religious liberty has made signal progress during the brief period we are contemplating. It is indeed a marked era in the history of the world in this respect.

Contemplating now more particularly the secular events of the past ten years, we shall see that they cover a period also memorable in respect to them. The decade has, indeed, gone out with a record as splendid as that of any other in the world's annals. What strides have liberty and constitutional government made in Italy, Spain, and even Austria. And may we not hope, at least, that in France the way has been preparing for a genuine republic amid the fearful lessons she has been learning in connection with the fall of imperialism?

The springing into existence of the kingdom of Italy is one of the most remarkable events of the decade, and one of the most striking in history. The scene opened in the first year, and closed with the occupation of Rome, and the complete unification of the realm of Italian-speaking people, in the last year of the period under consideration. The vote by which the work was completed, dethroning the Pope and annexing his territories to the kingdom of Victor Emmanuel, stood fifty thousand to fifty! And thus was ended the most despotic government in Christendom, which had existed since the eighth century, and that, too, immediately after the famous decision of the grand Ecumenical Council decreeing the infallibility of the Pope.

The sudden creation of the empire of Germany is another of the mighty events of the decade, and perhaps second in importance to no other in its consequences. Before the commencement of this period Prussia held no very prominent position in Europe, while now she stands, with her sovereign elected emperor of Germany, in the very front rank of States, and we can not doubt that the new organization under her lead, at present called an empire, will prove to be a federation ultimately in the interests of liberty, and take a prominent part in the advancement of freedom and the furtherance of the interests of humanity. At any rate, it is a subject of congratulation that it will be governed on Protestant principles.

Hungary has gained great advantages in the decade just closed, and has in fact become again a nation of itself. Austria is governed under the influence of a Protestant prime minister, eminent as a statesman, and of large and liberal views, and liberalism is completely in the ascendant where Prince Metternich so long controlled affairs in the interests of absolutism.

Russia, meeting with large views the demands of the age, has liberated fifty millions of serfs, and thus accomplished one of the most remarkable acts in the annals of the world, at the very opening of the decade. The last Bourbon has also been dethroned during the period we are reviewing, and Spain has taken her place among the nations, ruled by a constitutional monarch, with a king elected to his office. In England there has been a large extension of the ballot, and rapid progress is making in the work of political reform and the concession to the people of their rights.

British America has, during the decade, taken the first step towards independence, and the Dominion of Canada will soon be recognized among the sovereign nations, unless annexation to the Great Model Republic should be preferred. In 1866 the idea of combining all the British possessions in America under one local government, preparatory to separate national existence, was formed, and since then has been witnessed the commencement of the gradual growth of a State which will one day stretch across the continent, parallel with our own Republic, and bound together, as ours is, by iron bands and wires reaching from ocean to ocean.

In Australia and New Zealand, also dependencies of Great Britain, republicanism has been preparing to take an organized form, and ere long to present to view large and powerful free States sprung from feeble colonial germs, like our own, and which will soon be connected with the rest of the world by telegraphic wires, as they are now by lines of steamships from our own Pacific coast.

But in this Republic in which we dwell, there have been as important changes during the decade as in any other part of

the world. It has been the scene of what may be termed a revolution, the result of a struggle between the forces of freedom and oppression, and the epoch will ever stand out on the pages of history as that of the triumph of the former and of the destruction of the great stronghold of slavery. The same influences that have been active elsewhere, under the superintendence of a Divine Providence working out his bright designs, have been operating here, beyond a doubt, to crush the spirit of oppression and relieve its down-trodden victims. We know that it is God's purpose to enfranchise all men, and as fast and as far as His kingdom spreads, all great systems of injustice and wrong must give way and disappear. The gospel is a gospel of freedom, and the leaven of Christianity, which is at work over the world, is destined to leaven the whole lump of humanity.

