history, from the landing at Jamestown and
Plymouth to the war of 1812, and later, was the unfolding of events
which pointed to the supremacy of the English in North America. Our
religion was Protestant and English; our literature took root in English
forms of thought; our free institutions were the outcome of principles
which had been, and now are, influential in English politics; our common
law was English, our traditions of liberty were English, and that union
of liberty and law which makes us strong, we inherited from our English
fathers. So that in 1820, two hundred years after the arrival of the
Mayflower, we were essentially an English nation; old England broken
away from old forms and precedents, the natural expansion of England
under new forms of government and society.

Now it would have been pleasant, to human ways of thinking, if we could
have remained always thus homogeneous. But God had a work for us to do.
We were not left to sit down amidst the vast resources which the land
affords for material prosperity, and just watch and foster our own
growing and expanding life, but God gave us four problems to solve.
These four problems came to us from the four quarters of the globe, the
Indian of America on the North, the Chinaman of Asia on the West, the
descendant of Africa on the South, and the emigrant of Europe on the
East, who poured, in great masses, through our Eastern gates, the German
unbeliever, the Irish Catholic, the Mormon convert, and representatives
of every race of Europe.

The English race, which still represents the heart and brain of the
nation, confronts these four problems. The problem on the North and
South we brought on ourselves, as results on the one hand of our neglect
and injustice, and on the other of our cupidity and cruelty. The
troubles that come to us through our Eastern and Western ports, are
drawn to us by the attractive influence of our free institutions and our
material prosperity.

What are we to do with these alien elements? Do as Rome did. When Rome
heard of a hostile nation on her borders, she conquered it, attached it
to the Empire, and made it a new pillar of imperial power. So are we to
conquer every element of darkness and attach it to the kingdom of light,
making it an element of strength in our American civilization and our
American Christianity. The difference in the method is the difference
between paganism and Christianity, for while Rome conquered with a sword