usually prosperous. A large portion of my time has been spent in visiting the sick and attending funerals — duties there would have been no one to to perform had it not been for the aid granted by the A. H. M. S. in supporting the only minister that has occupied this portion of the Lord's vineyard."

T is the golden legend of history surpassing all other legends

an angel of the Lord announced the fact to the shepherds of Bethlehem, who were keeping watch over their flock by night, and that there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward men." It is the Alpha and Omega of Christianity.

In the beginning of his ministry Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers." At the close of his ministry he said to his disciples, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you." So fully was he inspired with this sentiment that he was called "The Prince of Peace."

From early times the condition of the world has been different. Wars have been common. Man has been at war with himself. The law of the members has warred against the law of the mind, the flesh against the spirit. Envy and jealousy have made quarrels in families, divorced husbands and wives, parents and children. Man's inhumanity to man has been as gross as his impiety to God.

In 1861 bloody hands were raised against the United States. Eleven states took up arms to destroy the hope of the world. Four angry and horrid years followed. More than one hundred

thousand pensioners still show the scars of that conflict on the part of those who defended the Union, while still heavier scars remain among those who fought on the other side. But at last the commanding generals on either side agreed upon a cessation of hostilities, and the words of one of them, "Let us have peace,” will survive as long as the bluffs of Vicksburg look down upon the Mississippi, flowing unvexed to the sea. Soon afterwards France and Germany went to war with each other, and wars in Egypt, in South Africa, and between Japan and China, and alas, between the United States and Spain, and between Japan and Russia, have followed. Honor is due the French nation for their intervention in bringing our war with Spain to a close, and to President Roosevelt for the "Peace of Portsmouth," which closed the war between Japan and Russia; and we say, "Blessed are the peacemakers."

Those wars were of comparatively short duration; that between the United States and Spain lasting only one hundred days. But they were sanguinary and cruel, and they have entailed a dark and alarming future for some parts of the world; as in South Africa and the Philippine islands. The only hope for those lands is in securing to their people institutions of liberty and justice, of education and self-government. It will be a foul reproach to the Christian nations if they doom their colonies to an inferior and abject state, instead of lifting them up to prosperity and higher civilization.

From the foundation of our government the United States has consisted not only of states, but of territories also. The creation of the Northwest Territory, and the ordinance for its government, were coeval with the Constitution. That ordinance prohibited slavery in the vast region northwest of the Ohio River, established religious liberty and declared that schools and the means of education should be forever encouraged. Those provisions planted in what was then a savage wilderness, in the course of

sixty years, the five great states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Sixteen years later, President Jefferson made the Louisiana Purchase, out of which has come a larger number of states. In another generation came the annexation of Texas, followed by the Mexican War, which resulted in adding still more to our territorial possessions; and over them the United States extended its institutions of liberty and order.

The enlargement of the national domain, growing out of the war with Spain, puts upon the present generation the duty of extending our free institutions over it. Public schools and courts of justice, reciprocity in commerce and trade, and local and representative government, are the chief agencies of civilization. If we do not give them to the Philippines, but exploit their eight millions of people with greed and oppressive restrictions, the United States will bring upon itself the same opprobrium which our fathers visited upon George III in the Declaration of Independence. It is for the American people and for Congress and the President, to avert the opprobrium.

At a festival of Iowa pioneers, held in "Old Zion," June 2, 1858, Hon. Charles Mason, who had been chief justice of the Territory during the whole period of its existence, after an eloquent address upon the origin and growth of Iowa under the national government said:

"I will venture the opinion, founded on mature reflection, that the whole Mexican republic might at once be admitted into this union, if done by mutual consent, the states and territories placed on a footing of equality with our own, without causing any essential disturbance or danger to our own institutions. I believe that there is sufficient vital power and vigor of constitution in our federal system to enable it at once to take our weaker neighbors by the hand and steady their footsteps until they shall be able to stand, and to act with their own unaided strength."

It is for congratulation that the leading powers of the world

are now considering proposals for the disarmament of the nations, and settling national differences by courts of arbitration. Were the treasure now expended upon armies and navies applied to the civilization of mankind, to the advancement of knowledge, and the promotion of human well-being, every desert would be made to blossom as the rose, and every wilderness be turned into a fruitful field; then would the righteous flourish, and abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth.

It is peculiarly incumbent upon the American people to support this measure. We are now demonstrating the practicability of union and peace between eighty millions of people, and fifty different states, with a wide variety of interests and pursuits, and in different degrees of latitude. While we were originally English colonies, other nations have contributed millions to our population and have aided in making us the nation we are. From these circumstances we are in natural sympathy and affection for other lands, and we wish their people to enjoy the blessings of liberty and equal laws. We hold our liberties and rights not by prescription or privilege, but by the endowment of the Creator, as our fathers affirmed. Those liberties and rights belong to all mankind by virtue of our common human nature. The United States is a peace establishment, as the Constitution declares, "to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."

These principles and objects, as they were laid down by Washington and Franklin and James Wilson and their associates, and the exemplification of them in our national history, have won the admiration and approval of every people under the sun. After the tragedy of the Civil War, and the restoration of the Constitution where it had been assailed, the United States, under the egis of peace, entered upon a career of unparalleled pros