Our Republic was founded in the interests of freedom. Prayer has been going up from the beginning in its behalf, in which thousands, not only in this country but in Europe, have participated, and therefore God could not allow slavery to prevail in this "land of the Pilgrim's pride," and our free institutions to be overthrown. And when the desperate conflict came on, involving our very national existence, God gave us strength and energy to meet the crisis, and the enemies of the Union and of human rights were overcome, and again the insulted flag of liberty floated over the whole land. And now we are once more a united people from Maine to Florida, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and not a slave treads our soil, henceforth consecrated to freedom,

"While above us, all unclouded, done with wars and envious jars, Brighter throngh the coming ages, shine the glorious stripes and stars."

Wonderful indeed is it that such a mighty change should have taken place within so short a period as a single decade of years, and that the cloud of slavery which hung so portentously over us, should have been so suddenly and unexpectedly dissipated! And now, relieved of this great drawback on our prosperity, our country, even so near the close of an exhaus

tive and destructive war, is stronger in fact and in the eyes of the world than ever before, and there is more attachment to and confidence in our institutions at this hour among our own people, and more respect for them felt in the Old World than at any former time. Never was there more real vitality in the nation than now. "The red elixir bounds livelier and warmer and with a more generous throb through our national veins than it ever did before." And we doubt not that through this new decade on which we have entered, our Republic will grow greater with the procession of the months, and that the close of the century will find us freer, mightier and better than at its beginning.

The past decade, too, has been marked by great progress in science and the arts, and by improvements of a material character in our own and other lands. To mention only one of the triumphs of science and art, how marvelously has the newly-perfected spectroscope enlarged our knowledge of the planetary and stellar worlds. Our geographical information has also been considerably increased by African explorations. The advance has been steady in useful inventions, and the practical application of science and art to the promotion of the health, wealth and comfort of mankind.

Among the great achievements of the past decade, of rational and world-wide importance, we may reckon the completion of the Suez canal, uniting the waters of the Mediterranean and Red Seas, opening up a shorter passage to the Orient. The Atlantic telegraph cables have also been successfully laid and operated, affording instantaneous intercommunication between the New and Old Worlds, a feat which alone would serve to render the period under review among the most famous in history.

How miraculous would it have seemed even fifty years ago (and much more farther back in time) that messages should pass regularly as they now do, in twenty-four hours between Europe, and even the East Indies, and our Pacific coast! How absolutely incredible would it have been deemed that the time would ever come when the news of a great battle in the

heart of Europe should be scattered all over this continent the same day on which it occurred, or the very next; or, what is stranger still, that one might read, as we did during the past summer, in a daily paper printed on the Rocky Mountains, news from Florence, Luxemburg and Paris of the day before! And last, but scarcely least in importance among the amazing "facts accomplished" during the past decade, may be mentioned the construction of our great transcontinental railroad, affording a daily and steady transit for passengers and freight from the Atlantic to the great Western ocean, and furnishing, with the line of steamships, a short and reliable mode of communication between our eastern seaports and those of the oldest settled continent on the globe, and opening up for settlement the vast interior of our wide extended country, with all its wealth of soil and its inexhaustible mineral treasures.

Such are some of the marvelous occurrences of the past decade presented by a brief review - too brief necessarily to allow of descent to many details. And what cheering and animating anticipations do they warrant us in entertaining for the period of like extent on which we have just entered. Of course it is impossible to predict what fresh wonders are to burst upon the world in the next ten years. So rapid has been the progress of events affecting the welfare of man and the kingdom of Christ, in the more recent past, and such are the accumulated evidences that we are living in a most marked era of the world when God's "providences are ripening fast," that we can not doubt that every new decade of this century to its close, will bring to light new marvels demonstrating human power and developing God's plans in reference to our world.

All the indications are that there are to occur vast changes in men's social and religious condition ere another century shall dawn, and that the next ten years even will witness great events in Europe and probably in Asia also. Despotism has undoubtedly received a fatal blow in Europe, or at least has been so disturbed that its days are numbered.

Our success