at Christian nations should still be
armed to the teeth, and that wars are still so frequent. We fear that
they will not cease until those who govern shall be conscientious
Christians. But that the time will come when rulers shall be righteous
and nations learn war no more, is a truth which Christians everywhere
accept. When, how,--by the gradual spread of knowledge, or by
supernatural intervention,--who can tell? "Zion shall arise and
shine.... The Gentiles shall come to its light, and kings to the
brightness of its rising.... Violence shall no more be heard in the
land, nor wasting and destruction within its borders.... They shall not
hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the Lord.... And it shall
come to pass that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to
another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith the Lord."

This is the sublime faith of Christendom set forth by the most sublime
of the prophets, from the most gifted and eloquent of the poets. On this
faith rests the consolation of the righteous in view of the prevalence
of iniquity. This prophecy is full of encouragement and joy amid
afflictions and sorrows. It proclaims liberty to captives, and the
opening of the prison to those that are bound; it preaches glad tidings
to the meek, and binds up the broken-hearted; it gives beauty for ashes,
the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit
of heaviness. This prediction has inspired the religious poets of all
nations; on this is based the beauty and glory of the lyrical stanzas we
sing in our churches. The hymns and melodies of the Church, the most
immortal of human writings, are inspired with this cheering
anticipation. The psalmody of the Church is rapturous, like Isaiah, over
the triumphant and peaceful reign of Christ, coming sooner perhaps than
we dream when we see the triumphal career of wicked men. In the temporal
fall of a monstrous despotism, in the decline of wicked cities and
empires, in the light which is penetrating all lands, in the shaking of
Mohammedan thrones, in the opening of the most distant East, in the
arbitration of national difficulties, in the terrible inventions which
make nations fear to go to war, in the wonderful network of
philanthropic enterprises, in the renewed interest in sacred literature,
in the recognition of law and order as the first condition of civilized
society, in that general love of truth which science has stimulated a