the _Century Magazine_ alone
would insure an international reputation. From a speech in the
Spanish Cortes, 1871.

America, and especially Saxon America, with its immense virgin
territories, with its republic, with its equilibrium between stability
and progress, with its harmony between liberty and democracy, is the
continent of the future--the immense continent stretched by God between
the Atlantic and Pacific, where mankind may plant, essay, and resolve
all social problems. Europe has to decide whether she will confound
herself with Asia, placing upon her lands old altars, and upon the
altars old idols, and upon the idols immovable theocracies, and upon the
theocracies despotic empires; or whether she will go by labor, by
liberty, and by the republic, to co-operate with America in the grand
work of universal civilization.

NOBLE CONCEPTIONS.

WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING, D. D., a distinguished American Unitarian
divine, and one of the most eloquent writers America has produced.
Born at Newport, R. I., April 7, 1780; died, October 2, 1842. From
an address on "The Annexation of Texas to the United States."

When we look forward to the probable growth of this country; when we
think of the millions of human beings who are to spread over our present
territory; of the career of improvement and glory opened to this new
people; of the impulse which free institutions, if prosperous, may be
expected to give to philosophy, religion, science, literature, and
arts; of the vast field in which the experiment is to be made; of what
the unfettered powers of man may achieve; of the bright page of history
which our fathers have filled, and of the advantages under which their
toils and virtues have placed us for carrying on their work. When we
think of all this, can we help, for a moment, surrendering ourselves to
bright visions of our country's glory, before which all the glories of
the past are to fade away? Is it presumption to say that if just to
ourselves and all nations we shall be felt through this whole continent;
that we shall spread our language, institutions, and civilization
through a wider space than any nation has yet filled with a like
beneficent influence? And are we prepared to barter these hopes, this
sublime moral empire, for conquests by force? Are we prepared to sink to
the level of unprincipled nations; to content ourselves with a vulgar,
guilty greatness; to adopt in our youth maxim