern penetrations of Britain
for trade and dominion are rapidly coming round, to
meet our western course. We may meet and unite
together on the beautiful Pacific. The power given to
these two nations of the Saxon race is a remarkable
fact of this age. The keys of the earth have been
committed to their charge. The printing press, the
steam-engine, the telegraph, the coal beds, and even the
mines of the earth, have been thrown into their hands.
To a great extent, their interest and work on the earth
are common. Both of them combined may regenerate
the globe. Their united mission is to elevate its whole
population to Gospel light and truth ; to rational
liberty and to prosperous trade. And all this, we may
reasonably hope, will soon to a great degree be real
ized. The pressing advances in the course of inven
tion, discovery and settlement, for the last twenty-five
years, allow almost any extent of expectation, and make
no calculations for the future appear extravagant. The
new republics forming on our western coast are in
this accumulation of wonders — the most important and
remarkable, as connected with these anticipated results.
How happy was the name given to that ocean, on
which, probably, the great and final achievements of this
moral victory are to be seen ! O, that the omen may
be permitted to abide ! Let no warfare disturb its
pacific waters ! Let no streams of human blood min-
3

26
gle with its translucent depths ! Carrying still west
ward our acquired sympathy for suffering man, let us
press forward, everywhere, to elevate and save, — no
where to destroy. Let the attainments of the genera
tions past be honored and fulfilled, by the generous
and faithful discharge of the responsibilities accruing
upon us for generations to come. Thus, in maintaining
and spreading the glorious Gospel of Christ, in con
nexion with every instrument of national extension and
power, shall we be serving our generation according to
the will of God, and preparing a highway for the Sa
vior's passage in triumph through a redeemed and re
joicing world. Thus may we justly come and offer
our annual thanksgiving to the God of our fathers.
Thus may we be ourselves laid unto our fathers at
the last, in joyful hope for the welfare of our land
when our own work of life is finished. Thus may
earth have reason to rejoice over the discovery and
history of a continent and a nation, whose influence
has been an unspeakable blessing to mankind.

YALE UNIVERSITY I

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